Jill Behrman Case: Disappearance, Myers Conviction, and Appeals

The Jill Behrman case began on May 31, 2000, when the 19-year-old Indiana University student vanished while bicycling near Bloomington, Indiana. Her remains were found nearly three years later in a wooded area of Morgan County, and in 2006 a Monroe County grand jury indicted John Myers II for her murder. A jury convicted him that October, and he was sentenced to 65 years in prison, where he remains after unsuccessful state and federal appeals.

The Disappearance

Behrman was a Bloomington native, a recent Bloomington South High School graduate, and an avid cyclist who had completed a cross-country trek after her 1999 graduation. She worked at the IU Student Recreational Sports Center and was heading to work on the morning of May 31, 2000, when she disappeared.¹

Two days later, on June 2, authorities located her red and white Cannondale bicycle near the intersection of North Maple Grove Road and West Maple Grove Road, northwest of Bloomington. The spot was roughly 10.5 miles from her home and about a mile from where John Myers II lived in Ellettsville.² The Bloomington Police Department, Indiana State Police, and FBI all joined the investigation.³

The False Confession That Delayed the Case

In 2002, a Bloomington woman named Wendy Owings confessed to involvement in Behrman’s death while facing unrelated felony charges for armed robbery and drug dealing that carried a potential 86-year sentence. Owings said she, Alisha Sowders, and Uriah Clouse had accidentally struck Behrman with their vehicle on Harrell Road, then stabbed her, wrapped her body in plastic with bungee cords, and dumped her in Salt Creek.⁴

Investigators took the confession seriously enough to drain a portion of Salt Creek using divers, side-scan sonar, and a dam. They recovered a knife, a bungee cord, and two sheets of plastic.⁵ Monroe County Prosecutor Carl Salzman ultimately declined to file charges against Owings, concluding the evidence was insufficient. He later testified the plan had been to use a charge against Owings to “get to” Sowders and Clouse.³

At Myers’ 2006 trial, Owings took the stand and admitted the story was fabricated. She testified that FBI agents had promised her existing charges would be lessened or dropped if she cooperated, telling her she “could go home.” After confessing, she received cigarettes, fast food, family visits, and commissary money. “I lied on my own,” she told the jury.⁶ The confession collapsed definitively in March 2003, when Behrman’s remains were found roughly 20 miles from the location Owings had described.

Discovery of the Remains

On March 9, 2003, a hunter found a human jawbone in a remote, densely wooded area near Paragon in Morgan County, approximately 15 miles north of Bloomington.⁷ Dental records confirmed the skeletal remains were Behrman’s.⁴ Forensic pathologist Stephen Radentz determined the cause of death was a shotgun blast to the back of the head at close range.⁸ No clothing was recovered with the remains.

The Case Against John Myers II

Police first interviewed Myers on June 28, 2000, because of his proximity to where the bicycle was found. He gave a false alibi about his whereabouts and his relationship with his girlfriend, Carly Goodman.⁴ He was not charged until April 2006, when a Monroe County grand jury indicted him.

The prosecution’s case rested largely on incriminating statements Myers had made over years to family members, friends, acquaintances, and a cellmate. He told his grandmother, Betty Swaffard, that if authorities knew what he had done he would spend the rest of his life in prison, and that he wished he “wasn’t a bad person” and hadn’t “done these bad things.” At a family gathering in 2001, he asked a relative whether he thought Behrman’s body would be found in the woods. A former coworker, Dean Alexander, testified that Myers once pointed out a wooded area while driving and said that if he were going to hide a body, he would hide it there.⁴

Cellmate John Roell, who shared a cell with Myers in May 2005, testified that Myers paced nervously and said, “if she wouldn’t have said anything, this probably … none of this would have happened.” Roell also said Myers referred to Behrman using degrading language.⁹

Physical and circumstantial evidence filled in around the statements. Myers’ brother testified that a 12-gauge shotgun kept at the family home went missing in June 2000, and a firearms expert testified the likely weapon was a 12-gauge shotgun. A neighbor testified that Myers covered his trailer windows and moved his car on the day Behrman disappeared. Deputy Charles Douthett testified that his bloodhound tracked Behrman’s scent along a northern route toward both the bicycle location and Myers’ home.⁴

Carly Goodman testified that in March 2000, two months before the murder, Myers drove her to a clearing in the woods north of Bloomington. In February 2006, Indiana State Police Detective Rick Lang drove Goodman back to the area, and she independently identified a clearing near the corner of Warthen and Duckworth Roads as the same spot. That clearing was less than a mile from where Behrman’s remains were found.³ Goodman also contradicted Myers’ alibi, denying his claim that they had planned to travel together the week of May 29, 2000. The prosecution argued that after Myers could not control Goodman, he targeted Behrman and brought her to the same clearing.¹⁰

Trial, Verdict, and Sentence

Myers was tried in Morgan County before Judge Christopher Burnham in October 2006. The prosecution argued that Behrman was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and called the killing a “classic rape homicide” driven by Myers’ desire to control women.⁴ Radentz testified not only about cause of death but offered his opinion that Behrman had been raped before being killed, basing that conclusion on the remote location and absence of clothing rather than any physical evidence from the skeletal remains. When a juror asked in writing, “Do you believe the body was raped before being shot?”, Radentz answered yes.¹¹ Myers was never charged with rape.

Defense attorneys Patrick Baker and Hugh Baker tried to point the jury toward an alternative suspect, Brian Hollars, a coworker of Behrman’s at the Student Recreational Sports Center. In opening statements they promised evidence that Hollars and Behrman were romantically involved, had been seen fighting the day before the disappearance, and that a bloodhound had tracked Behrman’s scent toward Hollars’ house. None of that evidence materialized at trial.¹²

The jury convicted Myers of murder, and Judge Burnham sentenced him to 65 years. Reports later emerged that jurors had drunk alcohol, held food fights, and raced around in a bailiff’s high-heeled shoes during deliberations. Judge Burnham investigated and concluded the behavior did not affect the jury’s ability to decide the case.¹³

Appeals

Direct Appeal

Myers raised eight issues before the Indiana Court of Appeals, including denial of a venue change, the juror misconduct, and sufficiency of the evidence. In a 44-page opinion in January 2008, the court unanimously upheld the conviction. Judge Cale Bradford wrote that the trial contained “discrete imperfections” that were “isolated in nature” and not “sufficiently egregious to undermine our confidence in the trial proceedings,” holding that “a defendant is entitled to a fair trial, not a perfect one.”¹⁴

State Post-Conviction Relief

In February 2009, Myers petitioned for post-conviction relief, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, and the state’s failure to disclose exculpatory evidence. After a multi-day evidentiary hearing in 2013, the post-conviction court denied the petition, and the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed in May 2015.¹⁵

Federal Habeas Corpus

In October 2019, U.S. District Judge James Sweeney II vacated the conviction, finding that trial counsel had been constitutionally ineffective under the Sixth Amendment. Sweeney identified three serious errors: the false promises about Hollars in opening statements, the failure to object to the bloodhound evidence, and the failure to object to Radentz’s unsupported rape testimony. He concluded the cumulative effect undermined confidence in the verdict.¹² Patrick Baker said publicly that his team had taken the case pro bono in 2006 “because we believed in his innocence, as we still do.”

Sweeney initially ordered Myers released pending appeal, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Seventh Circuit blocked the release. On August 4, 2020, a three-judge panel reversed Sweeney and reinstated the conviction. The panel agreed that trial counsel’s performance was “deficient and plainly so” but found Myers had not shown the required prejudice, emphasizing the weight of his own incriminating statements to family, friends, and his cellmate.¹⁰

Second Habeas Petition

Myers filed another federal habeas petition arguing that the prosecution had presented false testimony and withheld over 8,000 pages of FBI and Bloomington Police Department documents allegedly containing information about alternative suspects, including Owings, Sowders, and Clouse. His attorney, Clifford Berlow of Jenner and Block, said the evidence “casts serious doubt on Mr. Myers’ guilt.”¹⁶ In October 2023, Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson denied the petition, finding the false-testimony claims procedurally defaulted because they had not been raised at trial or on direct appeal, and ruling that Myers had not identified specific, material evidence the state had suppressed.¹⁷

Where Myers Is Now

Myers is incarcerated at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Under sentencing guidelines in place at the time of his 2006 conviction, which allow him to serve half of his 65-year sentence, his expected release date is June 8, 2037.¹⁸

How Jill Behrman Is Remembered

Not long after Behrman disappeared, her friends and coworkers at the IU Student Recreational Sports Center renamed an existing competitive race in her honor. What was once “Run for the Endzone” became the Jill Behrman 5K, or JB5K, and later evolved into a non-competitive color run along a 2.8-mile route through the IU campus, starting and ending at the SRSC.¹⁹ The 25th annual event was held in November 2025.

Proceeds support the Jill Behrman Emerging Leader Scholarship, established by the Behrman family and awarded to IU students in recreational sports who demonstrate leadership and civic responsibility.²⁰ Behrman’s mother, Marilyn, has stayed closely involved with the race for a quarter century, and has described it as a way to focus on joyful memories of her daughter rather than the circumstances of her death.¹

1
Indiana Daily Student. Jill Behrman Disappeared 25 Years Ago
2
Indianapolis Star. Jill Behrman’s Death and John Myers’ Conviction: What We Know
3
FindLaw. Myers v. State of Indiana
4
FindLaw. Myers v. Neal
5
Indianapolis Monthly. How the Jill Behrman Case Informed Michael Koryta’s New Novel
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Herald-Times. Owings: I Lied on My Own
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WAVE 3 News. Police Continue Investigation Into Death of Jill Behrman
8
14 News. Trial Update: IU Cyclist Shot in the Head
9
The Indiana Lawyer. 7th Circuit Reinstates Myers Murder Conviction
10
FindLaw. Myers v. Neal, No. 19-3158
11
FindLaw. Myers v. State of Indiana, Direct Appeal
12
Time. Judge Overturns Murder Conviction, Sixth Amendment
13
Herald-Times. We Want Justice for John
14
The Indiana Lawyer. COA: Defendant Had Imperfect Yet Fair Trial
15
FindLaw. Myers v. State of Indiana, PCR Appeal
16
Fox 59. Court Denies Request for New Trial in Jill Behrman Murder Case
17
Indiana Attorney General. Myers Order Denying Habeas Relief
18
Herald-Times. Myers to Stay in Prison; Behrman’s Parents Elated
19
Indiana University. Jill Behrman 5K Celebrates 25 Years of Remembrance
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Indiana University Recreational Sports. Jill Behrman Color the Campus 5K