Netflix is no stranger to twisted documentaries, but this month it released one of its most twisted yet.
True crime film Tell Them You Love Me joined the streaming giant’s roster, chronicling the controversial events between white ethics professor Anna Stubblefield and nonverbal black man Derrick Johnson, whom she later convicted. for sexual assault in New Jersey.
Throughout the documentary, director Nick August-Perna and executive producer Louis Theroux explore the roles that race, disability and power played within their dynamic and the events that unfolded. The project features interviews with Stubblefield and Johnson, as well as some of their family members with fiercely opposing views on their relationship.
“It’s a film where every dramatic revelation opens up new questions, and we wanted that unraveling to play out until the very last images,” August-Perna said in a Netflix news release. “More than anything, I knew I had to get the balance and the integrity of the story lines, to reveal things at just the right time.”
What is “Tell Them You Love Me” about?
“Tell Them You Love Me” chronicles the case against former Rutgers-Newark University ethics professor Anna Stubblefield, who was convicted in 2015 of sexually assaulting Derrick Johnson.
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Stubblefield met Johnson, who has cerebral palsy and is nonverbal, in 2009 through his brother John Johnson. As one of Stubblefield’s students, John asked her to help with Johnson’s communication skills. Stubblefield was 39 and Johnson was 28 when she started helping him take a college class using an LED screen to write on.
The professor, who was married at the time, said the two had consensual sex after falling in love. But Johnson’s mother, Daisy Johnson, said his condition prevents her son from being able to engage in physical or emotional intimacy and accused Stubblefield of manipulating his hands through the keyboard.
Where is Anna Stubblefield now?
Stubblefield was convicted of two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault in 2015 and sentenced to 12 years in prison. By 2017, her conviction was overturned after a judge found her trial unfair.
After accepting a plea deal to a lesser charge, Stubblefield was released from prison, having served just two years of her original sentence.
When she was released, she worked as a restaurant server, but was later released due to the publicity surrounding her plea deal. She now does “unspecified part-time work from home,” according to the documentary.
The documentary ends by revealing that Derrick Johnson lives with his mother in their home in Irvington, New Jersey. The film portrays him as healthy, confident and loving.
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