Episode
Cold Case Files: The Execution of Michael Johnson
Overview
Michael Johnson was convicted of the senseless killing of Jeff Wetterman, 11 years earlier. While being interviewed in his last days, cameras capture how Michael's family fights to save him from being executed, and the rising tension leading up to the execution date. In a shocking twist, the story ends in a way no one could have foreseen.
Details
- Series
- Cold Case Files
- Season
- Season 5
- Episode
- Episode 26
- Air date
- 2007-07-24
- Runtime
- 60 min
Episode context
The Execution of Michael Johnson is Episode 26 in Season 5 of Cold Case Files. It aired on 2007-07-24. The runtime is 60 min.
Previous / Next
Episode 25: Left for Dead / On the Case
A detective in California tracks down a prostitute's killer with the help of a key piece of evidence--fingerprints lifted off two beer bottles found at the murder scene. And two persistent cold case detectives in Kansas City, Mo., use DNA analyses to investigate the 1990 murder of a woman and the death of a man killed in a car crash in 1988.
Episode 27: Innocence Files
Students of the University of Cincinnati and Texas Tech University Innocence Project take on the cases of jailed murderers who claim they're innocent. With exclusive, behind-the-scenes access, viewers watch as the students visit the inmates, track down key witnesses, and seek DNA testing that could prove their clients' innocence. While their focus is on the cases of Texas death row inmate, Anthony Graves, and mentally ill Ohio inmate Glen Tinney, who plead guilty but now professes his innocence.
More episodes from this season
Episode 24: Murder He Wrote / Caught By the Past
Guns found dumped in a pond outside of Atlantic City, N.J., help police to solve the 15-year-old murder of Detroit cab company owner. And the rape and murder of an Atlanta TV station receptionist goes cold for 20 years before the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) links a man with three prior burglary convictions to the crime.
Episode 28: Evidence Kit
The Chicago Police Department launches the Women's DNA initiative to fund the testing of backlogged rape evidence kits and help rape victims find justice. Meanwhile in Sacramento County, California, the deputy district attorney hunts for the killer of a man who was brutally stabbed to death in his home 16 years earlier, using a new grant for DNA testing.
Episode 23: A Deadly Pattern / A Desperate Housewife
When a woman is found murdered in her mobile home, police make two shocking discoveries--her husband may not only have been the killer, but he may have also killed his first wife 31 years before. And after an Oregon man is shot dead, the case takes an unusual twist when one of the investigating detectives has an affair with the chief suspect--the dead man's wife.
Episode 22: A Knock at the Door / Shattered
The killing of a woman in a Virginia hotel room goes unsolved for a quarter of a century before investigators are finally able to zero in on the likely killer. And, when a 25-year -old women is shot to death during a jewelry store robbery in 1980, investigators collect fingerprints and blood from the crime scene. There are few leads and the case goes cold until 1999, when detectives test the blood evidence and develop a DNA profile. For two years more, that profile sits without a match, until 2001 when a convicted burglar is entered into the DNA databank.
Episode 21: Abandoned Houses / A Son's Memory
Detectives are baffled when two young girls are raped, murdered, and dumped in an abandoned house in Akron, Ohio. And a 26-year-old mother of three disappears on Christmas Eve in 1995, but the missing persons case goes cold when police can find few clues to her whereabouts.
Episode 20: Cross Country Connection / Eyes at the Window
DNA found on a marijuana joint in Florida in 2005 helps to solve the 1988 rape and murder of a California woman. And a cold case of murder in Illinois heats up when a jailhouse lawyer turns jailhouse snitch.
Episode 19: NCIS / Exhuming the Truth
After U.S. Navy sailor Andrew Muns disappears in 1968, the Navy claims that Muns went AWOL from his ship. But his sister works tirelessly for over 30 years to prove that Muns was really killed. And DNA surreptitiously gathered from a cigarette butt helps detectives to unravel a 20-year-old case of rape and murder.
Episode 18: A Deadly Affair / The Sting Operation
After 19 years, Kansas detectives reopen the case of a banker found beaten to death in his bed--and the chief suspect is his cheating wife. And a man with a guilty conscience helps Arkansas police to crack a cold case of murder when he tells them that his ex-wife knows who the killer is.
Episode 17: The Deadly Stroll / Unholy Secret
In Rhode Island, policewomen go undercover in as street walkers to nab the man suspected of murdering three prostitutes. And a dagger-shaped letter opener is the key piece of evidence that links a priest to the grisly 1980 murder of a nun in Toledo, Ohio.
Episode 16: The Black Dahlia
Bill Kurtis examines one of the most infamous cold cases in Los Angeles history -- the 1947 murder of actress Elizabeth Short, who was found nude and cut in half in an empty lot. Though charges have never been filed in the case, theories abound, and Kurtis investigates some of the most prominent ones. He talks to a retired LAPD detective whose 3 year investigation led to the stunning conclusion that his own father committed the murder. Kurtis also probes the theory that the killer was a surgeon named Walter Bayley. Kurtis finally explores the possibility that there may have been a police cover-up in the case to protect the real killer.