By all outward appearances, the small Murphysboro, Illinois, town seems like a decent community filled with annual festivals, historic houses, wine tasting, and plenty of bars and restaurants. It’s hardly the place you would expect a major crime to occur. But in August of 1995, a young mother vanished without a trace. And at least one man knows what happened but refuses to talk to this day.
Murphysboro lies in the state’s southern portion, roughly 100 miles southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. It is also next door to Carbondale, the home of Southern Illinois University.
Who Was Peggy Davis Johnson?
Peggy Davis Johnson was born on June 10, 1959, and resided in Murphysboro. At age 17, she gave birth to her son, Frankie.
In August 1995, Frankie was a teenager, and Peggy could enjoy more time to herself and hang out with friends without babysitting services. Not much is known about Peggy’s life or what she did to make ends meet.
Pictures of Peggy show an always-smiling, beautiful, happy woman. She had just turned 36 years old in June and was in the prime of her life. She was free-spirited and loved drinking at the local bars with her friends several nights a week. But one night, she visited a tavern alone and never came home.
Disappearance of Peggy Davis Johnson
On Wednesday, August 9, 1995, Peggy went to the now-defunct Gene’s Tavern at 1106 Locust Street in Murphysboro and vanished without a trace. During the investigation, detectives discovered Peggy was in the company of three men that night and questioned them.
One of the men is the main suspect in her disappearance. He was 27 in 1995. He had shoulder-length brown hair and a brown beard and drove a 1969 Buick. The only version of events we have regarding Peggy’s last moments comes from him.
He said he and his coworker were already at the bar when Peggy entered Gene’s. Both men worked at a local factory and grabbed a few beers after work, arriving at the bar around 6 p.m.
The man claimed Peggy sat beside him, and the group had a few more drinks. Sometime later, the suspect and his friend decided to leave to drive to another friend’s home in nearby DeSoto. Peggy asked the men if she could go, and they said yes. All three left Gene’s together, with Peggy going with the suspect in his Buick.
They arrived in DeSoto 10-15 minutes later. While at the third man’s home, the suspect said Peggy was mixing drinks and passed out. The three men decided to go back to Gene’s. One of the friends offered to take Peggy home, but the man said, “No, I’ll take her home.”
This is where the stories start to differ between the three men.
The suspect claimed he carried Peggy to his car and put her in the back seat. But one of the friends said she was alert, walked to the car alone, and climbed into the front seat.
The suspect also claimed that Peggy awoke and was hungry during the ride, so he pulled into Hardee’s on Walnut Street. They went through the drive-thru, and Peggy paid for the food. He pulled the Buick around the building to park and eat.
After eating, the man claimed Peggy had spotted a friend walking to the car; she exited his vehicle and could barely walk.
“And when she got out of the car and she was, she was drunk. Real bad. She looked like she couldn’t even hardly walk,” the man told investigators in 1995. (Sweeney, 2016)
He left her to return to Gene’s and said he arrived at the bar “between 10:30 and 11 probably.”
But the man’s coworker and the DeSoto guy said he arrived “between 12:30-1 a.m.” The other said, “It was close to closing time, one o’clock.” That leaves a two to two-and-a-half-hour time discrepancy.
According to The Charley Project, the next morning, a man dropping his wife off for work at the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) at 233 S. 13th St. (no longer there) saw a man with longer hair sitting in an older car, with his head down as if looking at something in his lap. After the witness came back outside, the longer-haired man was gone, and a woman’s purse was lying where the old car had been parked.
Police called Roberta to the police station, and she identified the purse as Peggy’s. Investigators asked the suspect if he ever had Peggy’s purse, and he said, “She took her purse with her.”
Detectives never believed Peggy, and the suspect went to Hardees. They never found the friend she supposedly saw there. Investigators believe something happened to her between the house in DeSoto and the suspect arriving at Gene’s alone.
Peggy’s older sister, Roberta Bodecker, heard rumors of where Peggy’s body is buried, which is not surprising in a small town. She believes several people in the Murphysboro area know what happened to her sister.
Well, we know one for sure does. Nearly 30 years after she left home to have a fun night out on the town, Peggy has yet to return.
Investigating Agency: Murphysboro Police Department, 618-684-2121
TCD’s Thoughts
I hate it when the police do not release the names of suspects or witnesses, especially in a nearly 30-year case. Come on already!
According to the two other men, Peggy never passed out, so that’s lie #1 from the suspect. Lie #2 was the Hardee’s story, and lie #3 was when he returned to Gene’s Tavern.
If the bar closed at 1 a.m., what was the point in returning there if he got there around that time? An alibi? What did he tell those two friends when he arrived so late? As far as they knew, he would take Peggy home and meet up with them at Gene’s. So, what did he tell them when he showed up at 12:30/1 a.m.? What time did all three leave the DeSoto home?
Obviously, Peggy was not as drunk as the man said. The other two men said she walked to his car and sat in the front passenger seat. Where did the man take her after he left DeSoto?
IDES usually opens around 8 a.m. I don’t know when the witness dropped his wife off, but I’m guessing around 7:30/7:45 a.m. There is no doubt who the man was sitting in the old car in the IDES parking lot. Now, if he arrived back at Gene’s around 1 a.m. and IDES later that morning, what was he doing in between? That’s almost seven hours. Had he already killed Peggy when he returned to Gene’s, or did the suspect hold her somewhere until he left the bar? He could have taken her to his place, tied her up, and kept her there until his return home from the bar. So, she could have been killed between 1 a.m. and 8 a.m., roughly.
So, what was the motive? I’m guessing sexual, and Peggy spurned his advances. He likely assumed she would be “easy” because she had been drinking alcohol.
Sources
Good, Meaghan. “Peggy A. Davis.” The Charley Project. https://charleyproject.org/case/peggy-a-davis
Sweeney, Kathy. “Heartland Unsolved: Free Spirit.” KFVS 12, November 2, 2016. https://www.kfvs12.com/story/33583714/heartland-unsolved-free-spirit/