Noah Thomas Cox: Johnia Berry Case, Charges, and Later Arrests

Noah Thomas Cox is a Tennessee man with a long felony record who was publicly named as an alternative suspect in the 2004 stabbing death of University of Tennessee graduate student Johnia Berry. Prosecutors never charged him. His DNA did not match evidence recovered from the crime scene, and the Knox County District Attorney General’s office concluded there was nothing to place anyone other than Taylor Lee Olson and the victim inside the apartment. Cox has separately been convicted of numerous felonies across East Tennessee for burglary, theft, drug offenses, and evading arrest.¹

How His Name Entered the Berry Case

Johnia Berry, 21, was stabbed to death on December 6, 2004, inside her apartment at the Brendon Park complex on Rhodora Road in West Knox County. Cox, then 24, lived across the street. He and Taylor Lee Olson, the man later indicted for the murder, were roommates at a nearby building known as the Warren House.¹

Cox’s name reached investigators through two channels. The first was a mutual acquaintance, Augustine Joseph Leon, who told the Knox County District Attorney General’s office that Olson had shared details of the killing with him and that Cox had bragged about “getting away with murder.” According to Leon, Olson broke into Berry’s apartment believing it was empty, was wounded when Berry fought back with a knife, and fled. Cox then allegedly entered the apartment and killed her.²³

The second channel was Olson’s defense. Attorney Gregory P. Isaacs filed pre-trial motions naming Cox as the actual killer and demanding evidence related to him, and he noted a physical resemblance between Cox, Olson, and the police composite sketch of the attacker. Investigators had also found an Atlanta Braves hat on the victim’s bed, taken during a vehicle burglary the same night, and the absence of a companion hat led some authorities to speculate that two people may have been involved. DNA testing of the recovered hat yielded no results linking it to Cox.¹

Olson’s own accounts shifted. He initially told investigators he acted alone and confessed to entering through an unlocked back door intending to steal.⁴ He later produced a nine-page handwritten document titled “The Story,” and on March 24, 2008, hanged himself in his Knox County jail cell, leaving letters to his family that claimed he did not kill Berry and named another person as responsible. Isaacs declined to confirm publicly whether the letters named Cox.⁵

Why He Was Never Charged

The Knox County Sheriff’s Office questioned Cox 22 days after the murder and again after Olson’s arrest. He denied involvement, and his DNA did not match evidence recovered from the scene. No fingerprints, blood, or other forensic evidence placed him inside the apartment.¹

After Olson’s death, Assistant District Attorney General Kevin Allen issued a memo formally closing the case. The memo acknowledged that prosecutors considered it “improbable” Olson acted alone but concluded there was nothing to sustain a prosecution against anyone else. Allen wrote: “There exists nothing concrete that would place anyone other than Taylor Olson and the victims at the crime scene.” Special counsel John Gill separately told reporters the office was “puzzled” by the defense’s attempts to implicate Cox and confirmed no plans to file murder charges against anyone else.⁶

Background and Prior Trouble

Cox came from a family described in a 2007 Knoxville News Sentinel profile as having “old money” and “familial and financial ties to a prominent Gatlinburg clan.” The same profile described him as a “thieving addict who dabbled in the drug trade to feed his own habit,” and noted that arrest warrants cited a “penchant for trying to outrun the law” and fighting officers.²

In 2002, Cox allegedly arranged a drug deal for John Turner Lloyd, a 22-year-old Farragut man. The deal went bad and Lloyd was shot to death. Cox’s father told reporters that Lloyd had brandished a gun and tried to rob the dealers Cox introduced him to, prompting return fire. Police suspected Cox had intentionally set Lloyd up to be robbed, but the Knox County District Attorney General’s office declined to file charges against Cox or the dealers.²

Later Convictions and Arrests

By late 2007, Cox was incarcerated on burglary and theft charges. A 2015 report placed him at the Northeast Correctional Complex in Mountain City on unrelated theft charges, awaiting a parole hearing.¹ In December 2014, he was arrested in Sevier County on charges of aggravated assault and resisting arrest, with bond set at $25,000.⁷

On July 17, 2016, a Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputy tried to pull Cox over near the intersection of Central Avenue Pike and Callahan Drive. Cox fled in a stolen vehicle, drove behind a business and through a field before crashing, then ran on foot, leaving behind approximately three grams of methamphetamine and an injured passenger. He was convicted of facilitation of possession with intent to sell methamphetamine in a drug-free school zone, theft, evading arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia, and driving on a suspended license. Prosecutors noted at the time that he had twelve prior felony convictions across Knox and Sevier Counties for burglary, theft, evading arrest, reckless endangerment, and drug dealing. Judge Steve Sword revoked Cox’s bond, and he faced up to fifteen years in prison as a career offender, with sentencing scheduled for March 28, 2019.⁸

On March 23, 2022, deputies stopped the black Chrysler 200 Cox was driving on Interstate 40 near Asheville Highway for going 71 mph in a 65-mph zone. Inside they found approximately 300 grams of methamphetamine in a locked box, $2,084 in cash, and $500 in counterfeit hundred-dollar bills. A receipt for the lock box bearing Cox’s name was in the vehicle. Cox, listed as a 38-year-old resident of Sneedville, was arrested along with passengers Tiffany Gibson and Breanna Dover on narcotics and traffic charges, and all three were transported to the Roger D. Wilson Detention Facility.⁹

As of a May 2026 query of the Tennessee Department of Correction’s felony offender database, no active Tennessee sentences were on file for Cox.¹⁰

1
Knoxville News Sentinel. Questions Remain in Johnia Berry’s Death
2
Knoxville News Sentinel. Criminal Trio: Black Sheep of Good Families
3
Knoxville News Sentinel. Delay Granted in Trial of Accused Slaying Suspect
4
WATE. Knoxville Murder Case Mother’s Persistence Highlighted in ABC Special
5
Knoxville News Sentinel. Suicide Note Alleges Second Suspect
6
Paris Post-Intelligencer. Victim’s Parents Not Convinced by Suspect’s Suicide Letter
7
The Mountain Press. Arrest Report for Dec. 28
8
Knox County District Attorney General. Career Offender Crashes Vehicle, Leaving Behind Drugs
9
WATE. Traffic Stop Leads to Drug Bust, Arrest of 3 Suspects
10
Tennessee Department of Correction. Felony Offender Information Lookup