Newlywed accused of pushing husband off Glacier Park cliff

A Kalispell woman was accused during an initial appearance on Sept. 9 in federal court with pushing her newlywed husband off a cliff in Glacier National Park. If charged with second-degree murder, Graham faces up to life in prison.

According to an FBI investigator’s account, it’s a sordid tale full of lies and deceit. Jordan Linn Graham, 22, and her husband Cody Lee Johnson, 25, had an argument while hiking along the Loop Trail in the Park not far from The Loop switchback on the Going-to-the-Sun Road on July 7. 

Johnson was then reported missing on July 8. On July 9, police interviewed Graham, and she told police that Johnson received a phone call that made him upset about 9:45 p.m. after the two had gone out to dinner with friends.

When the two got home, Graham realized her cell phone was going dead and she said she left to go to a different house to get the charger. When she came back, she initially told police, she saw her husband leaving the house in a dark colored car.

Graham claimed she received a text from Johnson saying he was leaving, but she could never produce the text from Johnson. Graham said she deleted it.

A search was started for Johnson, and police interviewed a friend of Graham’s on July 11. During that interview, the friend told law enforcement that Graham previously said she was having second thoughts about being married. Johnson and Graham had been married about a week. 

On July 7, Graham sent a text to the friend where Graham said she was going to talk to Johnson. The friend said she, “would pray for you guys.” Graham responded by saying, “But dead serious if u don’t hear from me at all again tonight, something happened.”

On July 11, Park rangers were dispatched to the camp store at Lake McDonald for a visitor reporting a dead body at 8:30 p.m. The reporting party was Graham. The body was found below The Loop. The ranger remarked that he thought it was strange she would be the person who found the body.

Graham explained that this “was a place he wanted to see before he died,” and that “he would come up here with friends to drive fast when his friends were visiting from out of state.”

But a day before, Graham allegedly told a friend that Johnson’s body had been found and that he had fallen and was dead and the search should be called off.

Law enforcement put the pieces of the puzzle together and confronted Graham on July 16. She then allegedly told officers she had lied — that on July 7, she and Johnson had an argument and they went to the Park. They hiked down the Loop Trail to a spot where it was very steep and then proceeded down the rocks to a place near a stump. 

The two argued, Johnson grabbed Graham by the arm, and Graham removed his hand. Graham then pushed Johnson with both hands in the back, and he fell face first off the cliff not far from the Sun Road.

The complaint against Graham doesn’t say what time the incident occurred.

Johnson worked at Nomad Communications Systems near Columbia Falls. Since his death, friends have openly wondered when charges would be filed. One started a Twitter account asking “Who killed Cody Johnson?”

But investigators have kept mum until the most recent developments until this week.

Johnson’s death was investigated by the National Park Service, the FBI, the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office and the Kalispell Police Department.

If convicted, of second-degree murder, Graham faces life a possible sentence of life in prison.