Victim remembered as 'the best person ever'

A woman accused of murdering her husband of just eight days had made his friends suspicious of her involvement in his death in the weeks leading up to her arrest.

Jordan Linn Graham, 22, reportedly told investigators that she provided several false stories about what happened to her husband, 25-year-old Cody Johnson, before admitting to the FBI that she pushed him off a cliff in Glacier National Park on July 7.

Graham has not yet been charged, but a criminal complaint has been filed alleging that she committed second-degree murder.

Siblings Levi and Lytaunie Blasdel have known Graham since she was just 3 years old and Johnson for a handful of years, remaining friends with Graham until about a year ago. Since then the brother and sister were no longer on speaking terms with her.

Both said their experience with Johnson was more than enough to develop a very strong idea of the type of person he was.

“He’s the best person ever,” Lytaunie said without hesitation. “He is the guy that every father wants for his daughter, that pretty much sums him up.”

Levi echoed her comments.

“Cody was the type of guy that was genuinely sincere with everyone,” he said. “He welcomed every new friend with open arms, and without bias. He supported each and every one of his friends and he was the person you knew would be there if you ever needed him.”

He was also, Levi said, desperately in love with Graham.

“I introduced the two of them about a year and a half ago and they hit it off immediately,” Levi said. “He was completely smitten with her.”

According to both Levi and Lytaunie, Johnson had one other obsession — cars.

“Cody’s number one hobby above all else was driving his car,” Levi said. “He was rebuilding an Acura Integra, had rebuilt it three times.”

Lytaunie said that while Cody enjoyed going hiking and other outdoor activities, “he was much happier working on a car or driving fast — much too fast.”

But Levi said he noted one unsettling aspect up to and beyond Johnson’s wedding. Graham, he said, seemed very emotionally distant from Johnson, especially considering his complete love of her.

“We all had our reservations about their relationship,” Levi said. “She seemed so remote from the relationship, so withdrawn.”

Her remoteness and emotional coolness, he said, continued to the day she was arrested.

“At the funeral, a number of us had spoken, and while I gave my memorial for Cody at the podium, she was messing around on her phone,” Levi said. “It was very hard for all of us to be there crying and mourning the loss of our friend and she was so unresponsive to that, really no emotion, no crying, very sober.”

He said that was the opposite of her behavior at the wedding, where she was crying before she walked down the aisle. The very next day, he said, she was posting pictures online of her and children that she watched as if it were any other day of her life.

“We were struggling at work, struggling to get through the day, and here she claimed that she loved Cody and she was fine a day after the memorial service. It just didn’t make sense,” Levi said.

His sister said much the same.

“I don’t think anyone suspected her directly until all of us heard different stories from her,” Lytaunie said. “That’s when it got weird.”

Lytaunie described Graham as “100 percent normal” but very quiet person who worked as a nanny for the last three years and previously worked at a day care.

“She always had kids with her,” she said. “She went on hikes and to the lakes, she would go to Hungry Horse — to the House of Mystery. Pretty much anything that was kid-friendly.”

But it was her unflinching normalcy and lack of emotion — along with her conflicting stories — that eventually made Graham the chief suspect in the eyes of many acquaintances.

“We all pretty much were convinced [she was involved in Johnson’s death] by the way that she acted and the way that her story had changed so many times,” Levi said.

Those changes in her story have Levi questioning even the details she gave investigators in her confession described in a court affidavit.

“This is the child that just got caught with her hand in the cookie jar,” he said. “What can she say to have the best excuse to make her look like she is as innocent as possible?”

One of Levi’s primary questions involves the location and nature of Johnson’s death, because according to Levi, Johnson was extremely afraid of heights.

“Cody and I went to South America over Thanksgiving two years ago and we stopped in New Orleans. We were at the top of a parking garage and I walked up to the ledge and said, ‘Cody, come here and let’s get a picture,” Levi said. “He wouldn’t come within five feet of the ledge. He was terrified of heights. So the idea of him walking around this edge in the dark is unsettling.”

He also questions what Graham was thinking after she pushed Johnson off the cliff and drove away.

“Did Cody not cry out from the bottom of the canyon? Did he not plead for help?” Levi said. “How long did Cody lay there at the bottom of the canyon, alive and bleeding, while Jordan got in her car and drove away? What was she thinking he was going to do the next morning? Her story does not float.”

Graham’s arrest brought mixed emotions for the siblings.

“It’s definitely bittersweet, but it’s good to have her behind bars,” Lytaunie said.

Levi said it’s the first step in the right direction.

“When she was arrested, I felt happy that we were making progress with the case, but in the back of my mind I know that it’s not over, that it’s the first step, and the case that’s about to come will continue that,” Levi said. “But it still reminds you of the pain and hurt that Cody isn’t here, that you can’t call him, that he won’t be there when you need him or want to talk to him.”

Unlike some of his friends, however, Levi said he is not upset at the two months it took investigators to build their case before arresting Graham.

“It’s very important that people remember that this two months of waiting means they were getting all of the evidence necessary to make sure that justice was served,” he said.

Douglas Berman, a Robert J. Watkins/Procter & Gamble professor of law at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, has taken Graham’s possible sentences in his “Sentencing Law and Policy” blog.

In his analysis, Berman wrote that U.S. sentencing guidelines provide a sentencing range of just under 20 to 25 years, assuming no significant criminal history.

“But I would expect a guilty plea here which alone, thanks to an acceptance of responsibility downward adjustment, could reduce the advisory range to 14 to 18 years,” he wrote. “That said, the defendant’s prior lies about the crime could lead to an obstruction of justice enhancement.”

Berman also said federal prosecutors could argue for another upward adjustment based on “abuse of a position of private trust.”

He also said Graham could end up with some kind of plea deal in which she would plead guilty to voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, which could reduce her sentence to the point that she could conceivably receive some type of alternative to incarceration.

On the other hand, Berman wrote, since the guidelines for sentencing are just guidelines, a federal sentencing judge could “justify a sentence perhaps as high as life and as low as straight probation.”

Levi said some people think a person needs to be punished so they feel remorseful for what they have done, but he’s not sure how he feels about that.

“The pain that they caused the individual is great, and they should have to pay for that, but what about Cody’s mom? The pain that she has to go through? His family, his friends, the anguish they have to deal with?” he said. “It’s a very interesting question, but one that I know a jury of her peers and a judge will have in mind the entire case.”

Graham is currently incarcerated in the Missoula County Detention Facility, where she is being held on a preliminary felony charge of deliberate homicide and on a federal hold, both with no bond.

A court document states that Andrew J. Nelson, Michal J. Donahoe and the Federal Defenders of Montana Inc. be appointed to represent Graham at no cost, since she is financially unable to obtain private counsel.

A detention hearing for Graham is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. today.

Reporter Jesse Davis may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at jdavis@dailyinterlake.com.