John Roscoe Garland

I have mentioned many times in the past that when cases make it to my list of cases to research they often fall in groups with related topics or places. I do not always do them obviously in any sort of order. It depends on my mood at the moment but sometimes, like now, you will notice the trend because my last two blogs were about men who were sentenced to death in Kentucky, and here we are with another one.

This is a case that going into it I thought was probably pretty cut and dry but then the more I dug, the more issues I saw. We all know that court cases come down to who the jury believes in the end. This was a case that pitted father against son inside the courtroom. It is seemingly a case that continued to pit father against son until the father died in prison in 2018.

Before I want to start telling the story I want to clear up something that I was confused about at first. The first thing that I came across was a Murderpedia page that took the facts of the crime from an appeal that had been filed. It stated that on “Saturday March 9, 1997” the victims of this crime had gone out. It went on to say that they ended their night in the early morning on Sunday and their bodies were found later that day. And yet I kept seeing things that said their date of death was March 9^th. This did not seem plausible if the story started out on the 9^th and we knew they were still alive at least at 1 in the morning of the 10^th that they would have died on the 9^th. Even each of the victims tombstones stated the 9^th. So, finally I pulled up a calendar from March of 1997 and discovered that Saturday was the 8^th and Sunday was in fact the 9^th, the day in which the victims died.

I cannot tell you at what time the bodies of twenty-six year old Willa “Jean” Ferrier, twenty-two year old Crystal Conaster, and thirty-eight year old Chris Boswell were found in Willa Jean's Whitley City Kentucky mobile home on that Sunday March 9^th, or even who found them. But, found they were, all in a rear bedroom of the home. Chris and Crystal were shot at least twice and Willa Jean was shot once. I also cannot tell you for sure exactly how law enforcement and John Garlands son, Roscoe first made contact with each other but he would be considered the “key witness” in this case.

In 1997 John Garland was fifty-four years old and was apparently divorced at least twice it seems. I found the names of an ex-wife in my research and also on Findagrave.com the name of the mother of many of his children. There seems to be no dispute that at some point John and Willa Jean had dated. It appears that at the time of the murder they had recently broken up. According to John's son, Roscoe, he was very jealous of Willa Jean dating other men, and according to sixteen year old April Sexton the night before the murders she was with Willa Jean at a local country music “dance hall” and they had driven around the parking lot a few times to ensure that John Garland was not there stalking her. So there seemed to be some fear from Willa Jean toward John Garland and it seems to be a valid fear. Investigators would find an answering machine tape at Willa Jean's home after the murder that would boost this idea. On the message John seemed angry and mentioned something about believing she was pregnant and a man by the name of Gary Roberts was the father. It was said that by March of 1997 Willa Jean was dating Gary Roberts but I never found anything that indicated that at the time of her death she may have been pregnant.

Apparently it was routine for at least Willa Jean and Crystal Conaster to go to the dance hall on Friday and Saturday nights. The night of Saturday March 8^th was no different and April Sexton had also gone along. While there thirty-eight year old Chris Boswell began dancing with Crystal and apparently decided to go home with the women. Willa Jean dropped April off at home between 12:30 and 1:00 that morning. It was said that they then drove to Gary Roberts house where they pulled in the driveway and honked the horn. Soon after, without contact with anyone apparently they then drove back to Willa Jean's home. This is where things get sticky.

According to Roscoe Garland he was with his father that night and they were going to go to some sort of auction. He says they got in a big traffic jam and had decided to turn around and not go. According to his account they then saw Willa Jean's car and John decided to follow. Seemingly he recounted watching them drop off April at her home, going to Gary Roberts' home and then ending up at Willa Jean's.

John's account was different. He claimed that yes, they were going to the auction and yes, they got into a traffic jam but that they still went although got there as the auction was ending. He first claimed that he had been with Roscoe basically the entire night and then later said that he dropped Roscoe off at his home and headed to visit his ex-wife, Eula Isgrigg. Eula first claimed that she did not see him until sometime on Monday, after the murders had been discovered. She later then said that she had seen him at at two in the morning on Sunday. Her initial claim for lying to the police was that she was scared although it was not specific as to what she was allegedly scared about.

Roscoe would claim that after getting to Willa Jean's home his father had gone inside and he heard some arguing so he went inside. He said both his father and Willa Jean looked disheveled as if they had “tangled” a bit. At some point Chris Boswell came out of the bedroom and Roscoe claims that John shot him; then he shot Crystal. Roscoe stated that John then shot both of the victims a second time before shooting Willa Jean also. Roscoe admitted, or claimed, depending on if you believe him or not that his father asked him to help cover things up such as moving things around the mobile home, help him burn some clothes and hide the gun, which was a .357.

Roscoe claimed that the following day John came to his home and gave his girlfriend some money to obtain a new .357 because he said everyone knew he carried a gun and it would look suspicious if he did not have one. Roscoe would later take authorities to where the weapon was located.

It was not clear exact when John was arrested and charged with the murders but he did go on trial either in late 1998 or early 1999. As I mentioned earlier Roscoe was the “key witness” in the trial against him. And, while the prosecutors painted a picture of John being the murderer it seems the defense not only disputed that but they pointed to Roscoe as the murderer. They hammered hard not just at the evidence against John, but also the lack of evidence found against him but most importantly at Roscoe's credibility. Roscoe had claimed that he himself had once owned the murder weapon but had sold it to his father long ago. The defense argued that was not true and that the weapon still belonged to Roscoe. The defense pointed out that John did not have an “extensive prior criminal history” but that Roscoe did. The noted that at some point apparently John had been given temporary custody of Roscoe's two children when they were taken from Roscoe and his ex-wife. Roscoe had also served prison time in the past for beating a man. They argued that Roscoe himself had a motive because despite having a girlfriend at the time he was interested in dating Crystal Conaster.

One of the biggest things they argued was that there was no physical evidence apparently linking John to the scene. To be fair, there was never any mention of any evidence linking Roscoe to the scene, but that agument would come later in an appeal.

Since I have already told you this is a death penalty case, and that there was an appeal in the case, it should be no surprise to you that the jury found John Garland guilty of the three murders. On February 15, 1999 he was sentenced to death. But, of course the story does not end there.

In January of 2007 John filed a pro-se motion asking for DNA testing on many items. The main thing included was a clump of hair that had been found in Willa Jean's hand and at least one strand found from fingernail clippings. The hair appeared to be blackish/brown in color and the only people who had that color hair were Chris Boswell (whose body was near Willa Jean's when found) and Roscoe Garland. It was said that the court denied this on November 5, 2008 but a copy was never given to John.

By the following month he had a public defender working on his case and on December 8^th they filed for DNA testing but only on the hairs mentioned above. This then became an argument between the state and defense attorney's. The state argued that this had already been denied and they had missed the chance to appeal. In April of 2009 the courts accepted the appeal as a “delayed appeal.” Part of the argument had been that if the hairs matched Roscoe that went with John's theory that it was Roscoe who was the murderer. The courts disagreed with this saying that even if the hairs did match Roscoe it only meant that he was more involved than he had testified to, not that John was not also there and the murderer. However, they sent the case back to the circuit court basically ordering them to conduct DNA testing. While they stated that it did not prove John was not there, if the hairs matched Roscoe it would point to his credibility as a witness which was seemingly highly relied upon by the jury.

I can get on board with this decision. In my opinion the courts were correct in their thinking. Roscoe admitted being at the scene and he admitted helping cover it up. If the hair was Roscoe's then it meant he also tangled with the victims, something he had not admitted to doing. But, it did not also mean that John was not present. However, allegedly there was no physical evidence putting John at the scene and Roscoe was the only person or thing that could and if the evidence showed he was obviously more involved than he had admitted to that made his entire story suspect.

Eventually the testing was done and the argument against Roscoe became moot because the clump of hair in Willa Jean's hand belonged to Chris Boswell. Then there were two other strands found. One was Willa Jean's, the other belonged to Chris. So, none of the hairs belonged to Roscoe.

Next I found a 2015 appeal in which apparently more items were asked to be tested for DNA but they had been destroyed previously making testing obviously impossible. The appeal argued that they had been destroyed in “bad faith” by officials. Basically what they were saying was that the items were destroyed and not kept because someone did not want them tested and hence hindered his ability to prove his innocence. The courts disagreed. While apparently some of these items had been included in John's 2007 pro-se filing, when his attorney's filed again the following year and it was listed as a delayed appeal they had only asked for the hairs to be tested. The court ruled that by doing so they had “abandoned” the request for the other items and in their view they were not longer needed. They also stated that they had not proved that the officials had “bad faith” when the items had been destroyed.

This seems to be the end of his legal fight. At that point in my research I went to the Kentucky Department of Corrections to see his status. Generally when I high profile inmate dies in custody, by any means, that is published in an article and is easily found. I had found nothing so I had no reason to believe that John was not still in prison. So I was a bit surprised to run a check and not be able to find him. I did find a Roscoe Garland Jr, apparently his grandson, currently serving time for sexual assault and drug possession.

Finding nothing in the DOC I next tried the Findagrave website where I discovered that on April 22, 2018 John Garland had died. It seems apparent that he died while in prison because I discovered that in 2017 one of his sons had died and John's town was listed as Eddyville, where the state prison is located. While there I did some digging and while it is not necessarily important to the case at hand, I did find it interesting. According to John's obituary he had had three children, one son and two daughters who had died previously. It also said he had two sons, and two daughters surviving. Interestingly both the sons listed here were named Roscoe... Roscoe Lee and Roscoe James. So I dug a bit further looking into the obituaries of some of his children, as well as their mother. John's obituary was the only one who listed the two Roscoe's. In his son's obituary his brothers were listed as Roscoe and Daniel. In a daughters obituary who passed after John died names were different still. I point this out because there are podcasts and things available on the Internet talking about this case and I saw a comment on one that stated that John apparently had two sons named Roscoe. I am just not certain of this fact.

So this brings us to the end, where I generally give my opinion on the case. I have to be fair, I am unsure what to think. There seemed to be nothing that linked either John or Roscoe to the scene aside from Roscoe's story. I find this in itself odd. If they were moving things around the mobile home and obviously one, the other, or both of them handled the gun, where are the fingerprints? I heard of absolutely none. If John's prints were on the gun then I would think that would prove he had used it. The fact that I did not hear anything about that and there were indications that they were not there or not available tends to make me wonder if he was wrongly convicted. I think this, and the fact that Roscoe had a criminal background helps John. But, then we have the answering machine message, the testimony of April Sexton that Willa Jean was scared of him and was cautiously looking to make sure he was not around that night gives John more of a motive. Add this to the fact that his ex-wife, who later changed that story, initially said she did not see him until the day after the bodies were discovered and that leads towards his guilt.

Another thing I found odd was the fact that Roscoe claimed that he and his father had followed Willa Jean that night. He said they saw her drop off April Sexton, then stop at Gary Roberts' home before going back to her home. For someone who was so worried and cautious about their surroundings you have to wonder if she saw him following her or not. Did she really not see them? Did she see them and just believe that once inside her home she was safe, especially since she had others with her? This question can obviously never be answered.

Did an innocent man spend twenty-one years in prison for a crime he did not commit or did a guilty man try to place the blame of three murders on his own son?