'Killer Instinct'

Sara James Correspondent • Profile

SUMMIT COUNTY, OHIO - This is the story of how one ordinary woman transformed herself into a would-be C.S.I. investigator and embarked on a dangerous mission which would split her family. It was a mission in which she would take on police, prosecutors, and the state of Ohio in her relentless quest for justice.

Sara James, Dateline correspondent: How would you characterize the last eight years of your life?

Melinda Elkins: Horrific. Remembering all the pain, I had to deal with that and still carry on a normal life. I had no clue something like this could ever happen.

For Melinda Elkins, everything changed on June 7, 1998.  She’d been caring for a sick son while her husband Clarence had been out drinking. Suddenly they heard a commotion outside.

Melinda Elkins: Clarence went outside because we heard someone coming up the driveway really fast.

It was the police, more than a dozen of them, swarming all over the property.  One deputy started questioning Melinda.

Melinda Elkins: He kept asking me questions of who I was, what my mother’s name was, and you know, I’m screaming at him to tell me what is going on. And I said, "Is she okay?"  And he said, "No ma’am, she’s been murdered." 

James: This is your mom?

Melinda James: Yeah (crying).

As Melinda later learned, her mother, 58-year-old Judy Johnson, had been asleep on her living room couch when she was savagely strangled and beaten so badly her nose, jaw, collarbone and skull were all broken.

Then she’d been raped.

What’s more, that night, Melinda’s mother had been baby-sitting Melinda’s little niece, Brooke.  The 6-year-old was asleep in bed when she awoke to the sound of murder.

Now 15, Melinda’s niece recalls that awful night in fragments.

Brooke, Melinda Elkins' niece, victim: I got out of bed and I went to the kitchen and I looked and I seen that there was a guy in the kitchen, but it scared me, so I ran back to the bedroom.

She’d cowered under the covers pretending to be asleep, hoping and praying that the intruder hadn’t seen her.

James:  That same man came back for you?

Brooke Sutton: Uh-huh. I just remember like when I went back to the room. He came in there and then I just remember like I blacked out and then - that’s it.

Brooke was horribly beaten, raped, and left for dead.  Miraculously, she regained consciousness the next morning, and was able to find the phone and call a neighbor for help.

(Answering machine) Brooke Sutton: “I’m sorry to tell you this, but my grandma died and I need somebody to get my mom for me. I’m all alone. Somebody killed my grandma.  Now please, would you get a hold of me as soon as you can. Bye.”

When Brooke couldn’t reach anyone on the phone, she ran to a nearby house, where another neighbor was giving her children breakfast.  

Brooke waited on the front porch until the woman could drive her home. When Brooke arrived home about 45 minutes later, her mom— Melinda’s only sister, April Sutton, could hardly recognize her.

April Sutton, Brooke’s mom: The first thing that I remember is opening the door and my daughter Brooke was standing there and she was covered from head to toe in blood and she was trying to tell me that something was wrong with my mother.

James: When you saw her, you must have been terrified.

April Sutton: I ask her what happened to her, and where my mother was. And she had told me that they had been attacked and that my mother was stabbed laying in front of the couch dead.

Brooke’s father ran to the house, found Brooke’s grandmother, and called police.

Brooke’s father:  My mother-in-law has been stabbed.  My little girl spent the night here and the neighbor just brought her home and said that my mother-in-law was laying on the floor dead.   And I come up here and she’s laying here on the floor.   Oh my god.

(911 call) Operator: What’s that?

Brooke’s father:  She’s dead.

Who could have done it?

As it turned out, Brooke told her mother she could identify the killer... and he was no stranger.

Brooke Sutton: I told her that it looked like my Uncle Clarence.

Her Uncle Clarence, Melinda’s husband.

Within the course of a few dizzying minutes, Melinda would learn that her mother had been murdered and would watch helplessly as her husband, Clarence, was arrested and charged with the crime.

James: Your niece, who knew your husband well, was saying that he was the person who attacked her?

Melinda Elkins: Yes. Those were her first words, that it looked like Uncle Clarence.

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Housewife-turned-CSI investigator Sara James: This should be a movie Producer Bob Gilmartin on covering the story Motion from the defense to free Elkins (.pdf) Innocence Project letter of support (.pdf) Post-conviction DNA findings (.pdf) 'Killer Instinct' Section Front   Add 'Killer Instinct' headlines to your news reader: