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

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grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime family and friends say their final
goodbyes to a South Georgia teen found dead at a high school good evening I'm Jade bxa 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 [Music] people Jade good evening it was the funeral service was held today at yunan
Cathedral in valdasta 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
there was his favorite colors and we're going to give these roses to his mama you could see just how difficult this
day was for Kendrick Johnson's parents Bishop wayes McCrae had the difficult task of comforting all the people who
love Hendrick 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 Valor inside the funeral service was moving and emotional
Kendrick's friends spoke so did his football and basketball coach Kendrick's father had this to say parents you got
there get this connection with your kids you got to talk to him cuz you never know sometime it's a knock can come at
the door 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 about what we going to 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 Lou's high school was found dead inside
the school investigators say they do not expect Foul [Music] Play all right 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 10th
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 11:00 p.m. M Jackie
we should make a note here she is a school bus driver for the loun county schools MH 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 anytime that
somebody goes missing after some convincing a missing person's report went out law enforcement called Jackie
around 4:00 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 up 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 wondered 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 um last TOS high school is in valdasta
Georgia and this is a town of about 54,000 people now louns 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 10:00
a.m. ath atic trainer Philip pipo 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 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 it was a girl that first uh saw Kendrick in the mat right well she looked down the hole you know
the the center of one of these mats and notice two feet visible inside one of the rolled up mats she called friends
over to see you know what this is and to the students horror they saw two white socks with gray Toes that were sticking
that that were still on the feet of someone's body down inside this mat yeah I I think at first they just thought
somebody was hiding some of the students began to scream the teacher sprinted over to the mats and 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 outs spilled halfway Spilled Out the body of a male
student with dreadlocks and there was also blood and vomit wow 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 lockdown and 911 was called and obviously this is the body of Kendrick Johnson so Kendrick Johnson was
born October 10th 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 5' 10 around 160 lb 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 friends houses right so typical teenager right that's very
common for a you know for a teenager to want to be at his friend's homes often and it might give the appearance of a
mother that's not really involved but Frank 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 I was good and then yeah and and I
think both of us did that too in high school you'd 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 I was okay did you learn anything no yeah or like 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 louns County Sheriff Chris Pine's office was called to the high school the sheriff himself was on his
way back to valdasta with his Deputy Joe Crow when he received the call about the body at
the school in the interim patrol office ERS 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 pin 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 PR'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 Thor torton he arrived at the high school's
old gym at approximately 10:48 a.m. on January 11th thoron was briefed by investigation 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 rad up mat when EMTs arrived on the scene the victim was identified
as student student Kendrick Lamar Johnson M 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 a 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 four 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/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 9 and2 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 rollup 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 gym a test was later performed and these stains
were tested and 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 400 p.m. the County coroner Bill Watson arried 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 6 hours after they found the body Sheriff PR would
later say that the custom 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 mhm 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 may 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 the new sheriff every 30 days uh this is this takes place over some time so some things like
this get re get lost well we do in 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 prim's statement about
the custom and said that the sheriff had breached protocol with the six-hour delay in notification
in April of 2013 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 PR 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 Poli 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 mhm 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 those little blue things or whatever but you could clearly
see that their shoes weren't so when you have a scene whether you think it's a accidental death or 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 it also appears that there's no wounds like puncture wounds or anything
to his body as well yeah and that's specifically noted in the lab report by the crime scene technician now also
found at 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 9 and A2 matching the shoe that had
previously been found intact there was also a LG cell phone which was found in Kendrick's left front jean pocket the
mat that Kendrick was found in measured 74 in in length so just a touch over 6 ft tall when standing on its side and 34
in in diameter that's 34 in rolled up the end where Kendrick's feet were positioned was approximately 142 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 3/4 in in diameter at the opening and there was some bloody
paper towels that were found in a trash can in the girls restroom which is located uh 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] this show is sponsored by better help do
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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 MH now the coroner arranged for Kendrick's body to be
transferred to the crime lab for an autopsy thoron who we had talked about earlier the uh technician accompanied
the body and placed it in crime cooler number two around 5:30 p.m. 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 an autopsy will
be conducted on Monday by the the Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner 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 PR received
a request from Kendrick's father to personally identify his son's body according to James Thorton's lab report
thoron 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 believe that Kendrick somehow got into the mat and couldn't get himself out M 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 uh report so the
detailed report states that the official cause of death of Kendrick Johnson was positional asphyxia uh 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 earbuds and a wire there was also a Starburst wrapper 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 516 of an inch was this
abrasion drug test 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 4mon 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 and
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 uh which includes surveillance video and the
state of the body once it was found mhm so according to this report Kendrick was
last seen on surveillance footage entering the old gym at 109 p.m. on January 10th
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 okay 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 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 cuz I know he's part of a weight training class uh just like any other gym class but uh at my school you didn't
have to change your shoes you just had to change your outfit M 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 it was noted that most of these that 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 on the floor of the gym yeah cuz 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 vertic 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
mhm 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 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 bleach 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 mhm
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 mhm and so they don't even know if he could have made a
call if if it was even being used for phone calls yeah they think he was using it as like an MP3 player or IP 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 mhm 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 yeah now the mats weighed 700 lb each and were over 6 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 4 or 5 in 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 um 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 even if he was yelling how much would that deaden the
sound well depending on how quickly he got to the top of the mats and reach down in there there's a decent chance he
may have expired before those students entered the gym gym 15 minutes later right as they 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 Kendrick's 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 it the report states that they
are paper towels that they were bloody paper towels found in the trash can MH 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 ft 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 um they're very dark they don't
even look red so they almost justes 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 it's impossible that these wouldn't have been
cleaned off 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 right but
they weren't I mean they weren't like doctor office clean not close yeah they they weren't even household clean you
know now the sheriff concluded at the conclusion of his 4mon probe into Kendrick's death that it was a tragic
free accident that had occurred because of a perfect storm of events leading up to it the sheriff and his deputies
emphasize 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 which'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 that's that's an interesting thing to
talk about there was a shoe found on the gymnasium floor MH okay there's a shoe found 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 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 that we're going to have a 100% conclusion a great answer on
why the shoes were found in the positions that they were mhm um 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 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 drops some shoes in there afterwards 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 down inside and we know
that that gym 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 as all day 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 mhm 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 Johnson's and their 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 sense it was it was Kendrick's father that saw his son's body in the crime lab yeah um 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 mhm uh so I mean you can Google
it if you want um that's pretty horrific after hearing the sheriff's findings after hear heing 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 will refer to them as thec uh thec began an investigation into
the circumstances surrounding Kendrick's mysterious death at the same time the local chapter of the
NAACP was voluntarily looking into the case as well now the Johnson's 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 Johnson's began to allege that there was an Institutional cover up concealing the true facts
around their son's death MH 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 mhm 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
them 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 release the his parents release this picture online they start wearing it on a graphic T 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 disfigured MH 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 this 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 Johnson's they began to make allegations about people specific people that they
believe to be responsible for killing their son mhm the Facebook tribute page named some boys who the Johnson stated
had it out for Kendrick they posted that gruesome po picture that we talked about and with the caption that said
look what someone did to our son now the Johnson's 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 name 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 um appearing in the media through TV
interviews and print Publications the Johnson's alleged that the coroner not being called for 6 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 air in 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 MH Kendrick's clothing disappeared somewhere between the gbi which conducted the official
autopsy and the Harrington funeral home which received the body in prepar 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
mhm and when when they picked it up up there was clothed there when they dropped it off it wasn't
so the you know you want to blame somebody for the missing clothes blame the person that transported him because
if they sign that hey we picked them up and there was clothes and when they dropped him 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 misplace
them I don't think that this is the parents blaming the G bi 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 alleged 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 EMT 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 Copus who now works as a private detective he questioned why police
didn't collect the sneakers with no blood on them into evidence so let's yeah well we're going
to 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 mhm in May of 2013 all of these questions led to the Johnson's this is
with the help of their attorney to get an Exum 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 [Music] homicide 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 possible 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 Absolut that it's not
that simple that there were some question marks along the way there were some concerns by his family MH and we
had now have this 4month 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 Johnson's 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 and 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
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Kendrick Johnson /// Part 1 /// 195

Part 1 of 2

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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

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Brief Summary

Kendrick Johnson's mysterious death in a gym mat sparks controversy over investigation and autopsy findings, raising questions of foul play.

Key points

Kendrick Johnson's Funeral. Family and friends gather to say goodbye to Kendrick Johnson, a 17-year-old found dead.
The Discovery of Kendrick's Body. Kendrick Johnson's body is found inside a rolled-up gym mat, shocking the school community.
Kendrick Johnson's Autopsy Results. The autopsy concluded Kendrick's death was due to positional asphyxia, with no significant injuries found.
Investigation Findings. The sheriff's investigation concluded there was no evidence of foul play in Kendrick's death.
Kendrick's Parents Demand Justice. After the autopsy report, Kendrick's parents launched a campaign for justice, questioning the investigation.
Explosive Second Autopsy Findings. A second autopsy contradicted the initial findings, suggesting Kendrick's death should be investigated as a homicide.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You never know, sometimes a knock can come at the door.

Kendrick's father emphasizes the importance of communication with children.

5:30WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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