Jason Gailey may not be sitting in the Orange County Jail Tuesday if not for a mother who went against everything detectives told her about her son Ronald Johnson's death eight years ago.
They originally believed Johnson died after he fell off his bike and hit his head.
"They pretty much kind of brushed it off as it was an accident, everybody kind of said the same thing, and that's it, it's done, but it wasn't done," Johnson's mother Judy Weaver said.
Weaver was convinced her son was murdered, but said investigators were not.
"They all looked at me like I was dumb and just said, 'Oh,'" Weaver said, shrugging her shoulders as she said the investigators did the night her son was found.
Johnson was in a vegetative state in the hospital, but Weaver told people in the neighborhood he was doing fine and talking about what happened.
Because of that, she said, days later Gailey came to her home.
"He wants to tell me that he accidentally hit Ronnie with his fist," Weaver said.
She went to detectives with that information, but nothing came of it.
For the next seven years, Weaver gathered her own information and kept notes.
She said it all paid off one day when a detective came into the restaurant where she was working.
She shared her story and it just so happened that detective originally worked the case.
She said she believes it was divine intervention.
Weaver was convincing enough that the cold case was reopened.
Years later, witnesses started opening up and telling a different story, saying Gailey hit Johnson on the head with a gun when he tried to break up a fight.
Nine months later there was enough evidence to put Gailey behind bars, all thanks to a mother's intuition and work.
"I think my son would be proud," Weaver said.
