Steven Ross Johnson

So we filed a Public Records Act request to review the prosecutor's old file in Shelby County.

He just called up Judge Lafferty, and he said, Judge Lafferty, you're aware of your old Margo Freshwater case?

And he had Terry on speakerphone, and he introduced me to Terry over the phone.

And he said, you know, we're going to go look at your old file from when you were a prosecutor in that case.

The DA's office is making it available to us.

Would you like to go with us?

And there was a pause on the phone, and Judge Lafferty said, well, sure, that'd be great.

Judge Lafferty starts looking through the boxes, but you can tell he's looking for something specifically.

It wasn't just a rummaging sort of look through the boxes.

It was a directed search.

He was going right to something specific.

And it didn't take him long.

He found it, and he pulled out a file folder, and he handed it to me because I was sitting next to him, and he said, Lookie here, and handed me the folder, and I opened it up, and there was a note card stapled to a series of pages of paper, and the note card said, Since this was not a statement made in the state of Tennessee,

and was not made to a law enforcement officer of the state of Tennessee, do not give this to the defense.

And it had the initials of a supervisor in the DA's office at the time.

It was a handwritten statement of Johnny Box, the jailhouse informant in Mississippi.

And it had in there what Glenn Nash had told him about the murder in Memphis.

And Glenn Nash told Johnny Box, Margo was not a shooter and she wasn't there when he shot Hillman Robbins Sr.,

Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I looked over at Terry Lafferty and he said, that could be important.

They were in possession all along of Glenn Nash's statement that corroborated Margo's assertion of innocence.