The investigation into the murder of Arlington, Virginia, librarian Andrea Cincotta spanned over two decades and was characterized by a series of unusual twists. 

According to ‘s Dateline: Unforgettable, it all began when Cincotta’s fiancé, James Christopher “Chris” Johnson, called 911 to report discovering his partner’s body in a closet, approximately seven hours after he had first arrived at their small apartment.

“Uh, I thought my girlfriend was missing,” he calmly explained to the dispatcher in recordings featured in the “Behind the Closet Door” episode. “I hadn’t seen her. She — we were supposed to go out tonight.” 

Johnson then added, “Uh, but I — I figured I’d give her some time. Uh, I think she’s dead.”

The unusual call, in which Johnson would go on to explain that he discovered Cincotta in the closet already “cold,” was just the beginning of a case that would include a false confession, an overlooked suspect, a relentless quest by Cincotta’s son to discover the truth, and a stunning courtroom finale. 

Veteran Dateline correspondent Josh Mankiewicz called it “one of the strangest cold cases I’ve covered.” 

The day Andrea Cincotta was found dead

On the last day of her life in August of 1998, Cincotta was enjoying a rare day off from the public library where she worked. She started the day by going to the pool for a swim, one of the 52-year-old’s favorite activities. Then she stopped by the library to spend some time working on a special project before returning home to the cozy two-bedroom apartment that she shared with Johnson sometime around 11 a.m. 

Johnson, who worked in the receiving department at a Home Depot, was at work that day. Cincotta had plans to spend her afternoon off having lunch with a friend, but she never made it to that 1 p.m. outing. 

Johnson said that when he got home from work around dinner time, he found no sign of Cincotta. 

“Her car wasn’t there, the door was unlocked and it should have been locked,” said her son, Kevin Cincotta.

Johnson would later tell authorities that he had a snack, took a shower and did some laundry while he waited for Cincotta to come home. He also called Kevin, several of Cincotta’s friends and at least one local hospital to try to determine where she could be.

Johnson said that he dozed off at around 11:30 p.m. and then woke up two hours later and realized the bedroom closet door was mostly closed, even though Cincotta always kept it open.

He said he got up and opened the door and discovered his fiancée dead inside. 

Aside from Cincotta’s light blue 1987 Honda Civic being missing, Johnson told police that a roll of quarters, a jar of coins, and some of her purses were missing from the apartment. He also mentioned that the apartment looked freshly vacuumed. 

Police focus on James Christopher “Chris” Johnson 

The Arlington County Police Department look a hard look at Johnson after finding his tone unusually calm on that 911 call. Johnson had also been the one to discover Cincotta’s car abandoned on the shoulder of the interstate about nine miles from the apartment. The clutch had been burned out, but authorities didn’t find any fingerprints or DNA inside.

Johnson was questioned for more than 20 hours over the next three days. Under the law, detectives are allowed to lie to suspects, so, they told Johnson that his fingerprints had been found on the body and that the medical examiner determined that Cincotta was killed some time after he got home from work.

After that, Johnson made a series of odd statements to police in one taped interview.

“Did you place Andy in that closet?” a detective asked. 

“I do not remember placing her in the closet,” Johnson replied after a lengthy pause. “Based on what I’ve been told in this building, I can draw no other conclusion — i.e. that I must have placed her in the closet, because they said my fingerprints were on her body.” 

During another portion of the interview after detectives told him to imagine he’d carried out the act, Johnson told authorities almost in a trance-like state that he “hit her” across the neck and she’d fallen and hit her head.

The only problem? The autopsy showed that Cincotta had no serious head injury and had died of cervical compression, or strangulation. Detectives determined she died some time before 1 p.m., while Johnson was at work.

Andrea Cincotta’s son suggests looking into “computer guy”

Cincotta’s son Kevin didn’t believe that Johnson — who had been dating his mom for 10 years and always “seemed to be very supportive” — would have taken her life.

He told detectives that the first person he’d look into was a “computer guy” who had met his mom several weeks before her death. Cincotta had been walking out of her condo to get rid of an old computer when she ran into a man in the parking lot from a trash company. While the man said that the company didn’t recycle computers, he added that he wanted the computer for his own personal use and followed Cincotta inside to collect the computer and printer.

Cincotta even called the man a few days later because he had been having trouble setting it up and Johnson spoke to him as well. 

“I really tried to make the case that they needed to look harder at the computer guy,” Kevin recalled.

But authorities seemed to be singularly focused on Johnson. They did eventually identify the “computer guy” and brought him in for questioning, but later told Kevin he’d been cleared.

Undeterred, Kevin hired a private investigator and was able to identify the man he knew as the “computer guy.” 

Bobby Joe Leonard was a registered sex offender who was in and out of prison for robbing and assaulting people, according to Dateline: Unforgettable. Less than a week after Cincotta’s death, Leonard was arrested for assaulting his wife. After a two-month prison stint for that crime, he was arrested again for the rape and attempted murder of a 13-year-old girl. 

In an eerie similarity to Cincotta’s case, the girl had been choked and left in a closet. Leonard was convicted and sentenced to life behind bars for that crime.

Andrea Cincotta’s case goes cold

Meanwhile, Cincotta’s case had gone cold. Kevin continued to relentlessly pursue justice for his mom and kept up a friendship with Johnson, who ultimately met a new love interest and got married.

Then, in 2018, 20 years after Cincotta’s murder, a new cold case detective was assigned to her case.

Like the detectives before her, she believed that Johnson could be involved and this time showed Kevin that interrogation footage of Johnson being challenged by authorities. It was enough to convince Kevin that the man he had once viewed as a second father figure could have been involved and he agreed to wear a wire to confront Johnson.

“At least you know what happened… I don’t have that,” Kevin told Johnson at one point during their nearly two-hour discussion. 

“And I can’t give it to you,” Johnson said, before adding “Kevin, I did not kill your mother. And I’m sorry that you think I did.”

Bobby Joe Leonard says he attacked, choked Andrea Cincotta

The sting operation didn’t yield much for the detective to go on, so she turned her focus instead to Leonard, who finally agreed to talk in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table.

Leonard admitted to returning to Cincotta’s home on the day she was killed and attacking her after she went to get him a drink.

“I just reached out with both of my hands, and grabbed her by the throat, and started choking her,” he told the detective. “And she just laid down on the ground. I mean, like, there was literally no struggle or fight or anything.” 

Leonard also admitted to stealing Cincotta’s car and abandoning it along the interstate after it broke down.

But he also made a surprising allegation. Leonard said he went to Cincotta’s home that day after a “gentleman” he had once spoken to about the computer asked him to come to the home to kill Cincotta. According to Leonard’s account, the man — who never gave his name but who he knew to be Cincotta’s boyfriend — told him if that he carried out the act, there would be $5,000 waiting for him in a shoe in the closet. 

But Leonard didn’t find any money in the closet, he said, adding that he never followed up because he got arrested a short time later for assaulting his wife.

James Christopher “Chris” Johnson is arrested

Authorities believed they had what they needed to arrest Johnson for murder-for-hire in 2021.

He went on trial in 2022. Prosecutors played jurors that 911 recording and Johnson’s interrogation footage, but their case largely hinged on Leonard’s testimony.

Johnson’s defense team argued that there was no evidence or financial records tying Johnson to what Leonard had alleged happened, and argued that Leonard, a violent convicted criminal, only implicated Johnson in an attempt to get moved to another prison in exchange for his testimony.

“He’s going to take the word of someone on the phone that he’s never met who promises that $5,000 will be left in a closet if he does the job? Nothing of it made sense,” Manuel Leiva, one of Johnson’s defense attorneys, told Dateline.

The jury would agree. It took them less than an hour to acquit Johnson.

“I’m relieved, but it’s still a very sad thing that she’s gone,” Johnson told the press while leaving the courthouse.

Leonard was sentenced to a second life term in prison after pleading guilty to killing Cincotta.