JUDY Johnson never beheld her appearance on the Maury Povich show — her life was tragically extinguished before the episode aired.Judy, alongside her daughter Melinda, graced the notorious American talk show, delving into their connection to the “Hicks Baby” saga — an era in the 1960s when unsuspecting couples adopted children from the clandestine black market.
Melinda was one of these unfortunate infants.
During that period, meeting the legal requisites for adoption proved challenging. Judy and her spouse explored official channels for adoption but faced potential rejection due to divorce or non-homeownership.In the early 1960s, the couple pursued adoption through an intermediary, a liaison between a colleague and a clinic in McCaysville, Georgia.The directives were uncomplicated: Upon receiving a call, they had 12 hours to reach Georgia, enter through the front door, sign the birth certificate, and exit through the rear door promptly.
Furthermore, they were cautioned to depart the town expeditiously.
In February 1963, Judy received that crucial call. Baby Melinda came at the cost of $US1000, a sum Thomas Jugarthy Hicks asserted covered the biological mother’s expenses.
It took three decades for Melinda and Judy to fathom that they were unwitting pawns in Dr. Hicks's nefarious black-market scheme. He illicitly sold newborns to couples across six American states from 1951 to 1964.
Evidence suggests Dr. Hicks informed birth parents of their child's demise, while surreptitiously trading them to desperate couples.This revelation led Judy and Melinda to Maury's show in April 1998.Posthumously, Melinda shared, “I contacted them, and they paid a small tribute to her at the end.”
THE NIGHT JUDY WAS SLAIN
On June 7, 1998, six-year-old Brooke Sutton appeared at a neighbor's doorstep, bloodied, dazed, and bruised. She had spent the night at her grandmother Judy's residence.“She was my babysitter, so I went there after school and stayed the night frequently,” Brooke later recounted. “We watched her favorite show and then retired to bed.”
However, an intruder infiltrated Judy’s home in Barberton, Ohio, brutally assaulting and strangling her as she slept on the couch.Judy's nose, jaw, collarbone, and skull sustained fractures, and the severity of the beating made her injuries resemble stab wounds.
Brooke, in the adjacent bedroom, witnessed the assault and sought refuge under the bed covers.“I got out of bed, went to the kitchen, and saw a man there, but it frightened me, so I ran back to the bedroom,” she later informed NBC News.
The assailant discovered Brooke, subjecting the six-year-old to a brutal assault involving rape, strangulation, slicing, and leaving her for dead.The morning after the ordeal, Brooke regained consciousness and sought assistance.
“I'm sorry to tell you this, but my grandma died, and I need somebody to get my mum for me,” the six-year-old conveyed in a voicemail to a family friend.
“Now please, would you get a hold of me as soon as you can? Bye.”
Injured and battered, she reached the next-door neighbor's house, where she waited for 45 minutes on the front porch while Tonia Brasiel, the neighbor, prepared breakfast for her children.Brooke later informed the police that the assailant resembled her Uncle Clarence.
Upon reaching Melinda’s residence, the police conveyed the devastating news of her mother's brutal demise and identified her husband as the primary suspect.“That pain was unbearable, and I just screamed; you can’t wrap your head around that,” Melinda recalled.
“They had Clarence in handcuffs in the back of a patrol car. At that point, they took him, and he never came back home.”Based on Brooke’s identification, Clarence was convicted of murder, attempted aggravated murder, two counts of rape by force or threat of force, and felonious assault.
“I watched the jury walk in,” Melinda recounted to the Criminal podcast.
“I watched the jury look at Clarence, and I knew it wasn’t good. A lot of the men gave him a look like, ‘you’re disgusting.’ Just hateful. A couple of the women jurors were crying.”
He received two life sentences.
However, Melinda remained skeptical. Clarence possessed a solid alibi, there was no physical evidence, and she couldn't fathom that, after almost two decades of marriage, he could commit such a heinous act.At the time, both Judy and Melinda received ominous calls demanding retribution after exposing the Hicks Baby controversy, leaving Melinda apprehensive that she might be the next target.
“That was my first thought when they told me she had been murdered. That it had something to do with the Hicks babies.
“I was so afraid that they were coming to get me and my sons. They have my husband in jail, and I’m left like a sitting duck. It was a nightmare; you can’t even imagine unless you experience it.”
With her family torn apart, Melinda found herself isolated. Her mother dead, sister and niece refusing to communicate, and her husband incarcerated for her mother’s murder.“We were completely estranged for three years after my mum’s murder,” Melinda revealed.
“My whole entire family turned their back on me. They believed I was sticking up for Clarence, covering for him, lying for him. They weren’t having anything to do with me.
“For a minute, I may have flopped into a ball, but I had two sons. That was my main objective, to take care of my children. I don’t think I processed it for a long time; I went into survival mode.”
SHE WOULD HAVE TO DO IT HERSELF
Three days post-Judy’s murder, Melinda initiated her own list of suspects, totaling twelve.
Realizing the only way to exonerate Clarence was to locate a DNA sample matching the crime scene, she embarked on a six-year journey to obtain DNA from her list of twelve suspects. Flirting with men at strip clubs, surreptitiously extracting hair strands directly from their heads, Melinda preserved everyone's DNA—either from a discarded beer bottle, cigarette butt, or hair root. Uncertain of how to get the specimens tested or how long it would take, her freezer became a repository of DNA samples.
As Clarence's legal options dwindled, Melinda sought assistance. Private investigator Martin Yant persuaded her to reconcile with her sister.
When she answered the door, her sister initially turned away but eventually returned.
“We had a little reunion; my niece was now 10 years old. We were a family again. My sister was listening to me, hearing things about the case that I wasn’t privy to. Together we were trying to figure this out.”
During this period, Brooke began expressing doubts about her identification.
“She said, ‘I don’t think that his eyes [the killer] were blue’,” Melinda recounted.
Clarence had blue eyes.
“She [Brooke] said it was dark, and she’d just seen the back of his head along with one time when he [the killer] went to punch her. That must have been right before she went unconscious. She saw a face in the dark.”
The state's key witness recanted her story, attributing it to prosecutorial influence. The primary evidence against Clarence Elkins began to crumble.
It was May 2002.
Clarence’s lawyers filed a motion for a new trial, but the prosecution argued that Melinda had manipulated her family and coerced them to change their stance.Astoundingly, the court concurred, stating the case didn't hinge on DNA but on eyewitness testimony.Melinda was incensed. Clarence had spent six years in prison by this point.One morning, while on her way to work, Melinda picked up the Akron Beacon Journal, an Ohio newspaper.
There, on the front page, was the neighbor whom Brooke had sought refuge with all those years ago — Tonia Brasiel.
The story raised red flags for Melinda.
The neighbor, alongside her partner Earl Gene Mann, faced charges of child rape involving their own children.THE DNA WAS A PERFECT MATCH
The DNA was compared to the crime scene DNA, and it was an exact match.
Melinda collaborated with the Ohio Innocence Project, and after a public campaign, on December 15, 2005, armed with new evidence and DNA testing, the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office dropped the charges against Clarence, calling for his immediate release from prison. Additionally, charges against Earl Mann were imminent.
“It was like I could breathe again,” Melinda expressed.
“I was so happy for Clarence and my sons. This was so hard on them, to have lost their grandmother and their dad.”
Melinda, along with her family, including her reconciled sister and niece, picked up Clarence that day.Earl Mann was ultimately convicted in 2008. Melinda took seven and a half years to clear her husband’s name.
Earl Mann pleaded guilty to Judy Johnson's murder and the rape, assault, and attempted murder of Melinda’s niece, Brooke. He accepted a plea deal and received a 55-year prison sentence, with parole eligibility at 92.
“I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t tried to find out who did this to my mum,” Melinda stated.“I wanted the person who did this to pay for what they did.
“I felt for a long time that she [Judy] wasn’t at peace. There’s not a minute that goes by that I don’t think of my mother; there’s hardly a day that goes by when I think of Earl Mann.
“I don’t have to anymore.”
Regrettably, Melinda and Clarence divorced after his exoneration in 2005. They remain friends, but Melinda acknowledged that “it’s a lot to come back from.”
She has resumed her quest for her biological mother through ancestry.com, utilizing genealogists and DNA to trace her family tree. She has already identified her biological first cousin.
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