Mississippi Goddam Chapter 4: The Investigator

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

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4.7 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2021

⏱️ 53 minutes

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Summary

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•••

Special Agent Joel Wallace of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation was called in to investigate the death of Billey Joe Johnson. He worked alongside two investigators from the George County district attorney’s office.

Wallace said that arrangement didn’t happen very often. And he now questions why they were assigned. “If you've got me investigating the case, then I’m an independent investigator,” he said. “But why would I need the district attorney investigator to oversee me investigating a case?”

The Johnsons were initially relieved, because Wallace had experience investigating suspicious deaths. As a Black detective, he had dealt with racist backlash to his work.

Reveal host Al Letson and reporter Jonathan Jones visit Wallace, now retired, to talk about what happened with the investigation. When Wallace finds out what Reveal has uncovered, he begins to wonder whether the case should be reopened.

Transcript

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1:34.0	From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is reveal. I'm Alex. It's February 2006.
1:51.0	A chill is still in the air in golf port Mississippi. Jeremy Powell was in seventh grade and he has a school assignment he's been struggling with.
2:00.0	He has to shadow someone at work. My aunt was like, well, you know, you don't want to go with your dad. He does auto mechanics.
2:07.0	You don't want to go with your uncle. You run the HVAC company. And we had a friend of our family, long time friend known her forever.
2:16.0	She was a jailer at Harrison County. She stationed at the intake desk at the jail.
2:22.0	So she opened the doors when the inmates would come in or she'd close the gate or you know process people in basically but we're behind bulletproof glass, you know.
2:32.0	Kind of like a one way scenario.
2:36.0	She works the night shift. So on the evening of February 4th, Jeremy goes with her to the Harrison County jail.
2:43.0	The first few hours was just like every day jail stuff, you know, inmates coming in, getting process and everybody kind of doing their job.
	...

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