Netflix’s newest true crime documentary, Tell Them You Love Me, is currently the No. 2 movie on the streaming platform. While watching the film, you might have questions about what happened in real life, including where Anna Stubblefield is now.
Directed by Nick August-Perna, Netflix’s Tell Them You Love Me delves into the controversial relationship between a white, abled professor and a nonverbal Black man with cerebral palsy, which led to a “nation-wide debate over power dynamics, disability, and race” after the man’s said that he couldn’t give consent, according to Netflix’s Tudum.
The documentary centers on whether Johnson, who is nonverbal, could communicate through FC communication and give consent. The court initially answered “no” to the question of consent and Anna Stubblefield was sentenced to two, 12-year terms in 2015. That didn’t mark the end of the strange case — the professor’s initial conviction was overturned, and she was released after two years after pleading to a lesser sentence.
Tell Them You Love Me centers on first-hand testimony from Stubblefield, Johnson’s family members, FC expert Howard Shane, and disabled anthropologist and professor Devva Kasnitz to tell the story of what happened.
How Did Anna Stubblefield and Derrick Johnson Meet?
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Anna Stubblefield and Derrick Johnson crossed paths in 2009 through his brother, John Johnson. John was a PhD student at Rutgers University and took Stubblefield’s philosophy and disability studies class. After class, he approached the professor to learn more about facilitated communication, a technique Stubblefield was familiar with after watching her mother use it for 20 years.
After speaking with D.J.’s mother, Daisy Johnson, the married ethics professor offered to facilitate D.J. herself. “She was gonna move mountains, and I accepted her at her word,” Daisy says in Tell Them You Love Me.
What Is FC Communication?
FC communication is an assisted typing technique where a facilitator physically supports a person’s hand or arm as they point to letters on a page or keyboard, spelling out words. However, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) describes FC communication as “a discredited technique that should not be used.” The association says that there is “extensive scientific evidence” that “messages are authored by the “facilitator” rather than the person with a disability.”
Stubblefield said that she successfully taught D.J. how to communicate through FC, and with her assistance, he began taking a university class. The professor claimed that Johnson was an intellectual trapped in a body that could not communicate.
But just five years before, a clinical psychologist named Wayne Tillman evaluated D.J. and found that he couldn’t carry out basic, pre-school level tasks. Tillman said that his “comprehension seemed to be quite limited,” “his attention span was very short,” and he “lacks the cognitive capacity to understand and participate in decisions,” according to The New York Times.
Derrick was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus after suffering multiple seizures as an infant. He learned how to walk after attending a day program and participating in his family’s daily routine. In the documentary, John says that while D.J. was “there” and expressed emotions like feeling happy or frustrated, he never had a formal education.
What Happened Between Anna Stubblefield And Derrick Johnson?
With Stubblefield’s help, Derrick progressed rapidly with FC — although his success only occurred when the professor, and not his mother or brother, was facilitating. D.J. became more interested in his studies; he enrolled in an African American Literature course and attended FC conferences with Stubblefield, who shared statements he had allegedly written.
‘‘The right to communication is the right to hope,’’ one essay said, per The New York Times. ‘‘I am jumping for joy knowing I can talk, but don’t minimize how humiliating it can be to know people jump to the conclusion I am mentally disabled.’’
At the same time, red flags started to emerge. Stubblefield said that Derrick preferred classical music to the gospel station they were listening to in the car. She also said he liked red wine more than beer, wanted to be a vegetarian, and hoped to move out of his mother’s house, according to Time.com. Daisy started to get suspicious, as her “alleged” son’s words sounded “very much of what she [Anna] liked but not what [D.J.] liked.’’
Stubblefield, who was married at the time, claimed that she and D.J. fell in love and she planned to leave her husband for him. She later testified that her feelings for him developed gradually. ‘‘I became aware of things when he wrote the essay. It wasn’t all that original — people who had had the same experience had said similar things — but with all the spelling mistakes, he had a way of putting things.’’
Stubblefield also revealed that the two had engaged in a “consensual” sexual relationship. Daisy, knowing that her son couldn’t engage in physical or emotional intimacy, reported Stubblefield to the police. The last time Daisy spoke with Anna in August, their phone call was recorded, and detectives listened on the other line.
‘Yes, [D.J.] wanted to be physically involved with me, and I wanted to be physically involved with him,’’ Anna said on the call. “Our relationship is not just about or primarily about the sex part. We love each other very, very, very much, and I wouldn’t have sex with somebody that I didn’t love.”
Who Was Anna Stubblefield Husband?
Anna Stubblefield married Roger Stubblefield, a tuba player for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The couple married in June 1989 and welcomed a son and daughter a few years later. According to The New York Times, the family was living in their upscale West Orange, N.J. home when Anna started falling in love with D.J.
Anna opened up about her relationship with Roger later in court. ‘‘The marriage wasn’t great,” she admitted, “but I wasn’t at a state of wanting imminently to end it.’’ She testified that it came down to a choice of whether she wanted to hurt Roger or D.J. ‘‘There wasn’t any choice. I wasn’t going to hurt [D.J.].’’
In testimony at a pretrial hearing, Roger said he realized his marriage was in trouble when ‘‘the prosecutors came and banged down the door.’’ The couple still went marriage counseling, and he said the therapist’s first words were, ‘Anna, you must stop dwelling on this relationship with [D.J.].’”
What Happened In Anna Stubblefield’s Trial?
In 2013, Stubblefield was charged with two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault. Because FC was not recognized by science, the court ruled that “no evidence related to FC would be considered,” per Netflix. In 2015, the jury found Anna guilty on both counts, and she was sentenced to two, 12 years terms in prison.
Two years later, Stubblefield’s verdict was overturned by a New Jersey state appellate court in 2017. According to Slate, the three-judge panel ruled that the judge in Stubblefield’s original trial “unfairly excluded evidence related to the man’s capacity to give consent” and granted her a new trial with a new judge. Anna accepted a plea deal, pleaded guilty to criminal sexual contact, and was sentenced to time served.
Where Is Anna Stubblefield Now?
Anna Stubblefield was released from prison and lives out of the public eye. She has not seen Derrick Johnson since 2011. Meanwhile, D.J. still lives with his mother and spends time with his brother John and the rest of their family. He does not use facilitated communication anymore.
Tell Them You Love Me is streaming on Netflix.
