Kendrick Johnson /// Part 1 /// 195 | Forensic Files

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crime [Music] thank you [Music] family and friends say their final goodbyes to a South Georgia teen found
dead at a high school good evening I'm Jade beloxa thank you for joining us funeral services were held today for
Kendrick Johnson deputies say the 17-year-old was found more than a week ago inside a rolled up wrestling type
mat Ty Wilson is now live for us in The Newsroom Ty I bet it was an emotional time for people
[Music] foreign Jade good evening it was the funeral service was held today at Union
cathedral in Valdosta hundreds of people turned out to remember the team everyone who came to say goodbye to 17
year old Kendrick Johnson dressed in the same colors some even had roses red and
black they was his favorite colors and we're going to get these roses to his mama
you could see just how difficult this day was for Kendrick Johnson's parents Bishop Wade s McRae had the difficult
task of comforting all the people who love Kendrick so dearly to uh share with these children
um that regardless of the situation and the circumstances uh our aim our goal objective is to know the shepherd the
Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want uh he gives us Victory even in this battle inside the funeral service was
moving and emotional Kendrick's friends spoke so did his football and father had this to say
apparently get this connection with your kids you got to talk to them because you never know
[Music] we don't know who it is Kendrick's friends still seem stunned over his death I know we all expect to die at
some point but we ain't expect him to like leave this early seemed like it was like just two weeks
ago when we were all talking at McDonald's about what we're gonna do when we grow up and he was saying like
he wanted to go to college and play football on January 11th Johnson a student at
Lowndes high school was found dead inside the school investigators say they do not expect Foul Play
[Music] foreign [Music] we're going to be discussing the frustrating yet intriguing case of
Kendrick Johnson this is a very popular internet case but also a popular request
that we cover this case well Captain it was around 9 30 p.m on the night of January 10 2013 when Jackie Johnson says
that she really started to worry her son Kendrick had not come home from school and according to friends he had not gone
to a basketball game that he was supposed to attend now around 11 p.m Jackie we should make a note here she is
a school bus driver for the Lowndes County Schools she drove to the school looking for her son Kendrick this was to
be the first of many trips for Jackie that night as she drove back and forth from home to school getting more upset
with each passing trip it was not like her 17 year old boy not to call her to let her know where he was
now around 12 30 Jackie by this point she's frantic and she called the police and she reported her youngest son
Kendrick Johnson as missing the dispatcher told her that Kendrick was probably just out with some friends or
chasing some girl Jackie insisted that that was not the case she explained that even if he didn't call her he would have
called his sister or called his brother well this always frustrates me hey let's
just assume the worst let's not assume the best right let's assume the worst at any time that somebody goes missing
after some convincing a missing person's report went out law enforcement called Jackie around 4 a.m confirming that they
were out looking for her son Kendrick Jackie's husband Kendrick's Father Kenneth he's a truck driver and on this
night he was in Pennsylvania so while Jackie waited she sat with her mother all Jackie could do is worry and her
mother Prayed by sunup Jackie resolved to go to the high school the last place she knew Kendrick to be she visited the
main office around 8 30 a.m asking if anyone had seen her son she was taken to a guidance counselor's
office to wait she waited and she waited it felt like eternity I'm sure for her why were they
not telling her anything is what she wandered as she sat waiting it was a while she she was sitting there
that she began to receive text messages on her phone they said there are ambulances and fire trucks in the
parking lot no one can come in the entrance this of course did not make her feel any better while sitting there
fretting over Kendrick missing the counselor's phone rang and he picked up during this short conversation Jackie
overheard something she wasn't intended to hear someone said to the guidance counselor a
little too loudly on the other end of the phone something very ominous she could clearly hear one short terrifying
sentence and that was they found a body in the gym the counselor then got up from his chair and left the room and
Kendrick Johnson was 17 years old he was a basketball player a football player he
was a track star sophomore in high school and this was not going to be a typical school day the Lowndes high
school is in Valdosta Georgia and this is a town of about 54 000 people now Lowndes was one of two high schools in
the town in 2013. the school had around 3 000 students the high school's mascot was the Vikings
now school had only been back in session for about two days after a long winter break after The Long Winter Holiday
that morning around 10 a.m athletic trainer Philip pipelow he was teaching a life Sports class in the old gym so just
a side note here like many schools that have added on to their facilities over the years this High School had a new gym
and an old gym and the story that we are going to talk to you about today takes place in the old gym
the teacher had handed out a survey for the students to take after having completed her survey a female student
climbed from the bleachers onto an upright set of rolled up mats there were 21 of these mats rolled up and standing
upright in this area of the gymnasium these mats are used by the athletic department conflicting reports here but
some reports indicate that they are wrestling mats others say that they were used for cheerleading uh I'm I'm too old
to have an opinion a very strong opinion of of what this is but remembering back
in my day Captain uh at our high school it was very common that these mats were primarily used for wrestling but they
were often they often served a multitude of purposes right so the mats were tightly rolled and placed vertically
packed together in a tight group in the corner of the gym and there was a girl that first Saul Kendrick in the mat
right well she looked down the hole the you know the the center of one of these mats and noticed two feet visible inside
one of the rolled up mats she called friends over to see you know what this is and to the student's horror they saw two
white socks with gray Toes that were sticking that were still on the feet of someone's body down inside this mat yeah
I think at first I just thought somebody was hiding some of the students began to
scream the teacher sprinted over to the mats in one by one pulled them down onto
their sides until he could get to the mat that the students were pointing at when he pulled the mat down it hit the
floor with a loud thud the bottom end of the mat so the the end of the mat that had been touching the floor well when
the teacher knocked the mat over from that end out spilled halfway Spilled Out the body of a male student with
dreadlocks and there was also blood and vomit it was clear to the teacher that the person in the mat was dead another
teacher quickly cleared the students from the gym and the school was placed on locked down and 9-1-1 was called and
obviously this is the body of Kendrick Johnson so Kendrick Johnson was born October 10 1995 to Jacqueline and
Kenneth Johnson his friends who called him KJ describe him as a quiet boy unlikely to cause trouble who was
obsessed with math and football Kendrick was a three-sport athlete he played football basketball and he was on the
track team he was five foot ten around 160 pounds and was known for being a hard-hitting safety on the football team
there were some accounts out there that indicate that Kendrick's home life was less than perfect some say that his
father was living with a girlfriend and his mother was known to be less than involved uh but I'm going to make a
little bit of an argument here um that I think can an argument that can be made against this
as Kendrick he enjoyed spending a lot of time at his friend's houses right so typical teenager right that's very
common for uh you know for a teenager to want to be at his friends homes often and it might give the appearance of a
mother that's not really involved but well frankly how much can you be involved when the child decides not to
be at home well right and but also the child maybe doesn't want you to be involved I
mean it's a teenager I mean you're not telling your parents much of anything you know they ask you how school was you
go that was good and then yeah and and I think both of us did that too in high school you go to high school and then at
night you'd be hanging out with your friends or over at a buddy's house yeah and when you're 16 17 God forbid anybody
ask you how your day was right right that's okay did you learn anything no yeah what did you do nothing school was
prison it's like prison well on the morning of January 11th that was a um when Kendrick's body was found in the
gym mat the Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Pine's office was called to the high school the sheriff himself was on his
way back to Valdosta with his Deputy Joe Crow when he received the call about the
body at the school in the interim Patrol officers and EMTs arrived at the scene and taped off the gym with crime scene
tape the school was placed in lockdown mode until police assured that there was no
threat to the students classes resumed while the investigation proceeded it's not clear when Sheriff Preen arrived at
the school but he confirmed to the media that day that the body was that of a student and that the student's death was
being investigated as a possible homicide preen's office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations the gbi for
short spent all of the day and the next day carefully documenting the scene collecting evidence and interviewing
Witnesses at the school right here's what we know from the crime scene Report law enforcement statements media reports
and the video of the scene so the crime scene investigator this is James Thornton he arrived at the high school's
old gym at approximately 10 48 a.m on January Thornton was briefed by investigations
staff sergeant Jack Winningham that a teacher had pulled down the mat in which feet were seen by students
sitting on the mat and that a body had been positioned head first inside the rolled up mat when EMTs arrived on the
scene the victim was identified as student Kendrick Lamar Johnson he was slightly pulled out of the mat
and it was determined by EMTs to be deceased now we do not know how Kendrick was identified whether he
was identified by a teacher or student right or an administrator we we don't know but we do know that the school knew
that Kendrick Johnson's mother was looking for him well and presumably they they may have known that Kendrick did
not show up for his fourth period class the day before right so multiple law enforcement and investigative Personnel
were on the scene at this point so we have people from the county sheriff's office we have people from the regional
crime lab and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations as well it was noted that the old gym contained bleachers along
the north and south walls and that there were approximately 21 rolled up mats in
the southwest corner of the gym investigators inspected the entry slash exit doors and windows and determined
that there were no signs of forced entry into the gym the following items were found at the scene
one was a black and white Adidas shoe size nine and a half this was found on the floor in front of a rolled up mat
they also found a yellow folder found on the gym floor in front of a rolled up mat a science textbook on the floor
behind two rolled up mats near the Southwest wall a medium-sized gray Hollister brand
pullover hooded sweatshirt was found on the concrete floor near the rolled up mats a rolled up mat containing
Johnson's body lying in the horizontal position on the concrete floor in the southwest corner of the old gym
there were possible blood stains on the South Wall of the old gem a test was later performed and these stains were
tested and found by a tech from the gbi that they were determined to be blood right they also found a pair of black
gray and orange Nike shoes near the bleachers on the north wall of the old gym all of these items of evidence were
collected they were tagged and locked inside a car belonging to the crime scene technician at approximately 4 pm
the County coroner Bill Watson arrived to conduct his examination on Kendrick's body now Georgia law requires that the
coroner be called as soon as law enforcement discovers that there is a body but here
the coroner didn't arrive for approximately six hours after they found the body Sheriff Preen would later say
that the custom despite the law requiring immediate notification was that the sheriff would
call the coroner only after the scene had been cleared and then been thoroughly investigated so that the
coroner wouldn't have to just be sitting in the parking lot waiting for the sheriff to clear the scene but the law
is that right when a body is found you call the coroner yeah and that was not done
right well let's talk about that for a second captain because here is an issue that we have seen time and time again
you know we've covered feels like a bazillion cases now so bazillion and one so when you have
these different law enforcement agencies a lot of them you know like okay so a lot of people have jobs where you have a
hundred different supervisors that are kind of watching what you're doing that they're kind of cataloging your work if
you don't perform your job or your task well or do things how you're supposed to
according to protocol you don't work there for a long time right now when you have like the sheriff's
office or these different law enforcement agencies there's very little people to police the police
so so the sheriff who he's the head honcho over there in the county yeah he only has some people to listen to answer
to one the governor who's not going to get involved in much because he has other stuff he or she has other things
to do correct then you also have well you know well maybe he has to answer to the general public because they elect
him well a lot of stuff gets forgotten over the course of you know we don't we don't sit down and elect a new sheriff
every 30 days uh this is this takes place over some time so some things like this get re get lost what are we doing
Parts Unknown every 30 days we we elect a new sheriff so what I'm getting at though is this quote-unquote custom
this might not be a terribly uncommon thing where you have individuals that kind of do things their own way and it's
not right it's absolutely not right they should be following the law however there's not really anybody there to
police that so we also have the sheriff stating that no law enforcement Personnel touched the body in the gym
until the coroner arrived and had examined the body the coroner later stated that he didn't agree with with
prine's statement about the custom and said that the sheriff had breached protocol with the six hour delay in
notification in April of 2013 it this is in a statement from the coroner he said
that by the time he had arrived at the old gym the scene had been compromised he didn't elaborate to what that meant
but what we have here Captain is it's kind of a he said he said situation we don't know if the sheriff Prime if
he's to blame or is the you know was this actually a real custom that an agreement that the coroner and the
sheriff had together this could be this is either the coroner stating look the sheriff's statement is wrong and he
broke protocol or it's the coroner just covering his own butt right but you have
these protocols you have these laws in place to one kind of police the police but it's also to cover your own butt
because if then if there is some something wrong with the investigation that the police can say look we followed
uh our procedures to the letter and they didn't in this case and there's also a bunch of crime scene photos that they
were taking place that they were taking uh where you can see the investigators just wearing regular shoes where their
shoes should have been covered and those little blue things or whatever but you could clearly see that there shoes
weren't so when you have a scene whether you think it's a accidental death or a murder or
whatever it is you should follow the protocol that's set up for you the coroner observed Kendrick's body lying
on its left side sticking out of the rolled up mat the rest of his body from the abdomen down was inside of the mat
his head was lying in a pool of blood now the coroner noted the following Kendrick was wearing a white undershirt
and an orange T-shirt and white T-shirt blue jeans boxers and white socks there was a pair of white gray and orange
Nikes inside of the mat but not on Kendrick's feet the crime scene photos taken from the end of the mat where
Kendrick's feet were shown that these shoes were located at the same end as his feet not at the end
where his head was Kendrick's right arm was in a position that appeared to cover
his face and his left arm was along his body with his forearm bent toward his head his fingers were curled on both
hands a black wire with white earphone was hooked around his left hand at the middle finger and index fingers
Kendrick's face was swollen and he had blood coming out of his eyes nose and mouth dried blood was visible on his
arms chest and face Kendrick's eyes were swollen with blood visible in his eyes and burst blood vessels and it appears
that there is no signs of blunt force trauma to Kendrick on his face or his body and also appears that there's no
wounds like puncture wounds or anything to his body as well yeah and that specifically noted in the lab report by
the crime scene technician now also found that the scene was a second black and white Adidas shoe that
was located on the concrete floor near Kendrick's head this was sitting in a pool of blood it was as was the other a
nine size nine and a half matching the shoe that had previously been found intact there was also a LG cell phone
which was found in Kendrick's left front jeans pocket the mat that Kendrick was found in measured 74 inches in length so
just a touch over six feet tall when standing on its side and 34 inches in diameter that's 34 inches rolled up the
end where Kendrick's feet were positioned was approximately 14 and a half in diameter at its widest point
this is the opening right okay and then the end where his head was positioned was approximately 14 and three quarters
inches in diameter at the opening and there was some bloody paper towels that were found in a trash can and the girls
restroom which is located near the old gym these like all of the other items for evidence were collected to be tested
and all evidence was taken to the crime lab for further testing and investigation there's so much more to
get into on the Kendrick Johnson case we'll get to it right after this quick beer break
[Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers now this next thing Captain is according
to CNN I want to be very clear about that so according to CNN the initial patient care report written by EMTs with
the south Georgia Medical Center who were on the scene in the gym on January 11th stated bruising noted to the right
side jaw now the coroner arranged for Kendrick's body to be transferred to the crime lab
for an autopsy Thornton who we had talked about earlier the technician accompanied the body and
placed it in crime cooler number two around 5 30 PM that evening after having investigated the scene for several hours
and Consulting with the coroner Sheriff Prine and the school superintendent this
is Wes Taylor released a joint statement that that reads as follows although the exact cause of death is yet
to be determined as of this stage of the investigation nothing has been discovered to indicate Foul Play was
involved and autopsy will be conducted on Monday by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner's office
to attempt to determine an exact cause of death Taylor went on to express his sadness at the death of a student and
offered condolences for the family but neither the sheriff nor the superintendent named the student
Kendrick Johnson's name was not released until the following day at some point on
January 11th law enforcement met with Jackie Johnson presumably they told her that Kendrick had been found deceased on
Sunday January 13th Sheriff preen received a request from Kendrick's father to personally identify his son's
body according to James Thornton's lab report Thornton escorted Kendrick's parents to the cooler room at the lab
and they identified Kendrick's remains Kenneth later said that his handsome son looked nothing like himself lying there
on the slab the following day on Monday January 14th Kendrick's body was taken to the gbi for an autopsy late that
night the local ABC news station ran a piece reporting that Kendrick's preliminary autopsy results indicated no
foul play and that Kendrick had no visible injuries to his body that could have caused his death the article goes
on to state that investigators saw no signs of a struggle and that they believed that Kendrick somehow got into
the mat and couldn't get himself out investigators believe that Kendrick fell or reached inside the mat to get a shoe
and got stuck Kendrick's father immediately questioned the police findings stating that he believes
Kendrick was murdered and it wasn't until May 2nd of that year that the official autopsy report would be
released to the public and let's go through some of the reports so the detailed report states that the
official cause of death of Kendrick Johnson was positional asphyxia so this is suffocation due to the position of
the body the body was in a position that prevented it from breathing causing the
death there was no significant injuries identified in this report fluid has drained from the nose and mouth
decomposition smell was detected and skin slippage was visible on the body bloating and skin discoloration were
noted as well the body was found with ear buds and a wire there was also a starburst rapper that was found stuck to
the left elbow two tiny abrasions were noted on Kendrick's right wrist and left fourth
finger both are less than an eighth inch a third abrasion was noted on the same finger approximately
5 16 of an inch was this abrasion drug tests were con conducted on the body and were found to be negative everything
else was noted to be normal there was no indication that any bruising on the jaw
was observed or noted in this detailed report the conclusion of the doctor's report is that Kendrick's death was an
accident the release of the autopsy report came at the conclusion of the Sheriff's Office four-month
investigation into Kendrick's death in the course of that investigation hundreds of students were interviewed
and Witnesses or people connected or rumored to be connected to Kendrick were interviewed as well lab results
surveillance video and physical evidence were all reviewed in their findings were
as follows you want to go you would you like to go through this I find this part
maybe the most interesting thing here in this case okay so this is they're going to lay out
what they believe went down based off of the evidence that they found which includes surveillance video and
the state of the body once it was found so according to this report Kendrick was last seen on surveillance
footage entering the old gym at 109 pm on January 10 2013. he entered the gym behind another student who went in a
different direction but was confirmed to have gone immediately to class Kendrick was seen entering the gym and
bearing right in the direction of the mats in the corner no one else is visible within 15 minutes other students
can be seen entering the gym for class and playing basketball in the gym and that evening multiple teams held
practices in the gym without anyone noticing anything unusual Kendrick was known to not have a locker for his gym
stuff many of the kids didn't want to pay the locker fees required to store their things so they would hide their
items including shoes inside the rolled up mats that were in the old gym lying horizontally seems a little silly that a
school would make students pay for a locker that they had to use for class but go ahead the kids would just reach
into the mat tuck their shoes in out of sight and retrieve them later it was confirmed that Kendrick did this
and he he even shared the shoes he hid in the mat with another student they would just each use the shoes as
necessary and then place them back into the mat so that the other one could retrieve them later and I wonder if the
shoes were a part of like their gym outfits because I know he's part of a weight training class uh just like any
other gym class but at my school you didn't have to change your shoes you just had to change your outfit and then
you could but maybe this school said not only do you have to change your clothes
for class but you have to change your shoes as well I think there's one piece that we just went over that I want to
highlight real quick before we move on into this report okay so one item that I hope everybody picked up on was
when we talked about the locker fees and how many of the students didn't want to
pay the locker fees right it was noted that most of these the the students that didn't want to do this they would hide
their items which included shoes inside the rolled up mats in the old gym but the mats are typically placed
horizontally they're they're sitting they're lying on their side on the ground okay right on the floor of the
gym yeah because how would you hide in the mats if it they were placed vertically there you go I always thought
that was pretty strange but so they're normally vertical or normally horizontal and that
way you can kind of just stick your shoes in either side and then also if there's other shoes in there you can
kind of just push those aside as well well the report goes on to state that over the holiday break which had ended
on January 9th the day before Kendrick's death the mats had all been moved into an upright position and packed into the
corner of the gym the sheriff concluded that Kendrick had run into the gym to get his shoes but couldn't find them
because the mats had all been moved so he climbed up onto the top ends and walked along until he saw the sneakers
down in the bottom of one of the rolled up mats the sheriff then says that students were clearly used to hanging
out up there when the mats were stored in this way as they found numerous candy wrappers and soda bottles among the mats
Kendrick likely climbed into the bleed onto the bleachers I'm sorry walked on top of the mats and then reached in to
grab his shoes he likely had one arm down in the mat and the other holding on and either fell
into the hole or squeezed into it trying to reach the shoe and then couldn't get
himself out and then slipped down further into the mat as he squirmed he couldn't reach his cell phone to call
for help remember we said that was found in his pocket now the cell phone his parents actually didn't know about this
was a cell phone that he got from a cousin which the cousin didn't even know how he got it the last call was made on
the cell phone I think a couple weeks before this incident and so they don't even know if he could have made a call
if it was even being used for phone calls yeah they think he was using it as like an MP3 player or PayPal iPod or
something right and I also think um with these texting apps he could have been using some app to text people when
he had Wi-Fi but he might have thought if I can get to my phone I could at least text somebody it's it's believed
that he likely affixiated fairly quickly this would have happened from the abdominal organs compressing Kendrick's
diaphragm the tightness of the mat constricting his chest and or the mat impeding his ability to breathe through
his mouth investigators said Kendrick likely died and the blood was postmortem Purge from all the blood that had rushed
to his head and as he was suspended upside down in the mat now the mats weighed 700 pounds each and were over
six feet tall when standing on their ends they were all packed together and the one Kendrick was in was at the back
of the pack he would not have been able to move that mat without moving several other mats one of the things that I find
interesting here too is when they talk about the opening uh his shoulders were roughly about four or five inches bigger
than the opening so meaning that it would have caused him to suffocate a lot faster because now
there's no air that's you know the the amount of air that's in the mat is very little but I also wonder you have people
in the gym 15 minutes after him 20 minutes after him you have classes all day you have practices all night
but he's at the far back surrounded by all these mats and how much was that cutting off any sound
you know like his body was also cutting off sound from the mat so if he even if he was yelling
how much would that dead in the sound well depending on how quickly he got to the top of the mats
and reached down in there there's a decent chance he may have expired before those students entered
the gym gym 15 minutes later right as I said in this report they believe he would have died very quickly once
falling into the mat uh the folder in the science book that were found at the scene were Kendricks uh it's believed
that he had put them down on top of the mats when he climbed up and they fell down when the mats were moved by the
teacher to get at the body along with one sneaker that was not found inside the mat with Kendrick right we don't
know whether maybe just one sneaker was down inside the mat or whether Kendrick somehow managed to retrieve one but then
got trapped while reaching for the other the paper towels found in the girl's bathroom which
um yeah the bloody paper towels yeah these actually the report states that they are paper towels that they were
bloody Paper Towns found in the trash can later the report says that these are tissues so they had a trace of blood on
them um it was from a flag girl uh who had gotten hurt during a practice and used
the tissues just to clean herself up so the the blood was confirmed to contain female DNA so not male DNA right the
dried blood spatters on the wall that were found about 50 feet from the mat where
um Kendrick was later found yeah was determined through DNA testing not to be Kendrick's blood but it is not known who
this Blood belongs to yeah and if you look at these uh the pictures of these blood droplets or whatever on the wall
they're very dark they don't even look red so they almost does look like some kind of crud could have been there for
quite some time yeah I I think so and there's a bunch of arguments that impossible that these wouldn't have been
cleaned off it's impossible oh yeah because my school was so clean that I regularly ate
off the floor yeah my high school my middle school both were I mean they're relative relatively
clean right right but they weren't I mean they weren't like doctor office clean not even close yeah they were they
weren't even household clean right you know now the sheriff concluded at the conclusion of his four-month probe into
Kendrick's death that it was a tragic freak accident that had occurred because of a perfect storm of events leading up
to it the sheriff and his deputies emphasized that their lengthy investigation had been as thorough as
possible and that the freak accident conclusion was the only possible one there was no evidence whatsoever they
said of any kind of struggle or scuffle either on Kendrick's body or in the gym where he was found Kendrick had neither
fatal wounds nor defensive wounds of any kind but we have wounds on his hands right there were some abrasions what's
what was listed as abrasions on his hands on his fingers right Kendrick's parents were not satisfied with the
results of the autopsy and the Sheriff's Department's conclusion from the beginning they were convinced that
Kendrick's death was not accidental they were skeptical that Kendrick really could have died
you know how could he have died in such a bizarre way how could their muscular son fit inside this rolled up mat
uh wouldn't there at least be part of his legs possibly sticking out of the mat right which they said appear to be
uh just a little over six feet in height and be visible to students who entered the gym just 15 minutes later
and we had just kind of talked through another one of the the Johnson's questions they wondered why nobody would
have heard their son screaming for help yeah they wondered how did his sneakers get onto the top on top of him inside
the mat unless someone had placed him there yeah there seems to be conflicting stories on the shoes where
some people say that there was one shoe you know that was behind him and one shoe that was still in front of him so
oh that's that's an interesting thing to talk about there was a shoe found on the
gymnasium floor okay there's a shoe found inside there were shoes found inside the mat with Kendrick
the troubling thing here is we have two pairs of shoes yeah we also have students keeping their shoes inside
these mats right um a lot of students well yeah yeah several of them so we have the shoes that Kendrick's
wearing we have the shoes that he was presumably going after and then we have other possible shoes belonging to other
students I don't know that we're going to have a 100 conclusion and a great answer on why
the shoes were found in the positions that they were my thought would be that there was
probably some squirming going on if he had fallen in there right or if he was placed in there if he was attacked and
rolled up in this mat If he if he came to after being attacked he would probably be squirming as well
right so it it is very tricky It's tricky because it would look like somebody may have placed some of these
items in there but I mean how did how did any of this stuff come about I mean how
is there a chance that somebody dropped some shoes in there after words not seeing his feet not seeing his socks in
there right I mean the girl that found him was described as having gone up on top
of the mats and looking down inside and we know that that gem was being used regularly even though it was the old gym
we have students going in there just 15 minutes afterwards we have classes being
conducted as well and then we have practices all night yeah so and did somebody use their gym shoes for one of
these practice and then they're like wait these mats are normally set down horizontal but now they're vertical well
I'll just toss my shoes up there and and then they fell on top of Kendrick well I
think what we should do here Captain is I think we should get into the Johnsons and they're feeling Kendrick's parents
and their feelings and thoughts and that way to to to lead us into these important discussions on the different
items so we can take a look at them one by one but knowing why there is such a debate on certain items right so it was
it was Kendrick's father that saw his son's body in the crime lab yeah and it's it's easy to understand why his
parents felt that he had been beaten to death his Kendrick's face appeared to be
bloated uh misshaped there was discoloration on his body there was skin slippage and red eyes so this must have
been extremely upsetting to the parents to see they eventually posted this picture on the internet so I mean you
can Google it if you want um it's pretty horrific after hearing the sheriff's findings after hearing the
conclusion of the autopsy report Kendrick's parents began a campaign to uncover what had really happened to
their son this this started kind of way back when because the day after his body
was discovered his parents contacted Reverend Rose of the Southern Christian leadership conference this is a civil
rights organization Reverend Rose promised the family that he would do anything he could to help so we will
we'll refer to them as the SCLC the SCLC began an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Kendrick's
serious death at the same time the local chapter of the NAACP was voluntarily looking into the case as well now the
Johnsons they hired an attorney to help them pursue legal action in their quest to find out what happened to Kendrick
public statements were made claiming that Kendrick's death was racially motivated and that if Kendrick had been
white the outcome of the investigation would have been different the Johnsons began
to allege that there was an Institutional cover-up concealing the true facts around their son's death
Independent Media Outlets such as CNN helped bolster the Johnson's Case by providing coverage raising questions
about the sheriff's investigation and filing requests for information to try to obtain the case files and evidence
the cause started to attract attention hundreds of supporters began to March and rally demanding Justice for Kendrick
according to CNN the demonstrations in the streets with chance of no justice no peace became almost a daily occurrence
after the sheriff had closed his investigation Al Sharpton attended one of these rallies seven members of
Kendrick's family were arrested in April 2013 for obstruction they were participating in a rally and blocking
the entrance to the County's judicial complex then a Facebook tribute page was established by the family well and
remember when I said they posted a picture of Kendrick after the autopsy yeah when he had to identify him they
took those pictures and they put them on t-shirts and so a lot of these events they'd be wearing those shirts yeah and
this has become a kind of a famous photo I would say because I believe through this Captain is you know when they
released his parents released this picture online they start wearing it on a graphic tee right at these rallies and
these events I think when people saw this photo this is when the public when the public
outrage started you know people really wanted this case to be reopened to figure out what had happened well it
looks like Kendrick was like beaten and disfigured and so if you just hear you know black student is murdered at
school and you see a picture of his face you think well heck somebody beat him to
death but once you find out that he was trapped upside down and that all this blood is rushing to his face that that
is the reason or at least part of the reason why his face looks that way well and it's a uh to put it bluntly it's a
it's a black student at a southern school right you know that's not we know we know the sad history of our country
and some of the people that have lived in this country along the way and um it doesn't make it any easier to
it doesn't make it any easier to accept that this is an accidental death giving the circumstances surrounding it and so
many questions surrounding it now the Johnsons they began to make allegations about people specific people that they
believe to be responsible for killing their son the Facebook tribute page named some
boys who the Johnsons stated had it out for Kendrick they posted that gruesome picture that
we talked about and with the caption that said look what someone did to our son now the Johnsons didn't name the boys
outright that they believed were responsible but it was pretty clear to people in the
area who they were referring to because they named they you know they made some specific details about these individuals
that made it pretty easy to figure out who they were now people in the community they began to harass and
threaten the boys and their family the allegations became increasingly public appearing in the media through TV
interviews and print Publications the Johnsons allege that the coroner not being called for six hours gave law
enforcement in the gym a chance to cover up what had really happened that day Kenneth said that when he went to
identify Kendrick's body The Heir and the cooler was not cold it was warm it was hot air
this implying that the coroner was attempting to destroy physical evidence on the body by speeding up the
decomposition process Kendrick's clothing disappeared somewhere between the gbi which
conducted the official autopsy and the Harrington funeral home which received the body in preparation for the burial
the Transport company who picked up the body from the gbi signed an inventory receipt acknowledging
that it received Kendrick's personal effects but when the body arrived at the funeral home all that accompanied it was
a broken pair of headphones the clothes have never been located right okay but that's it was transported
from gbi to the funeral home and when when they picked it up there was clothes there when they dropped it off it wasn't
so the the you know you want to blame somebody for the missing clothes blame the person that transported him because
if they signed that hey we picked him up and there was clothes and when they dropped them off at the funeral home the
funeral home said there's no clothes then we know who took the clothes yeah I don't think that this is the or
misplaced them I don't think that this is the parents blaming the gbi I think this is the parents just pointing out
this is something strange that shouldn't have occurred that happened right so the
clothing have has never been found Kenneth and Jackie the parents allege that the missing clothing clothing
likely contained evidence of physical struggle that the clothes had been destroyed by those out to cover up the
actual murder they also point out that the original EMTs on the scene had noted bruising
that was noted on the Mt report the gbi pathologist did not note this bruising on the autopsy report adding fuel to the
fire a retired FBI agent who looked at the crime scene photos agreed with the family this is Harold copis
who now works as a private detective he questioned why police didn't collect the
sneakers with no blood on them into evidence so yeah we'll work on a question you
know I'm going to question anybody that doesn't tag and bag everything that they
can find even if you don't think it has any validity at all in May of 2013 all of these questions
led to the Johnsons this is with the help of their attorney to get an exumation order to dig up Kendrick's
remains for a second autopsy the actual digging up of the casket was attended by family members teammates
friends and supporters of the Johnson's cause Kendrick's body was sent to Florida to
Florida pathologist Dr William Anderson for an autopsy paid for by the family and supporters Dr Anderson's autopsy
report was explosive it directly contradicted the original autopsy findings of accidental death
Anderson's report stated that there was physical evidence of blunt force trauma to the right neck and soft tissues
consistent with inflicted injury Anderson went on to state that the injury was likely inflicted by someone
else and that the death should be investigated as a homicide [Music] so though Kendrick Johnson it seems as
if it's pretty simple it's accidental death then these little things come out makes you pretty suspicious that you
know why why was it investigated this way why were these reports put out this way and is this possibly a murder and
not an accidental death well and I think what we're seeing here Captain is that in fact that it's absolutely that it's
not that simple that there were some question marks along the way there were some concerns by his family and we now
have this four-month investigation that states that this was in fact an accidental death then once we get the
the opportunity for a second autopsy we find out we're getting information that that might squash everything that
was found in that first investigation the Johnsons just may be right and their son may have been killed well let's
dissect tomorrow these little points of contention and uh let's debate them and let's hear your viewpoints in my
viewpoints and let's see if we can get to the bottom of any of this all right and we will see everybody back here
tomorrow in the garage until then be good be kind and don't live [Music] thank you foreign
[Applause] [Music]

Kendrick Johnson /// Part 1 /// 195

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Episode 195 - This week we cover the very controversial and bizarre death of 17 year old Kendrick Johnson. On January 11th 2013 Kendrick Johnson was found dead in a High School gymnasium. His body had been discovered by a fellow student. The circumstances surrounding his death have been the cause of much debate since. Kendrick’s death has been ruled an accident however many including Kendrick’s parents say different. They believe he was murdered by several students. The murder then covered up by the sheriff because the alleged killers father is a F.B.I. Agent. Grab a beer and find a comfortable chair because this will be a bumpy ride. Beer of the Week - Terrapin RyeGarage Grade - 3 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Brief Summary

Kendrick Johnson's mysterious death in a gym mat raises questions of foul play versus accidental death, prompting family outrage and a second autopsy.

Key points

Tragic Goodbye. Family and friends gather to say their final goodbyes to Kendrick Johnson, a 17-year-old found dead.
Discovery of Kendrick's Body. Kendrick Johnson's body is found inside a rolled-up gym mat, shocking students and staff.
Investigation Protocols Questioned. The delay in notifying the coroner raises questions about the investigation's integrity.
Autopsy Results Released. The official cause of Kendrick's death was determined to be positional asphyxia.
Parents' Skepticism. Kendrick's parents questioned the findings of the investigation and autopsy results.
Kendrick's Mysterious Death. Kendrick Johnson was found dead in a gym mat, raising questions about foul play.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You never know when you might lose someone you love.

A father reflects on the importance of communication with children.

4:26WatchNov 26, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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