'Tell Them You Love Me' Surfaces Anna Stubblefield's Chilling Story

'Tell Them You Love Me' is now streaming on Netflix. The documentary follows the case of Anna Stubblefield, a former Rutgers University professor who was convicted to 22 years in prison for sexually assaulting a nonspeaking black man with cerebral palsy, Derrick Johnson, referred to in the movie as D.J.

Johnson isn't interviewed in the film, considering the fact that his intellectual disability and absence of motor control meant that he would never be able to communicate effectively. This, with the exception of the period between 2009 and 2011, when he was communicating with Anna through facilitated communication (F.C.), a technique where a facilitator supports the hand or arm of a person with severe communication disabilities to help them type on a keyboard or point to letters. Critics argue that the facilitator might inadvertently be guiding the responses.

Who Is Anna Stubblefield?

Both of Anna's parents held PhDs in special education and worked extensively with people with disabilities. Her mother was one of the primitive practitioners of facilitated communication and worked with blind and cognitively impaired children. Stubblefield used F.C. with Johnson in addition to several other clients.

At the time Stubblefield met Johnson in 2009 and was a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, while also being married with two kids.

Stubblefield was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and was sentenced to two 12-year terms in prison in 2016. She was released after two years when her initial conviction was overturned, and pled down to a lesser sentence, according to TIME. She had to serve approximately 10 years of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole. Stubblefield was also required to register as a sex offender and submit to lifetime parole supervision.

As per Today, Stubblefield's lawyer argued that an expert in F.C. should have been allowed to testify, as this could have convinced the jury that Johnson could consent to sex. The expert was prohibited from testifying on account of F.C. being considered a “junk pseudoscience.”

Stubblefield said in the trailer of the documentary, "I am not guilty of a crime", despite her guilty plea during her trial, when she had stated that she should've known Johnson couldn't give consent legally.

Stubblefield now lives out of the public eye and is divorced from her husband.

The Story

As Derrick and Anna worked together, he seemed to be progressing rapidly. Stubblefield had seemed to renew his interest in education and attempts at communication. Anna and D.J. developed a close relationship, which Anna claims was built on mutual understanding and affection. She believed that D.J. had communicated to her, through FC, his desire for a romantic relationship.

Anna was reported to the police by Johnson's family after Johnson and Stubblefield revealed that they were in love in 2011. Anna took Johnson's hand as the words, 'We are in love' popped up on the screen, Johnson's brother had said in a teaser for the documentary. Daisy Johnson, Johnson's mother, had said that Stubblefield admitted they had made love and that Derrick was “a man in every sense of the word.”

The documentary explores the complexities of consent in the context of severe disabilities. It examines the challenges in determining whether D.J. could have genuinely consented to a romantic relationship given his communication limitations and the controversy that F.C. faces from scientific experts., which lacks empirical support.

The film also scrutinizes the power dynamics at play, questioning whether Anna’s position as an educated, able-bodied professor influenced her relationship with D.J. and whether she overstepped ethical boundaries.