Is John Myers Innocent of Killing Jill Behrman?

John Myers, convicted of the most infamous and mysterious cold case in Bloomington’s history, is still in prison. To some, that’s a good thing. To others, it’s puzzling. Myers was convicted in 2006 for the 2000 disappearance and murder of Jill Behrman based on purely circumstantial evidence — no eyewitnesses, no confession, no fingerprints, no ballistics, no DNA — and two federal courts have agreed that Myers’ attorney, Patrick Baker, turned in such a pathetic performance as to render the defense constitutionally inadequate. They agreed that Myers didn’t get a fair trial. But, due to legislation passed by Congress in 1996, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had to rule that Myers was still not entitled to a new trial.

When Indiana University freshman Jill Behrman disappeared in broad daylight while on a bike ride on May 31, 2000, the Central Indiana community was shocked, saddened, and mystified.

Her remains were found in a wooded area 20 miles north of Bloomington in 2003, the cause of death a .12-gauge shotgun wound to the back of her head. Everyone discussed the case, trying to unravel the mystery, wondering if an itinerant serial killer, a la Ted Bundy, had traversed through this college town, or was some home-grown sociopath lurking among them, posing as an ordinary neighbor.

All the talk generated hundreds of tips over six years, and the development of a handful of potential suspects. One suspect even confessed to police in 2002, implicating two others who had bragged to associates — but the confession was retracted after Behrman’s body was found and the confessor’s details didn’t add up.

Lead detective Rick Lang finally settled on John Myers as worthy of arrest, based on a series of coincidences and suspicions that prosecutor Steve Sonnega would persuade a jury pointed toward Myers’ guilt. Behrman’s bicycle had been found less than a mile from Myer’s residence, and Myers had reportedly behaved strangely the day of her disappearance. Over the years he had made cryptic statements that listeners found suspicious. He had access to a relative’s .12-gauge shotgun that was now missing, and the body was found in an area where Myers had hunted. What clinched it, though, and triggered his indictment, was testimony by an estranged girlfriend who was taken by Detective Lang to a clearing 40 yards from the kill site, which she said “looked familiar” to a place Myers had taken her six years before.

The clearing probably looked familiar to a lot of people. A photo of it had been published in the local paper in 2003. And, on cross-examination, the ex-girlfriend admitted the location “could have been anywhere.”

Taken individually, each piece of circumstantial evidence proved nothing — but strung cleverly together, the prosecutor convinced the jury that if you add up enough zeros, it must amount to something.

Add a floundering attorney to the mix, and you get the perfect formula for a wrongful conviction. As U.S. District Court Judge James Sweeney wrote, “Serious errors all but destroyed the defense … and tainted the entire trial. … “[CJounsel’s errors so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial court cannot be relied on as having produced a just result.” ^[1]

Judge Sweeney granted Myers’ petition for writ of habeas corpus in 2019, setting up a new trial, but here’s where the 1996 Congressional action stepped in to yank that new trial away.

In April 1996 Congress passed the notorious Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) to “deter terrorism, provide justice for victims, provide for an effective death penalty, and for other purposes.”^[2] The first section of the AEDPA targeted a state prisoner’s ability to obtain a federal writ of habeas corpus, commanding that a federal court shall not grant the writ unless the state court’s adjudication was “unreasonable.” The Supreme Court interpreted this to mean that a grant of relief must be so overwhelmingly necessary as to be “beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement. ”^[3]

In layman’s terms, Myers had the burden to prove not just that his trial was unfair, but that every judge who possibly could review his case would agree that the trial had produced an unreliable verdict. It’s a standard that has proven all but impossible to meet, which is why new trials for state prisoners almost never result from federal habeas proceedings, no matter how compelling the facts may be.

The courts, following Congress, have literally come to value “finality” over the ideal of “justice.” As the Seventh Circuit wrote in overturning Judge Sweeney’s opinion, “The proper outcome is to respect the finality of Myers’ conviction in the Indiana Courts.” ^[4]

John Myers came within a few days of release last summer before an email announcing the Seventh Circuit’s decision arrived on his tablet at Indiana State Prison. “It was like a punch to the gut,” he related. Homecoming preparations had to be cancelled. Not well-versed in the law, John added, “All I know is there is no evidence in this case that puts me here. If Patrick Baker had done his job, I wouldn’t be here.”

If you are dead-on, without a reasonable doubt, certain of Myers’ guilt, you may be in danger of being convinced of almost anything. Hundreds of cases much stronger than this one, including convictions with full, detailed confessions, solid eyewitnesses, and incriminating physical evidence, have been overturned in recent years — often thanks to DNA technology — upsetting the public’s absolutely certain notions of guilt. Unfortunately, it’s not possible for DNA evidence to exonerate John Myers. With so little evidence, there’s nothing to re-examine.

The only way any of us will ever know if John Myers killed Jill Behrman is if Myers is afforded a fair trial. Which now, will probably never happen.

^[1] Myers v Superintendent, 410 F.Supp.3d 958, 964 (S.D. Ind. 2019)

^[2] 104 Public Law 132

^[3] Harrington v Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011)

^[4] Myers v Neal, 975 F.3d 611, 613 (7^th Cir. 2020)