How Madison McGhee Is Solving Her Dad’s Ice Cold Case

Sep 2

The Murder of John Cornelius ‘JC’ McGhee

In July 2002, 45-year-old John Cornelius “JC” McGhee was gunned down in the doorway of his home in Bridgeport, Ohio, just across the river from West Virginia. The case drew little attention at the time—and quickly slipped from the headlines.

Now, decades later, his daughter, Madison McGhee, is demanding answers. Through her investigative podcast Ice Cold Case, she’s shining a spotlight on her father’s unsolved murder, exposing the skeletons in her own family’s closet, and challenging a community that may hold long-buried secrets—and the name of a killer—to finally come forward.

July 11, 2002: JC’s murder

Madison MxGhee: [My dad] was killed in the morning. He was asleep. He was laying in bed and heard some sort of ruffling outside and just got out of bed and within a minute was dead.
I mean, at this point he was living a pretty normal life. He was sober at the time that he was killed and pretty buttoned up at this point. Really got his stuff together. I think it's kind of ironic that of all the times he was killed or could have found himself in a precarious situation, it was actually when he was like doing the best that this happened to him.
My dad's sister, Pearl, lived next door with his nephew, Omar, who was about 21 at the time. That morning he was home with his girlfriend, and Pearl was also home at the time, and their home was broken into by several men.
They tied them up with phone cords. These people were looking for money, allegedly, and at some point in the debacle, after about 35 minutes, Omar goes outside with these guys.
Now it's very unclear why if he was like, ‘oh, you guys aren't finding any money, I bet my uncle has some money...’ I mean, that's sort of the easy assumption, but nobody really knows why. They went outside for about five minutes, according to the other people that were in the house before.
Those people inside the house heard a gunshot outside. Just one gunshot. So within that five minutes, they somehow made their way up the steps to my dad's house where my dad heard someone outside, got out of bed, went into the living room, was walking towards the front door.
He was about six feet away from the front door [and it was] kicked in. One shot. Kill shot to the head. My dad falls to the floor. My sister wakes up, and the guys are gone. Omar has now run towards the break shop, which is at the end of the road. He doesn't go back to his house where his mom and his girlfriend are tied up, he goes somewhere else. These men leave.
My sister (16-year-old Alyssa) comes out about a minute later and makes the 911 call. So it's a very weird connection to have to a murder as sort of a victim of a crime. Then also potentially a witness to a crime. It's very weird to be involved in something like this then the details of that day, and even that story is very bizarre.
It doesn't totally make sense if these guys were after money… if they were trying to kill my dad… The police say that my dad was reaching for a gun and that's why he was shot. But I can't imagine in the very quick moments between kicking in the door and shooting my dad, anyone would even have time to see my dad was reaching for a gun.
He didn't have one in his hand. You're also breaking into someone else's house, so it's like, why do you need to self defend if you're breaking into someone else's home? It’s all very bizarre.

Madison learns the truth

But growing up, Madison McGhee believed her dad, John Cornelius McGhee, who went by JC, died of a heart attack when she was six. A decade later, everything changed…

Madison McGhee: When I was 16, I was with my mom and I hadn't seen my dad's side of the family in 10 years, and we went to visit [and to see] my grandma on my dad's side.
We were leaving, and my cousin Omar was at the house standing on the front porch saying goodbye, and I saw him and I had this very weird, visceral reaction. It felt like someone punched me in the stomach. I couldn't breathe. I had this weird feeling and [me and my mom] got in the car…
I looked at my mom and I was like, ‘I feel like Omar was there when my dad had a heart attack and like didn't help him’. And still to this day, I'm really not sure where that came from.
So, I ask my mom this, and my mom is panicking, and [she’s] a pretty like, calm, cool, collected person, and she was like, what? Why are you asking me that?
And that's when she was like, ‘well, your dad actually was killed, and Omar was there that morning. But, there is sort of this theory that Omar was there—didn't do it, [and might also be] a victim that day—but also didn't do anything to help. So it's very weird that your question was so wildly specific that Omar was there and [let him] die essentially, because there are these rumors going around that that's what happened.’
But my mom didn't tell me that in the car. She pulled over and we went into a Buffalo Wild Wings, and she told me there while we were sitting in a booth and I was eating a grilled chicken wrap with barbecue sauce… and I've never had meat since.

“There is no such thing as a perfect victim”

During the pandemic, Madison began researching her dad’s case with the hope of bringing it back into the spotlight—and, ultimately, bringing her family the long-awaited justice they deserve.

Like most people, JC McGhee was a complicated person, and Madison has set out to tell his story with honesty and compassion. JC may not fit the mold of a “perfect victim,” but Madison isn’t asking anyone to see him that way. She’s asking people to put aside prejudice and judgment, and to understand that regardless of his flaws, JC’s life mattered—and his surviving family still deserves the truth.

Madison: In all of my dad's flaws, he was someone that most people who listen to the show actually can really relate to. I mean, he was just a family guy who liked to have fun and lived in a small town, which is like most people. I live in a big city, but there are a lot of people in like middle America who are just living in regular towns, and like that was my dad.
I also think that I want people to kind of go away with like... my dad was killed in his house. Regardless of his activity as like a drug dealer or whatever, he was shot in his house in a regular town, and that could have been your dad, your brother, your nephew. It could have been anybody. And the fact that we pick and choose whose cases we care about based on their occupation or their background is weird to me.
So I hope that people leave kind of going, we should look at the wholeness of the person when we are looking at what cases we wanna listen to, watch, consume, or create content about, depending on which side you fall on. Because there is a way to humanize literally every victim. It's just up to us like how and if we do that.
So that's kind of what I hope people take away.

Learn more about Madison’s journey investigating her dad’s murder on her podcast Ice Cold Case, available wherever you listen. And hear my exclusive interview with Madison, streaming now.

If you have any information on the murder of JC MCGhee, please contact the Belmont County Sheriff’s Office at (740) 695-5124.

This text has been adapted from the Murder, She Told podcast episode, How Madison McGhee is Solving Her Dad’s Ice Cold Case. To hear more about JC McGhee’s story and all of Madison’s interview, find Murder, She Told on your favorite podcast platform.

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