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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking
Speaker 5: Killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about him Gaesy Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous.
Speaker 3: Killers in true crime history.
Speaker 5: True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 6: Good evening on an unseasonably warm April evening. In two
Speaker 6: thousand and one, the headless body of a tiny girl
Speaker 6: was found discarded in a makeshift dump site in the
Speaker 6: woods on the southeast side of Kansas City, Missouri. One
Speaker 6: long night turned into four long years for Sergeant David
Speaker 6: Bernard and the Kansas City Police Department's ten twenty squad.
Speaker 6: They followed fifteen hundred leads at a replica of the
Speaker 6: child's head sculpted from her skull, and ultimately conducted the
Speaker 6: single most extensive area canvas in the Kansas City Police
Speaker 6: Department's history. Erica Michelle Marie Green aka Precious Dough, captured
Speaker 6: the hearts of not only the dedicated detectives who fought
Speaker 6: tirelessly to identify her in her killer, but of an
Speaker 6: entire community. Precious Few Clues is a candid and touching
Speaker 6: account of the painful impact that this brutal murder had
Speaker 6: on Sergeant Bernard, his family, and the Kansas City Police
Speaker 6: Department's ten twenty squad. It chronicles the all too frequent
Speaker 6: story of child abuse, failed social services, a flawed court system,
Speaker 6: and battered women who sacrificed their own children to shield
Speaker 6: their abuse of lovers, echoing the same preposterous explanations of
Speaker 6: but I Love him. The book that we're featuring this
Speaker 6: evening is Precious Few Clues, the true crime investigation of
Speaker 6: Kansas City's Precious Though Murder, with my special guest, victim
Speaker 6: advocate and author Marla Bernard. Welcome back to the program,
Speaker 6: and thank you very much for this interview. Marla Bernard,
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 7: I'm delighted to be here.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, and congratulations on this extraordinary book.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 6: You've been asked many times why you'd want to write
Speaker 6: a book about the untimely deaths of children and the
Speaker 6: grizzly events that surrounded them. Tell us about that.
Speaker 7: I have always had a passion for writing, and I
Speaker 7: think that this case in particular was one a story
Speaker 7: that needed telling, certainly a victim who needed a voice.
Speaker 7: I was a reserve sergeant for the Kansas City, Missouri
Speaker 7: Police Department and am married to the chief investigator on
Speaker 7: this case, Sergeant David Bernard. But for this particular case,
Speaker 7: I'm also a mother and it was hard for me
Speaker 7: to wrap my head around how something like this could
Speaker 7: possibly happen when traditionally mothers and motherhood is represented by
Speaker 7: wanting to be the protector, the defender, the nurturer, and
Speaker 7: so I felt like the story needed to be investigated,
Speaker 7: rifled through to try and get to a resolution as
Speaker 7: to how this could occur. And in the process, so
Speaker 7: many things were revealed regarding child abuse and child murder cases,
Speaker 7: and I found it oddly fascinating, But again, I just
Speaker 7: felt that it was a story that needed to be told.
Speaker 6: Yes, in a story it is you take us initially
Speaker 6: to April twenty eighth, two thousand and one on Kansas City, Missouri,
Speaker 6: and your sergeant David Bernard is at the murder squad
Speaker 6: or the ten twenty squad of those called around seven
Speaker 6: thirty PM tell us about the call that he receives
Speaker 6: and what happens after that.
Speaker 7: He received a call. He was actually at home in
Speaker 7: the evening, trying to have a little downtime because murder
Speaker 7: Squad in Kansas City was developed to be a day
Speaker 7: shift squad until a murder becomes a crime saying where
Speaker 7: it's possibly murder, where there is no immediate suspect, and
Speaker 7: then they go on for twenty four forty eight seventy
Speaker 7: two hours, nine stop. So he's taking a little bit
Speaker 7: of a respite. The phone rings. He gets information that
Speaker 7: a body has been found in a wooded area at
Speaker 7: fifty ninth in Kensington. It's a deceased female. They estimate
Speaker 7: aided her to be proximately three to six years old,
Speaker 7: and she had been decapitated and there was no head
Speaker 7: at the scene. And from there they respond to the
Speaker 7: crime scene. And it was the case that David initially
Speaker 7: thought once they once they got all of the information together,
Speaker 7: recovered the body, got it to the medical examiner, would
Speaker 7: be quickly solved because someone was missing a child, and
Speaker 7: ironically that was not to be.
Speaker 6: What were the first steps in trying to identify who
Speaker 6: this child was? You say, that of course, the medical
Speaker 6: examiner inducted in an autopsy tell us about this unique
Speaker 6: birthmark and the efforts for police to go to the
Speaker 6: public to try to identify this precious doughe This was.
Speaker 7: The single largest area canvas that had ever been conducted
Speaker 7: by the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department at that time.
Speaker 7: They officers literally went door to door. They posted flyers,
Speaker 7: They had artists rendering of the child. They gave the
Speaker 7: media a picture of the she had a unique birthmark
Speaker 7: on her shoulder. They gave a physical description as this
Speaker 7: they could again you know, once the head was recovered,
Speaker 7: they had an artist do a sketch as appropriately as
Speaker 7: they could to reveal what the child looked like. They
Speaker 7: engaged the Center for Missing Children. They got what they
Speaker 7: hoped would be a computer rendering of what the child
Speaker 7: might look like that had to be redone multiple times,
Speaker 7: but they did. It was a lot of shoe leader
Speaker 7: literally going NonStop door to door, bringing cadets from the
Speaker 7: police cat to me to search inch by inch that
Speaker 7: area to try and get any information possible roadblocks, flyers.
Speaker 7: They tried to do as many unique things as possible.
Speaker 7: Initially and again they thought that surely someone would come
Speaker 7: forward saying they were missing a child, which was like
Speaker 7: pulling a thread. They found that nationally there were dozens
Speaker 7: of missing children that fit the description of this child,
Speaker 7: who was named by an area activist as Precious Dough
Speaker 7: because she had no other name, and they the lady
Speaker 7: that came up with that name said, this is a
Speaker 7: precious child. She's a Jane Doe, and she belongs to
Speaker 7: this community, and we have to give her a name,
Speaker 7: an identity until we can find out who she truly is.
Speaker 6: To complicate things, the day after Precious Dough is found,
Speaker 6: there is a April twenty ninth Pine Bluff Police. They've
Speaker 6: been looking for somebody connected with the missing Renee Wilson,
Speaker 6: missing since March two thousand and one. Tell us briefly
Speaker 6: what happens with this and the irresponsible media and its effect.
Speaker 7: There was a murder that occurred in Kansas City, unbeknownst
Speaker 7: to the ten twenty squad it was it was a
Speaker 7: missing girl. She had been murdered, placed in the trunk
Speaker 7: of a car, and the suspect in that case fled
Speaker 7: Kansas City and went to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where he
Speaker 7: had some family. The Pine Bluff, Arkansas Police Department were
Speaker 7: a able to get this man try and get him
Speaker 7: into custody. He did kill himself at the scene, but
Speaker 7: they recovered a large knife, a hunting knife. And because
Speaker 7: of the fact that he had come from Kansas City,
Speaker 7: there was a deceased female who was of an appropriate
Speaker 7: age that could possibly have been the mother of our
Speaker 7: victim at fifty ninth in Kensington, the child. They deduced
Speaker 7: that the reason no one had come forward in Kansas
Speaker 7: City was because the mother was dead. She was in
Speaker 7: the trunk. Here was this fishing knife, none of which
Speaker 7: was related at all. But this information was leaked to
Speaker 7: the media, and while they're trying to do the investigation
Speaker 7: and manage and contain what information they have to protect
Speaker 7: the integrity of the fifty ninth and Kensington child murder,
Speaker 7: the media in Arkansas, with information provided by the Pine
Speaker 7: Bluff Police Department is saying that they've solved the case. Well,
Speaker 7: none of which unfortunately was accurate. But it was just
Speaker 7: another roadblock thrown in their path as they're trying to
Speaker 7: keep a lid on information because, as you know, Dan,
Speaker 7: it's essential that the police department hold back significant pieces
Speaker 7: of information. So that when they do get a suspect,
Speaker 7: they can determine whether or not they actually were involved,
Speaker 7: and they're going down the right road.
Speaker 6: Now you talk about the Medical Examiner's office and this autopsy,
Speaker 6: we didn't talk about the injuries that they saw, the
Speaker 6: old scars that they saw, tell us about what they
Speaker 6: found and could deduce from this autopsy.
Speaker 7: What they determined was obviously the obvious decapitation. What they
Speaker 7: speculated the type of object that would have been used
Speaker 7: to do that. Was also determined that the little girl
Speaker 7: had a blood infection that we believe was from wounds
Speaker 7: that were starting to heal. They had found on her
Speaker 7: body that appeared to be looping injuries, And by looping,
Speaker 7: I mean that someone had taken like a lamp cord,
Speaker 7: a computer cord extension cord, looped it and beat the
Speaker 7: child with it, and those injuries were in the process
Speaker 7: of starting to heal. Because of those wounds. They determined
Speaker 7: that that the infection might have been possibly from that.
Speaker 7: There was also an indication that the child had been
Speaker 7: sexually abused, but otherwise she was in an upper percentile
Speaker 7: for her age, her growth, her health. She had from appearances,
Speaker 7: been well fed, well kept but she did have extensive
Speaker 7: bruising as though she had been physically abused. There were
Speaker 7: some major contusions on her body that it was determined
Speaker 7: later were from her being violently kicked. When the head
Speaker 7: was recovered, it was determined that she had a brain injury.
Speaker 7: Again that was from being kept and the tragic part
Speaker 7: of it was if medical care could have been summoned,
Speaker 7: she would have survived those injuries.
Speaker 6: Now, in this extraordinary story May one, two thousand and one,
Speaker 6: with the police academy recruits assigned to search, the conducting
Speaker 6: of field search, the media shows up, but also Billy
Speaker 6: Stiegel shows up. This guy's known to police. He has
Speaker 6: these visions Elizabellue, Billy Stiegel, who he is and what
Speaker 6: happens that day with the media present.
Speaker 7: He was known to police. He was a veteran, he
Speaker 7: had some mental health issues. Was just an odd deck,
Speaker 7: if you will, small time crimes, nothing really significant other
Speaker 7: than the mental health issues. He was convinced that the
Speaker 7: government was investigating him. He heard voices, he had visions.
Speaker 7: He would insinuate himself into different investigations over the years,
Speaker 7: and he decided he had a vision that he knew
Speaker 7: where the child's head was, so he decided to go
Speaker 7: to fifty ninth in Kensington, in an area that police
Speaker 7: had not cordoned off yet had not expanded the gram
Speaker 7: search in that direction yet. There were some other weather
Speaker 7: related things. There was a small creek nearby, some things
Speaker 7: that the mandated the timely investigation of that area first,
Speaker 7: should there be should the child's head be in that area.
Speaker 7: So while they're going in one direction, Billy Stagall decides
Speaker 7: to go in the opposite direction, and he's going through
Speaker 7: the woods. He walked with a cane and had the
Speaker 7: cane with him. Ses a young reporter, a news reporter
Speaker 7: and a cameraman and said, hey, why don't you come
Speaker 7: with me? So she followed him through the woods and
Speaker 7: as he's moving his cane around, he sees an area
Speaker 7: where inside a discarded tire there are trash banks or
Speaker 7: well it's actually determined to be a trash bag inside
Speaker 7: a trash bag, and a lot of flies around it
Speaker 7: because it was starting the weather was starting to get
Speaker 7: warm here in the Midwest. And he the takes the
Speaker 7: cane and starts moving it around and he said, I
Speaker 7: think there's a head in here, and rips the bag
Speaker 7: and indeed that's what they found.
Speaker 6: Now with that examination, I know we just spoke that
Speaker 6: what does the medical examiner determine in terms of the
Speaker 6: injuries and when the heading actually occurred? What are the
Speaker 6: some of the things they learned from the examination of
Speaker 6: the head, And of course there's a match made to
Speaker 6: the body, But tell us more about what else they
Speaker 6: could deduce from that examination the head and their next
Speaker 6: step forward in identification.
Speaker 7: They were able to fairly quickly determine that the injuries
Speaker 7: were such that the head obviously belonged to that body,
Speaker 7: which was an initial relief because one of the concerns
Speaker 7: they had is is this a singular Is this a
Speaker 7: singular case? Could there possibly be more than one victim?
Speaker 7: What are we looking for? They determined that that was
Speaker 7: a match, certainly clearly the lab results of the tissue
Speaker 7: the blood. They determined that the head had been at
Speaker 7: the crime scene with the blood and the whole investigation,
Speaker 7: that the head had been moved at some point by
Speaker 7: objects and paint chips and dirt that was found in
Speaker 7: her hair that was not at the crime scene. It
Speaker 7: was determined that it was not a sharp object like
Speaker 7: a clean a knife cut that if you just took
Speaker 7: a large knife, like a hunting knife and made the cut,
Speaker 7: that was not the case. There was chopping motion and
Speaker 7: it was later determined that it was hedge clippers that
Speaker 7: were actually used, and those were all consistent with the
Speaker 7: effort that went into removing the head, and they were
Speaker 7: able to determine that that occurred after.
Speaker 3: She was deceased.
Speaker 6: Now there's a thirty three thousand dollar reward offered, and
Speaker 6: there are people that step up to the plate to
Speaker 6: try to make some kind of a composite to try
Speaker 6: to still identify her. You talk about Steve McBride for
Speaker 6: the Field rep for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Speaker 6: He used a computer he thought a computer generated composite
Speaker 6: would be might work.
Speaker 8: And then there was other people that came.
Speaker 6: To the forefront a little bit later, and notably this
Speaker 6: nationally known sculptor named Frank Bender tell us about a
Speaker 6: couple of these initiatives to make a realistic composite to
Speaker 6: try to identify Precious Still.
Speaker 7: The first computer generated one was a lovely, lovely rendering,
Speaker 7: but there were things in the photograph, in the computerized
Speaker 7: drawing that were not consistent with the victim herself, the hair,
Speaker 7: the age, she looked older than what the medical examiner
Speaker 7: felt was her approximate age. They thought closer to three
Speaker 7: to four years old. This child looked to be seven
Speaker 7: or eight in the photograph. She had longer hair, corn rows,
Speaker 7: and earring, none of which the victim had. So they
Speaker 7: brought in a forensic artist named Lee Hammond and she
Speaker 7: did a very close rendering using the actual victim as
Speaker 7: the model. They subsequently brought in Frank Bender, who was
Speaker 7: a nationally known forensic sculptor. I think Frank Bender is
Speaker 7: best known for a model that he did of John List,
Speaker 7: who was murdered. He was a family annihilator back in
Speaker 7: I believe the late fifties, and that sculpt when he
Speaker 7: did that sculpture, aging it down to the detail of
Speaker 7: the type of eyeglasses they anticipated that List would be wearing.
Speaker 7: They used that on America's Most Wanted and got the
Speaker 7: lead that police needed and they were actually able to
Speaker 7: locate and arrest John List. So having Frank Bender's sculpture,
Speaker 7: they were so confident that surely now we have something
Speaker 7: that we can show the public like and someone will
Speaker 7: come forward, and they did. It was featured on America's
Speaker 7: Most Wanted, but nobody called. Nobody came forward, they got leads,
Speaker 7: but there were a lot of people that had a
Speaker 7: lot of information that were aware of America's Most Wanted,
Speaker 7: and no one called.
Speaker 6: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop for a
Speaker 6: second for these messages.
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Speaker 8: Take us to again.
Speaker 6: We've mentioned the thirty three thousand dollars reward and this
Speaker 6: extraordinary effort to try to identify this precious though. But
Speaker 6: on April twenty ninth, two thousand and five, a detective
Speaker 6: Taylor took a call from someone named Thurman McIntosh, and
Speaker 6: the caller had seen an ad sponsored by General Mills Foods.
Speaker 6: In the call, a newspaper local Kansas City publication, tell
Speaker 6: us about this Thurman McIntosh, what does he have to say?
Speaker 7: He calls the police, And it was never determined if
Speaker 7: mister McIntosh had had multiple strokes for what his difficulty was.
Speaker 7: But he was very, very hard to understand. He was
Speaker 7: calling from Oklahoma. He said that he believed that this
Speaker 7: child was related to his grandson, but he did not
Speaker 7: know her name, and he could send a picture and
Speaker 7: identify the child, but again he didn't know where she
Speaker 7: was where they were and he said, oh, and he
Speaker 7: said that they were in Aurora, Colorado, And what he
Speaker 7: actually was close. He actually meant Aurora, Illinois, where the
Speaker 7: mother's precious Doe's mother's family was from. So it sent
Speaker 7: the police investigating in Aurora, Colorado, trying to run down
Speaker 7: what little information he could provide. And he did call
Speaker 7: more than once. He called a second time, and the
Speaker 7: second time he called. By that time the police already
Speaker 7: had information and were pursuing it, so you had two
Speaker 7: things kind of running in parallel. And the picture that
Speaker 7: he did send he sent to a local activist here,
Speaker 7: but it did have Precious Doe's mother in the picture,
Speaker 7: but the child that he identified was not Precious Stowe
Speaker 7: and she was not in the picture. So again, they're close,
Speaker 7: but not quite close enough. They have information, but just
Speaker 7: not enough. They're just on the precipice of getting the
Speaker 7: clues to line up, but they just weren't quite there yet.
Speaker 7: Mister McIntosh did call because he did want the reward,
Speaker 7: which he ultimately did receive, much to the chagrin of
Speaker 7: Precious Stowe's mother, and he was related. But what it
Speaker 7: was determined was that mister McIntosh and his daughter the
Speaker 7: suspect's mother, had known for pretty much since the time
Speaker 7: that the child had been deceased, So for several years
Speaker 7: they had known the identification of this child and had
Speaker 7: not come forward.
Speaker 6: Tell us about Michelle Johnson Michelle Green aka Johnson and
Speaker 6: Harold Johnson.
Speaker 7: Michelle Green was a native of Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
Speaker 7: She had been a victim of sexual abuse, she claimed
Speaker 7: by adult family members when she was about thirteen years old,
Speaker 7: she got involved with a man named Larry Green, who
Speaker 7: got her addicted to drugs prostituted her. They did subsequently
Speaker 7: get married. They had several children together, and she met
Speaker 7: Heral Johnson because he was one of her Johns. Larry
Speaker 7: Green had bought drugs from Herald Johnson and in exchange
Speaker 7: for the drugs, he prostituted Michelle and that's how she
Speaker 7: became acquainted with Heral.
Speaker 6: Tell us about the birth of Erica Green and also
Speaker 6: introduced missus Betty Brown.
Speaker 7: When Michelle had several other children by Larry Green. By
Speaker 7: this time, she was living in Oklahoma and she was pregnant.
Speaker 7: She was arrested on shoplifting charges, and because she had
Speaker 7: had previous arrests by this time, she was sentenced to
Speaker 7: a jail term. Erica was born in prison and Michelle
Speaker 7: still had several months to serve on her sentence. Lady
Speaker 7: named Betty Brown was a friend of Larry Green's mother
Speaker 7: and agreed to take the child. She had other foster children,
Speaker 7: so Michelle agreed and the child was transferred to the
Speaker 7: care of Betty Brown in Oklahoma, and she to have
Speaker 7: Erica until Michelle was released from prison. However, Michelle did
Speaker 7: not come back to retrieve the child. She left her
Speaker 7: in Betty Brown's care and would periodically drop by for
Speaker 7: a visit, but would never take the child. Left her
Speaker 7: there to be raised by Betty Brown, which in fact,
Speaker 7: was a good environment for the child to be raised in.
Speaker 7: The other children that Michelle at that time she was
Speaker 7: Michelle Green had were being raised in Aurora, Illinois by
Speaker 7: her mother. She'd have a baby, she and Larry would
Speaker 7: go back. They would move between Oklahoma, where Larry had
Speaker 7: family in Illinois where Michelle had family, and they would
Speaker 7: take the children up there and just leave them and
Speaker 7: then go on about their business, which was prostitution and drugs.
Speaker 6: This interview with Danny and Tammy the two detectives, what
Speaker 6: does Michelle eventually fest up to? According to her, what
Speaker 6: are the details of that incredible, horrible.
Speaker 7: Day when they got Michelle in custody. She told the
Speaker 7: detectives that she had Michelle at that time was married
Speaker 7: divorced Green and had married Harold Johnson, and she was pregnant.
Speaker 7: She also had a job. She was working in a
Speaker 7: I think she called the food Savor grocery store. Had
Speaker 7: just gotten back home. They were renting a back bedroom
Speaker 7: in a home of an acquaintance of theirs, using their
Speaker 7: Erica's aged dependent children, her food stamps and welfare to
Speaker 7: pay for the room. Michelle had planned to go take
Speaker 7: a bath. She had left Erica in the room with Heral,
Speaker 7: and Erica was crying. The child had only been in
Speaker 7: Michelle's custody for about three weeks. Michelle had gone taken
Speaker 7: Erica under the guise of going to visit family and
Speaker 7: would be bringing her back to Betty Brown in Oklahoma,
Speaker 7: which she failed to do. They kept the child in
Speaker 7: Kansas City. Obviously, she was terrified, she was with strangers,
Speaker 7: she was foreign surrounding, so she cried, and she was
Speaker 7: crying and it angered Heral Johnson he knocked her down,
Speaker 7: kicked her across the room multiple times about the head
Speaker 7: and body. She sustained a head injury and was knocked unconscious,
Speaker 7: and Michelle decided that even though she knew the child
Speaker 7: needed so an immediate medical attention, that they couldn't go
Speaker 7: seek medical attention because she and Herel had outstanding warrants.
Speaker 7: Michelle's just for simple shoplifting corals were more serious attempted
Speaker 7: murder and a pretty violent assault and robbery, so she
Speaker 7: elected not to seek medical attention but to try and
Speaker 7: care for the child in the room for I believe
Speaker 7: it was probably about forty eight hours before before Erica passed.
Speaker 6: Now this Harol, he's desperate. What is his plan to
Speaker 6: dissolve the dispose of the body? And according to him
Speaker 6: who goes.
Speaker 7: Along, it was determined that they had to get rid
Speaker 7: of the child and Herel and Michelle. Michelle was pregnant
Speaker 7: by Herel. They also had an infant daughter with them,
Speaker 7: so they had the infant daughter and heir in that bedroom.
Speaker 7: It was determined by both of them that they needed
Speaker 7: to they needed to discard the body and come up
Speaker 7: with a story about where Erica would be. They climbed
Speaker 7: out the back bedroom window. Herrel went out the window first.
Speaker 7: Michelle passed the child to him. He located some hedge
Speaker 7: clippers in the yard, and they took the child into
Speaker 7: the woods to leave her there. They decided, Herald decided
Speaker 7: that they would cut the child's head off so they
Speaker 7: would have that significant piece of identification discarded. Originally, Michelle
Speaker 7: threw Erica's head in a dumpster that was in a
Speaker 7: church parking lot directly across the road from the wooded
Speaker 7: area where they discarded Erica's body. Then Michelle decided someone
Speaker 7: might it was the next day was Sunday, people would
Speaker 7: be at church, perhaps someone would discover her. So she
Speaker 7: climbed into the dumpster, retrieved the child's head, put it
Speaker 7: in a trash bag that they found in the wooded area,
Speaker 7: which was kind of an informal dump site, if you will,
Speaker 7: and herrel took the head through it, went in farther
Speaker 7: into the woods, threw it into the tire, and then
Speaker 7: they left the body on the path where she was
Speaker 7: ultimately discovered. And their story was because of the fact
Speaker 7: that people where they were staying, people in the family,
Speaker 7: knew that she was a foster child of Betty Brown's.
Speaker 7: Their story was that they sent her back to live
Speaker 7: in Oklahoma. The people in Oklahoma were told that she
Speaker 7: was sent to live with family in Illinois. They were
Speaker 7: able to manage that story for a significant portion of
Speaker 7: time without being questioned much about it. Their tale seemed
Speaker 7: reasonable to the people that knew the circumstances such as
Speaker 7: they were.
Speaker 6: It's interesting Michelle requests to be able to speak to
Speaker 6: Harold before his interrogation. Sergeant Bernards says, it's risky, but
Speaker 6: it might be worthwhile you write about that interaction before
Speaker 6: they speak officially to harrel in an infurrogation.
Speaker 7: She did ask to speak with him because she had
Speaker 7: given the confession first, and it was risky because they
Speaker 7: could try and line up their stories. But it wasn't
Speaker 7: speaking before they gave a statement. Michelle had already given
Speaker 7: her statement, so they felt that it was a chance
Speaker 7: they were taking that perhaps she might be able to
Speaker 7: reason with him. She went in, sat with him and said,
Speaker 7: you just need to tell what happened. I have told
Speaker 7: what happened. And she sat there, And I think one
Speaker 7: of the things that I found most troubling was did
Speaker 7: she sat there and combed his hair and graded it
Speaker 7: and was nurturing with this man who had murdered her daughter.
Speaker 7: She was complicit, but she was still protecting him over
Speaker 7: advocating for her daughter and advocating for herself, not saying
Speaker 7: I was abused, this happened whatever, taking care of him
Speaker 7: and sitting closely with him. Their legs were touching. She
Speaker 7: was holding his hand, braiding his hair, preparing him to
Speaker 7: give his statement, which in fact he did, although he
Speaker 7: blamed decapitation in the discarding, he blamed Michelle. She blamed
Speaker 7: him for taking those steps in discarding the child, but
Speaker 7: he did take ownership of his abuse to the child,
Speaker 7: although he denied any other physical abuse to her, which
Speaker 7: was discounted by people who lived in the home and
Speaker 7: heard him beating the child but never intervened, but they
Speaker 7: were able to say, yes, in fact, we believe he
Speaker 7: did it. He was in the room with the child,
Speaker 7: but no one ever tried to help her.
Speaker 6: He blamed this incident on PCP and other drugs, but
Speaker 6: then also tried to say that that previous abuse was
Speaker 6: the Betty Brown and her family and not certainly from him.
Speaker 6: And so that's kind of when he confesses he's still
Speaker 6: throwing blame around. Her story was different in a couple
Speaker 6: regards in terms of blame worthiness.
Speaker 8: Tell us what those things he said she said.
Speaker 7: He claimed that it was Michelle's idea to discard the body,
Speaker 7: to we have to hide her. We've got to get
Speaker 7: rid of her before somebody finds out. It was her
Speaker 7: idea to take the child into the woods. Michelle adamantly
Speaker 7: refuted that. She said, yes, indeed she did, and the
Speaker 7: child to her well, but she never left the room.
Speaker 7: She never participated in discarding her head, climbing into the dumpster,
Speaker 7: or having anything to do with that. He stated that
Speaker 7: the child was in a state of undress and her
Speaker 7: clothing was gone when her body was found. Michelle claimed
Speaker 7: that heral undressed her and discarded her clothing. Herel stated
Speaker 7: that it was Michelle who addressed the child and discarded
Speaker 7: the clothing. So those facts we were in dispute. But
Speaker 7: as time went on, it came to light how this
Speaker 7: actually the sequence of events that occurred over that period
Speaker 7: of time, and that Herald did in fact violently beat
Speaker 7: the child, although it was never determined when or how
Speaker 7: the sexual abuse that the medical examiner discovered had occurred.
Speaker 6: You write and include some of the correspondents that Harold
Speaker 6: and Michelle had and while they were in prison, some
Speaker 6: of the things that he was fascinating. It was virtually
Speaker 6: instructing her on what she should say legally, always thinking
Speaker 6: of himself.
Speaker 8: And then you include just the.
Speaker 6: Braved sexual fantasy between these two criminals, and also some
Speaker 6: of the people that were close to Michelle that came
Speaker 6: forward to provide crucial evidence about the couple and Erica
Speaker 6: and the abuse of Erica as well.
Speaker 7: Yes, there were two of Michelle's sisters came forward who
Speaker 7: were in no way involved in any of this, but
Speaker 7: gave investigators good information about the relationship between Michelle and
Speaker 7: heral because we had this is over a period of time.
Speaker 7: When they left Kansas City, they fled and went back
Speaker 7: to Michelle's family in Illinois, which allowed the sisters and
Speaker 7: her mother to observe the interactions and the farce that
Speaker 7: they perpetrated on the family of oh Erica is alive,
Speaker 7: She's in Oklahoma, but Michelle went to such lengths that
Speaker 7: investigators were able to actually procure from the state of Illinois,
Speaker 7: where Michelle went and claimed aid to dependent children, she
Speaker 7: got welfare for Erica. She actually during the period of
Speaker 7: time between Erica's murder and when they were arrested, she
Speaker 7: was getting funding from the state of Illinois, the state
Speaker 7: of Oklahoma, and the state of Missouri. So they were
Speaker 7: not only aware that the child was dead, they were
Speaker 7: perpetrating frauds at a federal level, at a state level
Speaker 7: in three states. And family knew that Herral's family in Oklahoma.
Speaker 7: His mother was aware claimed after the arrest and investigators
Speaker 7: went and interviewed her that Michelle had in fact fast
Speaker 7: to her that the child that was being featured on
Speaker 7: an episode of America's Most Wanted was in fact Erica
Speaker 7: and Heral's mother Thurman Mitchell's daughter. Thurman McIntosh's daughter never
Speaker 7: came forward, so that's how Thurman McIntosh became aware of
Speaker 7: the situation. He and Heral's mother both knew for a
Speaker 7: period of not just months, but years that the little
Speaker 7: girl known as Precious Stone in Kansas City was in
Speaker 7: fact Herald Johnson's stepdaughter.
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Speaker 6: Now person comes forward. A call comes to the ten
Speaker 6: twenty squad from rachel Or Rachelle Allandale. Tell us who
Speaker 6: Rochelle Allendale is and her previous connection to Michelle and
Speaker 6: what does she have to say?
Speaker 7: Rachelle Allendale is a fictitious name that I've given that individual.
Speaker 7: She was the person that rented the room to Morel
Speaker 7: and Michelle and actually knew Morel's family was distantly related
Speaker 7: she was. She came forward with information about the child.
Speaker 7: When the few times that she was observed in the home,
Speaker 7: she generally Erica was generally not allowed out of the
Speaker 7: bedroom that they were staying in. When she was allowed
Speaker 7: to come out of the room, she was not allowed
Speaker 7: to play with any children in the neighborhood or her
Speaker 7: grandchildren who were there. She never saw her eating. The
Speaker 7: little girl would eat. She just basically would sit whimper
Speaker 7: and cry. She was very fearful, and then there were
Speaker 7: times that she would observe heral get mad at the
Speaker 7: little girl. She was taken into the back bedroom and
Speaker 7: they could hear her dream and cry until the cries
Speaker 7: got very weak, and generally they would just hear whimpering.
Speaker 7: So she was able to place heral and Erica and
Speaker 7: the interactions in the room. She was also able to
Speaker 7: place interactions with her family involving a firearm and some
Speaker 7: threats that heral had made against one of her family members,
Speaker 7: and placed him at an attempted murder that Coral had committed,
Speaker 7: and also a robbery that he had done where he
Speaker 7: tried to steal a ring from a woman and cut
Speaker 7: her finger off in order to actually gain the property
Speaker 7: and had violently assaulted her. So she was able to
Speaker 7: add kind of links to the chain of events that
Speaker 7: occurred around the time that Erica was there. She was
Speaker 7: also early on involved in the case when the area
Speaker 7: canvas was being done immediately after the child's body was found.
Speaker 7: They went door to door, they being the officers, and
Speaker 7: actually knocked on the door of her home where Michelle
Speaker 7: was staying. They made contact with both women, documented it
Speaker 7: in their area canvas and were told by Michelle and
Speaker 7: Alan Dale had substantiated the statement that they saw a man.
Speaker 7: They gave a physical description of him, suspicious looking black
Speaker 7: man in the area about the time that this child's
Speaker 7: body was found. How they hoped that they would find
Speaker 7: the suspect. Alan Dale did not know at the time
Speaker 7: that Michelle it was Michelle's child, that Michelle Johnson clearly
Speaker 7: knew and gave a statement to the police about this
Speaker 7: suspicious party in the neighborhood.
Speaker 6: Now, also the information that seemed most damning as well
Speaker 6: was that evening or the day of the suspicious behavior
Speaker 6: of Michelle, and that Rachelle witnessed in terms of blood
Speaker 6: on her shirt, being breathless and sweaty like she had
Speaker 6: been running. So obviously what she was intimating was that
Speaker 6: she had witnessed after the fact Michelle's participation in the
Speaker 6: disposing of her daughter, Erica.
Speaker 7: Yes, and again she was told that Betty Brown in
Speaker 7: Oklahoma had retrieved the child, and it was not something
Speaker 7: that seemed reasonable to question because for the first three
Speaker 7: years of her life, Erica had lived with Betty Brown,
Speaker 7: been raised by her, and was only supposed to be
Speaker 7: with Michelle for a period of a long weekend a
Speaker 7: family reunion, as she claimed in Kansas City, and the
Speaker 7: child would be returned to Betty Brown, none of which
Speaker 7: ever occurred. And Betty Brown, unfortunately was told by Michelle
Speaker 7: that Erica was in Illinois with her mother and had
Speaker 7: no reason to question it. She was just heartbroken that
Speaker 7: this little girl that she had raised was no longer
Speaker 7: coming home, and Betty stored her belongings. Officers when they
Speaker 7: did go to Oklahoma and arrested Michelle and heral and
Speaker 7: continued their investigation, Betty Brown was able to provide Erica's clothing,
Speaker 7: her toys, her belongings, just as so she was going
Speaker 7: to return to her home and rightfully to where it
Speaker 7: was felt that she belonged.
Speaker 6: Let's get to the trial, which has foregone conclusion. But
Speaker 6: Michelle has a plea agreement in order to testify against herall.
Speaker 6: What is her plea agreement and what is his sentence?
Speaker 7: She takes a plea and agrees to testify truthfully all
Speaker 7: the facts in the case that the prosecutors had against heral,
Speaker 7: and for that she was sentenced to twenty five years
Speaker 7: in prison. She comes up parole next month. By the way, Yeah,
Speaker 7: and heral receives a life sentence without possibility of parole
Speaker 7: for Erica's murder. Michelle was among the other charges, obviously,
Speaker 7: the severe abuse of the child and her death. Fraud
Speaker 7: charges were filed against her from multiple states. They stacked
Speaker 7: quite a few offenses against Michelle, making a case for
Speaker 7: her to go ahead and take the play and testify
Speaker 7: against Herrell, which she did.
Speaker 6: Now, we didn't mention and didn't have time to talk
Speaker 6: about all of the initiatives that you were involved with
Speaker 6: and other people, this Precious Dough Committee that was formed,
Speaker 6: and all of the initiatives try to do some justice
Speaker 6: for this Precious Dough. A casket and some of the
Speaker 6: things from a funeral director was donated. I'll tell us
Speaker 6: a little bit about some of the people that seem
Speaker 6: to care for and in the funeral and the memorial,
Speaker 6: tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 7: Oh my gosh, the Kansas City community rallied around this child. Community.
Speaker 7: I don't want to call him an act of this
Speaker 7: he is, but he is like a figurehead in the community.
Speaker 7: Alvin Brooks kind of took the lead on getting information
Speaker 7: out about this child and there was a grassroots effort
Speaker 7: mostly women, not all, but mostly mothers formed what was
Speaker 7: known as the Precious Doe Committee. And actually the committee
Speaker 7: headed by Alvin Brooks, went to court and got custody
Speaker 7: of this child so that she could be have a
Speaker 7: proper funeral burial and with the intent that should someone's
Speaker 7: surface and try and take her from Kansas City that
Speaker 7: they actually had legal custody of this little girl named
Speaker 7: Precious Doe. Park Lawn Funeral Home stepped up and provided
Speaker 7: a casket and she's actually buried here in Kansas City
Speaker 7: on their property. When Erica was buried twice, she had
Speaker 7: her original funeral when she was known as Precious Dough
Speaker 7: and then she was for the purposes of further identification,
Speaker 7: her body was ashumed and her skull was taken to
Speaker 7: at Ruth Louisiana the Faces Lab, where a clay sculpture
Speaker 7: was done forensically over her actual skull. And that is
Speaker 7: the photo, the image that's on the cover of the book.
Speaker 7: The likeness that they did, the true likeness of this
Speaker 7: child in that lab. And when Erica was reburied, Sue
Speaker 7: Stiltner from the FBI and Mary Mannhein, who was the
Speaker 7: head of the Faces Lab in Baton Rouge, came. They
Speaker 7: purchased the dress that Erica was buried in, dressed the child.
Speaker 7: I purchased the teddy bear that she was buried with.
Speaker 7: We attended the funeral. My son Alvin Brooks my husband
Speaker 7: David were paul bears for Erica and every year she
Speaker 7: is recognized. For her twentieth birthday, the Precious Dough Committee reassembled.
Speaker 7: We were with them and members of the community at
Speaker 7: the little park that is across the street from the
Speaker 7: area where Erica was discarded, just an honor of celebration
Speaker 7: that she had never been forgotten. This community glorial day.
Speaker 7: David and I go and take flowers to Erica. We
Speaker 7: take flowers to another child victim one of David's cases,
Speaker 7: that I case that I mentioned in the book the community.
Speaker 7: All you have to do is say Precious Dough and
Speaker 7: people know the case, They remember where they were when
Speaker 7: they heard about it, they know the story. She's never
Speaker 7: been forgotten. It's my understanding that Michelle Johnson gets very
Speaker 7: angry when Erica is referenced as Precious Dough because she's
Speaker 7: not being called by her name. But it was a
Speaker 7: name that Michelle refused to share with anyone for a
Speaker 7: multitude of years, and so Erica is an honorable name
Speaker 7: for the child. Her name is Erica Michelle Marie Green,
Speaker 7: but she's also lovingly known to many of us in
Speaker 7: the Kansas City area and beyond as Precious Dough because
Speaker 7: she was a very precious child and met a great
Speaker 7: deal to very many of us.
Speaker 8: You're right about in.
Speaker 6: The epilogue the impact on your family, and we haven't
Speaker 6: spoken about that at all. That you have to learn
Speaker 6: how to take a backseat to your husband, Sergeant Bernard's
Speaker 6: investigations and the heavy tool that it took on all
Speaker 6: of the people that involved in the murder Squad and
Speaker 6: surrounding this, but especially those people that make up the
Speaker 6: ten twenty squad.
Speaker 8: Tell us a little bit about how this has handled.
Speaker 6: What you learned, and just we did not include all
Speaker 6: of the tales that intertwine that are connected with this
Speaker 6: precious dough at least it seemed to be, and the
Speaker 6: media sometimes either connected him or police, but also that
Speaker 6: your husband and the murder Squad were contacted about these cases.
Speaker 6: They had many parallels and many similarities and things that
Speaker 6: you needed to share in this book to explain the
Speaker 6: scope of this problem, which you call epidemic.
Speaker 7: Provide some statistics when this case came to light. Because
Speaker 7: of the fact that they had no identification for this child,
Speaker 7: David had a database set up just to be able
Speaker 7: to track the leads, track similar cases and nationally, it
Speaker 7: was astonishing how many children that were missing in the
Speaker 7: same time frame. Bet Erica's description, how many little girls,
Speaker 7: how many children, The statistics were overwhelming. It was mind
Speaker 7: boggling when you asked about the impact. It took a
Speaker 7: tremendous toll on all of these detectives, because not only
Speaker 7: did they have this case, but they had multitude of
Speaker 7: other cases over the years that they had to try
Speaker 7: and investigate at the same time. And prior to Erica's case,
Speaker 7: David had just we had attended a burial of a
Speaker 7: little girl who had been murdered here and identified, but
Speaker 7: her body was missing for a number of years. And
Speaker 7: he had just solved that case. And I thought, oh
Speaker 7: my god, you know, another little girl, another case taking precedence.
Speaker 7: And he had a number of those cases over the years,
Speaker 7: and it was as though, I think I described it
Speaker 7: as them, these little little girls clinging to his board
Speaker 7: coat when he'd come in at night, these little invisible
Speaker 7: little angels hanging on him in desperation find me, helped
Speaker 7: me solve my case. And you could see the weight
Speaker 7: of that tear him down, and it really had an
Speaker 7: impact on his health for many, many years. I was
Speaker 7: pretty candid we separate it over it. He was so
Speaker 7: preoccupied with this and the magnitude of this case and
Speaker 7: the others that he was managing. And I think that's
Speaker 7: about the time that I decided I can either fight
Speaker 7: this or I can get on board with it and say, Okay,
Speaker 7: they're important to you. I'm trying to keep all the
Speaker 7: other balls in the air with our family, but I
Speaker 7: guess we need to invite these little souls into our
Speaker 7: home and embrace them and be a part of this investigation,
Speaker 7: a part of the advocacy for them. And that's what
Speaker 7: we did. For many years, my children would set a
Speaker 7: place at the Thanksgiving table for whichever child. At first
Speaker 7: it was Angel Heart, then it became Erica Green or
Speaker 7: Precious Stow. For many years, that little child that we
Speaker 7: were trying to give her a memory, give her some dignity.
Speaker 7: They say, you will never die as long as someone
Speaker 7: remembers you, as long as as someone says your name
Speaker 7: and sorry, we get a little emotionally.
Speaker 3: We did.
Speaker 7: We did that. We did that, and we survived and
Speaker 7: thrived and honor those children to this day. Dan it
Speaker 7: takes a special breed an individual to go into law enforcement,
Speaker 7: to go into the medical examiner's crime scene prosecutors. They
Speaker 7: all have a portion of this, and they all do
Speaker 7: such an outstanding job, and we are so blessed to
Speaker 7: have those individuals, and certainly they all deserve our gratitude
Speaker 7: and acknowledgement for what they do for all all of
Speaker 7: these children. And you know, unfortunately there shouldn't be any
Speaker 7: but as long as there are these cases, there are
Speaker 7: men and women willing to step up and bring them
Speaker 7: dignity and justice and give them a voice.
Speaker 6: You certainly honored them and Erica with this book Precious
Speaker 6: Few Clues. I want to thank you very much Marl
Speaker 6: Bonard for coming on and talking about Precious Few Clues,
Speaker 6: the true crime investigation of Kansas City's Precious Still Murder.
Speaker 6: For those that might want to take a look at
Speaker 6: more information about this book. I know this is a
Speaker 6: wild blue press release. Do you do any social media?
Speaker 7: Yes, I do, and I have a website under I
Speaker 7: have a writing tag called scarletinkwell dot com. It's scarlet
Speaker 7: with two t's, and I have a website there and
Speaker 7: have started a blog on that in addition, So yes
Speaker 7: I do, and fortunately I have the opportunity to press
Speaker 7: oblige to talk to people such as yourself and talk
Speaker 7: about these cases and kind of keep them in the
Speaker 7: forefront of people's attention and again give them a voice.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Marla Bernard Precious Few Clues the true crime investigation of
Speaker 6: Kansas City's Precious Still murder.
Speaker 8: Thank you so much for this interview, and you have
Speaker 8: a good evening and good night.
Speaker 7: Oh thank you, Dan. It's been a privilege. I appreciate it.
Speaker 8: Thank you so much.