Case Summary
Clayton Johnson was born in Shelburne, a small town of 3,000 located in Nova Scotia. He lived an ordinary life and was viewed by many as “a thoughtful and decent family man.”1 Clayton’s wife, Janice Johnson, was a stay-at-home mom and occasionally babysat for her neighbours. Friends would describe the couple’s marriage as “warm and close.”2
On the morning of February 20, 1989, Janice was scheduled to babysit for her neighbours, the Malloys. At Janice’s request, Clayton called Robert Malloy and asked him to drop his child off by 8:00 a.m.3 At 7:40 a.m., Clayton and Janice’s two daughters were seen boarding the school bus by the next door neighbour, Clare Thompson, who then phoned Janice for a quick chat.4 While on the phone, Clare overheard Janice saying goodbye to Clayton, which was followed by a kissing sound and Janice’s laughter.5 Clayton then left home for work and drove to a high school 27 km away where he taught as an industrial arts teacher.6 Shortly after Janice and Clare ended their phone conversation at around 7:50 a.m., Robert Malloy arrived at the Johnson home to find Janice lying on her back at the bottom of the basement stairs.7 She was unconscious and severely injured, struggling for breath.8 Robert immediately called an ambulance to transport Janice to the hospital. Within the next few hours, she was pronounced dead.9
The Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Roland Perry, examined Janice’s injuries and concluded that they were consistent with an accidental fall. The police, in agreement with Dr. Perry, closed the investigation.10
An RCMP officer, Brian Oldford, was not convinced that the death was accidental, partly because of rumours pointing to Clayton as the potential suspect for his wife’s death.11 The gossip was fueled by the fact that Clayton started dating another woman three months after Janice’s death – the insinuation being that Clayton killed his wife to be with his new woman.12 Upon conducting his own investigation more than a year after Janice’s death, Oldford found another motive for Clayton: after Janice died, Clayton had collected $125,000 on her life insurance.13
Police went on to interview two women, Mary Davis and Mary Hartley, who had helped clean up Janice’s blood on the day of her death in order to spare her family from returning home to this disturbing sight.14 Davis had initially stated that she only saw blood around where Janice had been lying at the bottom of the basement stairs, which would be consistent with an accidental fall. Hartley, who had not been previously interviewed, told police that she recalled seeing extensive blood spatter.15
Soon after, Hartley returned to tell the officers that immediately before they took her statement, she had pulled an autopsy photo partway out of the file. Having seen the gruesome head wound, Hartley questioned her belief that Janice fell down the stairs: “it couldn’t have happened,” she thought, “as there was nothing sharp on the stairs . . . to cause what she saw.”16 Casting her mind back, she suddenly recalled seeing blood spatters in other parts of the basement: “there was so much blood around now that she [thought] of it.”17
The day after Hartley’s interview, Davis gave a second statement. This time, she too recalled seeing “blood in a number of areas several feet from Janice’s prone body.”18 If accurate, this pair of statements would support Oldford’s theory that Janice had been bludgeoned to death.19
Two RCMP forensic bloodstain pattern analysts sent Oldford reports in which they expressed reservations as to the statements’ reliability and observed that there were other explanations for the bloodstains (notably, paramedics had spattered blood in their resuscitation efforts and the family dog had tracked blood around the basement).20 More importantly, even with a specialized device, the RCMP analyst who followed up on these claims could not find traces of blood “consistent with blows” in the areas of the basement that Davis and Hartley described.21
Nonetheless, Oldford sought opinions from two outside pathologists, who, based on the alleged blood spatter “many feet from where the body was found,” agreed that Janice had been beaten to death with a blunt instrument.22 Dr. Perry, who performed the original autopsy, subsequently changed his conclusions to match the expert opinion of the two pathologists.23 Perry and the two outside experts were not provided with the RCMP blood spatter experts’ opinions.24 It appears that the RCMP memorandum in which their forensic analysts cast doubt on the reliability of the statements and cautioned against viewing bloodstains at the scene as proof of murder was never disclosed to the defence.25
Clayton was charged with first degree murder in April 1992. At trial, the jury heard evidence that given the timeline, Clayton would have had no more than five minutes in which to assault his wife, clean up and stage the crime scene to look like an accident, and leave the house.26
On May 4, 1993, nearly four years after Janice’s death, the jury – eleven of whom were acquainted with Clayton – found him guilty of first degree murder. Clayton was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole eligibility for 25 years.27
In March 1994, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed Clayton’s appeal. It held that the trial judge had not erred in allowing the Crown to declare one of his daughters who testified at trial to be a hostile witness (meaning that the Crown could cross-examine her).28 It also rejected Clayton’s counsel’s argument that the trial judge had improperly instructed the jury on the “planning and deliberation” requirement for first degree murder.29 Finally, the Court held that “there was sufficient evidence upon which this jury . . . could convict the appellant. In our view there was evidence that the appellant had the exclusive opportunity to commit the offence and that it [w]as planned and deliberate.”30
Clayton applied to the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal this decision, but the Court dismissed his request in February 1995.31
In March 1998, AIDWYC (now Innocence Canada) filed an application to the Minister of Justice requesting a ministerial review of Clayton’s conviction based on the overwhelming evidence against any foul play involved in Janice’s death.32 AIDWYC’s lawyers enlisted Dr. Linda Norton – a forensic pathologist based in Dallas, Texas – to review the forensic evidence. She concluded that Janice’s injuries were consistent with her having fallen backward on the basement stairs after losing balance.33 Professor Herbert MacDonell, director of the Laboratory of Forensic Science in Corning, New York, agreed with Dr. Norton’s findings after having re-enacted Janice’s accidental backward fall to confirm that her death could not have been a homicide.34
The Minister of Justice referred Clayton’s case back to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal for rehearing in light of the fresh evidence of his innocence.35 On September 25, 1998, Clayton was released on bail pending appeal.36 Freeman J.A. stated, for the Court, that “[t]he new expert reports . . . would be cogent evidence in support of AIDWYC’s contention that Mr. Johnson is ‘factually innocent’, as he has maintained from the outset.”37 It would therefore “be unrealistic to deny, that at the end of the day, there is at least a reasonable possibility that he has been wrongly convicted.”38 Clayton had spent five years in prison.39
Johnson’s conviction was overturned by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal on February 18, 2002 in an unreported decision. Almost exactly 13 years after Janice’s death, the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction and ordered a new trial. The Crown, in the face of overwhelming evidence against any indication that Janice had been murdered, announced that it would not proceed with another trial. At the Crown’s request, Clayton was acquitted.40
In June 2004, the Nova Scotia government awarded Clayton $2.5 million in compensation.41
After his exoneration, Clayton ran a successful contracting business until his retirement. Clayton passed away on September 20, 2017 in Roseway Hospital in Shelburne.42