CHRIS Johnson was accused of committing a heinous crime.
He will be featured in a 20/20 episode premiering on Friday, March 10, 2023.
Who is Chris Johnson?
Johnson’s full name is James Christopher Johnson.
The 61-year-old is married to a woman named Ginnie Grevett.
In the past, he was engaged to Andrea Cincotta— a 52-year old mother and librarian — who was murdered in 1998.
At the time, Johnson and Cincotta had been living together in an apartment in Arlington, Virginia.
As reported by The Washington Post, on August 22, 1998, Johnson found Cincotta dead on the floor of her bedroom closet of their apartment. She had been strangled.
Johnson quickly became a suspect in Cincotta’s murder.
According to the publication, Arlington homicide detectives “interrogated him for 28 hours in the first three days after he found Andrea Cincotta’s body in the apartment they shared.”
Johnson confessed to being involved with his fiancée’s death during the interrogation, as reported by DarikNews. However, police released him after his version of events did not line up with Cincotta’s cause of death.
Since then, Johnson has talked about why he made what he claims to have been a false confession. Viewers will hear him discuss the topic in his interview for the 20/20 TV episode.
What was Chris Johnson accused of?
The Washington Post discussed how Johnson was accused of hiring a man named Bobby Joe Leonard — who did maintenance work in the couple’s apartment complex — to kill Cincotta.
Cincotta had given her and Johnson’s old computer to Leonard.
As The Washington Post reported, Leonard was sentenced to life in prison in 2000 for the abduction, rape, and choking of a 13-year-old girl in Fairfax County.
As the publication also reported, Leonard confessed to murdering Cincotta while talking with Arlington Detective Rosa Ortiz from jail in 2018.
However, he claimed that someone else had asked him to commit the heinous crime.
As the outlet stated: “He said a white man who sounded like Cincotta’s fiancé had called him and offered him $5,000 to kill her. He said the man provided details of Cincotta’s schedule, and that the $5,000 would be in the bedroom closet. It wasn’t, but Leonard never took steps to collect it before he was locked up for the Fairfax attack.”
Leonard and Johnson were charged with killing Cincotta in November 2021. Leonard plead guilty to first-degree murder, while Johnson plead not guilty.
At the conclusion of a three-week trial, Johnson was acquitted of the charge, while Leonard received a life sentence in November 2022.
How can I watch the 20/20 episode that Chris Johnson will be featured on?
On Friday, March 10, 2023, ABC will air a 20/20 episode about Cincotta’s murder case at 9pm EST, 8pm CST.
The television special will also be available for streaming on Hulu.
According to What’s On Disney Plus, the program will include interviews with Johnson and Grevett, as well as with family and friends of Johnson.
The outlet also reported that it will feature interviews with the lead defense attorneys in the case, Frank Salvato and Libbey van Pelt; a “police interrogation expert who testified for the defense,” James Trainum; and Tom Jackman, a journalist who reported on the trial for The Washington Post.
The 20/20 Twitter account has repeatedly discussed the upcoming episode.
On March 10, it tweeted a photo of Johnson and Cincotta, followed by the words: “For nearly 25 years, Chris Johnson has been entangled in a deep mystery that he said has wrecked his family and his life.
“Watch the full #ABC2020 episode ‘The Confession?’ premiere tonight at 9/8c on ABC. Stream this weekend on hulu.
“READ NOW: https://abcn.ws/3LfilY5.”