and around the border is the pattern of rectangle-space, rectangle-space-triangle. which is the bite mark pattern proved to be made by john prante. prante. on the morning of february 20th, 1989, something terrible happened to janice johnson, a 35-year-old housewife and mother of two children. >> claire, i've got to go. i'll talk to you later, okay? >> the investigation into that morning's events would raise questions that persist to this day. clayton and janice johnson lived in the tiny coastal fishing village of shelburne, nova scotia.

it's a close knit community where everybody knows everybody. for the johnsons, it was the ideal place to raise their two young daughters, 11-year-old darla and 9-year-old dawn. >> we had two lovely girls. it was perfect, as far as we were concerned. we were always together. you can ask anybody around the community, whenever they saw us, we were together. very rarely we went anywhere individually. >> clayton was an industrial arts teacher at the local high school. janice was a homemaker. the johnsons were a deeply religious family and very active in their church, volunteering much of their free time to church activities. >> we were always out visiting people, doing this and that. my mom was the type of person that didn't like to sit around and do nothing, so we were always busy doing something. >> the morning of february 20th, 1989, was a typical one for the johnson family.

after the children left for school, clayton carried some laundry to the basement for his wife. moments later the telephone rang. clayton answered on the basement extension. >> hi. >> it was claire thompson, our next door neighbor. i went up and got my coat and came back in and told her i was going, give her a kiss good-bye. >> clayton then left for work, stopping along the way at a local gas station. >> janice? >> a few minutes later, a neighbor stopped by the johnson's home. he discovered janice at the bottom of the stairs. she was bloody and unconscious but still alive. clayton heard the news when he arrived at work and rushed to the hospital.

>> when i first seen her, i didn't recognize her because of all the tubes and the swelling. i'd look almost twice to realize it was her, and it was just -- just one of those things you don't want to see every day. >> janice had sustained severe head injuries from what was assumed to be an accidental fall down the basement steps. despite the best of medical treatment, janice died of her head wounds several hours later. she was just 35 years old. >> i think it was the first time i had ever seen my father cry. my first reaction was that it wasn't -- it wasn't real. like you want to believe it didn't happen. >> that's one of the hardest things i've ever done in my life, is to tell the two girls their mother passed away. >> the small community of shelburne rallied around clayton johnson and his two daughters as

they paid their last respects to a loving wife and mother, but that support soon crumbled when clayton johnson started dating a woman 30 years his junior. at t-mobile you can hook up the whole family for $100 bucks. get 4 lines with unlimited talk and text and up to 10 gigabytes of 4g lte data. plus get the brand-new samsung galaxy note 4 for $0 down. will go someplace they've pealready been.el where's the fun in that? it's time to find someplace new. book the hotel you want with the flight you want, and we'll find the savings to get you there.

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after janice johnson's death, the chief medical examiner performed an autopsy. he was hampered to some extent by the fact that there were no photographs of the accident scene. in a misguided effort to be helpful, two family friends had washed the blood from the basement before photographs could be taken. this is a police video shot later as the women described the bloodstains. they said there was a small bloodstain on the floor at the bottom of the steps and a bloodstain with bloody hair on the concrete wall next to the third step. this recreation shows the position of janice johnson's body when paramedics arrived. her head was on the floor.

her leg was above her head on the step. in her left hand, she was holding her car keys. although dr. perry found janice johnson's wounds to be unusual, he ruled the death a freak accident, concluding that she had fallen forward down the steps to her death. he suspected that her skull had become wedged in a 5 1/2 inch space between the steps and the adjoining concrete wall, which crushed both sides of her head. when she landed on the concrete floor, she sustained the wound to the top of her head. since janice johnson was thought to be in the house alone at the time of the incident, foul play was ruled out. janice was on the telephone with claire thompson, who said she heard clayton kiss janice good-bye before leaving for work. claire thompson said they talked

for ten minutes and that the call ended around 7:50. >> can i call you later? >> oh, sure. okay. talk to you then, bye. >> witnesses saw clayton johnson at the gas station at the same time. a minute or two later, a neighbor found janice in the basement and called paramedics. the call was logged in at 7:52. >> that was, so to speak, the end of that. of course, clayton and his daughters had to deal with the great loss that they had suffered. it was only after some 18 months had passed that clayton really made what might be called a dreadful mistake. >> clayton johnson's mistake was to fall in love. soon after janice's death, clayton started dating and later married 22-year-old tina.

she was a member of the johnsons' church and was 30 years his junior. in the close-knit conservative community of shelburne, this new relationship raised a few eyebrows. police also discovered that clayton johnson had purchased a $120,000 life insurance policy on janice two months before she died. a background check revealed that clayton johnson was also having financial difficulties and that utility services were sometimes cut off in their home for nonpayment. >> and pretty soon fact became confused with rumor, rumor with fact. the more people talked, the more people wondered whether this lovable teddy bear, clayton johnson, was a wife killer. >> so police decided to reopen their investigation into janice johnson's death. [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality

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homicide investigators went back to re-interview the woman who cleaned up the blood after janice johnson's death. to their surprise, two years later, one of the women recalled seeing more blood in the basement than she originally reported.

on the walls, across the length of the floor, and on piles of lumber along the far wall. three years after his wife's death, clayton johnson was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. johnson pleaded not guilty to the charge. prosecutors introduced the new blood spatter testimony and also raised the issue of johnson's new love interest. >> clayton johnson was on trial for events that happened after the accident. he was on trial for the insurance monies that he collected. he was on trial for this new girlfriend that he had let move in with him. >> clayton johnson was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. >> i don't know how i actually stood up. i could feel my knees and everything get weakened. it took all my power to keep standing up and not falling down.

it was a shock, i'll tell you. >> have you ever felt like you were reading a book? that's what it seemed like. it didn't seem like it was -- it could be happening in my life. >> johnson was ordered to serve his sentence in the atlantic maximum security institution. from there, he contacted the association in defense of the wrongfully convicted in toronto. his story caught the attention of the director of the organization, james lockyer. >> as you go back through the miscarriages of justice in both our country, in canada that is, and the united states and england, very often, probably as often as 40% to 50% of the time, bad science has played a significant role in a wrongful conviction. >> but the first thing he noticed wasn't questionable science.

it was a problem with the timeline. claire thompson said she was on the telephone with janice johnson on the morning of her death. in her original statement, thompson said she heard clayton kiss janice good-bye at approximately 7:40. she said the call with janice lasted ten minutes, until about 7:50. a witness said clayton johnson was at the gas station at the same time, 7:50, when claire thompson said she was ending her call to janice. the neighbor found janice's body and called paramedics at 7:52. clayton was aware that janice was expecting company that morning. >> any theory that he would kill his wife in a time span of seconds or minutes when he could legitimately expect three

different people to show up at the house in that very time he was supposedly assaulting his life. you put all that together and the theory, in my view, was ridiculous. >> the blood spatter expert was also skeptical. he believes that the witnesses' original statements were probably the most accurate. >> the neighbors at that time reported that the blood was consistent with an accident. now, obviously, they're not qualified to interpret bloodstain patterns. but had they seen a lot of spattering or blood up on the walls and ceiling, i think at that time, even though they were cleaning it up, they would have a clear recollection of what it looked like and especially where they washed it up. >> another story that changed was claire thompson's. in her original statement, she said she called janice around

7:40 and that the call lasted for ten minutes. two years later, she said she may have called closer to 7:30. this created the window of opportunity for johnson to have murdered his wife. james lockyer asked two forensic pathologists to review the forensic evidence independently. dr. linda norton of dallas, texas, and dr. james ferris of vancouver. they both examined the case file and autopsy photos. and it was what they didn't see that they found most intriguing. >> there are no defense wounds. and in a bludgeoning of this nature, considering the location of the head wounds, one would expect to see defense wounds if this were an actual bludgeoning death. >> during an attack, most

individuals raise their hands in and as a result, their hands and forearms sustain injuries. >> there's no evidence that this was a homicidal assault. >> janice johnson's car keys were in her hand when paramedics arrived. the lack of arm wounds and the car keys also cast doubt on the original forensic report, which stated that janice fell forwards down the steps. >> what occurred is that she slipped at the top of the stairs and she fell backwards instead of forwards. and of course most falls down the stairs are forward falls. backward falls are uncommon and i think that's what led to a lot of the misinterpretation in this case. >> clayton johnson's new defense team now had two major hurdles. first, to prove to the court that johnson was innocent and

also to show how janice johnson really died. we come by almost every day to deliver your mail so if you have any packages you want to return you should just give them to us i mean, we're going to be there anyway why don't you just leave it for us to pick up? or you could always get in your car and take it back yourself yeah, us picking it up is probably your easiest option it's kind of a no brainer ok, well, good talk a wake-up call. but it's not happening out there. it's happening in here. [ sirens wailing ] inside of you. even if you're treating your crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, an occasional flare may be a sign of damaging inflammation.

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it was a life johnson had no choice but to get used to. >> it's a whole new ball game as far as your change of lifestyle. the whole thing, you know, it's a rude awakening. >> johnson's team of forensic experts did not believe that his wife's injuries were consistent with a bludgeoning death, and they did not think that she had fallen forwards as was originally reported. they believed that janice had fallen backwards. to get johnson's conviction overturned, his lawyers needed to find a way to show how the accident really happened. they turned to blood spatter expert herb mcdonnell. but after studying the case file, mcdonnell couldn't figure out a way to recreate an accidental fall down the basement steps. >> the very night that i was about ready to call james lockyer and advise him i could

not do my recreation, and i've done many of these reconstructions or recreations, if you like, i was very disappointed. i was about to tell him that i just couldn't do it and that night i read the morning paper. i frequently don't read the paper until a day late. on the front page, here's peter pan at west high school. of course, i thought hey. ♪ i'm flying >> in the production of the musical "peter pan," various characters fly across the stage in a harness. mcdonnell called the high school, borrowed the transom and the operator, and borrowed a model the same height and weight as janice johnson. he then built a replica of the johnsons' basement steps. he videotaped the entire procedure and put blue chalk on the steps where blood was spotted. with the model on top of the

steps, she fell backwards. when her head fell into the gap in between the third step and the concrete wall, the chalk marks on the model's head were consistent with the injuries found on janice johnson. >> there's no question that that is a good explanation for how the wounds on janet johnson occurred over her right ear. >> it's remarkable when you see it, because the blue marks appear on the model's head exactly where the injuries are found on janice's left and right temples. >> james lockyer believes that janice johnson was still on the telephone when clayton was at the gas station and that the call ended at 7:50, just as her neighbor was arriving at the house. >> you know, i've got to go. i'll talk to you later.

>> she grabbed her car keys, ran up the steps, and lost her footing. as she fell backwards, her head became wedged in the 5 1/2 inch gap between the step and the cement wall. her feet pulled her head from the gap, flipping her body over onto the basement floor, producing the gash found on the top of her head. when all this information came to light, canadian prosecutors took the unusual step of releasing clayton johnson from prison. he had spent six years behind bars. >> just very happy to be back with my family. i'm very pleased with the decision of justice freeman and i couldn't ask for a better legal team than what i've got.

and i just want to get back to my family. >> i'm really happy right now because that means my dad is actually going to see me graduate. >> i've got my father back in my life. >> although authorities made no final decisions about the case and there's always a chance of a retrial, many believe it will simply be dismissed. for a crime forensic experts say didn't happen, six years in prison is enough. >> that's quite right, indeed. clayton johnson wasn't convicted of a murder he didn't commit. he was convicted of a murder that never happened. >> we made an error. once you recognize you've made an error, you do the best you can to rectify it. and the best way to rectify this case is simply to acquit this man, exonerate him, and let him go on with his life.

>> all different opinions, as far as we know. the justice system is concerned. because i've always been brought up from the time i could walk around that police were your friend, you held them at a certain level. after going through this, it makes you think twice. on september 17th, 1966, diane kaidell met a man. after leaving the bar, officials were not sure if she ran away from the responsibilities facing a single mother with four young children or perhaps had been the victim of foul play. that question was answered 27 years later when her daughter came forward with a fantastic tale of something she saw when she was 5 years old.