FBI and OSBI Discuss Involvement in Lester Hobbs, Aja Johnson Case

By Dave Jordan, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The OSBI and FBI are speaking about how they handled the kidnapping of 7-year-old Aja Johnson. Her body and the body of Lester Hobbs, the man who allegedly kidnapped her and murdered her mother, were found in a car in Norman this past Monday.

There are several reports suggesting that the FBI offered OSBI help in this case and it was refused. NEWS 9 heard those reports weeks ago and checked with OSBI ,and it was denied.

Now, both agencies have something to say.

Monday's tragic end to a nine-week search for 7-year-old Aja Johnson raised questions about the agency assigned to find her. Among them: Did OSBI, the lead agency working this case, use all available resources?

FBI spokesman Gary Johnson said that his agency offered to assist OSBI with the investigation.

"We were refused. We were told they could handle it on their own," Johnson said.

OSBI responded during a press conference they held on Wednesday.

"I want to make sure everybody understands the FBI was involved in this investigation from the very beginning," said Richard Goss with the OSBI. "We actually had an agent assigned to the command post during the early stages of the investigation."

Goss was OSBI's lead commander on this case. He says his agency received 367 leads on this case, all of them checked and documented. The FBI confirms one of its agents was at the command post, but went on to say that it, "offered up its child abduction response team as an additional resource." OSBI also refused that and here's why.

"Their FBI agent reviewed the check list that their cart team has for their child abductions and determined that both the OSBI and the U.S. Marshalls had covered everything that, that team would have done," said Goss. "If the FBI wanted to, they could have come in and taken over the kidnapping of Aja Johnson at any point and time."

The FBI says the document that was reviewed was not an official CART checklist. And as to why it did not take over the case, the FBI says it prefers to work side by side with its law enforcement partners and to maintain strong relationships with them.

We should mention the FBI says it's not second-guessing how the OSBI handled the case, and that there was no guarantee that Aja Johnson would have been found alive if the FBI was more involved.