{"id":3572,"date":"2025-06-20T20:00:03","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T00:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3572"},"modified":"2025-06-18T10:17:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T14:17:27","slug":"an-appalachian-preachers-fall-bigamy-abduction-and-deceit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3572","title":{"rendered":"An Appalachian Preacher\u2019s Fall: Bigamy, Abduction and Deceit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Sullivan-Co.-Courthouse-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3573\" srcset=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Sullivan-Co.-Courthouse-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Sullivan-Co.-Courthouse-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Sullivan-Co.-Courthouse-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Sullivan-Co.-Courthouse-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Sullivan-Co.-Courthouse-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A preacher with five wives, a kidnapped teenage girl, and a cross-country manhunt.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t fiction, it\u2019s the unbelievable true story of Joseph Herman Johnson, a Primitive Baptist minister whose lies and crimes unraveled in an East Tennessee courtroom in 1927. From bigamy to abduction to a bizarre promise of Hollywood stardom to his victim, this episode covers one of the most twisted scandals in Appalachian history, another one of the Stories of Appalachia. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you don\u2019t miss any of our stories. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_4097\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3572-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66602683\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66602683\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66602683\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66602683\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3572-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66602683\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A preacher with five wives, a kidnapped teenage girl, and a cross-country manhunt.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t fiction, it\u2019s the unbelievable true story of Joseph Herman Johnson, a Primitive Baptist minister whose lies and crimes unraveled in an East Tennessee courtroom in 1927. From bigamy to abduction to a bizarre promise of Hollywood stardom to his victim, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,38,49,12],"tags":[1149,1151,91,523,1150,1155,852,371,1147,1152,1156,1148,1153,1076,514,848,1154],"class_list":["post-3572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-outlaws","category-religion","category-the-roaring-20s","tag-1920s","tag-abduction","tag-appalachia","tag-appalachian-storytelling","tag-bigamy","tag-brushy-mountain","tag-courtroom-drama","tag-historical-crime","tag-joseph-herman-johnson","tag-kingsport","tag-podcast","tag-preacher-scandal","tag-primitive-baptist","tag-southern-history","tag-tennessee-history","tag-true-crime","tag-viola-burger"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-VC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3574,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions\/3574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}