Episode 5: Search Warrant
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Today marks 20 years since emergency responders found a murdered woman inside of a burning home in Kill Devil Hills. The victim was 33-year-old Denise Johnson. You wouldn't know it looking at this home that something terrible happened here 20 years ago, a horrible crime that is yet to be solved. I remember seeing heavy black smoke up in the air. I just remember a pool of blood and her laying in it. We knew obviously something was way wrong. This wasn't just a routine call. ♪

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There are thousands of houses on the Outer Banks. A lot of them are in the town of Kill Devil Hills. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau ranks it as the most populous township in Dare County. But I really only care about a couple addresses. 2014 Norfolk Street, which was where Denise Johnson's house is. And right next to it, a brown wooden house, 2012 Norfolk Street.

Dare County property records show the registered owners of 2012 Norfolk Street bought the house in 1993. The buyers? Brother and sister Andrew and Donna Smithson. My brother and I owned the home at 2012 Norfolk Street. We've owned it for several years now. I was living in the upstairs and rented the downstairs out.

I was there spending time with my sister. We purchased the house initially together and she lived upstairs and I was a teacher and so I had, you know, some summertime off and I loved the beach. So I would go and spend a little time at the beach there at her house, our house. Let me qualify, that's our house.

In 1997, Donna lived there full-time. Andrew, her brother, vacationed at their joint investment when he could. In July 1997, the siblings were getting to know the young woman who lived next door, a woman named Denise. What do you remember about Denise? You know, kind of her...

Her comings and goings, but also just like who she was as a person. She was always smiling. She rarely seemed, or at least I never saw her look troubled or worried. She was always smiling and always upbeat and positive. Now, I never went in the house. I never, you know, we weren't that close, but we chatted over the fence, you know, hello, Denise, how are you? I'm doing well. Hope you're okay.

The Smithsons' friendship with their blonde-haired neighbor, Denise, was like most, cordial and friendly. They'd keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary, and she'd do the same for them. On the night of July 12, 1997, the siblings said they came home after a night out with friends. I want to say like 10.30, quarter of 11. And they noticed something different at Denise's house.

Her truck was there, but there were no lights on, which was a little unusual because if her truck was there and lights were on, you know, you just knew she was there. Five hours later, they awoke to an entirely different neighborhood. I was awakened, I want to think it was around, I don't know, between three and four o'clock because I heard fire trucks was that my downstairs was on fire. So I went outside and when I

I saw that it was Denise's house that was on fire. And then the next thing I saw, they were bringing Denise's body out. It was evident what had happened. She was nude and her throat had been flashed.

I just was in absolute disbelief of what was going on and that such a horrible thing could be happening right next door. We were just watching all the fire trucks were there. And I said, "Where is Denise?"

And Donna said, look, and she pointed down, and just a few steps away from the front door was Denise's body. And it was just terrible. I was upstairs, so I could just look down, and they had Denise's body in the driveway. And so they covered her up, and we had requested, for some time they didn't cover her up, and we had requested that she be covered up.

I remember Donna was very upset. She said, why don't they cover her up? Why are they just leaving her exposed like that? And that bothered her. I remember the bloodstains from where her body was dragged out. And the fire itself, just

To the best of my recollection, the fire was out, but it was still smoking and firemen were coming and going and police were everywhere. And so it was very unpleasant. And I recall saying one thing. I recall running down the stairs and saying to one of the firemen, she has a dog.

Amidst all of this chaos unfolding on their street, Andrew thought about K. Ridge. His question about the golden retriever he always saw around next door was quickly answered.

One of the firemen went in and K. Ridge was inside. He was absolutely traumatized because they were dragging him. He wasn't walking. His feet and legs were just locked in place. They were having to drag him. And what I recall is when they brought him out past Denise's body,

He just urinated all over himself. That dog was obviously so traumatized and I remember thinking, if this dog could talk,

From where they were standing in their vantage point on their second floor balcony, the Smithson siblings sat in their pajamas, dumbfounded, unable to believe the scene unfolding beneath them. Investigators were crawling over the crime scene, and they didn't take long to get to the shell-shocked neighbors staring on from a distance. Did law enforcement come over to you guys' house and talk to you on the day of the murder? What was the interaction with law enforcement like from the morning of the murder on out?

We were questioned by the local police. I believe the FBI as well. We were questioned by them also. I'm not for sure about the FBI. We were questioned. It was a Sunday morning that this occurred. So the police were in and out all day. They were in and out of my house as well.

Chief Davis came by and spoke to us and wanted to know, you know, what we saw, the comings and goings of the previous day, and wanted to know, you know, what had we been doing. They spent a great deal of time on the scene. You know, after the firemen left, the police were there, and they did their own investigations. I mean, looking, whatever you do at a crime scene, I don't know.

One of the things that I can recall very vividly was a policeman stayed in a car across the street for, I want to say, two or three days after the murder, maybe even four or five days. I don't recall. But I do know that it was no matter what time of day you could look out and there was a police car sitting across the street from the house, from Denise's house.

And there was a policeman in there. And one time, and I can't tell you why I remember this, but I remember saying they wrote down, because I was upstairs and you could look down, sort of. And it was like he was taking notes of the comings and goings of every car.

Police were watching Denise's house, but they were also watching the Smithson house. The Siblings Brown house is a typical two-story beach box home, which means it's built up on stilts with a driveway that allows room for cars to pull in underneath. If you want to see it for yourself, I'll take you on a tour in our full video walkthrough of Norfolk Street that's on the Counter Clock Podcast website. Go to our homepage, counterclockpodcast.com, and watch the video.

I'll show you how the street looks now and the Johnson and Smithson homes that are still standing. Donna and Andrew lived in the upstairs portion of their house next to Denise's, and they had a male tenant downstairs who lived in a finished off apartment. At that time, there was a gentleman and a lady I had worked with had referred him because she was almost like another child to him, to her rather.

So on her recommendation, I rented my downstairs to him.

For probably a couple of weeks, the police would stand outside between, on the street side between my house and Denise's, which is opposite was very close together, would stand out there and they were trying to document, you know, when there was activity at my house, any things of that nature. He was already there and he was someone I just saw in passing. And, you know, honestly, I cannot even remember his name.

Eric, the Smithson's downstairs tenant. This is a name we've heard before.

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We've heard the name Eric before, from Denise's roommate, Karen Bittinger. Did you ever research the next door neighbor? The guy that lives, like if you're looking at her front house, that's where you need to start looking.

The Smithsons believe Denise and the man developed an intimate relationship shortly after he moved in, one that caused controversy. A couple of weeks before Denise was murdered, she, the ex-girlfriend, had called me late one evening and asked me, was Eric home? And I said, no.

I could hear him downstairs and I knew that Denise was listening and that I could hear the conversation. So I knew that Denise was downstairs.

Later that night, probably early in the morning, I was awakened when the girlfriend had driven down from Virginia Beach and caught Eric and Denise together. That was, I want to say, two to four weeks before she was killed. I just heard them that one evening down there talking. I just, of course, when the girlfriend came in, I...

And the police weren't called or anything? It was just a domestic issue?

Karen Bittinger also remembers that encounter between Denise and the man next door and his ex-girlfriend. She's caught Denise over at his house, a neighbor's house, on a few occasions. When was the last time there was like a bad episode of that? It was just a few days before. And she was just...

I think she caught them. I remember being at the house one night and Denise came from his house. She goes, oh man, his girlfriend walked in and she said she didn't have all of her clothes on and her shirt was off and the girlfriend just saw it.

It's important to note here that Donna Smithson and Karen Bittinger didn't know each other at the time. They've never talked about the case together and don't know each other now. Yet, they both remember clearly what they heard and saw between Denise Johnson and the man they knew as Eric. Andrew Smithson doesn't remember much about that man, though. What was that gentleman like? How did he live?

I remembered nothing remarkable whatsoever. He went to work and he came home. That was all I knew at one point. He had a little boy and his little boy had a cat named Billy. And that was the extent of it. I mean, I introduced myself, I'm pretty sure.

But beyond that, there was no interaction, no conversation. I knew that he had a girlfriend and that they had split up. Eric's ex-girlfriend was a person Donna Smithson remembers well, though. Her sporadic appearances at the downstairs apartment were a frequent event. I do recall the girl telling me at some point in time that she did not like Dinesh. She could not stand her. She did not like her at all. What was she like as a person?

She, personally, I thought she was kind of psychotic. Probably she was psychotic. Psycho. Not the most endearing term, but one Karen Biddinger also used to describe the ex-girlfriend of the man they knew as Eric. I mean, she was a psycho, psycho, psycho. Donna Smithson says she remembers getting a very strange phone call. It was from Eric's ex-girlfriend on the morning of Denise's murder. She called that morning. And what did she ask?

She questioned me and asked me, did Denise really get murdered? That Eric downstairs, and I do believe his name was Eric, that he had asked her, had she murdered Denise? Her question was,

Wow, that's pretty crazy. Do you think they were just like scared because they had recently had an issue with her and then suddenly she's dead?

As time passed, the Smithsons' suspicions continued to grow about the man living beneath them. Donna, in particular, made sure to tell police about that strange phone call she got on the morning Denise was killed. I remember specifically telling Ray Davis, I mean, I told them all what had transpired, the phone calls, any communication with the girlfriend, the ex-girlfriend, and about what had happened, and I had discussed that with them.

Donna says investigators from the police department thanked her for the information and that was pretty much it. Nothing else happened. Until one night, not long after the murder. I've learned three languages in my life. English, Spanish, and French. And I can tell you the most difficult part for me at times was when I was doing the classroom work. And even though I was having conversations with people in those languages, it wasn't the same as being immersed in that language.

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Six hand-picked bottles for just $44.95. That's T-R-Y-F-I-R-S-T-L-E-A-F dot com slash counterclock. Tryfirstleaf.com slash counterclock. Shortly after the murder, the cops came back to Norfolk Street. One evening, I got home. I'm pretty sure it was dark. I want to think it was maybe around 9 or 10 o'clock. I went home and the police were everywhere.

Investigators had returned, not to Denise's house, but instead were inside the Smithson home. Police were executing a search warrant on the apartment downstairs. He was there, and I drove in, and I'm like...

I mean, the whole process was there. I'm suspicious of the person downstairs. I'm living upstairs. I like everything like Fort Knox, and then I turn in my driveway, and there it is. They were in there, and they told me that they were going through his bedding and his knives. They were going through and searching the whole apartment. They had gone through the backyard with the kind of lighting. I don't know what it's called.

Luminal.

They were looking all over everything there. And we just remained upstairs. And I remember Donna being upset, not terribly, but she was not happy with the fact that the fella downstairs must be a person of interest. And it found her interesting.

I think it frightened her, quite frankly. What about yourself? I mean, you were living up there as well, not full time, but what was going through your mind? I was not particularly afraid. I don't remember being uneasy other than...

You know, how often does one have your next door neighbor murdered and the house set afire? It was not a random crime. Denise clearly was not a person who had money, jewels or, you know, something like that. Fancy car that someone would want to rob.

What kind of sense did you get from law enforcement after the murder that they were questioning the person that lived beneath you guys? Not at all right at first. Not at all. Because I just felt like it was routine. Sure. But then what about after that? When did you start to realize they were maybe looking at the gentleman that lived beneath you all? They came, let's see, I want to say Ray Davis came to the door right at 11 o'clock.

And at the same time, it was almost all this occurred at the same time, he came to our door and a lot of, or a couple other police cars had converged on the place downstairs, the apartment downstairs.

And he told us what was going on. He said, we are investigating the house or the apartment downstairs. And he said, we're just going over it very carefully to see if we can find anything of interest. And so I knew right then, of course, that he might have been a person of interest. For the rest of the summer, the Smithsons lived upstairs and the man they knew as Eric remained downstairs. They felt uneasy.

The siblings kept their doors locked and watched that man closely. Earlier that summer, Andrew Smithson says he broke his leg walking down a set of stairs, and so he spent many hours on his front porch swing taking notes and writing down their tenants' actions after the murder.

Why did you think it was important to make notes of that person? - I'm a history teacher, I was a history teacher before I retired. And being a history major, note taking was the skill that got you through. And of course it was something that I tried to teach students how to do was take notes. And I couldn't do or go anywhere. Normally I'm a beach person, I wanna be on the beach.

And instead of being on the beach, I was confined. Upstairs, there was a swing on the porch.

And so I could only spend a certain amount of time on the swing and I could observe, you know, the comings and goings. And out of my sheer boredom, I wrote my neighbor back here in Durham and I just simply gave her a blow by blow account of everything that was going on.

Like most people with suspicions building, Donna Smithson steered clear of Eric and his ex-girlfriend after the murder. She never could shake her suspicions that police needed to question the ex-girlfriend of her downstairs tenant more. My opinion of her, I've always kind of been...

I've always wondered. What was their reasoning for really not suspecting them? I was told that they brought, they took both of them in and that they brought her in. Apparently they had questioned him to some length and they had taken, I would assume they had taken him into the station. I don't know. I would assume so.

But they brought her down from Virginia Beach, and they questioned her, and they did hair samples. And then they just let him go? Yeah, but nothing was ever found.

Who investigators talked to and questioned or interrogated and what kinds of evidence they took from those people is something detectives with Kill Devil Hills Police are not releasing. The department has never developed a prime suspect or named anyone as an official person of interest, even after 22 years. Donna and Andrew Smithson say within a matter of days, the troubled pair downstairs disappeared.

How quickly after the murder did the tenant downstairs leave or not be in the area anymore? It was not terribly long, and I cannot remember. I just don't remember. But he didn't stay down there very long at all. How much longer did that man rent from you guys after the murder? Well, it wasn't very long. He had packed all of her belongings up, and he had them in two boxes. And

and they were kind of sitting underneath the edge of the house, the edging downstairs. So I was working in my yard, and I got tired of seeing them there, so I was going to pick them up and put them in the shed. Well, when I picked them up,

One of the boxes opened. I mean, it came unglued and all of her belongings fell out of this particular box. Well, there were, you know, nail polish and things of that nature in there. Curling irons, things like that. There was a knife that was wrapped up. I called the police.

I had them in the shed. They came over that evening. Two policemen came over, and they picked up both of the boxes. And I told them, I said, I don't want him to know that I have done any of this. I'm not for sure how long they kept them, but they kept them. They ended up returning them, and Jim Walford said that there was really no evidence to be.

Was he still living there when those boxes were there, or had he already left? Okay. Okay.

I never heard anything else from him.

Everything that the Smithsons had told me in their interviews really confirmed for me a lot of what Denise's roommate also told me. How did no viable leads come from the man next door and his ex-girlfriend? Who were they? Where were they during the murder?

I feel certain a piece of the puzzle lies with these two people. Tracking them down was my next move, but I needed to find out their names. And if the man known as Eric had a criminal history in the state of North Carolina, he'd have a paper trail. The Smiths and siblings wish they could be more helpful and remember his name, but they don't have any documents of leasing to him.

If there were documents that far back, the duo says they're long gone. Donna and Andrew, like so many others close to this case, want answers for Denise and the Johnson family. They saw the horror of how she was killed.

When the police were ready to release her body, I remember the hearse driving up there and I remember whoever it was that was driving the hearse or the vehicle that picked up her body saying to the policeman, "How many have we got here?" And he said, "Just one." And of course they held up a sheet while they put her body on the gurney and covered her up and put her in the vehicle.

The brother and sister also attended Denise's funeral with hundreds of other people. A friend of Denise's had K. Ridge groomed and for

For some reason, I don't know why, but the conversation was that we ought to take that dog. And while we didn't take him in the church for the funeral service, I remember hanging on to him and talking to him and hanging out with him outside the church. I didn't go in the church for the service because someone needed to hold on to K Ridge. And so a couple of us did.

Then we went to the graveside service and K Ridge was right there. And for some reason, and I may be wrong, it seemed to me like K Ridge went up to the casket at the graveside and just sort of laid down, almost as if he knew what was going on. He was very calm. It almost appeared to me that he knew Denise was there.

Finding out who murdered their neighbor is something the Smithsons say needs to happen. Every day, month, and year it goes unsolved, they worry that the killer will never be caught. And that's the Johnsons' family's worst fear. Maybe it just isn't meant to get solved, you know? Maybe it's just one of those things that are left. I think it is meant to be solved. I think that there is a solution to it. And whether we find it or not, but...

I know that there is, and I know that it's going to take someone just looking at it again. Not finding an answer is too difficult when they know someone out there knows the truth. My message to them would be, what a selfish, selfish, lying person. They will never, ever be happy in their life, wherever they go. That's my message. Next time on CounterClock.

Every key law enforcement officer who's worked the Denise Johnson homicide over the past two decades goes on record. I think the town had had two homicides prior to me getting here, if I can remember correctly, but it was a rare occurrence anyway.

I want to take a minute here and thank you all for the overwhelming support for this show. The team is working extra hard to bring you two episodes next week for Valentine's Day instead of just one as our way to say thank you for all of the support and interest in Denise's case.

I'd love if you subscribed or followed CounterClock on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Also, please rate and review the show. If you're enjoying this series, start following us on social media to get behind-the-scenes info and video about the investigation. Find us on Twitter at @CounterClockPod and on Instagram, look for the handle, CounterClockPodcast. If you want to get a full tour of Norfolk Street and see Denise's house in Kill Devil Hills, be sure to go to our website. You can watch the video there.

CounterClock is an AudioChuck original podcast. Ashley Flowers is the executive producer. And all reporting and hosting is done by me, Delia D'Ambra. Voters know that bad weather, like storms, lightning, and wind, can turn a fun day on the water into a challenge.

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