THE wife of a man once accused of plotting a sick scheme to murder his fiancée has broken her silence.
In August 1998, Andrea Cincotta, 52, was found by her husband to be James Christopher Johnson strangled to death on the floor of their bedroom closet – Johnson would go on to be scrutinized by detectives and the public for years despite being found not guilty.
Johnson notified police that he had discovered her body in their Arlington, Virginia, home at around 1.30am.
Enraged authorities grilled the fiancée for a total of 28 hours in the next three days until Johnson gave a false confession.
After reviewing the case, detectives found that the evidence was inconclusive, and decided that they ultimately couldn’t pin the crime on him. The case went cold.
Twenty-three years later, authorities said they finally found the man who did the deed – Bobby Joe Leonard.
They claimed that Johnson had hired the rapist in a sick scheme.
However, after standing trial, a jury ultimately found the fiancée to be not guilty and he walked free.
Cincotta’s adult son Kevin who she had from a previous marriage vowed to find his mother’s killer in the wake of the devastating crime.
The mourning son pointed police to “the computer guy” – a man named Bobby Lee Leonard who had recently been given Cincotta’s old unwanted computer, The Washington Post reports.
Leonard had just been released from prison where he was serving time for assault and forcible sodomy.
Days after he was identified, he was put back in jail for beating his wife, but police cleared him regarding Cincotta’s killing.
A year later, Leonard was once again taken in by police for abducting, raping, and choking a 13-year-old girl who he left for dead in a closet.
The girl survived, and Leonard was sentenced to life in 2000.
He continued to deny ever killing Cincotta.
In 2018, Leonard was visited by cold case Detective Rosa Ortiz who found that the criminal had transformed throughout the years.
He had turned to religion, and finally admitted to killing the innocent librarian.
Leonard said that a white man who sounded like Cinotta’s fiancée called him on the phone and offered him $5,000 to go through with the killing.
The anonymous man told Leonard that the money would be stashed in the closet – it wasn’t there, but the killer said he never followed through.
In 2021, prosecutors indicated both Leonard and Johnson in Cincotta’s murder.
Leonard quickly pleaded guilty, but Johnson denied any involvement, sparking a three-week trial where he defended his innocence.
After just one hour of deliberation, the jury found Johnson not guilty and had trouble seeing why he was included in the case.
In the wake of the trial, Cincotta gave a heartbreaking statement where he slammed cops for not pursuing Leonard and said key evidence against Johnson was not presented to the jury.
“Forgiveness is not where I am now,” Kevin said after the hearing.
Johnson’s story is set to be highlighted in Friday’s episode of 20/20.
His current wife, Ginnie Grevett, sat down for an exclusive interview to discuss how their lives have been affected by the trial.
The episode titled The Confession will air on ABC from 9pm to 11pm EST.