Salem police detectives sued over biased investigation into Jesse Johnson

Salem police detectives sued over biased investigation into Jesse Johnson

Jesse Johnson walked out of the Marion County Jail on Sept. 5, 2023, as a free man after 25 years behind bars in Oregon. Two years later, he’s suing the state and the detectives who locked him up for a crime he always denied committing. Salem Police Department Detectives Mike Quakenbush and Craig Stoelk arrested Johnson in 1998 for the murder of Harriet Lavern Thompson. He would spend the next quarter century, including 17 years on death row, lo…