Beyond All Repair - Beyond All Repair Ch. 2: The Case

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

Amory learns more about Marlyne Johnson, Sophia Johnson’s late mother-in-law, and her murder is explored through footage of Sophia’s 2003 trial. Clark County Detective Rick Buckner and his team narrowed the field of suspects to siblings Sophia and Sean Correia (Shane Correia's older brother and sister). Sean testified during Sophia’s 2003 murder trial that he saw his sister standing over Marlyne’s body, holding fireplace tongs. If you have questions about the case, the real people at the center of this story, or anything else about this series, we want to hear them. Email [e-mail] with a voice message or written message. Listener note: This show has descriptions of violence and strong language. *** Consider becoming a "BEYOND" member today: This show is made at WBUR, a public radio station, which means we cannot make shows like this without public support. Join our membership program, "BEYOND" here: wbur.org/beyond

Hey, it's Anne-Marie. Beyond All Repair is made at WBUR, Boston's NPR, aka a public radio station, which means we cannot make shows like this without public support. So here's what we're gonna do. We're kicking off a membership program called, wait for it, Beyond, for a contribution of $25.

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WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Heads up, this show has descriptions of violence and strong language. Hey, so my brain always spins after we have a conversation and you introduce so much new information and oh my goodness there was a lot of it today. I'm freshly back from a trip to New York to see Shane Correa and share the latest with him about his sister Sophia who was charged with murdering her mother-in-law back in 2002. I am starting to accept that whenever you visit I am going to have terrible night's sleep. I am haunting Shane. Just kidding. But I am offering him information on Sophia's case as it comes in.

And he has been offering me his thoughts on all of it in the form of voice memos. I'm just trying to understand, like, what was going through her head. We're several months into revisiting the murder at this point. It had become a sort of obsessive side project for both of us. I was reading documents and talking to Sophia regularly, usually in the early morning hours before my regular workday started. Hi, good morning. Hi, good morning. How you doing?

Did you get the stuff I sent you? I did. I did, and I got the picture while I was... Shane is more of a night owl, recording himself while he's unwinding from his day at work. For the record, that's wine. And pouring over his sister's case file. First installment. Lots of pages.

Thousands of pages. Witness interviews, call records, crime scene photos. Okay, this looks like it's an evidence form. Shane is Sophia's brother, obviously. But he's also a lawyer. Entry number 23. Paper bag with blood flakes. And if he's ever going to believe, really believe,

that his sister did not kill her mother-in-law. How many entries are there? paper bag with blood flakes. And if he's ever going to believe, really believe, that his sister did not kill her mother-in-law. How many entries are there? Oh, there's a lot of entries. He's going to have to go through everything. Even if she committed murder, I know that I love my sister, but she needs to also be held accountable if she committed murder.

I'm Anne-Marie Sievertson. From WBUR and ZSP Media, this is Beyond All Repair. Chapter 2, the case. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The evidence in this case will show that on January 10th of 2002, Marlene Johnson was brutally bludgeoned to death in her home. 2002, Marlee Johnson was brutally bludgeoned to death in her home. I've fired up the footage of Sophia's trial, that box of VHS tapes I got in the mail. On screen, a drab courtroom, grainy faces, outfits from 20 years ago, and the prosecutor delivering his opening statements.

The evidence will show that she was bludgeoned to death by her own daughter-in-law, the defendant in this case, Sophia Johnson. All right, so Clark County Sheriff's Office enforcement intelligence information. Meanwhile, Shane is reading through Sophia's case file. January 12, 2002. This is two days after the murder. And we each arrive at someone very important. There's Rick Buckner. This is probably the last time for the record, please.

B-U-C-K-N-E-R. Rick Buckner. Detective Rick Buckner. Whose decisions in the days following Marlene's murder solidified Sophia as the primary suspect. I've been the lead investigator on probably anywhere from 45 to 50 homicide cases. That was Rick on the stand in Sophia's trial in 2003. But this is him talking to me. Do you have a reputation in the field? I'm a total asshole.

Rick is big and broad, bald with a mustache. I'm sitting across from him in a small conference room in downtown Vancouver, Washington, which is near Portland, Oregon, in Clark County. Rick is cordial, but guarded, and a little intimidating, if I'm being honest. Part of that may have to do with the polygraph machine I saw in his office next door. That's what he's been up to since retiring from the sheriff's office. He runs a private polygraph business, which feels on brand. Because the thing I'd heard about Rick is that he was the guy who could get suspects to talk.

I've had people say they don't want to talk to their attorney, they want to talk to me. So that's pretty good. to talk to their attorney, they want to talk to me. So that's pretty good. People like Keith Jesperson, aka the happy face killer, who killed at least eight women in the 90s and drew smiley faces on letters to police and the media. He wouldn't talk to us. And I says, come on, Keith, I'll buy you dinner. Come on. But eventually he called me and said, yeah, I killed her. I've probably gotten more confessions than anybody else. But Rick never got one out of Sophia. more confessions than anybody else. But Rick never got one out of Sophia.

He remembers her well all these years later. So is her position that she didn't do anything, that she didn't have any involvement in the death of Marlene Johnson? It is. It is. And I know that you probably have a different perspective. I do. have a different perspective. I do. Despite the fact that Rick's notes from this 20-year-old murder case are long gone,

and it's clearly one of many that he's worked on, it stayed with him. Life's in a lot of crimes in my, you know, years as a detective, but to see this one where, I mean, this woman was just beaten, you know, beyond recognition. We determined later, fireplace tongs. You know, and it was a vicious, vicious assault. Somebody wanted to make sure she was dead. Buckner and his team started mapping out Marlene's movements the day of the murder. She'd gotten home a little before quarter to one

on that Thursday in January. I think she came back from a yoga class that day, went out grocery shopping. We had the grocery receipts in the bag. So we could pretty much pinpoint the time that she actually would have arrived home. And by all indications, she just parked her car in the garage, came in from the garage, into the house carrying groceries, and somebody just viciously attacked her. Marlene hadn't even set the bag in her arms down when she was struck by someone wielding fireplace tongs. She fell to the floor, groceries strewn around her. Marks and swelling on her hands and arms indicated that she'd tried to defend herself. The state's forensic expert

estimated she'd been struck at least nine times. Marlene was beaten so forcefully that a piece of the fireplace tongs had broken off in the attack and was found next to her body. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the skull. The time going by when Marlene's watch was broken and stopped, was 12.42 p.m. She was 58 years old. What steps did you then take with regard to, shall we say, managing the investigation at that time? Well, first off, as the lead investigator, it's my responsibility to direct and guide the

investigation, to evaluate the information that comes in. I'm also responsible for the crucial interviews. So obviously we wanted to contact the family. Marlene and I had a very, very tight bond. This is Roylene, Marlene's sister. In fact, we made a pledge that we would never leave the state. We would never be long distance from each other ever. Can you just tell me a little bit about your sister, who she was as a person, what things that she loved? Very, very trusting, which was something that I was, I'm very untrusting. which was something that I'm very untrusting.

The great love for family and nature would be definitely her. I mean, she fed the squirrels, she fed the deer, she fed the birds, she fed everything, bags of peanuts and bags of bird seed and stuff for the deer, and it's like, oh, my gosh. So, yes, very loving person. No mean bones in her body. I got them all. Roylene is 15 years younger than Marlene, but she often found herself feeling like she needed to look out for her loving, trusting, generous older sister. She'd go for long walks, love to walk, love to hike.

I stressed about it all the time. I told her always to take protection. She said, there's nothing out there. I said, there's men and wild animals. She'd go by herself. Yes, go by herself with a little Yorkshire terrier. Like, that's going to protect anything. I had to protect her from so many people because if you said,

geez, I wished I had a dollar, she'd give you 10. I was very, very protective of my sister because she was so kind and thought there was something good in everybody. And to me, and I'm the opposite, you have to prove to me that there's something good in you. Otherwise, I don't think that you're good at all. And her, she thinks everybody's good. You have to prove to her that you're not. Someone did prove that to Marlene. Likely,

someone she knew. But who? That was Detective Buckner's job. And did you conduct a series of interviews over the next day or so? Yes, I did. I interviewed Brad, Sophia Johnson, Richard Johnson. Brad, Sophia's husband, Marlene's son, and Richard, Marlene's husband, now widower. We asked everybody, you know, what was your day like? What did you do? Who were you talking to? Those kind of things. Do you know of anybody that could have done something like this? Anybody that would have wanted to hurt Marlene? I mean, she was a housewife. Do you remember any kind of first reactions from those first conversations that you had with Richard and Brad and Sophia? All of them were very distraught. Brad Johnson

was beside himself in the fact that he had just discovered his mother. Brad had gone in through the back door, I think it was, because he couldn't get in through the garage door, and found his mother laying there bludgeoning to death. Early interviews with family members filled out the events of the day, but they weren't all that illuminating in terms of the why of it all. So then we were pretty much at square one. You know, who would have done this? I mean, what are we looking at? Is it some kind of a robbery gone bad? Is it a burglary in the house? Sometimes in an investigation, you have to seek out all of the leads. And sometimes, as Buckner told the jury, a lead comes to you. 911 had received an anonymous phone call from a pay phone, and the person refused to give their name or anything.

But they did eventually give a name the detectives could work with. Sean Correa. Not Shane. Sean. The middle brother. Sean Correa. Not Shane, Sean. The middle brother of the Correa children. Four years younger than Sophia, six years older than Shane. Sean, this anonymous caller said.

He knew something about Marlene's murder. Or maybe he did something? How did your investigation proceed based upon what you were told? Based on what we were told, our investigation focused on Sean Correa at that time and Sophia Johnson. Sean and Sophia. Because, as Detective Buckner told me, there is no connection between Marlene Johnson and Sean Correa. The only connection is Sophia Johnson. And Sean had a story for the detectives that was about to fully connect the dots for them.

Eventually he said that he didn't actually do it, but he was there when it happened, and that his sister is the one that actually blungeoned Marlene Johnson to death. More in a minute. Support for Beyond All Repair comes from BetterHelp. Thank you. you can build a social life that doesn't drain your battery. Try therapy with BetterHelp. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Visit betterhelp.com slash beyond repair today to get 10% off your first month. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy.

The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a liar.

Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Every day in America, 60 million packages are delivered, but we don't always know what's inside. He bent down to pick the package up. That's when the device detonated. Danger is everywhere,

and no one is safe in Austin, Texas, as law enforcement hunts a serial bomber for 19 days. From Sony Music Entertainment, Campside Media, and Pegalo Pictures, this is Witnessed. 19 days. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes

or listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts. January 12, 2002. Two days after Marlene Johnson, Sophia's mother-in-law, was found bludgeoned to death with fireplace tongs in her own home, Sean Correa was in custody. But he didn't murder Marlene, he said. His sister did. And he was willing to cooperate with Detective Rick Buckner. After Sean was arrested, we decided to go ahead and see if he could step a call in to his sister Sophia

and get her to admit something on the telephone. We structured it a little bit. Structured it a little bit, or as he would tell the jury. We had scripted what we thought Sophia Johnson would believe, and we wrote out what we wanted Sean to say. And that call, of course, was recorded. Hello? Hey, Sophia.

Hi. How you doing? Doing good. How are you? I'm doing great. Hey, I need to talk to you. Is it possible for me to talk to you where nobody had? Yeah, you want to call her? No. It was the day of Marlene's funeral. Sophia and Brad had close family over at their house when this call from Sean came in. And he was, seemingly, falling apart.

And he was seemingly falling apart. Sophia, I'm tripping out. Okay. I don't want these people to think that I did anything, man. Why would anybody think that you did anything? These people are asking me questions. Everybody's being asked questions. The recording's a little hard to understand in places,

but Sean tells Sophia he doesn't want anyone to think he did anything. He's being asked questions. Sophia tells him everyone's being questioned right now. What am I supposed to do, Sean? Sean? Sean? Yeah. Sean? Yes?

Calm down. Calm down, okay? I've tried to picture what it must have been like being on all sides of this call. Sean with a script and a phone hooked up to some sort of recording device. Sweating, maybe. 19 years old, definitely in some kind of trouble. Surrounded by detectives on the edge of their seats. Detectives who have nothing on Sophia at this point except Sean's word.

This call could be their big break. And Sophia, 23 years old, maybe holding her six-month pregnant belly, tucked away in a corner of her house with her husband, father-in-law, and the rest of Marlene's nearest and dearest grieving close by, listening to her brother say increasingly troubling things. I don't want to be a part of this, Sophia, Sean says.

Sean, what are you saying? You are really scaring me. Stop it. Relax. Stop it right now. Okay? But Sean doesn't stop. He dances around whatever exactly was done by whoever for about four minutes. Until, finally, he says this. If these people find out that we had anything to do with this, we're going to go to jail. And then Sophia asks,

Do you need me to get you an attorney? I don't want to go down for something I didn't do, Sean says. We'll be coming back to this call. Just like the attorneys in this case would keep coming back to this call, in part because of what happened next. Sophia placed a call of her own to Detective Rick Buckner. She said it was, I just received a strange phone call from my brother, you know, I don't know what's going on, and she kind of downplayed the whole thing. She didn't come right out and say, my brother killed Marlene Johnson. But she did say she'd head down to the police station to share more of what she'd heard.

Or at least, that's all she thought she'd be doing. what she'd heard. Or at least, that's all she thought she'd be doing. Sophia and Brad went down to the sheriff's office together. They thought they'd be questioned together, as they had been the day of the murder. But this time, Detective Buckner told them he and his team wanted to talk to Sophia alone. I am not in there for very long when this thing takes an awful turn. They said, you know, when we're doing these types of investigations, we look into everybody, right? And I said, yes, I do know. And they said, including you. I said, yeah. And then they started asking me a series of other questions. I would answer and they would say,

well, of course, that's very self-serving. And then when I didn't know the answer, they would say that that's an excellent answer, the perfect answer in a murder investigation, as I don't know. When Sophia says they, she mostly means Rick Buckner, who took the lead in this interview. Phony, if you will. It sounded phony. The whole thing sounded phony.

I felt like I was being attacked. I felt confused. I was afraid. The interrogation lasted for probably about four hours. And then they said that they were charging me with murder. And Rick Buckner looked at me like, I know you did it. Sophia was fingerprinted and booked into Clark County Jail. And this female officer said, I booked your brother and he said you did it. And I thought, what? She said, yeah, he's the one saying you did it.

Don't you know this information? He's telling everybody you did it, girl. Ready for the next witness? Yes. State call, Sean Correa. It's now April of 2003. Sophia's been in jail for the last 15 months. She's given birth to a baby boy nearly a year prior and hasn't seen him since. Sean has been in jail too, but he's just gotten out on a deal.

His freedom in exchange for his testimony against his sister, who's on trial for first-degree murder. Come forward, please. his sister, who's on trial for first-degree murder. Come forward, please. A jury of nine women and three men are about to hear what happened the day of Marlene Johnson's murder. Raise your right hand. From the brother who says he witnessed it. You swear to tell the truth in today's proceedings?

Yes, I do. All right, have a seat. Sean is on the stand for three and a half hours, so I'll summarize his version of events. You're going to want to listen closely. Do you recall what time of day you left your residence to go over to Sophia's? It was about 8.45 or 8.30. Sean says he had gone to Sophia's house early that morning with his girlfriend, Susie. He was technically married to another woman at the time,

and Sophia had agreed to help him file for divorce. She told me she would help me fill out the paperwork and she would give me the money to file the papers. Money that Sophia suddenly realizes she doesn't have on her. She tells Sean that the money is in the pocket of a coat that she left at her in-law's house the day before. Sean says that Susie then drives the three of them over to Marlene's house to go get the coat. Did you know the way out there? No. Who was directing the route to be taken?

Sophia. Susie testifies to that as well, by the way. No one was home at the Johnsons. Sophia's father-in-law was at work. Marlene was at yoga, then the grocery store. Sophia has a key. But after about 10 minutes in the house, she comes out without the coat. She can't find it.

So Sean says that he and Susie start driving Sophia back to her house before he had to go to work at Wendy's and Susie had to babysit. When Sophia says, Wait a minute, can you pull over so I can think for a second? Sophia proposes a new plan, according to Sean. Sean, I'll give you more money later if you call out of work, come back to my in-laws' house with me, and help me clean their carpets. I thought about it for a minute.

I didn't miss no work before, and, you know, I figured I can get the money, go file for my divorce, and have it all taken care of in a day. So I said, okay. This is kind of a weird plot point, right? Skipping work to clean carpets at your sister's in-law's house? It's a fishy story that either Sophia cooked up for Sean or that Sean cooked up for detectives and was now feeding to a jury.

Did you then, in fact, go back to the Johnson residence? Yes, we did. Again, no one was home. Pretty soon after they get there, Sean says, Sophia admits, there are no carpets to clean. I made it up. And she starts looking around for something.

Her coat with the money in the pocket, Sean assumes. But then... She said that Marlene had $10,000 stashed in some place in her house. $10,000. Sean was sitting on the steps between the main level of the house and the upper level,

where he says Sophia was looking around for this hidden stash of cash. But her search was cut short by the sound of the garage door opening. Marlene was home. Sophia was on the upper level, and she hustled by me, and she told me, wait right here.

Sean says he did as he was told, while Sophia went somewhere downstairs. About five minutes went by, and then, Sean says, he heard a weird noise. It was kind of like a low screech, in a sense. Did you hear any words that you understood? Uh, no. I just got a little curious. So Sean got up and went downstairs to the ground level of the house where he thought the low screech must have come from. And that, Sean says, is when things really took a turn.

As I got to the bottom of the stairs, I felt something wet drop on me. I wasn't sure what it was. I wiped my face, and I just kind of wiped it on my shirt. And as I was looking, and as I turned to the left, I seen someone laying on the floor. And there was blood all over the place. And there was someone standing over them.

The person had something in their hand, some long object. And as I looked, I seen the person standing with a body on the floor strike it one time. Striking the body on the floor? Yes. Sean says he didn't recognize the person standing over Marlene's body at first. But as he ran towards a sliding door to get away, he heard the person yell his name. And when I turned around, I saw the person that was standing over the body coming toward me.

And then the person kind of took, it was like stalking off of their face, and it turned out to be my sister. This day in court, Sophia told me, was the first time she was hearing Sean tell this story. I looked at the jury, and I could see that they were listening to what he was saying, but I couldn't move. I couldn't cry. I couldn't scream. I was paralyzed. And this...

It turned out to be my sister. This was the first time Shane was hearing his brother's testimony. On my laptop, in his apartment, during that particular visit that left him restless. Are there any initial kind of gut reactions, one way or the other? I mean, really, this person is so unrecognizable that you see their outline committing a brutal crime and you're like, who is that? Like, that's odd, right? Like, it doesn't seem to pass the smell test. We kept watching.

From there, Sean says Sophia told him to get into the passenger seat of Marlene's van and keep his head down. I was really scared. She told me just to stay quiet and not say anything. And, you know, I was crying. I didn't know what else to do. Sophia drove them back to her house, Sean says. She could see blood on his undershirt and pants. So Sophia took the shirt

and gave Sean a pair of her husband Brad's pants to change into. Then, Sean says, she instructed him to drive the van to a particular parking lot where he'd be able to catch a bus home. She also let me know that my daughter lived not too far from where she was. Did you take that as an implied threat? You know, I wasn't sure how to take that. I didn't know what to do. At this point, I just figured I better just listen. I wanted to tear his head off, his body.

Just the blatant lies. With me in the courtroom with him. He could say such awful things about me. I looked at the jury and I could see that they were listening to what he was saying. I don't know when it was over, but I knew my life was over. I knew they made him out to be this weak, sweet boy scout. And I was Satan's sister. Sean, did you kill Marlene Johnson? No.

Thank you. No further questions at this time. Anything about the way that he's speaking that jumps out at you? He sounds coached, which makes sense. You have to prepare for trial, so that's just good work. Shane told me that hearing his brother's version of events finally left him more confused. There are a lot of details. To me, it sounds like something you would see on TV

for someone who's coming up with a story. Sean's audience in the courtroom that day didn't get much insight into who the Coria siblings were. The way Sean was presented to a jury, it was as if he'd never been in trouble. Or who they were to each other and how they got that way. I don't know if I'm just because I'm so close to them that I would be shocked. But that's where I'm going. And I'm taking you with me. To places the jury didn't get to go.

To people they never heard from. I have no doubt in my mind that he killed that woman. I have no doubt because he almost did it to me. That's next time. Beyond All Repair is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR, and ZSP Media. is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR, and ZSP Media. It's written and reported by me, Anne-Marie Sievertson,

and produced by Sophie Codner. Mix, sound design, and original scoring by Paul Vycus, production manager of WBUR Podcasts. Theme and credits music by me. Our managing producers are Sama Tajoshi for WBUR and Liz Stiles of ZSP Media. The show is edited and executive produced by Ben Brock Johnson of WBUR and Zach Stewart-Pontier of ZSP Media.

If you have questions about the case, the real people at the center of this story, or anything else about this series, I want to hear them. Email beyondallrepairpod at gmail.com. Voice message, written message, you do you. beyondallrepairpod at gmail.com. Do me a favor, will you? Tell someone else you love them and then tell them about this show. In that order. I'll be back with Chapter 3 next week. Thank you for listening.