Crime Weekly - S1 Ep24: Tragic Accident or Police Cover-Up?: Kendrick Johnson (Part 3)

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

It is a case that has stumped and enraged millions of people around the world. Since 17 year old Kendrick Johnson was found dead, in a rolled up gym mat, the question has remained; was this a tragic accident, or a well orchestrated and quickly hidden murder. Law enforcement has ruled Kendrick’s death an accident, his family have never wavered from their opinion that Kendrick was the victim of foul play. And now, almost a decade after the case was closed, authorities are reopening the case and examining possible new evidence.  Today, we will discuss the case, go over the evidence, old and new, and hopefully find ourselves one step closer to the answer. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So this week, we are working on part three of the Kendrick Johnson case. Now, Derek told me that last week I said there was only going to be three parts. I told him I didn't remember saying that. He swears I did. I still think he's making it up. But if I did say that, I lied.

There's going to be one more part after this. There's way too much going on with it, especially with the case being reopened now. There's a lot of new information coming out. There's a lot of new information coming out. There's a lot of new quote-unquote evidence coming out, things that we have to go over in order to really explore this case to the fullest. I want to cover all of it. So there will be one more part. And from now on, even though I think we already said we weren't going to say how many parts was going to be in a case, but we broke our own rule apparently last week. From now on, we're not even going to say. It's just going to be what it is. And today we're covering part three. There's a lot of

information here, a lot of stuff that I really can't wait to run past Derek and you all and hear what you think about it. I really like to see your comments and see if your opinion is sort of changing or if things are looking different to you as we go through the evidence and the case. So make sure to let us know if you're watching on YouTube in the comment section. Make sure to leave a five-star review wherever you watch your podcasts or listen to your podcast. We appreciate it. But I want to do a quick recap, just very, very quick. So we already have two autopsies, right? One that was done by the police, by the medical examiner, the official one, and then a second one that was done by an independent person that the Johnson family hired. Let me hit you with something because it's a perfect segue.

One thing about the autopsies that I haven't even spoke to you about yet. We had a message on SpeakPipe from a woman who is in the medical field. She's not a pathologist. I apologize, her name escapes me. But I know we talked about the second autopsy and how the second pathologist basically said he didn't believe the interior of his neck had been examined, right? Well, something she brought up to me, which when she said it, it made a lot of sense. We both looked at the photos of the autopsy and you can clearly see that the back of his neck has been dissected. Okay. You guys can go look at that photo if you want. She made a good point. The back of the neck is the posterior. The front of the neck is the interior. And so she was basically saying,

hey, I don't know if it's true or not, but if you didn't see any photos of the front of the neck, there is a possibility that he's actually right. And I said, oh, that's great. I got to bring that up because I didn't see any photos of the front of the neck, which from what she's told me, and I looked it up, that is considered the anterior, which is what the pathologist specifically referred to. So very interesting point. I just wanted to bring that up. And again, one of our listeners coming through with the speak pipe, giving us a little schooling,

but it's a good thing because we don't know everything and I know I don't know everything. So it's good to have people who are in those fields give us a little bit of an education there. So I found that pretty interesting. So I'm just going to make a note and then I will kind of seek out to see if I can find any pictures, if I can find any proof one way or the other for next time. Yep, absolutely. And again, that was something I hadn't even discussed with you. I just listened to the speak pipe last night. I did send it to you. But thank you for that. We appreciate it. Love stuff like that. Love when you guys send us stuff like that.

That's interesting. Right? Makes a lot of sense. It makes me want to not record right now and go look into it, but here we are. So I wanted to also say we did touch on this, but on May 2nd, 2013, the death was ruled officially an accident. And the Johnson family, they continued regular protests for 23 weeks until September 9th of 2013. And at that point, they claimed they had new evidence that KJ's death was not an accident. And this evidence was, among other things, the inconsistencies between the autopsy done by the GBI and the one done by their independent pathologist, Dr. William Anderson, as well as inconsistencies in the official police reports and then the paramedics reports. And we talked about both of those things in the previous podcast.

I also want to tell everybody out there I have learned to pronounce Valdosta. So I've been saying Valdosta, which I mean, to be fair, is how it's spelled. Okay. What was the other one? Oh, Spokane. Spokane, Spokane. Yeah. But I got a lot of comments saying, learned to pronounce Valdosta. Well, I did, but I cannot give you any promises that I will pronounce it accurately the entire time because in my brain it is still Valdosta because that's how it's spelled. So I might mess up. Don't don't give me too much of a hard time. I'll do my best. reward was put up by who at that point was being called an anonymous donor. And this reward was being put up for any information that led to the arrest of KJ's attacker. Now, at this point, the police have said this is an accident. There's no attacker. There's no foul play. But somebody

did put up a reward for any information leading to the arrest of the attacker. Now, like I said at first, it was reported that the reward was put up by an anonymous person. We now know that it was a local businessman named Roy Taylor. The Reverend Lloyd Rose from the local chapter of the SCLC was responsible for handling the reward, sort of making the public aware of it, getting it out there. And the reward was only going to be good for 90 days. And at that point, if no one had come forward with any verifiable information, it would be rescinded, taken back, which is exactly what ended up happening.

But there is a little scandal related to the reward money. If you remember, both Reverend Rose from the SCLC and Lee Tuchton from the NAACP, they were also doing their own investigation into Kendrick's death at this time, and they were doing this on request from the Johnson family. Now, in May of 2013, Reverend Rose, he opened his fellowship hall at the Serenity Christian Church to be used for a rally during which the Reverend Al Sharpton spoke. And Al Sharpton said, quote, we're going to rally together. We're going to get answers together. We want Val Dosta to know no justice, no peace, end quote. And said that he's not accusing anything, but that he wants the truth on what happened to his son. He showed more respect than they showed him and his family.

The story got stranger and stranger. Now I'm not a pathologist, I'm not a coroner, I'm not a doctor, but I do have confidence. And I'm built kind of funny. Y'all can see that my nose sticks out here. Then behind my nose is my mouth. And then back here is my brain. Which means I can smell stuff what I'm tasting, Reverend. I don't understand what these autopsies say. But something don't smell right.

No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace. No justice. No peace!

What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! When do we want it? Now! So obviously with Al Sharpton's presence there, you know, he's one of the most well-known civil rights voices of our time.

There's going to be a big turnout. And when Sharpton started off the fundraiser by donating $500 of his own money, obviously many others followed suit and donated money as well. And this totaled to $8,000 raised for KJ just during that one rally. Later, Lee touched in of the NAACP. She'd bring up the money raised at this rally, and she would question the legitimacy of what happened with that money. She said, quote, Sharpton asked for a portion of this money to be used for a reward. It wasn't. After the case was closed, Reverend Rose was approached by a local businessman named Roy Taylor to offer a $10,000 reward, along with SCLC for credible information leading to arrest.

To this day, the family has not set up a reward. The family says that the businessman who offered the reward, Roy Taylor, is related to Lowndes Superintendent Wes Taylor, and that is evidence of corruption in Lowndes County. The two men are not related, end quote. So I guess Roy Taylor comes forward with this reward. He takes it back after 90 days. The family's annoyed that he took it back. They make some sort of connection or accusation that he's related to Wes Taylor, who's the superintendent of Lowndes County Schools, because they have the same last name. These two men are not related. And the money raised during the Sharpton rally, it was not ever put up as a reward. And I guess you could look at this either way. Because just because

Al Sharpton asked for a portion of the money to be used as a reward, it doesn't mean necessarily that the family had to do that. They weren't obligated to use it for that. They probably did have a lot of legal fees to pay. I think at one point they had three lawyers working with them. I don't know if this was on a pro bono basis or they were probably being charged for this. But we will find that Lee Touchden, as well as the Reverend Floyd Rose, they have plenty more to say about this case and the Johnson family. According to an interview Lee touched and later gave, KJ's parents accused Reverend Rose of keeping most of the $8,000 raised at the Sharpton rally. And she said, quote,

This is totally false. It was all given to the Johnson family, who did not use any portion of it for a reward and to this day have not put forth a reward. End quote. And I feel bad for Reverend Lloyd Rose because he really did. He bent over backwards for the Johnson family. He opened his fellowship to them, his church to them. He put up his house as collateral when KJ's mother was arrested for protesting at the courthouse. So it kind of sucks. We don't know what happened.

Obviously, this is a he said, she said thing. We don't know who'd the money go? And that's unfortunate because it should be about Kendrick Johnson. And instead, it kind of became to some degree about money, which is not a good look. Yeah, it was a scandal almost that kind of muddied the waters around what was really important. Right. I agree. Yeah, not a good look. on who you talk to, who's reporting the facts. And I mean, the story of how the Johnson family finally was able to gain access to the footage as well as what the footage shows. So there's different reportings. Sometimes the Johnson family, mostly the Johnson family, was saying they could not get this footage. They were requesting it and they couldn't get it. And it

ends up that it was a little bit more complicated than that. On October 30th, a judge ordered the release of the full investigative file connected to KJ's investigation, and this included the surveillance footage. In documents relating to a lawsuit that would be filed by the Johnsons, it was alleged that from the time the case was closed by Sheriff Prine in May to the time the judge ordered Prine to release the information, the family had made multiple requests for all of this stuff, and they'd been denied access to it repeatedly. Now, according to law enforcement, this isn't true. The surveillance videos could not be released without a court order due to FERPA laws, and FERPA stands for the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. And this

pretty much states that parents have the right to review these sorts of things. But in order to protect the rights of minor age students, they can't just send this stuff out. And I do have personal experience with this, an issue with my son on the school bus. I had to go into the school. I was able to sit in the office with the principal and a security card there. And we were able to view the footage, but there were certain angles that they wouldn't show me because of other children on the bus and things like that, even though I didn't get that because I said I could just walk up to his boss every morning and see all those kids on there. But I understand they have to be very careful with this stuff because they don't want other parents getting upset and coming to them. So it's a very touchy sort of thing. It's a real thing too. It's not something

they're just conjuring up. It happens all the time. Now, if there's an angle, if there was an angle, as you just said, where KJ was the only one in that angle, no problem. But as we've seen from the footage that has been since released, every single shot, even if it's only for a second, you have another person in that shot and there lies the problem. Yeah. So, I mean, the family can go in and look at the footage, but they can't actually release it to just a civilian without a court order. If they have a court order, they can. Different ballgame. They're protected at that point because a judge ordered them to do so. Exactly. Well, according to both Lee Tuchton of the NAACP and Reverend Rose, the Johnson family was invited many times to view the videos at the school board, but neither the Johnsons nor their legal team ever took advantage of that offer. Attorneys for both the school district and the sheriff's office asked the Johnson's lawyer, C.B. King, to file a motion with the judge to release the

videos during these months, but they never did. So every time the Johnsons and their attorneys were like, we want this footage, the school was like, we can't give it to you. But if you get a court order, then we can. That's the only way we can. But C.B. King never did file that court order or try to get that court order. Yeah. And it sounds like to me that this was kind of a tactic, right? Like it was, they were negotiating, right? Like ultimately the school and the sheriffs were saying, if you want to come sit in, we'll show it to you. And they were saying, no, no, no, we don't want to see what you're going to present to us. We want all the footage and we want to take it to where we want to take it to where we want to take it.

And we want to review it and analyze it and do everything we want to the original raw footage. And so they were going back and forth. And so I think it was kind of a thing where CB King and then we're probably saying, hey, if you go in there and look at the footage, you lose that chip. So let's not do that because then we're giving them what they want. Again, that's speculation on my part, but that's what it sounds like from the outside where nobody wanted to give in. Nobody wanted to compromise.

And like I said, I've been in this situation. I understand it completely. With my situation, it was the fact that the bus driver had laid his hands on my son, had pushed my son. And there was people who said he had done, other students who said that he had done that. And so I said, show me the footage. And it just so happened that the angles they showed me did not show the bus driver's hands because they said it was for other students' privacy. So at that point, I'm like, okay, yeah, right, dude. You better show me. I don't care what you have to do. Blur their faces out. I don't care. Put little cartoon paper bags over their heads. But I need to see this bus driver's hands. And I lost it. Like, I mean, they could hear me down the hall. I was losing it. A mother or a father when their child

is in danger or you feel like somebody's trying to prevent you from protecting your child, you're going to go crazy and you're going to not think that these people are on your side. So I completely understand that they did not want to go in and see what the school had put together because you don't know if this is all the footage. You don't know if it's been doctored. You don't know if it's been edited. So I do get that. I just, I don't really understand why the court order wasn't filed because that would have given them everything that they wanted, right? It's a great, great question. I do have a curiosity. Did you, that is a great point that bring up, though. Did they end up showing you the footage? Why can't they just... We release police reports all the time to the public, and we redact all the information that could help you identify a person mentioned in the report or anything specific to an individual in that case. I'm surprised. I mean, that's a really commonsensical question. Like, hey, I get it. I can't see those kids and you're not going to you're not going to release ity. And I was like, you better get him out of here because if he doesn't get out of here in 30 seconds, he's going to be going out of here in a body bag.

I swear to God, get him the hell away from me. Yeah, I my husband had to hold me back. I went full Jersey Shore, man. I was taking my earrings off. So, no, it's that's why I'm saying, though, I understand the paranoia. I understand the feeling that somebody has hurt your child and now they're trying to cover their asses, right? That's exactly what the school was doing. Yeah. If you believe that this is a conspiracy,

then yeah, you don't want to be spoon fed the footage that they want to show you. You want to make your own, you want to make your own analysis. You want everything and let you decide. So I get it. And, but you leave it on a great question,, which is, we agree. So why not file with the courts? Why not file with the courts and make that happen so you can do your own analysis? So I'd really like to know why CB King did not file that. It's a great question. Well, it looks like even the October decision, the October 30th decision by the judge, that was not prompted by a request from the family. It was the attorneys for the school board and the sheriff's office who ultimately filed a motion for the

videos to be publicly released. I think at this point they were like, okay, there's a lot of controversy. It looks like a conspiracy at this point because the family and their lawyer in the media saying, we can't get the video, we can't get the files. So we want this to be out there so that, you know, there's no question of what happened. But in the media, the Johnson's legal team, they sort of made it seem as if they were the ones who'd filed the request with the judge to have those records sent over. I mean, it does look as if the Johnson's legal team did file a few open records requests, you know, like FOIA requests, but they never did file a motion directly with the judge. And like you said, these are two completely different things. All right. Well,

while we're talking about the surveillance video, let's dig into the surveillance video, what was shown on them and why many people feel they're suspicious. Many people feel they've been edited and changed in order to hide things and protect certain people. So CNN, like I said, they were all over this case, like from the beginning. They were all over it. And they hired a man named Grant Fredericks and his company, Creative Video Solutions, to analyze hundreds of hours of footage that was eventually provided to them by the Lowndes County Sheriff's Office once the judge filed that motion and they were able to make it public. So Grant Fredericks, he said that he

didn't believe the videos had necessarily been edited, but he also felt that he didn't have the original files and what he did have, it had been altered in numerous ways, primarily in image quality. There was a lot of missing information as well. A number of files were corrupted. They weren't playable, which Grant believes is a result of them not having been processed correctly. And this could be because the sheriff's office, they did not get the surveillance footage themselves.

So what it says in the police reports and how it's been explained is a detective watched a portion of the video at the school and then he asked the school board's information technology officer to make a copy of that entire wing of the school for the 48 hours before KJ was found. Five days later, the sheriff's office received a hard drive with all the stuff on it, but Grant-Fredericks felt that it shouldn't really have been left up to the school to decide what they would provide or what they wouldn't provide to the police, which I completely agree with, especially if there was a question of whether or not they could have been partially responsible or very responsible for what happened to KJ. He was on school grounds.

If something did happen and they knew about it, they would be motivated to maybe not show that footage to cover their own asses and not be liable, right? Even if it was an accident, they might want to do that. Yeah. I found it interesting that the sheriff's department requested a copy be made. With something like this, you would have the GBI or the state police, you would seize the actual hard drive, the DVR, whatever the original contents are. And you would seize that actual physical equipment because you're dealing with a possible murder. And to not get too much into the weeds, this is digital evidence. So anytime that data is viewed, it changes. And the metadata in that footage will change as well. And so there is

ways to see within that metadata if parts of it has been deleted because there's basically a hash inside of it. It's basically numbers that tells you if the data has been altered in any way, shape or form. So the things like him saying the resolution was changed or color was changed, he's not comparing it from one video to another. He's able to tell by the metadata, basically the information within the digital evidence that something was changed, but he's also able to tell if something was cropped out or cut out. So it's really specific. But again, having a copy of a copy every time that data is copied it dilutes it just a little bit because the the metadata changes a little bit the source of where the information come from

changes so for example if the if the school makes a copy then the sheriff makes a copy and then so that whoever it's again chain of custody just like a physical piece of evidence it's not the same evidence as what was on the hard drive evidence. It's not the same evidence as what was on the hard drive, even though it may look the same, the digital, the metadata itself is different and can raise a lot of questions as far as the integrity of the data itself. I went a little nerd there, but I hope that makes sense. I appreciate it. Yeah, I do. I appreciate it. So the metadata is like the data within the data. Right.

And you have to really be skilled and know what you're looking at. Yeah, absolutely. And they're really good. Like the forensic analyst, the data analyst can literally look at the hash, which it's like, if you have two, if you have two pieces of evidence, physical evidence. So when they seize a hard drive, they make a copy or an image of that hard drive before the digital forensics guys ever touch it. And the reason they do that is it'll be a code, a series of hash. And they're able to analyze the data for like pedophiles and things like that, where they're able to show the court that even though they went into the hard drive of the suspected offender, they're able to show that the hash, the data was the exact same when they took the original image and when they got done proving that everything they found on that computer was not added or altered by the digital

forensic people themselves. That's how you show the court, the judge, here's the image when we first got the computer, here's the image when we got after it. Even one, if you took a document on a whole desktop, right? There's millions of files and you change the name of one file just to Stephanie, from Stephanie to Stephanie H. The whole hash is different. The whole thing, not just one number, the whole thing changes. So there's no way to do it. And that's why it's important to have the original data. This is to prove we didn't add anything. We're not setting this pedophile up. We didn't put these pictures of kids on his hard drive. They were there when we found it.

And in this case, to prove that there wasn't anything added or taken out of the original video for Kendrick's case. Exactly. So in my opinion, the police should have handled this themselves. And I think that if they had gone into this thinking it was a murder, they would have because I've seen this before in cases. Phoebe Hands, Jack is one of them. Also, the same thing, they went into it immediately, sort of just assuming this was a suicide. She killed herself. She took her own life. So they left it up to the apartment building to get that surveillance footage and send it over to them. And by the time it did, it was corrupted. There was stuff missing. They had recorded over each other. It recorded over previous things. So it's a mess. I think if they had taken this seriously going in, the police, they would have done this themselves. But I think that really right off the bat,

they thought this is an accident. And that's not the best way, I think, to go into investigation. I agree. And also for the integrity of the hard drive, right? God forbid something happens to it or like a video from a week later overrides it or something like that. You don't want that. And I will say for anybody, I know I have some of my former associates, my former partners who are like, Derek, when we were detectives, we didn't always take the hard drive. No, we didn't. If it was like a hit and run or even like a larceny, or even in some cases, a B and E, if, you know, I would just ask the store clerk or whatever, Hey, do me a favor, give me a, send me a DVD or a file to my email when you have a second. But to your point,

if you think it's a murder going in, it's all hands on deck. Everything's coming with us. We're not leaving anything up to chance. I'm not leaving here without that hard drive. So I'm going to stand here and watch it until my partner goes and gets a judge to sign off on a seizure warrant. And then I'm going to keep an eye on that hard drive the entire time until I come back with said warrant, hand it to you, IT person or principal, and I'm taking that hard drive with me.

End of story. Exactly. And that should have been done here. I think, and we were talking about this, I think just last night, I said, I think that this is a small town police department. They're used to doing things their own way, probably not always according to protocol. And they didn't expect to have such a large microscope on their investigation once it was completed. So they didn't really behave above reproach because they weren't used to having this kind of attention on every little detail of the investigation. So there's all these glaring mistakes that most likely were done in many other investigations. That's just the way they do it. Isn't that what

Sheriff Pryne said? You know, that's the way we do it here. That's the kind of mentality where it's like, yeah, we know this is protocol. We know this is what we're supposed to do, but this just the way they do it isn't that what sheriff prine said you know that's the way we do it here that's the kind of mentality where it's like yeah we know this is protocol we know this is what we're supposed to do but this is the way we've always done it here but it's not the right way so now that you do have this spotlight on your investigation it looks sketchy af because it shows all the imperfections it sure does without a filter and we're really talking about this as we should but i don't want to glaze over the fact that you did say something very important in there, which is that this independent person reviewed the footage. And based on all the reasons I just laid out to you guys, as far as how he would do a gen,

I just give you a general understanding of how he would analyze this footage. Although he believes the footage was altered as far as color resolution, obviously to make it more viewable. Yeah, primarily the quality. But he would be able to tell in five seconds if there were pieces of the data that were missing. And that's not what he's saying as far as what I'm hearing now, which is very important because a lot of people believe that to be the case. Well, he said that he didn't believe the videos had been edited, but he also felt he didn't

have the original files, which I mean, I think that's obvious that he didn't have the original files. And what he's saying there is, hey, what if the original file had something in it? They cut it out and then they sent it for me. So now the source of that data is coming from the second person. So now it looks like, yeah. So now that does look like it's one continuous timeline because if it was edited beforehand, I didn't get that version. I got the new version that was saved. I get where he's coming from. That's why I think he said, I don't think that

this has been necessarily edited. So this copy I have hasn't been edited. That doesn't think that this has been necessarily edited, right? So like this copy I have hasn't been edited. That doesn't mean that this is not, you know, it wasn't edited to begin with. And I just got the edited stuff and then they didn't edit the edited stuff. And what we're saying here, though, is extremely important for one main reason. If we're to believe that the police department, the sheriff's office, the GBI colluded together to cover up this murder. This video is not from them originally. The school made a copy of it. So just as we're going forward, guys, make sure you keep in mind that now there's another asset in regards to this conspiracy. It's not only the GBI, it's not only the medical examiners, it's not only the sheriff's office.

We're also implicating the school because in order for this video to have been altered based on how it was received, it's the school administrators who altered this video to fit whatever narrative you might possibly believe. If that's what happened. But that's a fact. They are the ones, they handed it over. And therefore, it couldn't have been law enforcement that cut that video up because they would have gotten original clip from the school and the school would have said, hey, that's not what we sent them, but that's not what happened. So now you're implicating the school as far as part of the collusion. Well, there's another thing too, because there's a bunch of cameras in the school. I forget exactly how many, I think it was 58. But there's four cameras, four cameras in the old gym, and all four behaved oddly that day. And I really only say that day because I don't know whether this was normal behavior for the cameras or not. I don't know if they were recording all morning, but both seemed to stop recording at 12.04 p.m. and didn't start recording again until 1.09 p.m., which, according to the timestamps from inside the gym, was right when KJ entered.

The second camera stopped recording at 11.05 a.m. and started recording again at 1.16 p.m., and the third camera stopped recording at 11.05 a.m. as well and started recording again at 1.16 p.m., and the third camera stopped recording at 11.05 a.m. as well and started recording again at 1.16 p.m. Now, according to the surveillance camera in the hall outside the old gym, during this time period where the cameras inside were not recording, multiple students entered the gym, including three male students that entered just a few moments before KJ. When KJ does enter the old gym, the timestamp from the hall camera, so he's outside the old gym, right? He's walking in and it says that it's 1259

p.m. But the camera inside the gym shows he entered at 109. So unless he took a full-ass 10 minutes to get from the hall to the old gym, we can clearly see that one or the other or both timestamps are off. You also have no footage of KJ actually going into the mats. And the only footage of the mats themselves, they're very blurry. I wrote it's almost impossible to see, but it's pretty much impossible to see. You can't see anything from the mat area. There's also no footage of the discovery of KJ's body, right? When those two girls were up there and they found him, you don't see any of that. You only see him being taken away on a stretcher. The Lowndes County School District gave CNN a statement saying, quote, what we produced to the sheriff is a raw feed with no edits, end quote. And a lawyer for the sheriff's office said,

quote, my client has confirmed that the video was not altered or edited by anyone within the Lounds County Sheriff's Office, end quote. So both of these, I don't know, what do you call them, entities, the school and the sheriff's department, yeah, like not us not us they're not necessarily saying like it was the other guy but they might as well be right so the sheriff's office is like nobody in the sheriff's office added this and then the school's like nobody in the school added this it's kind of almost suggesting that the other guy did it and this is well i can tell you this i can you this. If the school had sent them more and then what was released to the public later was not in line with what they sent, I think someone would have threw someone under the bus if they weren't working together on it. I would think they'd say,

hey, we have video here that shows a lot more than what's been released to the public. So we're going to show that. I don't think they would have, right? And that's, that's what bothers me. If they're innocent? Yeah, no. Even if they're innocent? No. In the whole thing?

I mean, okay. So in any way, shape or form, innocent or working together, they both said just enough to take responsibility off of them and not directly point a finger at the other, the other entity, but they didn't, they didn't say, you know, none of us did it. They weren't kind of working as a unified front. They both are like, it wasn't us. It wasn't us. So I almost feel like if this was a conspiracy and they were working together, they would have provided a more unified front.

Yeah. And I took the statements a little different. I took them as the school saying, hey, what we handed over to the police department has not been edited. So that's A to B. And the sheriffs are saying, hey, what we received from the school department, we have not edited. So that's B to C. And so therefore, what they're kind of saying is, hey, guys, listen, nothing has been altered by the school or by us at any point. So anything you're seeing now, if it was edited, it was after we both received it. That's how I took it. But I also see your side to it as well. Who would alter it? Who would edit it after the school, after the sheriff's office? Who would do that? Yeah, nobody. All of this missing footage from the cameras, right? Well, we're going to kind of also explain that. But I do feel that if this was a grand conspiracy that both of these entities were involved in, they would have talked to each other. Their lawyers would have talked to each other. And it would have been more like, no,

we did nothing wrong. We did everything on the up and up. And we are standing with each other in solidarity. Agreed. So the attorney for the Johnson family, they said, or he said, it's ridiculous because you can't tell from the video what happened to KJ. You can't even tell when other students are entering or who they are. The Valdosta Daily Times, they also reviewed the footage and they put out a two-part series explaining why they believe the videos have some issues. And they actually did a really good job with these articles. They went and they talked to the school. They went and they talked to the companies that provided the surveillance equipment.

They went deep. So they state that the school's surveillance footage does not show how or when KJ became trapped in the mat because the old gym security cameras are positioned so that the area where the wrestling mats are stored is not visible. They go on to say that piecing together the exact timeline was difficult because there are six separate video surveillance servers at the school, and each camera sends footage to only one of those servers. The Lowndes County Sheriff's Office requested footage from three of the servers during the investigation. Now, each server has its own internal clock, and one server's clock may not match others because they do not communicate with each other to sync up their clocks.

And this information is from Al Rowell, and he's the director of technology for the school district, the Lowndes County School District. So this can lead to potential time differences between the servers. For example, one camera captures something that's happening at noon, while another camera on a separate server might timestamp that exact same moment as 1210. The Valdosta Daily Times said, quote, creating a timeline becomes even more problematic when looking at the footage from January 10th and 11th. The video was exported from the school's two integral technology servers and one Toshiba Surveilix server. The footage from

the integral cameras show approximately 36 hours worth of footage from the school's old gym and surrounding areas, and the Surveilx cameras capture approximately 48 hours of the C-Wing and administrative office areas. In a November 7th press conference, C.B. King, one of the lawyers representing the Johnson family, he stated that the video footage did not contain timestamps and that there was no way of making sense of what it purports to show. Following that statement, the Valdosta Times reported that timestamps were not present. Since then, however, the Times has been able to determine that the timestamps do, in fact, exist for at least a portion of the videos, end quote. All right, so apparently,

the videos that the Johnson family got were in two separate folders on a hard drive, one labeled LHS integral cameras, and they do not have timestamps, and they can be viewed using most media players on your computer, so like anybody can look at them on their computer. However, the file labeled LHS Surveilix camera contained software and raw data camera footage, but the Surveilix software, it needs to be installed on the computer in order to view the footage and the timestamps. The Times, the Valdosta Times, they used this software while they were viewing the video, and they believe that it is in fact possible to trace

KJ's last steps from the entrance to Seawing near classroom C-305 to the old gym. They say the timestamps from the Surveilix servers are relatively accurate, given that third block classes were dismissed at approximately 1.25 p.m. on January 10th, and students can be seen leaving the classroom at this time. In the Surveilix footage, KJ is first seen entering C-Wing near the school's foreign language classrooms at 1.25 p.m. He can be seen walking alone. He's carrying a yellow folder, the same one that's later found near his body. He's seen on the footage smiling as he turns the corner near the B-Wing stairs, and he continues to walk down the hallway in front of the administration offices. He does not stop to

talk to anyone. No one's following him, and he doesn't appear to be following anyone else. He's seen opening the doors to the hallway that leads to the old gym at 1.27 p.m. The rest of his journey is captured by integral surveillance servers, and these do not have timestamps, but the footage can be matched to image stills from the case file that were printed from the surveillance system at the school on the day of the incident. These timestamps are not accurate, and this was noticed on the day that KJ's body was found by Lowndes County Sheriff's Detective Jack Priddy. So Jack Priddy was there. He's a detective, and he advised Lieutenant Stride Jones that KJ was seen entering the old gym at 109 p.m. because that's the timestamp on the Surveilix or the integral servers.

So the Surveilix servers followed him all the way to the old gym. And that's when the integral servers picked up. The integral servers are the ones that don't have accurate timestamps. So he even had it wrong in his report when he told everyone what time KJ had been seen entering the gym. This time gap is simply the result of two separate surveillance cameras having two different timestamps. To support this conclusion, two students can be seen on the B-Wing server entering the old gym 18 seconds after Kendrick, and those same students are seen in the gym one frame after KJ exits the field of view. That's when he's walking toward the gym mats.

The Times go on to say, quote, At the November 7th press conference, Benjamin Crump, another lawyer representing the Johnson family and C.B. King, pointed to the absence of timestamps and the 10-minute gap between the two still images as proof of a conspiracy to conceal the truth and questioned why still images with timestamps could be provided but not video. During a demonstration of how the surveillance system works, Scott Forth described to the Times how the integral footage was exported and why timestamps were not included. School administrators and resource officers have access to a program that's called Integral Remote View from their office computers.

This software allows school officials to view surveillance footage without having to go to the room where the servers are physically located. Forth said that he was asked by detectives on January 11th to export video as soon as possible, and he did so under the supervision of detectives using Integral Remote View software at a school administrator's computer, so he did not go right to the server room. Forth demonstrated to the Times how integral remote view software does allow image stills to be created and printed with timestamps, but does not allow video to be exported

with timestamps, even though the time can be seen on a computer screen while using the software. Forth also demonstrated how video footage with timestamps can be exported by using different software directly at the server location, but he was not in the server room using that software when he was asked to export the video by detectives. Since the initial export, the servers containing the raw video data had been locked in a vault. The only time they had been removed was at the request of the Johnson family. On February 28th, the school received a letter from C.B. King requesting images that

showed KJ in the old gym. Those images were given to the family March 5th, and the servers were placed back into the vault, end quote. So we're going to take a quick break, but we have more stuff about surveillance footage, and hopefully Derek're going to take a quick break, but we have more stuff about surveillance footage, and hopefully Derek's going to clear some of this technology language up for us. And we're back. So there was also an issue on the surveillance tapes of students disappearing and then reappearing. So it seemed like they would vanish and then they would reappear. And this was huge online and even on CNN. You know, I remember watching Anderson Cooper going over it and the guy that he was talking to was like, why are they why are they disappearing? And I thought the same thing,

of course. And this led people to believe that there was jump cuts in the video. You know, obviously that suggests that it's been edited. to the integral cameras being motion activated and the cameras do not record video, but they take still images at the rate of one frame per second, which I think is all video. All video is kind of just still images taken very quickly. There's no difference, right? Am I correct in that? Yeah, it's correct. But some take more images. I mean, well, no, it's not technically. I mean, some do record video. Again, this is a few years ago and obviously equipment has gotten a lot better. My understanding is that my video cameras on my house is recording, you know, high definition footage and yeah, technically footage is, you know, 30 frames per second, 60 frames per second, you know, whatever it may be. I'm assuming the frame rate on this particular camera is not like what we're recording on right now.

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So it's, what do they say, one frame per second? Yes. So the cameras in the gym, they're activated when they sense a change in light. So a student moving across the camera field of view, they can trigger the camera to record, but not always. The camera breaks each image into blocks and measures the number of blocks that change at any given moment. So a certain percentage of blocks have to change before the camera begins to record. So just one block changing or two blocks changing, that's not going to be enough to trigger the camera to record. If a student walked directly in front of the camera in the foreground, more blocks are changed because

the student's occupying a larger area. It's occupying more of the image. But if a student's farther away in the background, the number of blocks that are changing, they may not hit the threshold to start recording. And this is according to the Integral Technologies documents. In the case of students who vanished from the video, giving impressions that the video had been altered, those students were in the background of the video that was already being recorded. When action in the foreground ceased, the required number of blocks was not met, and the recording stopped and then immediately resumed once that block percentage was reached again, making it appear that students had either vanished or that

the footage had been altered. And I want to say a big thank you to the Valdosta Daily Times for doing their homework, putting out such a really comprehensive article, because I may be smart in like a lot of things, but technology is not one of them. With this technology stuff, you might as well be speaking a different language. Like I have a general grasp of it and general comprehension, but I know for a fact you are way more tech savvy than I am. So break it down for us where we can all understand a little better. So first off, I'll go over a few points because I thought it was very well said too. And I think mostly everybody listening to you right now may have to listen to it a second time, but it does make sense. But just to break it down,

every computer server, so basically imagine that being for simple terms, a hard drive, right? Every server has what's called NTP, which is network time protocol. And what that protocol does is any information, any data that's going to that specific server is synced up. So all the data on there, whether it's cameras in this case, the timestamps would be the exact same. Well, when you have two different servers, unless they're interconnected, which in this case, it appears to be two different brands, they're probably not. The NTP, the network time protocol will be different because it might be pulling its timestamp from a different location, whether it's from the internet or it was entered by a human manually. That makes a big difference. So that explains the timestamp. The sensors,

as you just alluded to, most people out there today have cameras and a lot of those individuals have motion sensor cameras and we've all experienced it. Depending on the sensitivity that you set those cameras will dictate how many blocks need to be triggered in order for it to start recording. And then you obviously have a slight delay in that recording. So that makes sense to me as well. But I think the big takeaway for all of us, just to recap, not only based on those little technical things, is that what we have been shown by the Valdosta Times is that although the timestamps themselves are off and show a 10 minute gap, which we just explained how that could happen. The bottom line is this,

there's video footage or a still showing Kendrick entering the gym. And there's one immediately after he gets in the gym, there's no gap in that. So if there was footage that showed him enter the door of the gym, and then he's gone, you would say, well, where is that? But the reality is, is not that. And it's backed up by the other students that enter as well. So there's clearly an accountability for the entire time. Kendrick leaves the classroom, walks down the hall to the gym. It's all there. It's all there and it's in view. So the timestamp itself, although you wish it would be accurate, it is explained very well. And it's kind of, it kind of is irrelevant. I hate to say that, but it's irrelevant because the video supports that there is no gap in time, just that the timestamps themselves are off and they're not in sync. I mean, I understand this is a school, okay?

So for my personal home, I have a badass security system and I pay pretty well for it because the safety of my family is of the utmost importance to me. So when you say sensitivity of security cameras, my sensitivity as far as motion activation goes, a leaf could blow in front of the door and it'll start recording. But this is a school. So they're not, unfortunately, they're not necessarily worried about huge crimes happening. You know, the most that they feel like they're going to have to deal with on an everyday basis is like maybe two students get into a fight and they got to figure out who started the fight, you know, kind of things like that. They're not expecting something like this to happen, just like the sheriff's office wasn't expecting something like this to happen. So they just went about their business as they normally would, which may not have always been the best.

So the school's obviously going to try to go cheap when they put these surveillance cameras in. They know they have to have the surveillance cameras because they want every school to have them now. But they also have a budget. They have to charge kids to even use lockers at this school. So am I surprised that they didn't like pay the big bucks for like the state of the art security system that's, you know, motion detected whenever a leaf blows by? I'm not surprised. It is unfortunate because I wish we did have that because I think that it would put a lot of people's minds to rest. Yeah. And also, again, you have to keep this in mind. Budget, they've got a lot of cameras running. It's expensive. This is not Google. But also,

keep in mind, everybody, this is 2013. It doesn't sound like that long ago, but if you take a second and think about how much technology has advanced just in our phones from 2013 to now, it's light years ahead of it, especially in the video surveillance department. If you go back and look, the quality and the ability of video surveillance systems eight, nine years ago, there was no ring, right? There was no IP you know, IP cameras themselves and internet protocol cameras, basically the ability to record over the internet wasn't really a thing. It was all through coaxial cables and things like that. So yeah, servers, well, it still could be stored on a server. So an IP camera, which is internet-based,

there doesn't technically have to be a wire, you can still transmit from that camera to a network server. But the reality is that's going over the internet, which is super fast now, the ability to use gigabit internet, all these things. Back then you're using what's called, and I'm really showing my nerd here, but you're using like a coaxial cable,

which has a very slow transmission rate, which degradates the quality of the camera footage tremendously. And again, that's what we're dealing with this footage. Again, you're talking nine, 10 years ago, the ability to transfer large amounts of data, which is the result of high definition footage was extremely difficult, if not almost impossible at that time. So even though cameras probably weren't the best quality, they were pretty in line for the times. And that's something to consider. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I think we can probably say with certainty that these videos,

they weren't edited. Obviously, it looks suspicious when you see kids popping up and disappearing and there's different timestamps, but it doesn't appear that these videos were edited. And even the guy, the independent guy, CNN brought in, he said that. So I think we can say with enough confidence that there's probably nothing sketchy going on with the surveillance videos. Yeah. And for those of you who don't know, this doesn't mean much, but I'm actually going for my master's degree in cybersecurity right now, and I'm pretty almost done. So I'm not coming from a place where, hey, I play on the computer a lot. I know what I'm talking about. I actually deal with this stuff all the time. And I deal with digital forensics. I've taken courses on it. I

know what it involves. And I can tell you that if there was some alteration to this data, even though it had been copied, It's very easy with the software available. Even in 2013, you might not know what that footage is that's missing, but you would 100% be able to tell that footage was cut out, that there's a gap in the time between when you have your last bit of data and then the new pieces added. Digital data is very tough to alter and leave no trace of it being altered. It's almost impossible. And the FBI analyzed this footage as well, and they didn't find anything nefarious in there. So I don't know, that might not mean a lot to people, but when you have multiple agencies, multiple different people, some independent looking at the same footage and

coming to the same conclusions, I think we can hopefully say that that's probably the case. I like in this situation that Valdosta Times got involved because we're talking about a situation where the notion is that the law enforcement community is all conspiring to cover this murder up, including the FBI. And so them saying it doesn't hold a lot of weight for most, but having the Valdosta Times being that independent party. And by the way, maybe even more capable of doing it because they're dealing with footage all the time.

This is their wheelhouse, having them coming out and explaining it when they're doing an impartial investigation. Because frankly, I'm sure if they found something that was nefarious, that's even better for them. That's better for them, yeah. So I'm sure they were going into it probably looking to really drive home that this was a conspiracy. Exactly, exactly. So I think that to me as an outside entity-

I mean, unless they're part of the coverup, I don't know. It's possible. But then, like I said, we're getting crazy. And I see your face. And I mean, listen, again, what we're putting out here is it's more and more less likely as you have independent parties who have no incentive to lie for the law enforcement agencies involved and coming to the same conclusion when based on what we know about news, as Stephanie just said, it would be much better for them if it was something scandalous.

So to have it all explained in this nerdy way isn't as good for them if it was something scandalous. So to have it all explained in this nerdy way isn't as good for them, although it does appear to be the truth. Well, I want to move on to actual accusations and allegations, not just the allegation that KJ had been murdered instead of his death being an accident, not just the allegation that his murder had been covered up, but specifics about who had done it and why. And the Johnson family, they named names. They weren't shy about doing that. There have been several, several lawsuits and counter lawsuits filed in this case, including a wrongful death lawsuit that was brought against the Lowndes County Board of Education, the superintendent, and the principal of the high school. Now, this lawsuit claimed

that KJ had been violently assaulted, severely injured, and had suffered great physical pain and mental anguish, and he was the subject to insult and loss of life. Now, the lawsuit didn't necessarily come right out and say that KJ was killed because he was black. They also didn't come right out and say that the investigation into his death was handled poorly because he was black, but it was heavily implied. It basically claimed that the defendants,

the school board, the principal, et cetera, they were negligent and violated KJ's constitutional rights to equal protection based on race. The lawsuit also stated that the school had ignored reports that KJ had been repeatedly harassed by another student, a white student, and this student allegedly had a history of provoking and attacking KJ at school in the presence of coaching staff and employees. I can't find the exact times, the exact like first moment that the names Brandon and Brian Bell were said publicly. But I do know that the accusation first surfaced in a video posted by KJ's grandfather, Eddie, three days after his grandson was found dead. And he stated that, you know, it had something to do with a GBI agent's son who'd gotten into

a fight with KJ on the bus. As we know, this isn't completely accurate, but this is what he knew at the time or what he thought he knew at the time. I also know that a lawsuit was filed against Ebony Magazine in August of 2014 after they printed some articles talking about the two students and naming them as potential suspects, even though law enforcement had never named these two young men as potential suspects or even persons of interest. Now, Ebony Magazine, they did use fake names for the two brothers,

Brian and Brandon Bell. They used pseudonyms, but they also gave detailed descriptions of who they were. You know, they said one was on the basketball team, one was on the wrestling team. They said that their father was an FBI agent. And because of this, Brian and Brandon Bell suddenly became the subject of a lot of interest. Obviously, this started locally because the local people reading it, they're like, oh, we know who they're talking about. And then the internet, you know, so the local people go on the internet and they're like, hey, you know, Facebook, the magazine's talking about Brian and Brandon Bell. And then obviously that spread like wildfire.

And before you knew it, everyone knew their names. Which is probably a lawsuit in itself, right? I mean, that's, you know, mean, if you have any identifiable information in there that can lead back to those individuals, that's a civil suit all day long. I mean, I don't know about that. I don't know if the suit has any standing. I think it was irresponsible. I think that the magazine knew what they were doing. But I also, I know

that they never did actually name them. So whatever dots were connected by other people, the magazine's going to say, that's not our fault. Like we didn't name their name. Cause I've done this in videos before, you know, I can tell you, I can tell you this and you're probably right. I can tell you this. When I went on big Brother, shout out to my Big Brother people watching, one of the first things they told me when I entered the house is, hey, if you talk about someone in any type of negative way and even one person watching can figure out who you're talking about, just know they can sue you and we will not protect you. That's a little inside information from CBS, but they just said, hey, if you do that and it's anything that's damning to them or defaming to them- What if it's true? What if what you're saying is true?

Then they can file a lawsuit and you would have to show that it's true. And then obviously the suit would be thrown out, but they can still sue you. And so I was like, interesting, but- That's ludicrous, man. Yeah. I remember it and I was nervous. And that's why everyone in that house that you want to speak about consistently, if you, if you're constantly speaking about them in the house, they send them a waiver so that they don't have to, um, blank out your name when you're talking about them. And it's all your family members and friends. They do that.

But if you're just mentioning people in passing, even if it's good or bad, they, uh, they have a five second delay and they'll, theysecond delay and they'll mute their names. I'm going to have to look into the gray areas of this, but I don't know. Either way to your point, within a couple of weeks, everybody, not just in the local area, knew the names of Brandon and Brian Bell. They knew it. They knew it. And that's what's important here. So Brian and Brandon Bell, they're brothers. They both attended Lowndes High School. I believe Brian was on the basketball team and he played football and he was the younger brother. And Brandon was on the wrestling team. And their father, Rick Bell, was an FBI agent who appears

to have been assigned to the FBI field office in Atlanta, Georgia. I did find an article from the Daily Mail dated November 4th, 2013. And Kenneth Johnson, Kendrick's father, he details an altercation between his son and one of the brothers, the younger brother, Brian. So Kenneth said he was convinced that the death of his son had been planned. Now, the Johnson family talked about this altercation to those who were helping them, try to find justice for KJ, including the NAACP and the SCLC. But according to Lee Touchton from the NAACP, Kenneth told them that this altercation had happened right before KJ's death. And this is how it was being reported in the media for a while. It made it seem as if there had been some sort of fight,

like the same day or the day before KJ was found dead or the day before he died. Lee also alleges that Kenneth told her and the rest of the people that were helping them that Rick Bell, Brian and Brandon's father, had invited KJ over to their house to, quote, finish the fight and that it would be fair. Lee says that no one can be found to corroborate these statements and the actual altercation happened a year before KJ's death. This was during his freshman year in 2011.

So Kendrick was on the basketball team. He was traveling home from a varsity game. The varsity team had lost. during his freshman year in 2011. So Kendrick was on the basketball team. He was traveling home from a varsity game. The varsity team had lost. Apparently, KJ and Brian Bell, they were trading your mama jokes back and forth. But the Johnsons claimed that KJ outwitted Brian. This made Brian mad. And then Kenneth, he said, quote, They start saying your mama jokes and my son got the best of

him with the jokes. And he came at him and tried to put him in a headlock and my son and he put it to him real good, end quote. So apparently this was a fight. In the end, I think Kenneth said that KJ whooped Brian, but he deserved it. KJ and Brian were separated. But then when they got back to the school, KJ's parents alleged that Brian was allowed to go home with his parents, but KJ and Brian were separated. But then when they got back to the school, KJ's parents alleged that Brian was allowed to go home with his parents, but KJ was brought home in the vehicle of the school's security officer. So basically like the school's police officer. Now we do know that this altercation happened, but it's really hard to tie it to what ended up happening to KJ. First of all, Brian and KJ had been friends for years. And after the fight, they put everything behind them and they continue to be friends. They

even worked on a science project to get together. So the Bell family, Brian, Brandon, they say, yeah, we were all friends. You know, here's the science project we worked on. It was obviously just like a scuffle, whatever, but it wasn't anything that was going to end what we had shared for the past several years. But KJ's parents, they were like, no, they weren't friends. We never heard of this dude. They had no friendship. So it's kind of difficult to know who's telling the truth, but there is evidence that they did work on a science project afterwards. So I'm not sure what that means. Additionally, yes, KJ did ride home in the car of the security officer, but it wasn't a punishment. So when the bus got back to the school, Brian's parents were at the high school to pick him up and KJ's parents were not there. So the school resource officer,

this is a black woman, she said she knew KJ. She was friendly with him. She was friendly with his family. So she gave him a ride home as a friend, as a favor, not as a punishment. And he rode in the front seat. They talked. He wasn't in the back seat. He wasn't under arrest. She didn't bring him up to his parents and say, your son's in trouble. This wasn't a punishment. It was just somebody that was familiar to the family, who was there at the school, saw KJ, didn't have a ride, gave him a ride home. But Kenneth, KJ's father, he said this showed clear racism. The white kid going home with his parents while the black kid got a trip home in a police car. And this obviously was not necessarily the whole story unless you think that this woman,

the security officer, who's friends with the Johnson family, or so she says, is part of the cover-up. I don't know. The Johnson family also claimed that the Bell brothers had used a female student to lure KJ into the old gym and that's when they beat him to death and they hid his body by rolling it up into a gym mat. At that point, multiple agencies, including the Bell brothers' father, they helped cover up the murder and convinced everyone that it had been an accident. Supporters of KJ, they began making accusations and sort of trying to put the pieces together after the whole Brian and Brandon Bell thing came out. In July of 2014, a 19-year-old named Dalton Chauncey, he went into the Lowndes County Sheriff's Office and he claimed to have been present during a conversation

between two people, two other high school students. He said they were talking about their part in KJ's murder. Three weeks later, he was arrested and charged with filing a false report to law enforcement after his statements could not be corroborated with evidence or correct timelines. Apparently, Chauncey had told the police that he'd heard the two high school students talking about how they'd wanted to rough KJ up. They had taken it too far.

But then after Chauncey admitted that he just made up the whole thing to like show off to his friends, those two students didn't even exist. He finally came clean after the police wanted to give him a lie detector test. But Chauncey's mother, Dalton Chauncey's mother, she says like, you know, my son's not all there. He's got some mental disabilities they took advantage of him everything he says is true but he took the story back so that the police would stop questioning him so I want to hear from Derek about what he thinks about Dalton Chauncey but let's take a very quick commercial break first and we'll be right back all right so we. Derek, what do you think of 19-year-old Dalton Chauncey and his allegations that he heard and was present when two students were talking about how they just

wanted to rough KJ up but went too far? What do you think about this? You know, it's unfortunate. And I know Chauncey's mom is saying that he has some mental health issues where he was kind of intimidated or corrupted by police in order to take it back, or he just didn't feel comfortable telling them the truth anymore. I find that hard to believe. I find that very hard to believe. Um, it does sound like someone who, this was a very popular story in that area. And to have information like this, um,

would be very important to a case. It would make you a very, uh, important person to a lot of people really quickly. Um, and so it sounds like what it is to me, which is he was telling a story to some of his friends. Um,

and eventually police said, Oh, you know what? Something's not adding up here, but we're going to give you the benefit of the doubt. We'd like you to take a lie detector test, which isn't always accurate, but a lot of people don't know that. Um, and as soon as he heard that phrase, he was like, Oh no, this has gone too far. I don't want to take a lie detector test. In fact, I made it up. And even more so, the two students that I said were saying these things, they don't even actually exist. So it sounds like what has happened in numerous situations that I've been in where a young student takes something a little too far. It gains a lot more headway, a lot more steam than they expected it to when they first said it. And once it gets to a point where they're going to hook you up to a lie detector,

he said the truth. I understand what his mom's saying. And I don't even necessarily believe that she's lying for her son. In fact, Chauncey could be telling her that. And maybe he does have some issues that he's lied about things in the past, but this seems like an awful big thing to lie about and then put it on, well, if it's his mental disability that did it. And if that were the case, I believe that one of the Johnson's attorneys would have hopped right on that, interviewed him themselves, and then represented him so that he felt more comfortable speaking to law enforcement in the future. And he did. He pled guilty to it. So he he said that the two white males, they were seniors at Lowndes High School. They killed KJ over an issue about a girl. And he said that their names were Derek and Keith. So he didn't even use the names Brandon and Brian Bell. He said Derek and Keith, and he didn't know their last name. So I

think we can safely say that it was probably just a fabricated story. He didn't realize the implications. He didn't realize that there was going to be some sort of punishment or repercussions for that. He was just trying to get attention. And I feel bad because it says he'll be sentenced June 18th to potentially face between one to five years and up to a $100,000 fine. That's going too far. I think we can just safely say that he made a mistake and maybe give him probation and move on. He's 19. And maybe I'm being a softie here, but I agree with you.

Listen, I would feel differently if the people that he implicated were real people. But the fact that he just pulled out, he was sensitive enough to just make up the names. And I completely agree with you. And I would hope that the judge would see it that way as well. You know, the only part, yes, there were some man hours wasted on, you know, tracking this down and, you know, finding out the truth, but that's your job. The cop's job is to investigate leads and allegations and that's their job. So I don't feel bad for them. That's what they're supposed to do. But it could have been spent on something else that's more productive. So I do get that, but I agree with you 100%. The only person who's really suffering in this

particular situation is Chauncey and he deserves to answer for his actions so that he knows you can't do that in the future. But do I think this guy should be in prison for it? And this kid? No, absolutely not. You gotta, you gotta use some common sense. So I'm a hundred percent on board with you there.

He's not the only one suffering, you know, the family, they could get false hope. It's a great point. That's awful. It's a great point. There should be repercussions for that.

Like you should have to apologize. Things like that. Great point. Great point. I didn't think about that repercussions for that. Like you should have to apologize. Things like that. Great point. Great point. Didn't think about that. You're right. Definitely not up to five years in prison. That's a good way to make a criminal right there.

Yeah. That's a maximum. I mean, I don't see that happening. You know, you know, I'm sure if we follow up on it, I'm assuming I can't find what his actual sentence was, which is interesting. It might have been. It might have been something that was handled. You know, is interesting. It might have been something that was handled. I mean, it might have been something where there was an agreement made because he pled

guilty. It might have been something as simple as probation with five years suspended, which means as long as he stays out of trouble for five years, he's clear. He's in the clear there. Crime Weekly, Pineapple Investigators, if you can find out what Dalton Chauncey's sentence was, comment on YouTube. Let us know. There we go. Yes, please. By the way, not to get off track because we have a lot to cover. You guys are blowing up the pineapple undercover comment.

Like you guys really took it and ran with it. Undercover pineapples unite. Dude, you guys really, yeah, you guys really ran it and ran with it undercover pineapples unite dude you guys really yeah you guys really ran with that one i mean aren't we all undercover pineapples in our own way like we're all spiky and hard on the outside but inside we're all just soft and sweet i was saying to stephanie when i started seeing the comments i said we're gonna have to come up with a shirt that's gonna be part of our merch line is gonna be like a detective an undercover detective pineapple like a little old school detective hat like the yes the trench coat the trench coat like the sherlock holmes of pineapples

and p and everyone's going to look at you everyone who has the shirt they're going to people look at you like you have three heads but we'll know we'll know what all us pineapples will know the pineapples will know well i pineapples will know. Well, I am going to talk about a video. I can't find this video anywhere, but it's reported everywhere. So the family lawyer, they put out a video on November of 2014, and they laid out the family theory about these two white students who had beat up KJ and then gone too far and hit his body in the mat. And a Facebook post on KJ's memorial Facebook page, they called Brian Bell out. And they basically had a campaign of getting him or getting Brian's scholarship revoked because Florida State University had awarded Brian a football scholarship.

And all of these people, you know, the warriors of KJ's movement, they basically went on and contacted the college and told them to rescind the scholarship, which they did. Now, this post about Brian trying to get the scholarship rescinded, it said that Brian exhibited violent tendencies and a highly unusual appetite for fighting. It also claimed that Brian's social media activities exposed the likelihood that he was a psychopath. Wow. Those are some strong, strong claims there. Wow. I wish I could say it was the worst thing I've heard on social media. Oh, right. I know. But I mean, wow. So during a Lowndes County Superior Court hearing in November of 2016,

the legal counsel for the city, he pressed Kenneth Johnson, that's KJ's father, to lay out the evidence that he had against the Bell brothers. And he could not. He could only say, quote, I believe they have. They have. Brandon and Brian Bell had a lot to do with my son's death. The evidence that I have at this time, I do not have any evidence at this time, end quote. During the trial, the Johnsons responded with I don't know or I don't recall more than 1,000 times. They were also unable to identify some of the over 30 defendants that they themselves had named in the suit. And they were unable to provide the reason that they'd been included in the lawsuit, because I believe it was 38 people that were named in this lawsuit.

But kind of the damage was already done at this point. Florida State's head football coach, Jimbo Fisher. What a name. Jimbobo fisher you think that's his birth name like was he born with the name jimbo fisher jimbo fisher is one of the legends in college football so the fact that you're like oh jimbo fisher that's so cute is that his real name legend i don't know if it's his real name but that's the name i know him as jimbo fisher is like a legend a college football coach legend well florida state's jimbo fisher he called the coach at lounge high school and uh and he's actually irish he's actually irish yeah but he lives in

florida i'm kidding i was just saying did you want to hear my Irish accent? Like pull some Peaky Blinders out of me? That's going to take a little bit more time. Well, Jimbo Fisher, he called the coach, the football coach at Lowndes High School. And he basically said, you know, we're no longer giving Brian the scholarship. Like he's not he's not going to come to school here. And this was due to the many messages, phone calls, correspondence that they had received naming Brian Bell as Kendrick Johnson's murderer, even though he wasn't even named as a suspect by law enforcement. And, you know, whatever you think about this case, you know, there's a lot of people who from day one, moment one, before they even listened or watched the first part of this podcast, they said, this was not an accident. You can't convince me otherwise. We're not trying to convince you otherwise. We're just laying it all out. You think what you think. Once you have all the facts,

formulate your opinion on it. But what I can definitely say is incredibly wrong is what happened here, because we do have a justice system in this country. And although it's ineffective many times and unfair a lot of the times or a lot of the time, it is you're innocent until proven guilty. Now, this young man hadn't even been named a suspect. He wasn't arrested. He wasn't even on trial. But you had a lot of people just basically calling him a murderer, a psychopath. It was rough. And I don't think it should have happened. And I don't care if you guys are mad at me because both things can be wrong at once. What happened to KJ can be wrong. What happened to Brian Bell can also be wrong. I think that they're both wrong. These two young men who were

friends, you know, no matter what you say, I can't really imagine that Brian Bell would be telling everyone KJ and I were friends and there wouldn't be several students at this school coming out and saying, what are you talking about? KJ and Brian were not friends. This is an absolute lie. That hasn't happened. So they were friends. They were around the same age. They both had the same goals and they both wanted to play football. They loved football. You know, these were two young men who would have probably grown up and hung out and loved

football together. And now you have two bad things happening. So one wrong doesn't mean that another wrong is going to make that first wrong better. And this was this was wrong. Yeah. And I agree with you. And I'll say because you're going to be hitting on it about two sick, uh, about two seconds when you're going to be reviewing, you know, whether or not it's possible that the bells committed this murder and you're going to be getting into that in a couple of seconds.

So I'll leave that. But yeah, I do agree, especially based on what you're going to get into in a couple of seconds that this was an overreach. And I understand where Florida state university is coming from. Um, it's just something where before they get into bed with this player and have them as part of their program, when there's a potential, they don't know all the facts of the case. It could turn out that this guy, Brian, was in fact the murderer at some later date. And they were like, you know what? We can give the scholarship to someone else who doesn't have all this baggage attached to him. Definitely not fair to Brian at all. But that's that's i'm sure that was part of the process where florida state's coming from like they're worried about their image they're not thinking of like the the life that they that

they just destroyed i know i know but it necessarily wasn't destroyed like i'm not trying to be dramatic i know people are gonna like, him losing a scholarship doesn't destroy him. But he was so excited to go. He's a good football player. This was his dream school. I get it. But listen, I can tell you just from being an athlete myself, whether you're black, white, brown, if you're accused of DUI or domestic abuse.

But I'm just saying in any case, the college will look into that. And usually more than not, they're going to, unless, and I hate to say this, but unless you're like a phenomenal top recruit, like best in the country, they're going to most of the time just say,

listen, it's not worth it to us. You know? No, I get that. Sorry for you, but it's not worth it for us to bring that into our program. And ultimately, if you're ever charged with something, We're sorry for you, but it's not worth it for us to bring that into our program. And ultimately, if you're ever charged with something, now we're associated with that heinous act for the rest of our, for a very long time. No, I do get that.

Absolutely. When you said it like that, I do understand that they're thinking long-term. However, like you said, they didn't have any evidence. So the school, like you said, the school was just like, okay, we heard this. We're not going to look into it to actually see if there's any merit to it. We just don't want this dark spot even associated with us. So let's just move on. And I'm sure it wasn't just one call. No, it was not. No, they were inundated. They got inundated. They couldn't even get their phones to probably stop or their emails to stop. So I think it's a lot of that pressure that we see a lot now.

It's a mob mentality. Yeah. Yeah. We see it a lot now, the cancel culture, all that stuff. I mean, it's big now and this is in 2014 or 2013 into 2014. But yeah, no, it's unfortunate, especially like I said, with what you're about to go over, it really drives home. I don't care about cancel culture when it's a corporation because you vote with your money. Right. But when it's a single person where you have no verifiable shred of evidence against them

and you take it upon yourself, hundreds of people, thousands of people to call their job or to call their college and and, you know, basically basically, I don't know, just take something away from them, it's not okay. But we are going to talk about how, in my opinion, there's really, in a lot of people's opinion, there's really nothing to say that the Bell Brothers had anything to do with what happened to KJ. and that's not to say that KJ wasn't murdered by somebody, but I don't think it was either of the Bell brothers. So during a grand jury hearing in April of 2014, a 16-year-old student named Taylor Eakin, she was called to testify specifically because they said or they thought she was Brian's girlfriend at the time of KJ's death. And it became clear that the Johnson family believed she was Brian's girlfriend at the time of KJ's death.

And it became clear that the Johnson family believed she was the girl who had been drafted to lure KJ into an ambush in the old gym. She was grilled on the stand, a 16-year-old girl, about Brian Bell. She was asked whether he took steroids, whether his large size scared her, whether he'd ever hit her. She was asked if they were having sex. She was also asked if she liked black guys, how well she'd known KJ, and had they been more than friends. So there was obviously this suggestion that Taylor had been having an affair with KJ. Brian found out about it, got mad, and then used Taylor to basically tempt KJ into the old gym, teach him a lesson, get back at him for sleeping with his girlfriend. Taylor said, you know, under oath, no, I've never slept with Kendrick Johnson. And she hadn't even started dating Brian until three

months after KJ's death. She said, quote, how could I have cheated on Brian when we weren't even dating at the time? And how are the prosecutors and the Johnson's attorneys all on the same page when it's not the truth? End quote. So the real question is obviously, where is the proof? What is the truth? Where's the proof that the Bell brothers had anything to do with KJ's death? U.S. Attorney Michael Moore, he took over the case in October of 2013, and he began an investigation into KJ's death. And this happened after the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division had stated earlier in the month that they would not be opening a probe into KJ's death. In late November and early December, FBI agents descended on the city of Valdosta to interview students at the high school, including Brandon and Brian Bell. The surveillance footage was reviewed by the FBI, and it was concluded that the Bell brothers,

along with one other male student who'd been named for his possible involvement in what happened to KJ, none of these three were anywhere near the old gym at the time of KJ's death. Brian Bell was seen on surveillance camera walking towards the D wing for his fourth block class at the same time KJ was seen entering the gym. And Brian also got to his fourth block class on time, so he didn't miss the class. He wasn't absent. He wasn't late. The other young man, not related to the Bell brothers, but he was also named in the lawsuit, he was seen on the camera in the parking lot walking towards the L wing at the same time KJ was entering the gym. And Brandon Bell, he wasn't even at the high school at all.

He was on a bus heading to a wrestling match in Macon, Georgia. Even with this evidence, the Johnson family and their attorneys, they continue to insist that the Bell brothers had murdered KJ and they produced what they felt at the time was proof of this. It was a, I guess, it was a piece of paper and it showed that, I guess they thought it showed that the bus that took Brandon away from the school

hadn't left until 4 p.m. So they were like, no, this isn't true. The bus didn't leave till 4. So obviously Brandon was still at the school and he could have done it even if Brian and the other kid weren't anywhere near the gym. Brandon still could have done it. What they were actually seeing, what they were actually referring to was a trip request form. And this form had been filled out weeks before the wrestling tournament.

And this is basically just to make sure that they reserve the bus, that they have one there on the day that they need it. And at the time that they filled out the form, they didn't know the exact time they would be leaving for the tournament, so they just put 4 p.m. down. It's just like a placeholder. Evidence was given that on January 10th, the wrestling team, including Brandon Bell, they had lunch from 11.30 a.m. to 12.02 p.m. And then they boarded the bus to drive 150 miles to the tournament in Macon. The cell phone records of the wrestling coach show that he and the wrestling team, including Brandon, were in Cordell, Georgia at 153 p.m. And Cordell is 80 miles away from La Dosta. And so obviously they're nowhere near La Dosta at the time. They'd already been on the

road for quite a while. So you'd think with these rock-solid alibis that the hate towards the Bell brothers would sort of die down, but it really didn't. In the fall of 2014, the FBI told Michael Moore that the Bells had been cleared, but Moore brought in his own investigators from Washington, D.C. anyways. And on July 21st, 2015, the Bell family, who had temporarily moved to Florida due to harassment and threats, they didn't feel safe, you know, they were getting a ton of hate. They were awoken in the middle of the night by armed agents who had a warrant to search their home. We aren't sure what the probable cause for the search warrant was. That affidavit is still sealed as far as I can tell. It hasn't been

released yet. It's not made public yet. But the Bells believe there was no legitimate reason for their home to be searched and that it was an illegal search and seizure as well as an abuse of power. Reverend Floyd Rose has also denied the conspiracy claims of the Johnsons, saying, quote, I'm a person of truth, and the truth is more important than race. The Reverend Rose also said, quote, when this thing all started, I really thought there was something to it. But when the dust settles, the truth will still be the truth, end quote. Yeah. And, you know, there's a lot that you just said right there. But the main takeaway is that the Bell brothers have what's called exculpatory evidence. And that's extremely important.

And what that is, is the opposite of evidence indicating someone committed a crime. It's evidence indicating they clearly did not commit said crime. So at this point, if you were to believe that KJ was murdered, it definitely wasn't the bells. The bottom line is it's really easy to cut out footage, right? If you want to hide something, it's very easy to cut out footage and you can make that, you know, allegation that there was something removed to not show someone. But what would be very, very difficult to do for a local school or even the FBI would be for them to impose these individuals on camera in other parts of the school at that same time. I mean, it would be

really difficult to do to Photoshop someone in to a camera from a school to show that they were in different parts of the building, it would be really high, high level. You're talking like CIA stuff at this point where, or someone, I guess, who's a really good editor, but it would still be very obvious to the data analyst that that person was added in as an image afterwards. So could they take an image of any one of these three young men and just change the timestamp? I mean, especially if they're saying that the FBI is involved in the cover-up now, you've got to take this whole FBI bureau agency and say, listen, now we don't trust this because the FBI had it and they could have just made it look like that Brian Bell was walking to his class and other dude was walking in the parking lot and

Brandon Bell was on a bus. But for Brandon Bell, I think it's pretty hard to even say that because he wasn't even at the school. He was on a bus. There's like 30 people who say he was on the bus. The coach says he was on the bus, unless you're going to say that all those 30 people and the coach are in on it. But I don't even- And they also tricked, they moved their phone. It's corroborating evidence. So you don't have it in here because we can't include every single line of every single piece of research that you've done. But the reality is I would venture to say that in addition to the camera footage for Brian and this other male, there was corroborating information, whether witness testimony or whatever, to show. Listen, I see on camera here that Brian Bell is walking by this room or this tea or whatever it may be.

Did you see him? Yes, I did. People who are impartial, who have no skin in the game to corroborate whatever footage they're seeing. And that's just like they did with Brandon, which is very involved. They did a lot there. I believe they probably did the same for the other two individuals. And you take into all that in totality.

And what it creates is a really solid alibi. Yeah. And like I said, Brian didn't show up late to his class. And I have to think. Bunch of students and teacher. Yeah. And like I said, Brian didn't show up late to his his class. And and I have to think a bunch of students and teacher. Yeah. And because KJ was rushing to get to his next class, which was weightlifting. So this is the same block that that Brian would have been going to his class. So if Brian had been in the gym, somebody would have seen him in the gym. Right. A because there's lots of people. So you would have found somebody who said, yeah, I saw Brian Bell in the old gym, even if it was just for a split second, that would be something to put him there, place him there. But he showed

up on time to his fourth block class, all the students saw him, the teacher said he was there, no issues. So I don't know what time period people think that Brian Bell would have done this. And there's an interview with him and he literally says like, at first it was almost kind of funny. And I don't know if he means it disrespectfully, but it's almost kind of funny. Like I was nowhere near the gym. This is going to die down in a second. But then when it didn't die down, when things kept coming out, when people kept accusing me, even though I have all of this evidence showing that I couldn't have possibly been there, it wasn't funny anymore. When I started losing my scholarships, when I started getting death

threats, when my family had to move and live in a different state because of the heat, it's not funny anymore. Yeah. And some questions you would ask whatever classroom he was going into, you'd interview every single student, you'd interview the teacher. What was his demeanor? Was he sweating? Did he seem out of breath? Did he have any signs of blood on his shirt or pants or shoes? Was there anything out of the ordinary, whether it seemed like a big deal at the time to you? Is there anything that now in hindsight stands out to you? These are questions you would ask each individual student to see if their stories match up. And again, the fact that he's never been named as a suspect, I would assume that they probably did. There was probably nothing there. Even if he was able to carry out this entire thing in that short period of time, which as you've alluded to, he didn't even show up a second late for his class. So it'd be physically impossible for him to do that in that short period of time, you would think. Yeah. And this isn't to say like we're sitting here saying, oh, this obviously is an accident because Brian Bell and Brandon Bell

weren't involved. It's simply saying that if we're going to be devoting all this time to Brian and Brandon Bell, I think that it's safe to say they didn't do this. So if you think that he was murdered, we should probably devote our energy into finding out who actually did it instead of harassing these two kids or they're not kids anymore. They're adults now, but we should probably let that whole angle go and find something that does work and that does fit. No, it's very well said. Listen, we're going with what we have and we're going off that. And it's very obvious that they have clear alibis. And you just made a great point. We're not saying KJ

wasn't murdered. What we're saying is if he was, it wasn't the Bells. And I think that's an opinion we both share. And if you guys disagree, then absolutely. Feel free. Tell us in the comments. Let us know how you possibly think they could have pulled this off. We're very interested. Yeah, I actually, yeah, we genuinely are. I mean, because I'm not seeing it. So if there's something we're missing, by all means, fire away. Yeah. And so, I mean, I'm reading like, because I'm trying to see, like, are people still talking about the bells? Yes, they are. Just this article from 2021, when the case was reopened, they're still talking about the bells. And Lee Touchton, the former president of the Valdosta NAACP, she says it's not true.

She says, quote, if there was something there, don't you think the feds would have pursued it? And, you know, Lee Tuchton was initially supportive of the Johnson's claims, but she now believes that KJ's death was an accident. And I want to talk about Lee Tuchton. We're going to discuss a lot of what she says. She was on the inside in the very early days, weeks, and months of this case. She was very close to the family. She was part of the NAACP. She was part of an organization that was trying to help them get to the bottom of what happened to Kendrick, as well as the Reverend Floyd Rose.

These were two people who were vehemently on the Johnson side, and they have since come out and said, no, we believe it was an accident, and there's even more to it. They almost have outright said that they believe there's a lot of misinformation happening in this case. So former NAACP member Lee Touchton, she was tasked with investigating KJ's death.

She agrees with the Reverend Rose that the truth will still be the truth when the dust settles. She points to July of 2013 as the time when she first began to question the motives of the Johnson family. She said she was on the Georgia NAACP state conference call, and Kenneth and Jackie Johnson, along with their lawyer, CB.B. King, they were also present on this call. Lee said, quote, due to false allegations, which I determined to be lies, not just misstatements of facts, I resigned because I was not going to be forced by any NAACP state president to get out in public and call people murderers publicly when there was no credible evidence to claim that a murder had been committed

and when the family asking the NAACP for assistance and for money was not telling the truth, end quote. Whew, that is a bold statement as well, right? Both the NAACP and the SCLC's separate independent investigations determined that what happened to KJ was a tragic accident, according to them. Lee Tuchton and Reverend Rose, they both believe that the lawyers for the Johnson family have not been entirely truthful in their statements about information they have or have not received from law enforcement in the school. And really, that's where we're going to pick up in the conclusion of this case. We're going to talk about the people who don't believe that KJ was murdered. And a lot of these people were close to the family and the case since day one.

And we're also going to give our final thoughts on this case and talk about what might happen next with the investigation being reopened. Yeah, I'm really glad we did it this way, because could we have put this all into one episode, made it about a two-hour episode yeah no but i like the fact that we took our time well it wouldn't have been good it wouldn't have been good but we could have but we were able to go so in depth on areas that really needed attention like the bells like the video surveillance and we hope you guys like that because that's we don't want to rush or kind of skate over things.

This allows it to do it. So although Stephanie did promise we would do it in three. I don't remember that. We're going to do it in four. Go back. The tape still, I got receipts. But no, this is great. I think it's good that we're really going through everything and you guys are going to make your own determination.

Anything we have in here, you can go and verify it. I put Stephanie's research skills up against anybody. So do your own due diligence, but these are the things that are out there for public availability. So you can go check into it. But again, like Stephanie said, sound off in the comments. This is a dialogue, even though we feel like we're sitting in front of you guys talking to you. So the only way we get a response from you is by the comments. So negative or positive, keep them coming because we do want to hear your insight.

And I think we spent a really good deal of these first episodes being unbiased and trying to just look at what information is put in front of us. I personally, I don't feel like I've formulated my own thoughts and my own theory about what happened because there are a few things that are sort of like sticking in my brain, you know, like these little thorns that aren't letting me, you know, go along and say, oh, it was an accident. There are these things that are preventing me from saying that 100%. So I understand this looks awful. I also understand from KJ's parents' perspective, as a parent myself,

that it doesn't matter to me and it wouldn't matter to me what anybody said. If I thought something happened to my son, if I thought somebody was responsible for what happened to my son, I would fight until the last breath in my body. There is a possibility that the Johnsons, KJ's family, were sort of, I don't know, taken in for some larger narrative, for some larger movement. And maybe that's why Lee touched in and Reverend Floyd Rose, they're saying like the lawyers aren't being super honest about everything. We don't know how much the actual, the Johnsons themselves had, how much say they had and what happened and what legal arguments were filed and what lawsuits were filed. They could be kind of led into this and almost pumped up. We don't know all of that. We

don't know what goes on beyond the scenes. The only thing we can assess is what's in front of us. And that's what we're doing now. So hopefully by the end of next episode, we'll have a better understanding. But we are going to spend some time in this next episode talking about the detractors of the theory that KJ was murdered, because it's only fair to do that since we've kind of looked over it from the other way. So we will get to that. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. I know we're going to get some hate because we're not just blindly going into this and saying 100% it was a murder. And I know that you guys would probably, some of you, some of you guys and girls would probably want us to not even go over the allegations that there's something

nefarious happening behind the scenes. But, you know, it's only fair that we do that. It's kind of our personalities. Like we have to look at it from every angle and then make a decision. So let us know what you think. Quick thing. I just looked it up. It's going to be Amber. I'm just going to say the first name.

Amber was the person who sent that information about the anterior and posterior on the body. So thank you, Amber. Again, keep the comments coming. We see it all. Case suggestions, all that good stuff. We really appreciate it. And we'll probably have news. We can't announce it yet.

We will have news next week about merchandise. We just locked in some things and we'll have more information next week. All right, guys, we will see you next week. Can't wait to wrap this up and kind of get your guys' opinions about it. So until then, we'll see you later, you little

pineapples. Bye. Bye.