Conventional wisdom says when a pregnant woman is killed, it's usually the father of the child, boyfriend or intimate partner who did the killing. So, most of the people following the Michael Mead murder trial thought it would end with a guilty verdict. After all, Lucy Johnson was pregnant and engaged to Mead, who according to news reports, didn't want the baby.
During the six-week trial, prosecutors said Mead was upset with Johnson because she was pregnant and refused to have an abortion. He killed her, they said, and then set fire to her home to cover up the crime.
Does this mean that police allowed statistics to cloud their investigation? Johnson was shot in the head and then her house was set on fire, according to Gaston County DA, in an attempt to hide the crime. But who committed the crime? Will Johnson's killer ever face justice?