MISSING: Donyelle Johnson

They say opposites attract. That's why Sleep Number Smart Bed is the best bed for couples. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want it soft. You wanna sleep cooler, but they like to feel warm. Sleep Number does all of that.

And I'm Britt.

And the story I have for you today is about control and the length some people will go to when they're starting to lose it. This is the story of Donyell Johnson.

I don't love that.

And they don't either. Especially because the whole situation has been spiraling out of control. Now, they'd only found out about it in the first place when Donyell showed up with this like $22,000 car that Cleveland had purchased for her. And her parents were like, oh, hell, no. Like nothing good comes from a married guy gifting expensive things to a girl half his age.

And so when she doesn't come home, they assume right away that he did something.

Yeah, and not just because of these gifts. So, in the days leading up to her disappearance, Cleveland had actually shown up at the Johnsons' house, uninvited, as far as I can tell. And he had gotten super confrontational with her dad, Mac, like full-on, threatening him. When Mac told Cleveland to leave his daughter alone, according to reporting in the Tampa Bay Times, from Mary Claire Molloy and Caroline Petro Cohen, Cleveland responded, quote, "'Well, you better enjoy your daughter? "'because this may be the last time you see her.'"

Oh, hell, no, I know.

And Donyell herself was definitely starting to have her eyes opened, little by little too. Around this same time, she told her dad that she actually was afraid of Cleveland because he told her that he can make people disappear. In reporting by William Yelverton and Janet Leiser for the Tampa Tribune, Mac explained, quote, "'She was scared out of her wits. "'She knew this man didn't want to let her "'outside of his web.'" End quote. And to Mac's credit, he did his best to diffuse the entire situation.

Well, and this is, I mean, 1989, you said? No cell phones? I can't comprehend being a parent in the pre-cellphone era.

Well, I mean, it's like, pick your poison, right? Like, I want all the tech if something were to happen. I want the surveillance footage. I want GPS data. But I mean, how often is tech the reason or the vehicle, I should say, for, like, bad things happening now that it really is a double-edged sword?

Have they been tracking Cleveland down in the meantime? I mean, clearly that's where they think she is.

To be honest, I don't know. But what I do know is that that same day, they receive a strange letter. Now, while I couldn't find what it said verbatim, according to that same reporting in the Tampa Tribune, from Janet and William, the writer claims to be Donyell. And the gist of this letter is that she has gotten involved with drugs and she's moving to Orlando to stay with friends. And, to, quote, straighten out her life.

And how far away is Orlando?

Well, so they live in Largo, Florida. So we're talking like a solid two, two and a half hour drive from there to Orlando.

Okay, so away, but not super far. But is any of that true? And what about her car? Is it even missing?

Yes, to the car. Okay. Because, remember, she was on her way to class at her junior college that day, so it hasn't come back with her, basically. But as far as whether any of this is true or even believable, I don't know.

Okay, why would she tell her parents all this in a letter?

Well, I think that's a great question. Like, is this normal for her? Do they automatically know? it's like not real? Whatever, I don't know.

Cool, cool, cool. So I appreciate the warning, but, you know, I'm gonna ask the questions anyway.

So, tid's your job.

First off, it sounds like she lives with her parents, right?

Yeah, as far as I can tell, she does.

Okay, so what's her room like? I mean, is anything missing? Her personal items, clothes? I mean, other than like her school supplies, is there anything? obviously not there?

No, to your point, other than like the stuff she would have taken to school on a normal day, as far as I can tell, nothing else is missing.

Okay, and this note, was it even Donyell who wrote it? I mean, like, was it in her handwriting? Was it typed out? Was it disguised? Like, what's going on with it?

So this is actually something I do know. It is a handwritten note. Okay. And from everything I've been able to pull together, it seems like it is in Donyell's handwriting, which is why I think it must have probably thrown her parents off a bit. Again, they've never said what they thought exactly, but I mean, if I got a letter handwritten in my daughter's handwriting, it would throw me for a bit of a loop.

Can they not just go to the return address on the letter?

So this is one of the things I don't know about the letter. I don't know if there was a return address. Obviously I'd be looking for a postmark from Orlando, right? Or did someone just drop it off? Or, you know, maybe if they're thinking it's her, she could have dropped it off on her way out of town.

Which, let's be honest, is probably kind of why they didn't report Donyell missing sooner. I mean, she's an adult, and that fear of not being believed or taken seriously. Right.

Now, from what I can tell, it's not until days or even weeks later that investigators start really giving the attention to the case that Donyell and her family deserve. And this seems to start when they learn that a key piece of evidence in Donyell's case had been there in Pinellas County all along.

Okay, so it's Donyell's car, but is it the car, the car that Cleveland bought for her?

Another question I actually couldn't find the answer to, because I don't know if she actually gave it back, like her parents wanted her to or not, but actually, at the end of the day, I don't know if that part matters. What matters is that it was the car that she was last seen in, and it matters that it had been overlooked. Now, what investigators are able to piece together is that basically someone called a tow service. on the same day. Donyell went missing.

How did investigators miss this?

Well, you know, they didn't miss it because it didn't get reported to them. Like this call only went to a tow service, not authorities. Oh. Though I can't help but wonder like if they had seriously started looking for Donyell, maybe they could have stumbled across this information sooner.

Right.

But from what I can tell from the research, when they do start looking for her, this information pretty much just like falls in their lap. And the impression I get is that investigators just get this belated tip, I think, from the tow company, but full disclosure, I'm guessing on that, that it comes from the tow company.

And the car was, what they say, disabled? Like broken down?

Sort of.

Sort of. What was wrong with it?

I think, though, they said that the battery connection had just like loosened somehow. So I mean, it was a really easy fix.

And where is the car now?

I don't know. Again, there's so many gaps in the reporting on this case. So the thing is, you would think they have to, but I don't know that investigators ever got their hands on the car. I know that they at least try to find the person who called the tow company and had the car towed, right? Because, like it's someone who knew that the car wasn't working or like, tried to make the car work, right?

I don't get it, though. Why would he want her car to be found?

If this theory is right, I mean, I'm thinking that he wanted the exact opposite. He knew that if the car just sat in that parking lot, eventually someone would report it to authorities. So I think he's wanting it, again, if this is him, I think he's wanting to get it out of there before that happened.

He called it in before it could be found. Yes.

And I mean, if that's what happened, it seems to have worked. Just play it out for a minute. Like, say, her car was there. She went somewhere with Cleveland or met Cleveland. He goes to like move her car, so no one sees it.

And it's a completely normal interaction for the tow company. So they have no reason to call it into the police. Yeah.

And again, I have no information about. like after it went to the tow company, who picked it up? Was it still there when the tow company possibly notified authorities? I have no idea. But say there's a world where he did take it, it would explain why I can't find any report of investigators processing it.

Why it's still a big question mark, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm glad we're kind of back to Cleveland, because have they even tracked him down? yet? What's he saying about his girlfriend being missing?

Well, so they do end up tracking him down. And when investigators talk to him, he says pretty much exactly what Donyell wrote in her letter to her parents. Although at first he denies even being romantically involved with her. He's not using the word girlfriend. He says that he just befriended her is all.

It's like he's reading the To Catch a Predator cue cards.

Right? And what he tells investigators about his friend, Donyell, is that she had gotten herself way too deep in the cocaine trafficking world. And he doesn't know for sure where she is, but he says, you know, she might be in Orlando.

Orlando, you say? How convenient for him to suggest that.

And it gets better. I know, I know. You see, Cleveland's got this business trip, he says, to Orlando coming up. So he's like, you know what, I would be happy when I'm there to, just like, ask around about her and let you guys know what I can find.

I'm sorry, in the wise words of my five-year-old daughter, no, thank you, sir.

Yeah, I feel the same way. And honestly, I'd have taken it a step further. I'd have been like, yeah, by the way, don't go too far yourself. I have a feeling we're gonna be needing to talk to you again.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

But they actually don't talk to him again, at least from the reporting that's been put out. And that is where the investigation pretty much stalls out for over a year.

Back up, there's at least one other avenue we need to go down. What about Cleveland's wife? You said dude was married. What's her story?

So yes, he's married to this woman named Betty Jean. And just a side note, I've also seen her name reported as Betty Jo, but based on everything I've read, I'm pretty confident it's Betty Jean. But either way, I'm not sure investigators have much interaction with her at this point in their investigation, in whatever, and it could be part of the reason that this all stalls out, but they will later. Now, every day, Mack and Juanita hope that their daughter will come back home, or at least call, but she never does. And things stay stagnant until June of 1990..

At that convenience store? What was it called, Handy Corners?

Yeah, but not there, no. So Cleveland also had this pretty successful business doing excavations and asphalt paving in Pinellas County for years.

Oh, no.

Yeah, so I think this guy, Joseph, worked for him doing that. So what this informant says, according to that reporting I mentioned earlier from the Tampa Tribune, is that Joseph will be able to tell them, quote, where the bodies are buried.

I'm sorry, what? Did you say? bodies? Like plural bodies?

Because rumor has it that Donyell isn't the first woman involved with Cleveland to go missing, or, for that matter, she's not even the second. According to whispers around town, there were two women before her.

Well, not to make my dad a suspect, but he was also in excavating and paving in the 80s and 90s. I know that business. That business is literally digging holes in the ground and then like potentially paving over them.

Right, not a good look. And when you've got three women now connected to you who are missing, it makes it even sketchier.

Yeah, how are we just now talking about this?

Yeah, this is the problem with this story, right? I don't have any answers. I have like a lot of speculation because I don't know if police talked to other people in his life before this. I don't know if this was town gossip. Did the town gossip ever make it to police?

Everybody started falling.

Yeah, and everyone's like, oh yeah, I heard that, I heard that. I assume police knew, I assume. So it could have been one of those scenarios. And this could be very well the first time police are hearing about this. But to that point, you would think, because, like, again, if I'm comparing it to the Tara Grinstead case, those people weren't really on police's radar.

Yeah, he's the only person on their radar.

Yeah, so you would hope that if they would have done like a thorough, deep dive into him, questioned him thoroughly, looked into him thoroughly.

Poked around a little, yeah.

Like two other missing women should have popped up, but.

Well, and I feel like this isn't stuff that you really have to hunt for to find this about him.

I agree, but it's, you know, it's not a Google search in 1989 when she goes missing, or even 1990, but here we are now, a year later, when they're getting this tip from the informant.

Okay, so who are these two other women?

Well, I don't even know if they know at this point when they are like getting this tip. All they know is that they need to go find this Joseph guy and see what's up. But problem is, when they go interview him in prison, dude is obviously terrified. He tells them that Cleveland can and will get to basically anyone, anywhere. And he's worried that if he talks, something is gonna happen, not to him, but to his kids.

Oh, so, people were definitely afraid of talking before.

Yeah, which maybe is another reason that none of this came up sooner. Maybe they did actually look into him, but nobody was willing to say anything, because they're scared of this guy. Now they push a little bit on Joseph, because this is the best lead they've had. And they get him to talk a little bit. And all he's willing to say is that he saw Cleveland digging this giant hole before sunrise one morning.

One morning, when exactly?

That's a problem, he won't say. And he also won't say where this hole was dug. But needless to say, that detail about him digging this hole before the sun came up carries this kind of sinister implication, both for Joseph and for investigators. But beyond that, that, like super vague, he's digging a hole somewhere, Joseph won't tell them anything else.

Not even about these other women that he's rumored to have buried?

No, dude is scared. So again, maybe this is why these names have never come up before.

Okay, but we have this information now. Let's go digging.

Yeah, I would. The crime junkies would, but that's not what really happens here, because it is not much to work with. I don't know what avenues they tried exploring. Maybe everyone was afraid. But even with this tip, the case kind of goes cold after this interview.

Not for me. Where has this guy lived? Who's gone missing around there? I mean, I've got a shovel. My dad has the equipment.

Honestly, you should start like a whole separate business, where you, just like go, do recovery efforts with your dad's excavating equipment. I would be like.

I'm very interested in starting this.

I would be fully on board.

Don't tempt me.

Shrock excavating has whole new meaning now.

Truly.

But again, that's not what happens. They're not the crime junkies that we are. They also have like minimal resources. Also, we can't actually do this. Though, even though they don't go looking for the people or the bodies or whatever, that's not to say that Cleveland disappears from their minds because dude isn't even keeping a low profile.

I wish you guys could see my face.

Bootleg Coca-Cola.

My first thought is, yeah, is he, my 15-year-old son? Like getting paid in pop? Also, what the is? bootleg Coca-Cola?

It's literally just Coca-Cola that you didn't pay for. Like it's been stolen or illegally obtained.

Okay.

And it actually does make a little more sense when you have, like all, the context. Context is so key.

I'm just imagining this in like crates in his garage, and he's just like cracking one open when he's thirsty.

Sipping a cold one. That's not what's going down. Got it. So I guess one of Cleveland's drug associates runs a vending machine company or something. So they plan to sell the Coca-Cola for profit,

which is like laundering on a whole nother level.

Yeah, I don't know the details, but I think you're onto something, because when you say selling it for profit, is it just to his buddy's vending machine company? Which again, it would all be profit, but, like you, could also, again, make money through just drugs. But this way, if you have Coca-Cola and you sell it in the vending machine and get coins,

it's like covering it up.

You're making the money clean. So because of this, in October of 1992, Cleveland is sentenced to 19 years on a federal drug trafficking conviction.

You know, I gotta be honest. It seems super coincidental that Cleveland was telling people that Donyell was into drug trafficking. Then he gets busted for drug trafficking.

I actually thought the same thing. I don't know. Like, I'm not sure what it's indicative of. You know what I mean? Like, it's weird.

It's weird, but what does it mean? Nothing? Something?

Who knows? If he's involved, it might just be the world that he knows. If he had something to do with that letter. But I go back to, it was written in her handwriting. Right.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I've heard it before, comparison is the thief of joy, and it's so easy to envy other people's lives. Personally, I catch myself doing it almost every day, especially when I'm scrolling on my phone. Just seeing everyone's lives through the pictures and videos they post, it really does feel and look like they have it all together on their Instagram. But I have to remember, in reality, they probably don't.

He told this person to, quote, "'Get rid of the bitch, just like before.'"

Okay, now, this is the second mention of there being other women. he's dated that have disappeared.

And it won't be the last, because it's not too long after receiving this tip that investigators with PCSO get a call from the Clearwater Police Department. And just so you can picture it, Largo and Clearwater are both in Pinellas County, and I don't 100% understand the jurisdictional lines between the two agencies. But basically, Clearwater tells them that they've got this missing persons case from 1974 that involves everyone's favorite, sketchy Coca-Cola drug trafficker, Cleveland. This missing person is Margaret Dash, and she had gone missing all the way back in 1974, back when she tried to end the affair that she was having with a young preacher in their church in Largo.

A preacher?

Amen, sister.

So this guy is a convenience store owner, a land excavator, an asphalt paver, a drug trafficker, a Coca-Cola connoisseur or smuggler. Again, still kind of confused about the whole pot ploy thing, but now a preacher?

A true Renaissance man, this one. Basically, what they tell the department is that Cleveland and Margaret had this affair back in like 1973 to like 1974. And at some point, Margaret's husband, Leon, had become aware of the affair. But Margaret told Leon that she actually wanted to end it, but she was scared to, because when she tried to break things off with Cleveland, he had threatened to kill her. So, cut to one summer day in June of 1974, 38-year-old Margaret leaves her house to run to the grocery store, but then she just never made it home.

Closed after two weeks?

Mm-hmm. And I don't even think that changed when the Oldsmobile Margaret was driving that day was found abandoned in a parking lot in St. Petersburg about a month later.

Just like Danielle's.

Yep. Now, there's no indication Clearwater PD ever picked that investigation back up, not until 1992, when Leon, by now a respected member of the Clearwater Neighborhood Watch Program, approached the Clearwater chief of police. And he tells the chief that he had been tipped off about possible burial sites of Cleveland's, two vacant lots in the Baskin neighborhood of Largo.

Can we make Leon the chief of police, since he's been able to gather a huge investigative lead that two separate police agencies failed to uncover? I mean, at least get him paid to do their job.

He would have my vote for sure, right? Like, this was closed. Nobody was even, like, looking at this. But obviously he never forgot about Margaret. And I don't know if this is what led to the tip in 92, or if it happened after, or whatever, but I do know that Leon had hired private investigators to look at his wife's disappearance at some point over the years.

Again, basically doing the work police should have been doing this whole time.

Pretty much, yes.

How did Margaret even get involved with Cleveland in the first place?

Girl, church. What Clearwater PD explains to PCSO investigators is that they'd met through church in 1973, when, according to that same reporting in the Tampa Tribune, Cleveland, quote, found religion during a prison furlough and became a preacher.

So what was he in for before the furlough?

I'm gonna take you on a little bit of a rabbit hole here, but I should explain it really fast because I do think it provides a little bit of relevant context. So in 1968, Cleveland had been convicted on a couple of aggravated assault charges. He only got like a five-year probation sentence, but he was sent to prison when he violated probation. And you might notice a pattern here, because his 68 conviction arose out of a disturbing incident that occurred just a few days after his wife, Betty Jean, filed for divorce.

Hmm. It's almost like this guy doesn't cope well with women trying to leave him.

You think? Basically, he forced both Betty Jean and her mom, Josephine, into Josephine's bathroom at gunpoint. At first, he said that he was gonna go lock Josephine in the bathroom and then kidnap Betty Jean. But then he changed his mind about that plan real fast and decided that he'd better not leave any witnesses. So he shot Josephine four times, including once in the head.

Oh, my God.

And then turned the gun on Betty Jean. Now, miraculously, thankfully, somehow, both women survived this attack. But the whole ordeal seems to have spawned a belief in Cleveland.

Oh, he saw the light that the autonomy of women is sacred and must be treated with honor and respect? Fingers crossed?

Girl, no, that is not what he learned. More like, when you decide to get rid of someone, make sure you finish the job. So he went to prison and a judge granted Betty Jean's divorce in 1968.. And at this time, she made some harrowing abuse allegations in those divorce proceedings. Allegations of Cleveland beating her regularly.

She was a child.

Exactly. Now, Cleveland wasn't much older, maybe 17 or 18 when they got married, but still old enough to be in a position of power over her, which I think partly played into the next thing that happened. In Jack in the Box, Jack's new Waffle Sticks are available all day long. Even after you see Deadpool and Wolverine in the Marvel Studios theaters on July 26th. Three golden Waffle Sticks with syrup for only $3..

Right. We know it's hard enough for adults to get out of domestic violence situations, right? But being a teenager? I mean, she's just a kid in that situation?

And it's not like he bettered himself in prison, like got out and then they mended their relationship and lived happily ever after. I mean, they remarried within like two weeks of his release. And you know, I wasn't sure if I was gonna like fully get into this today, but I'm gonna hop on my soapbox for a sec, because this isn't just like an outdated issue from like the days of yore. When I saw that Betty Jean was only around 15 when she married Cleveland, I decided to do a little digging, because surely there aren't a bunch of 15-year-olds getting married today, but I was shook by what I found. According to a nonprofit called Unchained At Last, child marriage, defined as marriage before the age of 18, wasn't fully banned in a single US state as of 2017..

If there's any, it's too many, but I'm afraid you're going to give me a very high number. It's 41. What?

Including Indiana.

No.

Yes.

Well, I think we have a new cause.

Clearly, and not to put too fine a point on this, but think about the practical implications of that. In the vast majority of those states, a marriage certificate negates any otherwise applicable statutory rape laws. So what would be considered a criminal offense against a minor in any other context, what would land you on? the sex offender registry in any other context suddenly becomes legal because that minor, that victim, is legally bound to their abuser.

I mean, my eyes are open. My mind is blown. My jaw's on the ground. I wanna throw up. I'm horrified.

How did I not know any of this? How does everyone not know of this? I mean, but this is how you find stuff out, though, right? You gotta do more than listen, and I hope that's what we're teaching you all the time here on Crime Junkie. Ask the questions.

And let me guess, Retha was having an affair with Cleveland.

Well, she had had one previously, although, as far as her husband Howard knew, she had ended it when they got married. But fast forward about three months. This is now a few days after Christmas. Howard was out of town, and Retha had told her daughter that she was gonna go out and grab laundry detergent. But then she just never came home.

So she wasn't even reported missing. Of course they didn't connect that one. There was really nothing to connect.

Yeah, to your point, I'm not sure if she ever was reported missing. It sounds like no, but I don't have that like 100% confirmed. But they had to have known about her, right? Like for her to like be on their radar. So maybe at some point there was from her ex-husband Howard to her kids or whatever, because there's something there that allows investigators to start connecting the dots by 1992, when Leon comes forward.

Okay, so timeline wise, we're back in 92..

Yeah, we've come full circle. And once all these different stories get connected, there is this glimmer of hope that all three women might be one step closer to justice. Because on April 12th of 1993, investigators from both Clearwater PD and PCSO descend on one of the vacant lots and search for signs of disturbed soil, prepared to excavate any areas that appear to have been dug in before. The first day. they dig up to 11 feet deep in one small spot.

And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.