MCMINN COUNTY, Tenn. — A man from Roseville, IL is now in a Tennessee jail after a re-testing of evidence connected him to a 1996 cold homicide case.
According to a news release from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, later shared by the Illinois State Police, 53-year-old Rodney Jackson was arrested on January 18 in Roseville after a re-testing of evidence tied him to the 1996 homicide of Barbara Danley Johnson; a cold case that has gone unsolved for 26 years.
Danley's body was found off an Interstate 75 ramp in November 1996 , and an autopsy determined that she was a victim of homicide. She was 50 years old at the time.
Later, in August 2021, case evidence was re-submitted to the TBI crime lab in Nashville, and the results led to Jackson's arrest.
He was extradited to Tennessee's McMinn County and charged with First Degree Murder, and he now resides in the county jail.
“I am incredibly grateful for the relentless work on the part of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation in this case,” says 10th Judicial District Attorney General Steve Crump. “Despite the years that have passed since her murder, Barbara Johnson will have her opportunity at justice. Part of TBI’s motto is ‘That guilt shall not escape’. They completely lived up to that motto in this case. The teamwork between the Bureau and our Cold Case Task Force was exceptional. The Cold Case Director, Calvin Rockholt, had followed this case since the formation of the task force and always believed it could be solved. The Bureau proved him right.”