Bill
10-06-2013, 11:13am
Grand jury charges wife with pushing her husband off a cliff to his death, eight days after they married
Jordan Linn Graham, 22, will enter a plea at a Missoula court
She told FBI she had been arguing with her husband, 25-year-old Cody Lee Johnson as they walked in Glacier National Park
Graham said Johnson grabbed her arm, then she turned around and 'pushed Johnson with both hands in the back, and as a result, he fell face first off the cliff'
By Ted Thornhill
PUBLISHED: 03:26 EST, 4 October 2013 | UPDATED: 08:15 EST, 4 October 2013
A bride who claimed that the cliff-fall death of her husband of just eight days was an accident was charged with murder by a grand jury on Thursday.
Jordan Linn Graham will today make a plea to magistrates in a Missoula court against charges of first and second-degree murder and making false statements in the death of Cody L Johnson.
In a rage, Graham is said to have pushed Mr Johnson, 25, with both hands in his back, sending him tumbling hundreds of feet over a sheer cliff edge at Glacier National Park in Montana, US.
The area is so rugged a helicopter had to be used to recover the body.
It emerged recently that a singer created a custom song for the newlywed couple with lyrics about falling and climbing up hills that seem spooky to her in light of the court case.
Graham, 22, has been under house arrest and fitted with a GPS monitoring bracelet while staying at her parents' Kalispell, Montana home.
The revelations about the seemingly prophetic song adds another layer of intrigue to the case, as the woman who wrote the song said that she came up with the lyrics based on a series of interviews with the couple before their wedding.
'I used words like "you helped me to climb higher for a better view, you're my safe place to fall, you never let me go,"' songwriter Elizabeth Shea told CNN.
'Now when I hear those words, it's a little creepy.'
Authorities say Graham has admitted to shoving Cody Lee Johnson, 25, off a cliff in Glacier on the night of July 7 during an argument.
According to charging documents Graham had been having second thoughts about getting married around the time the body of her husband was discovered.
Prosecutors revealed that an email was allegedly sent from a man named 'Tony' while Graham's husband was still missing.
The email, sent three days after Cody Lee Johnson went missing, claimed he had fallen and died after going hiking with three friends.
According to the affidavit, the message also suggested 'the search should be called off', according to the Missoulian.
However, the email was traced to a computer belonging to Graham's stepfather Steven Rutledge, and it was found to have been written on the day the gmail account it was sent from was created, FBI Special Agent Steven Liss said. She made her confession to police only after this email had been sent.
Her 25-year-old husband died on July 7 and Graham allegedly confessed to pushing him on July 16, but she wasn't arrested on second-degree murder charges until Monday.
When she interviewed by the police on July 18, Graham admitted that she had lied about the death of her husband and provided false statements, according to ABC News.
Read more: Jordan Linn Graham to enter plea against murder charges | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2443619/Jordan-Linn-Graham-enter-plea-murder-charges.html#ixzz2gxV6F0Sb)
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Clearly, national parks should be closed to keep this kind of tragedy from reoccurring.
Jordan Linn Graham, 22, will enter a plea at a Missoula court
She told FBI she had been arguing with her husband, 25-year-old Cody Lee Johnson as they walked in Glacier National Park
Graham said Johnson grabbed her arm, then she turned around and 'pushed Johnson with both hands in the back, and as a result, he fell face first off the cliff'
By Ted Thornhill
PUBLISHED: 03:26 EST, 4 October 2013 | UPDATED: 08:15 EST, 4 October 2013
A bride who claimed that the cliff-fall death of her husband of just eight days was an accident was charged with murder by a grand jury on Thursday.
Jordan Linn Graham will today make a plea to magistrates in a Missoula court against charges of first and second-degree murder and making false statements in the death of Cody L Johnson.
In a rage, Graham is said to have pushed Mr Johnson, 25, with both hands in his back, sending him tumbling hundreds of feet over a sheer cliff edge at Glacier National Park in Montana, US.
The area is so rugged a helicopter had to be used to recover the body.
It emerged recently that a singer created a custom song for the newlywed couple with lyrics about falling and climbing up hills that seem spooky to her in light of the court case.
Graham, 22, has been under house arrest and fitted with a GPS monitoring bracelet while staying at her parents' Kalispell, Montana home.
The revelations about the seemingly prophetic song adds another layer of intrigue to the case, as the woman who wrote the song said that she came up with the lyrics based on a series of interviews with the couple before their wedding.
'I used words like "you helped me to climb higher for a better view, you're my safe place to fall, you never let me go,"' songwriter Elizabeth Shea told CNN.
'Now when I hear those words, it's a little creepy.'
Authorities say Graham has admitted to shoving Cody Lee Johnson, 25, off a cliff in Glacier on the night of July 7 during an argument.
According to charging documents Graham had been having second thoughts about getting married around the time the body of her husband was discovered.
Prosecutors revealed that an email was allegedly sent from a man named 'Tony' while Graham's husband was still missing.
The email, sent three days after Cody Lee Johnson went missing, claimed he had fallen and died after going hiking with three friends.
According to the affidavit, the message also suggested 'the search should be called off', according to the Missoulian.
However, the email was traced to a computer belonging to Graham's stepfather Steven Rutledge, and it was found to have been written on the day the gmail account it was sent from was created, FBI Special Agent Steven Liss said. She made her confession to police only after this email had been sent.
Her 25-year-old husband died on July 7 and Graham allegedly confessed to pushing him on July 16, but she wasn't arrested on second-degree murder charges until Monday.
When she interviewed by the police on July 18, Graham admitted that she had lied about the death of her husband and provided false statements, according to ABC News.
Read more: Jordan Linn Graham to enter plea against murder charges | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2443619/Jordan-Linn-Graham-enter-plea-murder-charges.html#ixzz2gxV6F0Sb)
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Clearly, national parks should be closed to keep this kind of tragedy from reoccurring.