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NANCY GRACE
Nancy Grace Mysteries: The Killer Bride
Aired May 30, 2014 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, on NANCY GRACE MYSTERIES, she dreams her whole life about an extravagant storybook wedding. Finally, those dreams come true, a twilight garden wedding complete with multiple attendants, all dressed in pink head to toe, an over-the-top reception. But just eight days after the wedding, the 26-year-old groom is dead at the bottom of a cliff. The prime suspect pleads not guilty. The alleged perpetrator`s identity is revealed, shocking friends, family, and the nation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Is it true you guys told him not to marry her?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. The relationship between the two were not equal.
GRACE: Jordan actually cried as she walked down the aisle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I leaned over to the friend I was there with and asked her, Have you ever seen a bride cry that much before she even got to the altar? And it was a surprise to me. That was the first time I`ve ever seen that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I noticed that when they were exchanging their vows, Jordan wasn`t -- never once looked at Cody.
GRACE: At his funeral, she was actually texting or fidgeting with her phone?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see her, you know, like you said, fidgeting with her phone and it was -- it was a great shock. Paying attention and mourning with the rest of us was not the first priority for her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Complete disconnect. She wasn`t there. She wasn`t mourning. There was no emotion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Friends say the marriage didn`t seem right from the start.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they were exchanging vows, Jordan was looking down and wasn`t looking at Cody.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan Graham says she doubted the wedding, but didn`t kill her husband.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Twenty-five-year-old newlywed Cody Johnson was first noticed missing when he did not report to work one morning. So the very first place, of course, they look is at home, where they find his bride, Jordan Graham. The 22-year-old bride tells police that his friends, Cody`s friends from out of town -- and she refers to Seattle -- came into town a few days before and that her groom stated he was going out to party with them, possibly going out of town, and that`s where she thinks he is.
Then she tells police that one of them -- one of the friends -- e- mailed her to tell her to call off the search for Cody, that he`s dead at the bottom of a cliff off a hiking trail. That is the story she gives police.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jordan Graham, out of jail, returned home, crouching in her parents` car. Probation officers, papers in hand, spoke with the now infamous bride as she began home confinement as ordered by the judge, a slap in the face to friends of Cody Johnson.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want them to do the right thing. I want justice for Cody.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But the judge released Graham, ordering her to electronic monitoring at her parents` home before her second degree murder case goes to trial, saying she has no criminal history whatsoever and never exhibited tendencies for violence or even anger, except for the charge that she pushed her husband of just eight days off this sheer cliff, face first, in Glacier National Park, killing him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He didn`t deserve whatever end she gave him. He never earned anything that Jordan did to him. And I disagree with all of my heart at what the justice system is saying is fair.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just a short time ago that the couple appeared happy and in love in their first dance at their wedding. While the groom`s friends describe the bride as having cold feet, Elizabeth Shea (ph) remembers her as a normal bride, excited about her life with Johnson. She is a custom song writer. She says the bride hired her to write the lyrics to a song honoring the couple based on interviews she did with them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I used words like, You helped me to climb higher for a better view, You`re my safe place to fall, You never let me go. And so now when I hear those words, it`s a little creepy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eight days later, Johnson fell to his death, allegedly pushed by the very bride who danced this prophetic song with him. Kyung Lah, CNN, Missoula, Montana.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Jordan Graham then went into more detail about the night her husband reportedly goes missing. She states that she, Jordan, and Cody had gone out to dinner with friends, that on the way home from dinner, Cody gets a cell phone call from his friends, and he gets very upset. She did not elaborate about the content of that phone call, but that he was upset.
They get home. She realizes her cell phone is dying and she has to go back to where they were having dinner to get her phone charger. En route back home, she says she gets a text from Cody that his friends from out of town are in town and they`re going for a drive.
Now, interesting. She also tells police that she and Cody both routinely, systematically delete their texts. They don`t keep them or store them. And therefore, she says she cannot produce these texts that Cody sent her just before he goes missing. Now, she says when she pulls up to the home, she sees a dark car pulling away, and she knows that Cody is in that car and these are her friends and they`re going for a joyride.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The couple was only married for eight days when they got into a fight on July 7th. Still upset, they decided to take a hike, where the fighting continued, things got physical, and Johnson pushed her husband in the back, sending him face first off the cliff. Prosecutors say Graham admitted nine days later to pushing Johnson off the cliff in a fit of anger. Her defense attorney says it was all an accident.
Levi (ph) and Latoni Blaisdell (ph) have known Graham since childhood. Levi introduced the couple. Levi says the bride-to-be was acting strangely before they walked down the aisle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was crying hysterically before she even got to the altar. There was no joy that she was about to get married.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After her husband`s death, the Blaisdells say they noticed more strange behavior from the widowed bride.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whenever I saw her, she was just herself. Nothing happened. No emotion, nothing. It was her same old life. So we always had that little bit in the back of our mind saying, you know, I think she may be involved.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Graham is also charged with making false statements to authorities about her husband`s death, for allegedly concocting a story about a trip to the park with out-of-town guests. Her attorney admits she has deceived authorities, but he calls the murder charges reprehensible. Casey Wian, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Three days after Cody is reported missing by co-workers, his body is found. Cody is face down in a stream beneath a cliff. One of his shoes is found downstream. He is found by none other than his young bride, Jordan Graham.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jordan Graham waded through the cameras outside court, her murder trial now under way for pushing her husband just eight days in the back, face first off this sheer cliff at Glacier National Park.
Prosecutors say despite appearing in love in her wedding video, Graham was distraught, her matron of honor back on the stand today after testifying that just a few days after the wedding, Graham sent numerous text messages expressing regret about her marriage to Cody Johnson. Graham texted to her friend, "I should be happy, and I`m just not. I`ve never cried this much in my entire life. And even, I don`t want to live."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... what it was like to be in that courtroom and see Jordan?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) it was very nerve-wracking.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jennifer Torren (ph), another friend, was visibly shaken after testifying that Graham had lied to her. Torren testified that one day after Johnson plunged to his death, she got in text from Graham. "Some car (ph) buddies from Seattle came to the house yesterday, and he went with them. I wasn`t there. The last thing he said to me was that he was going on a drive with some friends that were visiting."
It was a bold-faced lie to cover up that her husband was lying dead at the bottom of a cliff. It would be days before Graham eventually confessed the truth to policy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have a second to talk to us?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot. Cannot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: While the prosecutor would not speak on camera, in court he said Graham planned and then lied about the murder, driven by her desire to get out of her marriage. Defense attorneys say Graham did indeed have regrets, but called her a naive, socially inept, immature young woman, just 21 at the time of her husband`s death, the fall just a terrible accident. She says they were fighting. He grabbed her. She pushed him away and he fell to his death. Why the lies? A young bride afraid that the world wouldn`t believe her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: When park rangers mentioned to her that it was very unusual that she`s the one that finds his body out of the entire national park, she said, Well, I need to come here because this is one of the spots he always wanted to visit before he died.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JORDAN GRAHAM, CONVICTED OF MURDERING HER NEW HUSBAND: So he walked out, made a call or something. (INAUDIBLE) he was in the garage (ph). And I got a text saying he was going, and he left.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was the story Jordan Linn Graham told Kalispell police in early July to cover her crime, a crime to which she has now pleaded guilty, shoving, Cody Johnson, her husband of only eight days, off a cliff in Glacier National Park.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Which is tens of thousands of acres large. This is the very first murder ever at Glacier National Park.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What`s going on as far as where he might have gone or who he might be with?
GRAHAM: I got a message saying that he was going to go for a ride with some of his out-of-town buddies that were visiting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In these newly released tapes, Graham stuck to her story two days after Johnson disappeared. But she did give police some leads.
GRAHAM: But he always told me this one thing (INAUDIBLE) when his friends came to visit, he would take them to Glacier Park (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The next day, in an interview with detectives, she stood by her story, but also said she got an e-mail from someone named Tony, who told her Cody was dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seems kind of sketchy.
GRAHAM: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The e-mail was traced back to a computer in Graham`s parents` house. She sent it to herself. At one point in the recording, Graham gets comforted by her unwitting mother.
GRAHAM: I just want to go!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The medical examiner agreed that the fall from the sheer cliff was consistent as cause of death. There was an eight-inch fracture on Cody`s forehead, fracture to his skull. Interesting, he was not wearing a wedding band when his body was found, but Jordan Graham insists he was wearing a wedding band when he left the home the day that he went missing.
He was covered in lacerations on arms and legs. Interesting, during the search, witnesses noticed that Jordan Graham was texting and giggling while everyone was out looking for her husband, who turned out, of course, to be dead. And during the search for Cody, she did not seem to be upset or perturbed at all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It wasn`t until after Johnson`s body was recovered that the FBI interviewed Graham on July 16th, getting her confession.
GRAHAM: He went to grab my arm and my jacket, and I said no. I said, I`m not going to (INAUDIBLE) defend myself. (INAUDIBLE) and I pushed and he went over. And then I took off and went home, or got my brother and then went home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Perhaps the biggest indicator of Graham`s guilt all along, her own words. According to court documents, soon after Johnson`s body was found, a park ranger commented to Graham that it was in an odd place, to which Graham replied, quote, "It was a place he wanted to see before he died."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Eyewitnesses state that Jordan Graham exhibited no grief at all at her young groom`s funeral, that she texted throughout Cody`s funeral, that she was not paying attention at all to what was going on or what people were saying to her during the funeral.
She refused to speak to Cody`s mother. Forget about hugging her, or you know, sympathizing with her or crying together, she wouldn`t even speak to Cody`s mother at the funeral. And it turned out that there was a pot luck dinner, a meal, after the funeral. And at the pot luck, Jordan Graham was laughing and socializing with everyone. No tears, nothing.
Now, defense attorneys would have you believe and possibly convince you that there is no playbook for grief, and that may be true. Try telling that to a jury. Also, her own friends began to notice that she was not grieving at all about Cody`s death. And that is when they, Jordan Graham`s friends, began to suspect that she murdered him.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One week after this beaming couple`s wedding, a chilling scene.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She pushed her new groom over a cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The bride then told multiple lies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I received text messages from Jordan. As the days continued, her stories changed. First story was that she was not aware of who Cody was with. At a later time, the story was that she was there when he left, and then he had left with some friends from Seattle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She saw him leave, never saw him again.
GRACE: Then suddenly, she goes out and singlehandedly, amazingly, finds his body.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very steep area, very treacherous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right then, I felt like she had something to do with Cody not being with us any longer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Graham later admitting to police soon after they went for a hike at Glacier National Park, they argued. Graham says her husband grabbed her arm, she then pushed his back, which sent him flying face first off the edge of this cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was an accident, says Graham`s lawyer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jordan, is there anything you want to say?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Saying nothing to us, now a defendant leaving court with her parents, ordered to remain on home confinement before her trial.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could always light a room. You know, he was always a joy to have around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cameron Fredrickson (ph) was a co-worker and a friend of Cody Johnson. When Johnson didn`t show up to work on Monday, July 8th, Fredrickson says he immediately knew something wasn`t right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Keep in mind the timing here. These two had only been married eight days when Cody is reported missing. About a week into the marriage, the groom turns up dead at the bottom of a cliff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Later that afternoon, I received a text from Jordan asking if Cody came in to work, which I thought was odd.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fredrickson says he never really knew Cody`s wife, Jordan Lynn (ph) Graham, and the few interactions they did have, he said, confused him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: This is how it all goes down. Jordan Graham then tells police that this e-mail that she had gotten from one of Cody`s out-of-town friends named Tony stated that Cody had gotten with his out-of-town friends, gone driving around, decided to go hiking. He fell. He was dead. And they should call off the search, that it was all an accident.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I first met Jordan, she was very closed off, very, very quiet, not a lot of interaction with anyone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He tells me that he and Cody`s friends all thought it was strange she would never hang out. Fredrickson says even at their wedding, something just didn`t seem right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was standing up there, and I noticed that when they were exchanging their vows that Jordan wasn`t -- never once looked at Cody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Well, that`s all well and good except for one thing. Tony is Jordan Graham because when police started investigating the e-mail from Tony, who obviously knew what happened to Cody, it turned out the IP address to that computer is from Jordan Graham`s stepfather`s home. It`s his computer.
So in addition to falsifying these e-mails about, Hey, call off the search, it`s all a big accident, he`s dead, don`t worry about it -- in addition to that, Jordan Graham then decides to lead a search expedition of friends and family into Glacier National Park to look for her husband of eight days, Cody.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When Cody Johnson said, Till death do us part, little did he know his death would come just a week later.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A chilling scene as prosecutors say 22-year-old Jordan Linn Graham pushed her new husband, Cody Lee Johnson, off this cliff in the high mountains of Montana.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very steep area, very treacherous, full of rocks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Graham reportedly told a ranger she`d found Cody`s body below the loop (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The park ranger said it was unusual she had found Johnson. Graham replied it was the place he wanted to see before he died.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a complete shock to me. Cody is one of the greatest guys that I`ve had the opportunity to know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Graham took his hand off her arm, but was so angry, she pushed him with both hands in the back and he fell face first off the cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know what was so bizarre about -- she had told a friend she was having second thoughts about the marriage.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Graham is now facing second degree murder charges and possibly life in prison.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I never, ever expected her to be capable of hurting someone at that degree, I mean, especially someone who would worship her. And he would have given her anything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An emotional day in court, where the jury actually saw pictures of the body, how steep this fall was, and the prosecution pursued its case that all of this was planned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Evidence then showed that, based on the timing of the fall from the cliff, the young bride of eight days, Jordan Graham, upon leaving Glacier National Park after pushing Cody to his death, was texting several of her friends about her dance moves, OK? She had just left Cody Graham dead at the bottom of a cliff, face down in a creek, and she was texting and laughing with her friends about her dance moves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cody Johnson`s friends arrived for the third day of his murder trial with their grief visible and still raw. They testified Jordan Graham was not an overwhelmed newlywed who accidentally pushed her husband of eight days off a cliff, but a regretful bride who planned to kill.
Eddie Colon (ph) said saw his friend, Cody Johnson, the day he died and asked him to go golfing. Johnson said he couldn`t because, Jordan said she has a surprise for me. Three witnesses testified the same thing, including Stephen Rutledge (ph), Graham`s own stepfather, who said his new son-in-law also mentioned the surprise to him. The defense downplayed it, and Graham later told the FBI the surprise was just a barbecue with friends.
But later that night, Johnson plunged to his death off this steep cliff at Glacier National Park. Graham`s lawyers call the death an accident, that the couple was fighting on the cliff, Johnson grabbed her, she pushed and he fell to his death.
But prosecutors have a different version. They say Graham wanted out of her marriage and plotted to kill her new husband. Deputy Coroner Richard Sign (ph) testified downstream from Johnson`s body, he found a black cloth. Prosecutors have raised the theory that at the cliff, Graham blindfolded her husband, possibly with the black cloth, before pushing him in the back with two hands face first to his death.
Defense attorneys have already begun fighting how this cloth was handled by police, alleging contamination of evidence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: She then started a nine-day campaign of lies to conceal Cody`s death from family, friends, and certainly from police. She even saw her brother turn against her. Or should I rephrase that? Saw her brother tell the truth that she, Jordan, had asked him to lie to authorities and tell them that Jordan didn`t find Cody`s body, that, in fact, park rangers found it. Certainly, it was then the brother realized something was horribly wrong, that his sister was asking him to lie about finding Cody`s body.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prosecutors say Graham spun a web of lies, lying to one of the groomsmen, Cameron Fredrickson, who said in court what he told CNN this summer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She actually changed her story and stated that she was at the house when Cody left and that she saw him leave in a dark- colored car. So between the two days, two completely different stories. And at that time, that`s when I became suspicious and then actually went to the authorities.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where she continued lying to Detective Cory Clark (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you had many people lie to you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t want to talk about that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But he did talk on the stand, testifying Graham created a fake e-mail account so she could send e-mails that would cover her tracks. Jordan Graham continued the lies to police, friends and family until an FBI interrogation, where she was shown this image. It`s a snapshot off a surveillance camera at the entrance of Glacier National Park. At a higher picture resolution, it`s clear Graham is a passenger in the car sitting next to her husband, putting her at the scene of the crime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: She also was quoted as saying she was going to go back to the park and find Cody herself. She wanted the cops, quote, "out of it." Keep in mind, it`s just eight days after the wedding that Cody is reported missing. Nobody`s sure how long he`s been dead at day eight.
But rewind to the day after the wedding. Not even 24 hours since the "I do`s" were exchanged, Jordan Graham is actually texting her friends she`s second-guessing the marriage. It hasn`t even been 24 hours, and she`s, Oh, I`m not so sure about this whole thing.
he goes on to state, I wish somebody had asked me how I felt about getting married. I believe that`s the part of the wedding where the rabbi or the preacher says, "Speak now or forever hold your peace." That`s when you run for it if you don`t want to get married.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Folks, they were married one week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`d been married eight days.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And now this newlywed wife is charged with the murder of her husband.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One week after this beaming couple`s wedding...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, they just got married.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is now, instead of being a happy newlywed, is in jail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She admits to pushing him off the cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Flying face first off the edge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Montana`s Glacier National Park. The were hiking. The two apparently got into some kind of heated exchange. Prosecutors say she pushed her husband face first off that cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She now faces second degree murder.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A sentence, if convicted, she could face life in prison.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did feel like Jordan was capable of doing this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Apparently, the couple was already arguing about sex. Now, this is the honeymoon, and they`re arguing about sex, reportedly. Not only that, she`s texting another friend the day we believe that Cody was murdered, and she states that that evening, she`s going to talk to Cody privately about getting out of the marriage, a divorce or annulment, and that if the friend doesn`t hear back from Jordan, then something will be horribly wrong.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: This groom`s body found at the foot of a mountain that`s nearly 7,000 feet tall! How did he end up there? Now, according to his wife, he goes out on a drive, partying, joyriding with friends. But it`s not the bride that reports him missing the next day, which is a Monday. It`s his uncle.
Straight out to Jean Casarez, HLN legal correspondent. Jean, what happened?
JEAN CASAREZ, HLN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: There are so many twists and turns. Friends say that Cody Johnson was afraid of heights. Nonetheless, they went to the Glacier National Park, to the Loop, which was a hiking trail that was extremely steep. And what we now know the facts are, according to she herself, they got in an argument. Her husband put his hand on her arm. She walked away, but then she pushed him and he fell face first down the cliff.
GRACE: Out to Jesse Davis (ph), joining me from Kalispell. He is police and courts reporter with "The Daily Interlake." Jesse, thank you for being with us. Jesse, I don`t really buy that version of the story because, first of all, what was she and her husband, her brand-new groom, doing out hiking at nighttime? I mean, I would rate myself as maybe an intermediate to experienced hiker -- before I had the twins, of course. But who launches a hike in the dark, especially with him afraid of heights, Jesse?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that`s a very good question, Nancy. And that`s certainly something that friends and family are asking questions about and we`ve been asking here in the newsroom. But as of yet, details have been pretty slim ever since the FBI took over the lead position in the investigation. I mean, basically nothing has come out other than the affidavit just a few days ago.
GRACE: Well, wait. This is what I know. Jean Casarez, it`s Glacier National Park. There`s over a million acres there. And her story has changed so much. It`s gone from one end of the spectrum to the next. But I know this. I know she`s the one that finds his body out of a million acres in Glacier National Park. What do you know about that, Jean?
CASAREZ: She not only found it, she told police this is what he wanted to visit before he died, and goes on to say that he was with friends, they were driving around, and he fell.
GRACE: OK, let`s take this thing chronologically. Out to you, Matt Zarrell, on the story. Take it from the top.
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): OK, Nancy. What happened was, is that this is just eight days, eight days after they were married. Cody Johnson was reported missing by his uncle on July 8th. Now, when cops went out to speak with the wife, Jordan Graham, she gave this story about how they came home after dinner with friends and that he got this phone call that made him upset, and then soon after, he left. She got a text message from her husband saying that he was going for a drive with a friend from out of town.
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait! Wait! Whoa! Matt Zarrell, you`re not married yet, are you.
ZARRELL: No.
GRACE: Well, you`ve got a lot to look forward to. And I can tell you this much, Matt Zarrell. When you do find that special lucky lady, if she says, Hey, I`m going out for a joyride with friends out of town -- yes, that doesn`t cut it. What friends? Where? Who? What, where, why, when? Who are these friends, Matt Zarrell?
ZARRELL: I think cops are asking themselves the same question, Nancy, because Graham only described the car as a dark-colored car. And she claims that text messages could verify this information, but she and her husband routinely delete their text messages.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The affidavit lays out the most incriminating evidence, an alleged admission from Graham that she had lied. He tells me that he and Cody`s friends all thought it was strange she would never hang out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a relief knowing that there`s going to be justice one way or another.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: According to police, on the day of Johnson`s death, Graham texted her friend, Oh, well, I`m about to talk to him. Her friend replied, I`ll pray for you guys. And in an eerie response, she writes, But dead serious, if you don`t hear from me at all again tonight, something happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Then as the evidence mounted, Jordan Graham begins to change her tune. The new story is this, that she and Cody were arguing and they decided to go for a walk on this trail. Now, recall that Cody was very afraid of heights. In fact, when a group of his friends were at the top of a parking garage, he wouldn`t pose for a picture with them, with the city or whatever in the background. He was that afraid. He did not want to get out and walk around on top of a parking garage.
But Jordan Graham`s story is that they`re having an argument, and they go walking on this trail, highly elevated trail thousands of feet up. She states that she didn`t want a divorce. The two of them were arguing, that she turned to walk away, he grabbed her by the arm, she turned around and pushed him with both hands on his back, and he fell over, that she then, quote, "took off."
Now, right there in that story, it doesn`t make sense. Because he grabbed her, she would be facing him, but she then says she pushed him with both hands on his back and he plummeted over the cliff.
Eyewitnesses state it was one of the most unusual weddings they had ever witnessed. It was a beautiful wedding, a twilight wedding, multiple attendants decked out in pink from head to toe. The bride had even written a special song for the groom, an over-the-top lavish reception.
But if you dig, just scratch beneath the surface, the guests state that Jordan Graham cried, sobbed the whole way down the aisle, that after the ceremony, at the reception, they had one dance together, cut the cake, and were not seen together for the rest of the reception.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jordan contacted me through my Web site, Ourstoryoursong.com (ph), because she was interested in me writing a custom song for her wedding, and she was excited to surprise Cody with a song for their first dance. She was very bubbly through e-mail. And I was excited to talk to her because she just thought this would be a special gift for him.
And when she knew the price of the song, she had to get back to me to say if she could do it or not. She really wanted to. And she worked extra hours to afford the song. And so that definitely told me that this was a special person she was planning this for and that she was excited to do this.
Not only that, she saved up money to fly out to Los Angeles to be part of the recording process. And while she was here, although I did notice she`s very reserved -- she`s very dry in person -- she was excited when she talked about the wedding. When she talked about surprising Cody, she would light up, and that seemed very genuine to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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GRACE: She keeps on saying, Yes, I pushed him in anger. I could have just walked away, but I was so angry. He was talking to me like a child. I, quote, "have never been that mad in my life." Yes, I pushed him, but it was an accident.
The defense argues this whole thing was in self-defense, that the couple was arguing. And while they say that -- the defense says Cody never abused Jordan, that he controlled her movements, although he never abused her. Remember, they`ve only been married eight days. I don`t know how much controlling he had done.
They also insist that it was all in one movement. And I`m not quite sure how that is a defense to murder one, but I think -- and I`m interpreting here -- that they are claiming Cody grabbed her by the arm and she turned and pushed in one quick movement, which is virtually impossible in that scenario, that he grabbed her arm as she was walking away and that she then pushed him on his back. Their argument doesn`t make sense logistically.
The case proceeds to trial. The jury is struck, evidence is presented. It`s time for closing arguments. Just before closing arguments, Jordan Graham announces she will plead guilty to murder two. She describes somewhat what happened that night, claiming that things were heated, that she was reckless, that she didn`t mean to kill him.
Well, the judge sentenced her to 365 months, which is 30 years behind bars, on murder two. Well, as you might suspect, just as she tried to get out of her wedding vows, she`s trying to get out of that guilty plea, too, which she took of her own free accord, under oath. She now wants to renege on the guilty plea and go to trial.
As of tonight, that has been disallowed. But don`t underestimate Jordan Graham.
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