Download 911 call from trunk wasn`t tracked

911 CALL FROM TRUNK WASN’T TRACKED
By VALERIE KALFRIN
The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA — Jennifer Johnson had about a minute to talk before her cell phone lost its connection with a 911
operator in Plant City.
“Ma’am, I’m in a trunk right now,” the 31-year-old Tampa mother yelled on a copy of the call released
Wednesday. “They got me in the trunk. ... I don’t know where I’m at.”
Soon after the call disconnected, she was dead.
Prosecutors on Wednesday released the call along with 700 pages of discovery material that outlines the
kidnapping and first-degree murder case against Vincent George Brown Jr., Johnson’s on-again, off-again
boyfriend and the father of her daughter, Je’Neiyce.
The material also shows Plant City police never sent an officer to try to find Johnson.
That contradicts dispatch logs the department provided to News Channel 8 in December. At that time, the
agency said the logs showed an officer had been sent to search a four-mile stretch of Interstate 4 in
Thonotosassa, where a cell-phone tower had picked up Johnson's call.
Plant City police Capt. Darrell Wilson said an administrative review found that officer was working an
unrelated security check in the area.
“There was never an officer dispatched,” Wilson said. “That call log was for something different.”
Johnson’s aunt, Levery White, said even if the police were unable to find Johnson, they should have tried.
“They didn’t even send nobody. They didn’t care,” she said.
Police Chief Bill McDaniel’s office said he was unavailable for comment Wednesday.
‘I Guess We Shouldn’t Have Assumed’
A Plant City communications operator recorded a 911 call with Johnson at 5:30 a.m. Nov. 15 that lasted
about 1 minute and 20 seconds. The conversation was so brief that Johnson did not provide a description
of her car and could not say where she had been kidnapped, the documents say.
The operator had trouble hearing Johnson over loud music in the background. In addition, Johnson's cell
phone number did not register when the call came in, making it difficult to map, Wilson said.
The operator told her immediate supervisor and a patrol supervisor about the call after it disconnected,
but neither listened to the call nor took any action, a report in the discovery documents says.
The log that police provided in December showed an officer was dispatched at 5:38 a.m. that day along
the interstate. On Wednesday, Wilson said the department thought that officer was sent to search for
Johnson because of the agency's policy to send an officer to the last-known location of a disconnected 911
call.
“I guess we shouldn’t have assumed,” he said.
Johnson’s phone did not have global-positioning system technology to help police pinpoint where she was.
Activist Seeks 911 Reform
All cell phones should have GPS technology, said Nathan Lee, the president of a foundation named after
his wife Denise Amber Lee.
“I got a GPS that can tell me where I’m going on the interstate,” Nathan Lee said. “But we can’t track
down a cell phone? That’s unbelievable.”
Denise Amber Lee, 21, was abducted from her North Port home on Jan. 17, 2008. Her disappearance
touched off of a massive search that ultimately failed to save her, but communications mistakes made on
the night of her murder spawned a broader movement to change the way emergency calls are handled in
Florida and across the nation.
Lee said he finds it “very disturbing” that police said they sent units to find Johnson when they really
didn’t. Uniform standards for dispatchers — and technology — might have saved Johnson, he said.
“The foundation is going to get in touch with the Johnsons and offer our condolences,” he said. “We want
to let them know that progress is being made.”
Johnson’s sister found her appeal for help over her cell phone heart-wrenching.
“It’s devastating for me to hear,” Rachel Johnson said of the 911 call. “She was reaching out for help, but
no one was there to help her.”
A Birthday Party, And A Missing Mom
Relatives reported Johnson missing the evening of Nov. 15 after she did not show up for her daughter's
birthday party.
Tampa police tracked her cell phone activity through the phone company and on the morning of Nov. 18
discovered the 911 call had hit on a cell phone tower at Interstate 4 and Thonotosassa Road. Tampa
police think the 911 call was the only opportunity Johnson had to communicate with authorities.
Johnson was found dead Nov. 18 in the garage of a vacant house in Lakeland. Phone records indicate that
from about 8:15 a.m. Nov. 15 until the phone ran out of power, its signal pinged off a cell tower near the
house where her body was found. She made no other calls.
Brown, 39, has pleaded not guilty to the kidnapping and murder charges.
Published: April 2, 2009