It was a shocking murder.

Courtney Cash was found stabbed and stuffed in a box in her Putnam County home.

Almost eight years later, the family says justice wasn’t served and that the Putnam County district attorney took the easy route in the investigation.

The only two witnesses were as high as a kite. One man is convicted of murder, the other man is treated as a victim witness. The family says that was a big mistake.

Courtney Cash was only 23 years old. She was the great niece of Johnny Cash and the daughter of Cookeville’s Cindy Young.

“Courtney was beautiful and just a wonderful person,” said Cindy Young. “Everybody loved her, everybody. She would light up the room with that smile. Very big-hearted, just beautiful. I miss her, I miss her bad.”

Cash had a baby with boyfriend Austin Johnson. The two lived together in this house in Baxter, Tennessee.

A friend named Wayne Masciarella allegedly gets high on meth and then goes crazy. Johnson and Masciarella got in a fight. Masciarella had a knife. Cash tried to break it up, she was stabbed in the shoulder and the hand by Masciarella.

Johnson also says he was stabbed, this is not contested, but here is where the stories change:

Boyfriend Johnson says Masciarella forced them both to shoot up meth. But Masciarella, who doesn’t deny the stabbing, says it was Johnson who shot her up with meth to jumpstart her heart.

Who to believe? Consider this: Johnson lied at least once, he told the court he had never done meth, ever. He later admitted he was a user.

Remember he said Masciarella forced them to inject meth in their arms, that story seems less likely after Johnson admitted he had done meth before.

And then there is this: After Cash allegedly loses consciousness, Johnson says he started CPR to bring her back; while at the same time he claims he was having a conversation with her during CPR.

“The last thing that she looked at me and said was, ‘I love you,” Johnson testified. “And I said, “I love you too, and she said “I’m sorry, I love you too.”

“It was unbelievable,” Cindy Young said. “How do you do that? How does the DA accept these kinds of lies when you know he’s lying? That is common sense. You don’t give CPR to someone who is talking and breathing. You just don’t do it.”

Cindy Young begged the DA to at least take a harder look at Austin Johnson’s role in the killing. But she says Bryant Dunaway and his team wouldn’t even consider it.

“He’s a victim witness, period,” said Young. “That was it and there was going to be no more discussion, write your questions down when you would go into the DA, but they refused to listen to any of them. He was a victim-witness that’s all they would say.”

Maybe the evidence would prove otherwise, but investigators threw away the six hypodermic needles found on the scene.

Fingerprints, DNA, all of it was disposed of—and although the TBI can test these kinds of needles for evidence, the DA reportedly did not ask them to. In fact, he simply said, “The hypodermic needles were disposed of the day after they were recovered. There were no field tests conducted on the needles.”

Johnson also said that he was held hostage for 18 hours, that he had no access to any weapons. Yet there was a big knife found in the baby’s room where he was being held. Tere were knives in drawers and baseball bats all over the house. Even brass knuckles,

Johnson eventually jumped out of the window with the baby.

Cash’s family says it just doesn’t add up and she blames the office of District Attorney Bryant Dunaway.

“I’m just so full of anger and this is every day,” said Young. “Every day the anger is just there. I was raised to believe in the justice system and to get thrown into thisthey are legal criminals. They are legal criminals.”

FOX 17 News asked District Attorney Bryant Dunaway to explain why the needles weren’t tested. We asked him why the early perjury of Austin Johnson didn’t make him question the rest of the story.

We even asked about the plausibility of giving CPR to someone unconscious.

He did not answer any of our questions.

Wayne Masciarella pleaded guilty to second degree murder and a sentence of 15 years at 100 percent.

Mr. Johnson has moved out of the area and had his parental rights severed. The family says he has never even attempted to see his daughter.