John Jefferson
Left inset: Matthew Johnson in a missing person photo (Cottonwood Heights Police Department). Jennifer Gledhill under arrest (KSL).
A 41-year-old Utah wife and mother of three young children who filed for divorce as recently as July, reportedly prompting a court to say the “highly dysfunctional marriage” perhaps should have ended long ago, is now accused of shooting her national guardsman husband in the head as he slept in bed, reporting him missing, buying a new mattress and cleaning the scene, and then “openly” blurting out what she had done when speaking with an informant.
Jennifer Gledhill was arrested in Salt Lake County on Wedensday and charged with murder and obstruction of justice in the presumed death of Matthew Johnson, 51, whom she allegedly shot and killed a matter of days after she reportedly failed to persuade a court that a protective order needed amid their divorce.
KSL reported that though Gledhill claimed Johnson was abusive, a court said on Sept. 16 that text message evidence indicated she was “equally confrontational,” was possibly “attempting to goad him into a violent response,” and that she was “berating, belittling, and demeaning.”
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Just four days later, on a day they may have had an argument, Gledhill allegedly reported Johnson missing to the Cottonwood Heights Police Department.
But according to the details of an affidavit reported by the Gephardt Daily, Gledhill knew that her husband was dead, not missing, and that she herself pulled the trigger as he slept in bed, and that she took steps to cover up the crime — up to and including buying a new mattress.
Investigators, operating on the assumption that Johnson was dead since Sept. 21 based on his non-contact with anyone, have allegedly uncovered proof Gledhill “openly admitted” to a confidential informant that she executed her husband, buried his body, and had started tampering with the shooting scene in a bid to scrub evidence of a violent crime.
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“Johnson was shot while on the mattress inside the master bedroom of their home in Cottonwood Heights. Jennifer also told the CI she had removed the body of Johnson and had relocated his remains to a shallow grave at an undisclosed location. Jennifer Gledhill also told the CI she had been removing items from the home and destroying them to cover up this crime,” the affidavit reportedly said, adding that there appeared to be “significant clean up […] including bleaching walls, and using carpet cleaning supplies.”
Perhaps most eye-popping of all, Gledhill allegedly bought a new mattress to replace the one where Johnson was shot to death, but that apparently didn’t stop investigators from finding a “large blood-stained spot in the master bedroom carpet underneath the bed” and blood on “the bed frame slats[.]”
While authorities have not yet found Johnson’s remains, Gledhill remains behind bars in Salt Lake County without bond after she was booked Wednesday, jail records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
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