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GREENVILLE, S.C. (BFMG) — After 17 years, the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office (GCSO) announced an arrest in the 2007 murder of Jarret Cody Johnson.
Investigators charged Russell Allen Vance, Sr., 55, with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime in connection to Johnson’s death, the sheriff’s office said in a statement Friday.
Johnson was last seen alive in the Nicholtown area of Greenville before his body was found on Dec. 5, 2007, in a wooded area near Boiling Road Extension and Staunton Bridge Road. The case remained unsolved for nearly two decades until new evidence recently led investigators to Vance, authorities said.
The GCSO Cold Case Unit developed evidence indicating that Vance shot and killed Johnson following a dispute, officials said. The department’s Fugitive Apprehension Specialized Investigations Team arrested Vance on Jan. 31, 2025.
Authorities have not released details on what led to the dispute or how investigators linked Vance to the crime after so many years.
Vance is currently being held at the Greenville County Detention Center. His bond hearing is pending.
This case hits close to home as our media company was inspired by the story of this cold case. I met Ms. Johnson at an early age. When I was a young child, she worked as a public official and I came into contact with her. She would always give me the warmest embrace and her love for me was something I always looked forward to as I would visit from time-to-time until her retirement. I have still stayed in touch with her and she has believed that God would unveil the truth in her son’s murder, and He did.
It was much later that I learned that her son had tragically been killed in an unsolved homicide and I felt inspired to start a media company to tell the stories of victims who no longer have a voice.
She is now retired, but when this story broke today of Vance’s arrest, I was ecstatic, and this arrest will always go down in history as a shining moment in my heart for this wonderful family and for Jarret who deserves justice as a victim of a violent crime.
The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities are urging anyone with additional information to contact Crime Stoppers at 23-CRIME or the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office.
I believe that justice must be sought as a deterrent to society as a whole, but I’ve never understood the phrase “justice for the victim”, or understood why an arrest and/or conviction, in some cases, brings joy to the family and friends of the victim. A conviction and a prison sentence is never really “justice for the victim”, as it does not reverse death or undo any crime and its after effects.