A forensic laboratory has confirmed the presence of DNA evidence that could provide answers in the case of Jason Carroll, a man who has spent more than three decades in prison for a murder he says he did not commit.
According to court documents filed Thursday, the New Hampshire State Police Forensic Lab recently found DNA on several items connected to the 1988 killing of Sharon Johnson. The items had not previously been DNA tested. The discovery means the lab can now attempt to develop DNA profiles from the evidence, which could lead to an identification.
Carroll, 55, and his attorneys with the New England Innocence Project filed a petition seeking post-conviction DNA testing in Superior Court in November 2022. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office opposed the testing for 17 months, before abruptly reversing course last April.
Carroll, who remains incarcerated, claims he was convicted on the basis of a false confession he gave when he was 19 years old. Two alleged co-conspirators, Tony Pfaff and Sharon’s husband Ken Johnson, were also charged but neither was convicted. Carroll’s case is the subject of the second season of New Hampshire Public Radio’s “Bear Brook” podcast.
The State Police Forensic Laboratory found DNA on several pieces of evidence from the original investigation into Sharon Johnson’s murder, including blood found beneath Johnson’s fingernails, a pocketknife alleged to be the murder weapon, cigarettes found in Johnson’s car, and clothing Johnson was wearing when she was killed.
DNA results pointing to an alternate perpetrator could lead to Carroll’s exoneration, which would be New Hampshire’s first ever in a murder case. Alternatively, the tests could further implicate Carroll and affirm his conviction. Results that are inconclusive or allow for multiple interpretations are also possible.
Sharon Johnson, 36, was found stabbed and strangled to death in a rural construction site in Bedford in 1988.
An engineer and mother who was seven months pregnant with her second child, Johnson was loved and admired by friends and family. Prosecutors allege she was the victim of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by her husband, Ken Johnson, and carried out with the help of two then-teenagers: Pfaff and Carroll.
Members of Sharon Johnson’s family have objected to Carroll’s claims of innocence.
At 19 years old, Carroll gave a series of conflicting statements to state police and his own mother, then a Bedford police officer, during more than 13 hours of interrogation over four days. At one point, Carroll said he stabbed Sharon Johnson for $5,000 paid by her husband. Carroll recanted his confession shortly thereafter and pled not guilty.
Police interrogated Carroll without a defense attorney present and with methods now known to increase the likelihood of false confessions, including repeatedly asserting certainty in a suspect’s guilt, and implying leniency in return for a confession. Police found no physical evidence linking Carroll to the crime.
Pfaff, who was also 19 at the time, similarly confessed after a long interrogation. He also recanted and pled not guilty.
Prosecutors dropped all charges against Ken Johnson in 1991, citing a lack of evidence. Pfaff was found not guilty after a 16-day trial the same year. Carroll was convicted of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder after two trials. He was sentenced to 46 years to life in 1992.
