In December of 2004, a beautiful young graduate student was brutally stabbed in her apartment. Her roommate was also attacked. He ran to a convenience store and called 911. Johnia Berry crawled, bleeding from her own apartment, and knocked on the five neighbor’s doors around her. No one answered. Paramedics got there while she was still alive but she died at the hospital. Unknown DNA was found at the crime scene. But there was no match in the database. There wouldn’t be a match made for almost three years. During that time, her parents lobbied for the Johnia Berry Act. It was signed into law in 2007 and it requires anyone arrested for a felony in Tennessee to be automatically swabbed for DNA.

This is just one Johnia’s legacies.

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