Footsteps in the Dark Podcast

Thomas Jackson calls back...and talks to John for the first time since 2010. We finally obtain the discovery evidence from Dakota County...and find multiple smoking guns. After more than 17 years, John finds his way out.

A missing transcript is found, and his private investigator keeps finding things in strange places. John Woodward tells me about where this all started, and I'll discover new information showing it began long before John thought. A new name leads to a revelation...and two brothers are unmasked.

John Woodward's private investigator goes looking for documents that show up in weird places. We reexamine a failed drug test that landed John back in prison in 2009, leading to his meeting Jackson. A web of connections appear, and the PI finds Michelle McPhillips...and what she said shakes John's reality and gives a glimmer of hope.

John Woodward's private investigator tries to get John freed after being convinced Jackson was trying to scam John, and immediately realizes something isn't right. He turns his focus onto John's first case from 2006, and runs into the same headaches as John's first investigator. As the PI pulls the strings, the ball of yarn begins to come undone.

Jackson made a deal with the devil, and now he had to make good on it. Tasked with getting John Woodward to talk, Jackson goes to work. John would tell his attorney everything...but it was too late, and years later, multiple analyses of the recordings would show something wasn't right.

Through a chance email, I find myself talking directly with Thomas Jackson. After striking a deal for his story, things get weird...then, Jackson cracks and starts talking about John and what happened, and Jackson tosses a couple curveballs.

In 2010, John Woodward finds himself in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Thomas Jackson. John has his wife send attorney Jan Tarvestad $2500...but for what? Was it for legal fees? Was it for a truck? Or, was it a down payment for murder?

In early 2010, John Woodward was fighting to overturn a ruling that could get him released, and he meets another inmate, Thomas Jackson. A lifelong criminal, Jackson offers his help. John, being desperate and depressed, accepts. It is a decision John Woodward would regret.

In 2006 and 2010, John Woodward was charged with multiple crimes he claims he is innocent of. Once a self-made millionaire, John has very little beyond a family that never gave up on him or his claims of innocence. In 2018, he'd hire a private investigator to look into his claims. This is the investigation and story of John Woodward.

John Woodward claims he was wrongfully convicted...twice. After a 6-year private investigation, it might be true. What John didn't know, however, is it might not be twice...it might've been three times. 

This is the story...of John Woodward.