Newlywed sentenced to 30 years for Park murder

U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy sentenced Jordan Graham to 30 years in prison for killing her newlywed husband last summer in Glacier National Park. She was also ordered to pay $17,000 in restitution for the death of Cody Johnson, 25.

Molloy denied the 22-year-old Kalispell woman’s request to withdraw her guilty plea as her sentencing hearing began March 27 in Missoula.

Graham cried on the stand and apologized to her family and Johnson’s. Molloy, however, said he saw no remorse from Graham and indicated he had continuing doubts about her honesty. He said he was waiting for Graham “to say she was sorry for killing Cody.”

“There’s only one person in this room that knows what happened, and I don’t think she’s been entirely truthful about what happened,” Molloy said.

Graham surprised many by pleading guilty to second-degree murder just before closing arguments during her December trial.

Prosecutors agreed to drop a first-degree murder charge and a count of making a false statement to authorities when Graham changed her plea, but Molloy warned Graham at the time that she could still face life in prison.

Her defense attorneys tried unsuccessfully to retract that plea this week after prosecutors recommended a prison term of 50 years to life and argued she had planned to kill her husband of eight days.

Johnson’s body was found three days after he was reported missing by a co-worker at Nomad Global Communications, in Columbia Falls. It was Graham herself who told a Glacier Park ranger where her husband’s body could be found.

Graham testified at her trial that she was having second thoughts about being married so young, and that she and Johnson went to Glacier Park on July 7 to talk about it.

She said they argued at the edge of a steep cliff along the Loop Trail near the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Johnson grabbed her, and she “just pushed” without thinking about where they were, Graham said.

But Graham had taken steps to stop investigators from tying her to Johnson’s death, including fabricating a story about Johnson leaving their recently purchased Kalispell home with friends in a black car headed for West Glacier.

She also created a fake e-mail from someone named “Tony” claiming that Johnson was with friends when he accidentally fell off a cliff in the Park.

On March 26, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kris McLean responded to Graham’s attorneys request to withdraw her guilty plea. He noted that prosecutors agreed to dismiss the first-degree murder charge but not to ignore all the other evidence offered at trial.

McLean also noted that circumstances in the case resemble conduct typically associated with a first-degree murder charge — particularly evidence suggesting Graham had planned to kill Johnson.

Such evidence included Graham’s unhappiness about her new marriage; that she ended up with the only set of ignition keys to the car Johnson drove into Glacier Park the day he died, not at the bottom of the cliff Johnson had fallen from; and that she had text-messaged a friend in advance of Johnson’s last trip to the Park saying if the friend didn’t hear from her again that night, “something happened.”

Federal prosecutors also noted that Graham drove away from the scene without checking to see if Johnson had survived the fall. The absence of any drugs or alcohol in the case meant the defendant “was thinking very clearly,” McLean said.