Murder of Byron Edwards by Elijah Johnson examined on The Murder Tapes

The Murder Tapes are in Evansville, Indiana, to investigate the brutal stabbing of Byron Edwards in his own home by Elijah Andrew Johnson in 2017.

On November 22, 2017, the family of 27-year-old  Byron Edwards telephoned the police to say that they hadn’t heard from him in a few days and that when they looked in the window of his Evansville apartment, they could see blood.

When the police investigated the property, they found Edwards had been stabbed 20 times. An autopsy ruled that he had died from multiple sharp force trauma.

During the course of their investigation, the police discovered that all the evidence was pointing in one direction, towards 25-year-old Elijah Johnson.

Fortunately, Johnson was already in custody at the Vanderburgh County Jail, where he’d been since he was arrested just four days after the murder on November 26. He had been detained on an unrelated charge of assault and battery.

Elijah Johnson confessed to stabbing Byron Edwards

During interviews with the police, Johnson admitted to stabbing Edwards but claimed he’d done so in self-defense. He also confessed to donning gloves and cleaning areas of the apartment that he thought he had touched.

The police didn’t believe that it was self-defense, so they charged him with murder.

In 2018, Johnson was finally convicted of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 29 years behind bars.  He was later given a further four years due to two unrelated battery charges.

Johnson is expected to be released in 2043 when he will be over 50 years old. He is currently detained at the Wabash Valley Facility near Carlisle, Indiana.

More from The Murder Tapes

Follow the links to read about more crimes profiled on The Murder Tapes.

Juarez-Montanez and Cornell Head were both interested in the same woman in Kalamazoo, Michigan. One night in 2017, Juarez-Montanez confronted Head and his girlfriend in a parking lot opposite her apartment. Head then shot him multiple times in the torso and fled the scene.

Donald Lewis was a popular jazz musician and club owner in his community in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Tragically, he was robbed and shot dead by his own employee, Jason Small.

Transgender woman Ty Underwood was shot dead by her Texas college football player boyfriend, Carlton Ray Champion Jr. The pair had argued angrily as their relationship fell apart one night. Underwood tried to escape after being shot by driving away, but she succumbed to her injuries.

The Murder Tapes air at 9/8c on Investigation Discovery.