Part five in a serialization of interviews published on the 26th anniversary of the brutal murder of Donna Johnson:
Herman Coffey volunteered to look for his neighbor Donna Johnson after he heard she was missing. He ultimately found her body at about 7:20 p.m.
“I am very aware of the anniversary of Donna’s death. It is like yesterday to me.
“I still get mad. Whoever did it came right between me and (then sheriff, now deceased) Frank Monaghan. It was raining so hard you couldn’t see one car length.
Donna Ogletree, age 1
Johnson case: The man who found Donna's body
“I got off work and was eating. My brother called and told me Donna was missing. He and I and one of my boys went to help search. There was a field back in there and we did a grid search. I didn’t even know the road was back there. I walked down it and there she was.
“It was a corn field and there were some fertilizer sacks laying around. At first, I thought she was one of those sacks but then the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“I walked up on her. I knew she was dead. She was not breathing. She was waxy looking. Her head was tilted back in the rut. She had just been thrown out. The tracks were fresh. After all that rain, her clothes were dry. Whoever did that was a cruel individual. It unnerved me. She was our neighbor.
“They were in a small vehicle because it turned around in the road. It looked like they turned around and just dumped her. It had to be after the rain or just as the rain was ending.
“I hollered and somebody up on the bridge heard me. Then it was like the Keystone Cops.
They should have roped it off and waited until the GBI got there.
“A man in a pickup who said he was a state trooper ramrodded himself in there. God only knows who else tromped down in there. They came up in there like a herd of elephants.
"I knew they were destroying evidence. They didn’t even think about the evidence. I thought differently.
“Frank Monaghan stayed up on the road wringing his hands. He didn’t even go down there.”
“About a month later, (the late deputy) Jerry Torbert and a GBI agent came and talked to me about it. But then it went 20 years before Joe Buice came to talk to me about it. Joe has done as much to solve this as anybody.
“A lot of people fault the GBI but I don’t. They had nothing to work with. Donna was at the hospital and pronounced dead before the GBI was even called.
“I do not want this to be forgotten. It is beyond me how they can solve crimes that happened 100 years ago but they can’t solve this one. It eats at me and my brother. We don’t take anything for granted any more.”
If you have information on the Johnson case, call the Lamar County sheriff's office at 770.358.5159, the Milledgeville office of the GBI at 1.478.445.4173 or The Herald-Gazette at 770.358.NEWS. All tips submitted to the newspaper will be kept confidential and routed to the proper authorities.
Over the next two weeks we will post the stories of those close to the case in their own words. All 17 of those stories were originally published in the 6.13.2010 print/e-edition.
“It was a corn field and there were some fertilizer sacks laying around. At first, I thought she was one of those sacks but then the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“I walked up on her. I knew she was dead. She was not breathing. She was waxy looking. Her head was tilted back in the rut. She had just been thrown out. The tracks were fresh. After all that rain, her clothes were dry. Whoever did that was a cruel individual. It unnerved me. She was our neighbor.
“They were in a small vehicle because it turned around in the road. It looked like they turned around and just dumped her. It had to be after the rain or just as the rain was ending.
“I hollered and somebody up on the bridge heard me. Then it was like the Keystone Cops.
They should have roped it off and waited until the GBI got there.
“A man in a pickup who said he was a state trooper ramrodded himself in there. God only knows who else tromped down in there. They came up in there like a herd of elephants.
"I knew they were destroying evidence. They didn’t even think about the evidence. I thought differently.
“Frank Monaghan stayed up on the road wringing his hands. He didn’t even go down there.”
“About a month later, (the late deputy) Jerry Torbert and a GBI agent came and talked to me about it. But then it went 20 years before Joe Buice came to talk to me about it. Joe has done as much to solve this as anybody.
“A lot of people fault the GBI but I don’t. They had nothing to work with. Donna was at the hospital and pronounced dead before the GBI was even called.
“I do not want this to be forgotten. It is beyond me how they can solve crimes that happened 100 years ago but they can’t solve this one. It eats at me and my brother. We don’t take anything for granted any more.”
If you have information on the Johnson case, call the Lamar County sheriff's office at 770.358.5159, the Milledgeville office of the GBI at 1.478.445.4173 or The Herald-Gazette at 770.358.NEWS. All tips submitted to the newspaper will be kept confidential and routed to the proper authorities.
Over the next two weeks we will post the stories of those close to the case in their own words. All 17 of those stories were originally published in the 6.13.2010 print/e-edition.
did anyone investigate the tracks??
''Whoever did it came right between me and (then sheriff, now deceased) Frank Monaghan''
dont' understand this.
“Frank Monaghan stayed up on the road wringing his hands. He didn’t even go down there.”
hmm, wonder why
If he's not dead or in prision, he's a danger to your wife, your mother, your sister, your children- or to you.
This family deserves justice and it should have happened long, long ago. We need to leave no stone unturned until that vermin scum is found and killed- preferrably the same way he (or she or they) killed her.
The fact is no woman is safe. This area of America is Southern Baptist. They base their belief on The King James Bible.
King James was the third English translated version. King James also believed in witch craft as he considered a branch of theology.
James is known to have personally supervised the torture of women accused of being witches. He liked it or he wouldn't have presided over it.
Several people, most notably Agnes Sampson, were convicted of using witchcraft to send storms against James's ships. Yes! She controlled the weather.
It doesn't matter who you Daddy was. It doesn't matter who who were related to. It doesn't matter how good you are.
It's what you (have) that they can take from you. Good Ole Boy style.....