Crime Weekly - S1 Ep25: Tragic Accident or Police Cover-Up?: Kendrick Johnson (Part 4)

Episode Date: May 28, 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. Happy Derek. I'm back. Happy Derek. Back. I have a good shirt on tonight with no actual letters. So I know I'm bulletproof tonight, essentially from Stephanie. I was hoping you'd be a little more cheerful, though. I'm back. You could get a glass of wine like me and then you'll be happier. It's a good point. Well, we've gone over all of our main points in this case, the case of Kendrick

Johnson's death. We've talked about the areas where the police investigation into KJ's death definitely fell short of standards. Whatever you believe about this case, whether you think it was an accident or a murder, I think we can all agree that the police didn't do the best job here. We talked about the accusations that Kendrick's family, the Johnsons, and their supporters have leveled and many people involved and some who it hasn't even been proven were involved. So there's the people they accused that were definitely involved in the case, you know, whether it was nefarious or not, the sheriff, the GBI. But then they also brought in the Bell family, who I think we've proven was not involved, unless you think that there is some really, really grand conspiracy where people can sort of be in the same place or different places at the same time.

At this point, I do want to check in with you, Derek, because up to this final part, the conclusion of the Kendrick Johnson case, because that's what it's going to be. I promise there's no more parts after this. This is it. Up till now, we've kind of been able to explain some bizarre things that don't make sense. Like KJ's body being stuffed with newspapers. As disgusting as it was, not illegal, really nothing nefarious there. Although a lot of people think that KJ's organs were stolen to put on the black market. I don't think that that would be possible. I do want to address that really quick because he was hanging upside down for so long. I don't

think his organs would be in good condition to even want to steal and sell on the black market, but there are people that think that, but we were able to explain that away. We were able to explain why the surveillance footage looked so suspicious, but I do have to admit that there's other things that are still very much up in the air and there hasn't really been a good explanation given. What's the one thing that stands out to you about this case that still doesn't sit right with you? I think it's what you just hit on. And even though we've explained it to a certain degree, it's the organs, but it's everything that around the organs, because again, last week I had said, I wasn't sure about whether or not they removed the lungs

during an autopsy. Our commenters, our supporters, a lot of people in the medical field were quick to reach out and say, Hey, Derek, in most cases, they would remove the lungs. And the reason why that's important is one, to clarify that whole process, but also because, again, the second autopsy report was talking about the lungs and how they weren't filled with any liquid. They didn't have fluid in them, right? They didn't have fluid in them, which would suggest then if they never found the organs, he's going off the original report. So he didn't do the examination himself.

He was going off the original documentation from the first pathologist, which I was under the impression this was done after they exhumed the body. The second one was. The second one, and that he examined the lungs himself. But clearly, based on what our commenters are telling us, he couldn't have examined those lungs because we don't know where they were, where they went. And so that was one aspect that is troubling to me. And then just the process, again, you just laid it out. Do I think they were sold on the black market? I don't. But the fact that it wasn't clearly documented and

there wasn't a clear level of accountability as far as, hey, this is what we did with them. This is where they are now. The fact that there was this miscommunication and this misinformation, it just creates speculation. And so that's something that really doesn't sit well with me. Yeah. I was wondering about the lung thing too, after I saw the comments from the last part, because he did make it seem like he examined them himself. And that was the reason he gave for why he didn't believe that Kendrick had died from positional asphyxia, because there was no fluid in the lungs. Now, I'll have to go back and look because now that you're saying that, maybe he did look at the first autopsy report, but I'd have to go back

and look at the first one and see what the guy said, the first guy, I forget his name, what he said about the lungs and if there was fluid in them. And if he said that there was, then we would also have to have a question for the second pathologist. Why did you say that there weren't? If you, A, didn't have the lungs and B, the first autopsy said that there was fluid. If I'm a betting man, it probably says there wasn't and he's going off of that and he's identifying that. Oh, listen, the first pathologist said no fluid in the lungs. Well, that, that's, that raises a red flag for me. So again, I'm glad we get this clarification. That's why we do this.

That's why we go in depth. We break it up into little chunks and it allows everyone listening or viewing this to kind of digest that portion. And then we get feedback throughout the week from them and we can talk about it a little further. I love it. I love going on social. I love going on YouTube and people saying, hey, I don't know if this matters to you, but I'm in this field. Here's what my experience has been.

That's how you solve a case. That's how you do it by enlisting the help of people who specialize in specific areas. So I'm all for it. What do they call that? It's the hive mind here. We're working together and it's better to work together than to work apart. What do they call it? Crowd solving, right? Crowd solving. That's the phrase that I've heard before where, you know, we're working together to kind of, you know, use what we're good at and our specialties to, this isn't just me and Stephanie. This is all of us. It really is. Well, for me, it's those shoes, right? The shoes that were found on his feet or not on his feet, but like on top of his feet when he was in the gym mat. I would love to know where they came from. Do they belong to

another student? If so, why has that other student not ever come forward and said, those are my shoes? Were they Kendrick's shoes that he wore into the gym that day? And they were on his feet when he went into the mat to get his gym shoes and they kind of maybe came off as he was like wriggling deeper into the mat. I don't know. But I mean, I would like that answer as well. I would really like to know where KJ's organs went. If they were too decomposed and they were disposed of, that's fine. But I would feel much better if we had like a concrete statement from the person who actually did this and who remembers

doing it instead of this blanket. Well, if this happened, then it was probably this because there should be some sort of log. It should be documented somewhere what happened to this kid's organs. And it doesn't appear that it ever was. And that's a little problematic. It bothers me. Yeah, there's clearly not a clear chain of custody as far as it being documented. And that is a problem. And now I want to ask all of you the same question, because even at the end of multiple hours spent going over this case, I'm sure there's still that one thing that's nagging at you, kind of keeping you from deciding one way or the other whether this was a tragic

accident or some high level mass conspiracy and cover up. So let us know on social media. You can do it through Instagram, Twitter. You can go on our YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed there, go and subscribe there. You can let us know under the video that corresponds with the podcast you're listening to what the one thing is for you, but we definitely want to know. And you know, like I said, go over and subscribe if you haven't already because we do have some great debates and conversations in the comments. It's more community based over there. Like we want you guys to come here and listen because this comes out before the podcast. But go over to YouTube and just join in visuals in there. So even for us to, you know, it's an opportunity for you. You have this picture of what these people look like in your head.

Now you get to see him because our editor, John, is great at, you know, locating the visuals and throwing them in there at certain parts of the episode. So not only are you getting to hear it again for a second time, but now you're getting those visuals associated with it. There's pictures like in this particular case, you have pictures of the gym and the mats, what the room actually looked like right after the incident. You get pictures of KJ's parents and pictures of the police officers involved. So it gives a different dimension to the case, which for me, I'm a visual person. It always helps. Yeah. I feel like our podcast videos on YouTube are so much better edited than my YouTube videos because John is so much better at editing. Like there's smooth transitions and it's just beautiful. And I'm over here on YouTube just like, you know, putting up a picture, letting it go to whenever there's no plan there.

I'm just not that's not my thing. So our YouTube channel is very well edited. Thank you, John. Let's dive in because we got a lot to cover today. And I want to start with the first lawsuit that the Johnsons filed. And I believe altogether there was three, but they were kind of all the same. Like they would file the lawsuit and then withdraw the lawsuit and then refile the lawsuit, just like slightly different. And this kind of went on and on for several years. So in July of 2015, the Johnson family filed a $100 million lawsuit, and they did this nearly 200 miles away from Lowndes County in the Superior Court of DeKalb County, which is in the metro Atlanta area. And the reason that they did this outside

of Lowndes County is going to be made clear in a moment. This four-count lawsuit named 37 defendants, and these defendants were mostly members of local law enforcement, but Brandon and Brian Bell, as well as their father, Rick Bell, and another couple of students were charged with the wrongful death of KJ, while the other defendants were being sued for undetermined punitive damages. The suit alleged that the Bell brothers had used a female student to lure KJ into the gym where he was violently assaulted on the command of Rick Bell, and then the whole thing was covered up and made to look like an accident. So essentially what this lawsuit said is that KJ's death was not an accident.

It was in fact premeditated murder planned and executed by the Bell brothers and their FBI agent father. KJ's mother, Jackie, told CNN, quote, we know who killed him. We just have to prove it. End quote. That's also going to be relevant in a little bit because she was absolutely right. They thought they knew who killed KJ, but they were going to have to prove it. Bryce Ladson, he was the lawyer for the Bell family. He had a different take on the lawsuit, claiming, quote,

This is yet another frivolous lawsuit filed by the Johnson's attorney, C.B. King, in connection with the death of Kendrick Johnson. It contains allegations against my clients that he and his clients know are untrue and defamatory, end quote. According to CNN, the DOJ or the U.S. Department of Justice, they requested the judge who was hearing the civil case to temporarily stay discovery in the case for 180 days pending the federal criminal investigation. So at this point, the DOJ had taken over the investigation from local law enforcement. And they pretty much were like, we want to see if there's anything to this conspiracy murder thing. But we also don't want you guys to be airing out all the evidence in civil court because that could potentially cause issues with our actual like federal criminal investigation and case. And it wasn't the Johnson family didn't have a problem with this, actually.

But the other people, the defendants in the case, they did have a problem. Their lawyers did, at least, because they were like, listen, these people have been publicly accused. Going to court is their chance to clear their names. And now you're telling them that they have to put off clearing their names for six months while you finish this investigation, which has been going on at this point in 2015. The investigation from the DOJ had been going on for over a year. And you want these people who are being harassed and threatened and basically found guilty by the

court of public opinion, you want them to wait to clear their names so you can finish this investigation. Yeah. And it would make sense on their part, right? I mean, if you know you're innocent, you want to get in there and give your side of the story because I'm sure there are lawyers at that point were saying, no interviews, no publicly talking up to anyone, wait until your day in court and you'll have your chance to explain yourself and explain why you had nothing to do with this. So they're getting ready for it. And then, you know, they hear this and that would be extremely demoralizing. But you understand also from the Department of Justice's side of it, it's kind of

like to give one example, like the O.J. Simpson case, same thing. They charged him criminally. They allowed the criminal case to take place. He was found not guilty as everyone knows. However, right after they had the civil case and he was found, it was found that more because the threshold is a lot lower. It was, it was found that more likely than not, he did have an involvement and he was ordered to pay, I believe $33 million because he was found responsible for their death. So it's always better to do that way for both sides, the Department of Justice and for the civil attorneys, because they can use the evidence divulged in the criminal case in their civil proceedings. And this is typically why the civil case will usually follow the criminal case. So that's the order it normally goes in for this specific reason. But

the Johnsons had filed the lawsuit. And I think like especially the Bells, they were talking to the media. They were saying like, no, we have airtight alibis. We didn't do this. I think the one brother was like, at first I thought it was ridiculous because I could absolutely prove I was nowhere near that gym. But then when people didn't believe me, it became scary. So I think that they had talked publicly about being innocent, but they just weren't believed. So they really wanted to get all the evidence out in court so that it could kind of put it to rest once and for all. But yeah, it was weird. It was weird that the lawsuits kept getting refiled. The whole thing was kind of strange. I wonder why the Johnsons didn't wait till after the DOJ had completed their investigation to file or someone had relayed to them that there was an ongoing investigation.

And I would think that their lawyer would have advised them to hold off on the civil because there's going to be plenty of time for that. But anything that comes out in that criminal proceeding or that investigation would be advantageous to you in a civil trial. So you would think that the lawyer for the Johnsons would want to wait as well. Maybe it was, I don't know the angle. I hate to try to get their minds, but maybe it was like, hey, let's put a little public pressure on them to get it done, to expedite their investigation because there's a civil proceeding and this is going to force their hand to work faster. Maybe that was part of the rationale behind it. I don't know. Well, that doesn't make sense though. Cause if these people are investigating the death of your child and you want it done, right. You know, I always say like, do you want it done faster?

You want it done, right. So you wouldn't really want to rush that, right? You would think, you would think, and then here you have the department of justice asking the courts to please, Hey, slow down. Don't do this yet. We need to finish what we're doing here. So I agree with you. I don't understand the rationale behind it. I would love to be a fly on the wall for their conversations as to why they chose that route. Well, here's something else that's kind of odd to me. And I

don't know, you can let me know if this is common or if you've heard about it, but CNN actually joined the lawsuit that the Johnsons had filed in October of 2013. And this was their original lawsuit where they were talking about the funeral home and stuff like that. And in November 2014, CNN filed a lawsuit against Lowndes County Schools District to get access to clones of hard drives that contained the original surveillance recording. They claimed that the recordings were public and that the department's refusal to release them violated Georgia's open records law. So have you ever heard of that, like CNN or a media site like that jumping in on a lawsuit? I have been personally involved with something like this. Yeah. So for those of you who don't know, we'll talk about it another night. Maybe

we'll do something on it where we can talk about it. But I was involved in a police involved shooting in 2007. And Stephanie, you know this, but you know, a lot of our listeners or viewers may not. And I'll save the details for it. You guys can look it up or, you know, I've spoken about it publicly, but to make a long story short, at the time this was happening, there was an investigation and my police chief chose not to release my name and the name of the other officer that was involved in the shooting to give the state police time to do their investigation without the court of public opinion coming in. That was his rationale. And it had been about 15, 20 days and he had given the information about the shooting, but still chosen not to release our names. Media outlets started requesting it through the Freedom of Informations Act. He refused

to the point where they went to the courts and a judge ruled that he had to release our names. So same exact thing. His explanation at court was, I just want to give these officers who have gone through this traumatic situation time to speak with know, speak with their families first and, you know, do all these things. I remember going to him before the ruling and saying, chief, just release our names. It's actually making it look worse because it almost looks like you're hiding something. It's making it harder for me and my family release my name. I'm an open book. I got nothing to hide. Um, so I personally experienced it and I, I agreed with it. And I agreed with the court. I agreed with the media outlets.

They wanted all the information. And this seems like a very similar situation. They didn't want what was being given to them. They wanted the original video surveillance so that they could develop their own opinions based on the original evidence. So I actually have no problem with it. Yeah, but this was still under the FERPA thing, like the privacy of the students. And that's why the school district and the sheriff's office, they told

the Johnsons like, you can come in here and view it, but we can't give all of the footage to you just yet because there's minor students on there and like, we have to protect them. So yeah, there's an open records law, but then there's also like the FERPA law. So they're kind of conflicting at that point. Yeah. So mine was a little different in the sense that there was no video. It was me. I was an officer. I'm a public fidget. So in this case, that makes perfect sense because the problem runs into where if they give the footage to the Johnsons or their lawyer- Or CNN. Or CNN. And CNN puts it out without blurring out the faces of these children.

The school gets sued. Big trouble. Big trouble. Yep. Yeah. Makes sense. So then on Thursday, July 23rd, 2015, all seven judges in Georgia's Southern Judicial Circuit recused themselves from hearing the case. In a letter written by Superior Court Judge Harry J. Altman II, he said, quote, we have valiantly attempted to mediate the presently outstanding issues in the Kendrick Johnson matter, but it appears at this point that we have reached an impasse. After much consideration, contemplation, and discussion with the other judges in the circuit, I deem it appropriate to recuse in the matter, thus

necessitating the matter being assigned to another judge or judges, end quote. So this guy, he recused himself and then all the other six judges, they followed suit. So basically, the judges felt like the people who had been named in the lawsuit, they were public officials. And these were people that these judges had worked with, you know, sometimes on a daily basis. And they were like, we don't think that they never said that they didn't think they could be fair, even though the Johnson's attorneys kind of spun it that way. And they and a lot of the headlines were like, judges recuse themselves because they say they can't be fair. They never said we don't feel we can be fair. I think they specifically just said, like, it wouldn't be fair for us to be hearing

this case when we have personal, you know, relationships and connections with the defendants. And this is exactly what they should do. That's a conflict of interest, as it would be for any judge or any lawyer or any even juror member. If you have connections to somebody on the defense team or a judge or somebody who's being tried, then you can't be a juror on that case because you're going to be less likely to be unbiased, I guess. Yeah. Impartiality, right? That's the whole part of the court system. So they felt, hey, listen, even if we feel we have the ability to be impartial, it would still be under the cloud of, depending on their rulings, that-

Especially in this case, right? Especially in this case. So I think they erred on the side of caution, which is which is the smart thing to do. Yeah. They were like, we don't want to hear this this case and come back and find that it was an accident. And then now the next lawsuit that comes up, we're named as defendants because now we're part of the cover up in the conspiracy. So it's safer and better for us to just pass this off to to other judges who don't have

connections to Valdosta, Valdosta don't have connections to Valdosta. Valdosta. Valdosta. Valdosta. Judges are lucky in the sense that they have complete immunity and all this stuff. But I get what you're saying. It would just, it would make more, it would only increase the amount of skepticism surrounding this case if a judge was found to have any type of previous relationship with one of

the defendants that he just found innocent of whatever crime they were accused of. So it's the right play. Well, Benjamin Crump, who at this time, he was still helping the Johnsons with some of their legal legwork. He told CNN, quote, his decision cuts to the very heart of this matter, especially for this family. That is, can they get fair and impartial people to look at what happened to this child and render a fair decision so they can have peace at night? End quote. Valdosta City Manager Larry Hansen also gave a statement to CNN saying, quote, the city of Valdosta does not typically comment on pending litigation. However,

based upon the sensational nature of the allegations made, the city and the employees named categorically deny all allegations of wrongdoing and considers the claim to be meritless. The city looks forward to defending itself in a court of law, end quote. On March 1st, 2016, the Johnson family dropped the $100 million lawsuit, but they made it clear that they would probably refile at a later date. And on Monday, June 20th, 2016, the DOJ put a statement out that the Kendrick Johnson death investigation was being closed after over two years, they cited insufficient evidence to support federal criminal charges. So the statement actually says, quote, lawyers and investigators from the Department of Justice, the United States Marshal Service, and the Metropolitan Police Department from the

District of Columbia conducted a thorough and comprehensive investigation into the events surrounding Kendrick's death. The investigation included, among other things, interviewing over 100 people, reviewing tens of thousands of emails and text messages, reviewing surveillance video from Lowndes High School, and analyzing other available information regarding the events of January 10th through 11th of 2013. The investigative team also consulted with an independent Department of Defense medical examiner and hired another independent medical examiner slash forensic pathologist who reviewed relevant medical records in both autopsy reports, end quote. So, I mean,

it really does look like the DOJ pulled out all the stops for this, right? There's multiple people and agencies involved. They brought in law enforcement from a completely different city and state. They hired independent people who would have no bias one way or the other, right? And at the end of the day, it was determined that there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone or a group of someones willfully violated KJ's civil rights or committed any prosecutable federal crime. So if you're someone who thinks that this was a cover up and a conspiracy, the net's kind of growing wider at this point, because we would have to believe now that the DOJ was in on it. Law enforcement from Washington, D.C. was in on it.

The U.S. Marshal Service was in on it. This independent pathologist was in on it. I mean, what's your take, Derek? I mean, I think you just laid it out the way that everyone should be absorbing it, which is there's a lot of people who have no original connection to this, who have no incentive to lie, who would more than likely not risk their entire livelihood for someone they've never met in DC looking at this case. And again, still, even though the department of justice still hiring outside entities to look at the autopsy reports and both of them, not just the first one. And I think someone could, I'm trying, I know what I feel about it, but I think someone could chop up their statement, the original quote and say, okay, what they're actually saying

is we don't know whether or not KJ was murdered. What we do know is there's not enough here to prosecute anybody. So if that's how you're interpreting this statement, okay, you're not necessarily wrong, but you would think that if there was any validity to the fact that he was murdered based on all the interviews they did, based on how in depth they went with this investigation, if there were something there that would have made it prosecutable, they would have found it. The only reason they wouldn't find it if they did their job is because it doesn't exist. So it was actually Michael Moore. I think he was the U.S. attorney, Michael Moore, he was the one who had taken this case to the Department of Justice and made it a federal case.

And, you know, he was supposedly on the side of the Johnsons and he wanted it to be like this thorough investigation, which it was. It was almost three years long, this investigation, which is insane. And these people pretty much came to the same decision that local law enforcement came to, which was, you know, it's an accident because we can't prove that it was anything else. And I think that's, you can't really ask any more from them and they wouldn't have these biases. They wouldn't have these personal connections to anybody in Valdosta, right? And that's exactly how you can take it. And anyone who takes it that way is not wrong. If there are people in our comments, which there will be, who say, yeah, but this doesn't

prove he wasn't murdered. It just means that it was carried out in a way where they weren't able to piece it together. And I guess we can both. That's true. That's true. That's possible. Absolutely. But I think that there's still going to be people who also think that all of these

other people were involved in the cover-up. Yeah. I don't have a problem going on a limb and saying I do not think that's the case. I don't think that's actually... I mean, there would be hundreds, if not thousands of people at this point, based on that net that you talked about, that would be under that umbrella. That's a lot of people to all conspire together for one common cause for someone who they have no personal connection to. And I mean, if you want to go down the rabbit hole and you want me to bring conspiracy, Stephanie, out with one of my tinfoil hat, I can do that. And I will tell you that maybe the original group of cover-uppers covered it up so damn good that the DOJ and the police in D.C. and the marshals and all that, they just couldn't, you know, they couldn't like find any evidence because of the original cover up being so good.

Like that's what conspiracy Stephanie would say. Conspiracy Stephanie is a lot of fun, by the way. It is. And it's not necessarily wrong. We've seen it happen. I mean, it's not like there haven't been successful, you know, cover ups. Right. And that are eventually discovered and exposed. And they're always done by the government, as the former cop, what actually resonated with me the most was the investigation conducted by the Valdosta Times. Because again, we talked about their reasonings for wanting to find something. It'd be better for them from a business perspective. And it probably were some people who genuinely wanted to find the truth. So they were basically investigating the police. And for them to come out and say that, that meant a lot to me, looking at it, because they really are an independent party that would have no benefit

to covering it up for the police, none. So that out of every statement that you've discussed so far, that's really one on top of the Department of Justice, of course, for me, really resonated with me and held some weight. So I'm going to argue with you there because, well of course, for me, really resonated with me and held some weight. So I'm going to argue with you there because, well, A, let me say this. I love the Valdosta Daily Times. I think they did amazing coverage. Some of the best coverage of this case was done by them. But newspapers are owned by people. Yeah, it's true. And listen. I mean, look at Jeff Bezos, right? It's true. And so again, we weren't there. So I don't know, but you don't, I can't, I can't defend what you're saying because you are right. It's possible.

It's, it's, it would be unreasonable for me to say, no, Stephanie, there's no way, shape or form that you're right. How the hell would I know? Right. I'm just going on historical data based on the percentages, right? It's more likely than not. And this is if you don't like the media, like I'm not a huge fan of the media. I think they kind of contort things. But again, based on my impression of the media, and it's only me, I'm not speaking for Stephanie. I feel like it would be in their benefit to find that the police did try to cover something up.

That would be much more of a national story than proving that the police did nothing wrong. So that's just my opinion, but that's where I fall on it. I agree. It is possible. Anything's possible. The question we have to ask ourselves here, though, from a legal standpoint, is it provable?

Yeah, and so far it's not, yeah. So in August, August 16th of 2016, the Johnson family and their attorney C.B. King were ordered by Lowndes County Superior Court Judge Richard Porter to pay nearly $300,000 in attorney's fees to those they accused of killing KJ, as well as to the parties that they alleged conspired to cover it up. Specifically, the defendants that would have their legal fees paid for were the Lowndes County Sheriff's Office, the Lowndes County Board of Education, the City of Valdosta,

Steve Owens of Owens Transportation, and the Bell family. So Judge Porter noted that the Johnsons' claims were substantially frivolous, substantially groundless or substantially vexatious. And for those of you who don't know what the word vexatious means, which I didn't until I looked it up. Derek's pointing at himself. None of us know what this means. Nope. No clue. I like the word, though. I saw the word vex in there and I was like, I think I can figure figure out what this means but i better look it up before i make myself look stupid uh so it basically means that the claims

were meant to cause annoyance frustration or worry so they're like vexing it's kind of like when you're when your little brother keeps poking at you until you just freak out and slap him in the face not that i've ever done that before it was my little sister it was my little sister i did it too sorry matt sorry matt never so judge porter also concluded that the johnsons claiming that the bells killed kj and that other defendants conspired to conceal the manner of death lacked substantial justification for the reasons that such actions were substantially groundless as they admitted in their deposition the johnson family basically admitted that they had no evidence in their deposition.

So I'll go a little bit more specific. During a hearing, Tim Tanner, who is a counsel, the legal counsel for the city of Valdosta, he presented sworn testimony from Kenneth and Jackie Johnson that had been taken during a deposition the previous week. The Valdosta Times reported that at one point, Kenneth Johnson was asked about evidence that he had to support that his son was killed by Brandon and Brian Bell. And that's when Kenneth responded, quote,

I believe they have, they have, Brian and Brandon had a lot to do with my son's death, end quote. He was then asked what they had to do with it. And he responded, quote, I have, I believe they have a lot to do with my son's death, end quote. He was then asked what they had to do with it, and he responded, quote, I have, I believe they have a lot to do with my son's death, end quote. He was then once again prompted to reveal why he believed this, and he responded, quote, the evidence that I have at this time, I do not have any at this time, end quote. Tim Tanner said the Johnsons responded with, I don't know or I do not recall more than 1,000 times during their deposition. And it was also during this deposition that the Johnson family admitted that the now

infamous post-mortem picture was not a representation of how KJ looked when he was found in the gym. It had been taken after the state performed the autopsy and the body was at the funeral home being prepared for burial. So, I mean, I completely support the actions of the Johnson family, obviously, attempting to get to the truth, like whatever you have to do. I'm just having a hard time understanding why they would make such strong allegations without having any evidence to support those allegations that they could use in a court of law. Like, I'm not saying that they're wrong. I'm not saying that this didn't happen. I just don't know why you would publicly name two minors as the murderer of your son and then not have a shred of evidence to present in court. Because it's like one of those things where, you know, you can talk, you can say whatever you want, as long as you can

back it up. No, it's a tough situation. It really is, right? It's one of these things where I try to put myself in their shoes, and if I lost my child, how I would respond. And I don't think it'd be very different from them as far as their frustration and having these different things that have come up as far as the organs and the video footage, all these different things. And I don't know, I can't pinpoint who to specifically blame, but I don't blame the Johnsons. I blame the people that was representing them and that were guiding them because these people, these individuals are not lawyers. They're not cops. They're going off the advice of others, people who are experts in their fields. And so based on their expertise and their recommendations, the Johnsons were following

their lead, just like you even mentioned the, the t-shirt, you know, as far as, you know, the, the image that was released and put on t-shirts and all these different things, you know, there was a group of people around them guiding them as far as, you know, this is a family in mourning. And so they were, they were following the lead of others. And it does appear that they were, they were led down a very vague path which ultimately came back to bite them because like you just said some of the quotes that you pulled out you know kenneth johnson's not a lawyer so when he gets up there he's going to say i do not recall when he doesn't have an answer

and most of the time he didn't because more than likely he was given this advice from someone else as far as the bells and who they decided to, you know, legally pursue. And that's unfortunate because this family, they are victims. They are victims. And it seems like they were further victimized possibly by the people that were leading them. They led them down the wrong path. And let me just say this, those people that were leading them and advising them, I believe they had good intentions for the most part, but you know, sometimes you can have good intentions and still give shitty advice. All right. So I'm going to real talk you right now.

Real talk. So I agree with you. And this this has been chattered about online that maybe the Johnsons had people advising them who maybe didn't have their best interest at heart. So when you say, like, you don't blame the Johnsons, you're also saying kind of you don't necessarily blame their legal team either because you don't think that there was anything nefarious there. But I would argue with you there because they had lawyers who were lawyers who went to law school and should know that you are not going to be helped in any way, shape or form by going into a courtroom, making accusations and not having a shred of evidence to back that up. That's only going to make your case look worse.

So there is talk that the Johnsons were being used. And I'm not going to say who, what, when or where. I'm sure you guys can find that online. Were being used by some people around them because their case, their son's death, it fit an agenda or a narrative that they were trying to kind of push forward with. And so they were used. There's also people who worked closely with the Johnsons who believe that they outright lied themselves. So it just depends. Do I think that they went into this not knowing what the hell was going on? I really do.

I really do. I really do. But I don't know if I can say four or five years later if they're still ignorant to the fact that they don't really have a case against Brandon and Brian, at least, right? What can you do at this point? So I think that there was nefarious intentions. I can't say who they were from. But I mean, I want to be honest here. Like, I want to be honest about my feelings. And I don't think that any lawyer who really had his client's best interest at heart would say, yeah, we got like an iron clad case here. Let's go into court.

I'm not going to prepare you at all to answer these questions in the deposition. I'm just going to leave you like a lamb to slaughter at this point to have to answer, I don't know, or I don't recall over 1000 times. How does that make the Johnsons look good? How does that make KJ look good? And what happened to him? It doesn't. So I really think they should have waited until that federal investigation was done and then made a civil suit if you still wanted to. And I think a good lawyer would have probably suggested that, but you know, that's just my opinion. Allegedly don't come from me. I don't think you're wrong. And I'm definitely not. It's interesting. I had a little debate with an attorney in one of our YouTube comment sections. I believe it was on the last video, very constructive

debate, but you know, and I'm paraphrasing, you can go back and look at it, but she said something along the lines, I believe it was a she, If it wasn't, I apologize. She said something along the lines of, it was based on one of our previous videos where I said, lawyers who represent someone knowing they're guilty, it's not for me. I don't agree with that. And again, I'm paraphrasing. We talked a lot. She basically said, even if I know they're guilty, it's my job to represent them to make sure that the police departments and the prosecutors and the judge are being held accountable. And again, this is something, this isn't what we're talking about here, but I just disagree.

You know, if you genuinely know your client is guilty, I think that you have an ethical responsibility to hold them accountable because, and my argument with her, which ties back to this, was you're holding the police officers accountable at the expense of the victim and their families, if you know this person's guilty. And in this case, it's kind of the reverse. If there are attorneys or representatives helping the Johnson family that are knowing that there is nothing there, but are trying to push their agenda by using the family, then I think that's no different than that argument I was just having with that attorney. And so I can completely agree with you that I can see that side of it. And it's an unfortunate

reality. Like we always say, there are bad cops, there are bad doctors, there are bad lawyers, and there are bad individuals who may present themselves as activists or whatever who have ulterior motives. We're not calling anybody out, but I think it's a reality we can all understand. I think it's worse because I understand her perspective, the defense attorney. Everyone deserves representation. I would just probably ask my clients, don't tell me if you're guilty. I want to try this case as if you were innocent. I want to make the assumption of innocence and try it like that.

Please don't tell me. You have to have a certain personality to know someone's guilty and still defend them. But not a bad personality because everybody needs representation. Oh, she was great. She called out a couple lawyers that do that by name. So kudos to her. I'm not going to say them here. They'll sue me too.

But she was great. It was a really constructive debate. I enjoy stuff like that. Yeah. I like hearing from different people who did different things, but we should quickly go to, we should go to a break really quick, right? Before we dive into the meaty stuff. Absolutely. All right. So we're back. I want to talk about Lee Tuchton of the NAACP and Reverend Lloyd Rose from the SCLC. We've talked about both of these individuals very briefly in other parts, but they're going to play a bigger role in today's podcast. So Lee Tuchton had worked on the investigation for two years. And in this capacity, she and other members of the NAACP legal redress team interviewed public officials such as the superintendent of the

Lowndes County School District, Wes Taylor. They interviewed the sheriff, his deputies, as well as school board members. She received the case file. It was redacted. She said there was like certain, you know, underage students names that were taken out, but they received the whole case file. She toured the Valdosta crime lab several times. She also visited the body refrigeration unit because remember that KJ's parents had said, well, especially Kenneth Johnson had said he'd gone in, I believe, two days after KJ's death to see his son's body. And he said at that point, like, that the cooler wasn't on or it wasn't as cold as it should have been. And then this started this grand conspiracy theory that they were trying to heat Kendrick's body up so that evidence would, you know, disappear faster, would

speed up decomposition. And there you have it. So Lee touched and actually went there. She looked at the refrigeration units. She was told how they worked. She looked at alarms and records books. And this gave her some insight that they have plans, you know, in the event that there's an electricity outage or if the temperature in the coolers gets too hot or too cold, they have plans. They have alarms that go off.

And these alarms are recorded not by a human, by like a system. So this never happened. So the coolers never were shut off. The coolers never went too warm because an alarm would have gone off. This would have been electronically logged. And she saw these logs and there was nothing like that. She was also shown that the lab has backup generators. And in the event of like a blackout or something like that, these backup generators would turn on immediately.

Once again, you don't need anybody there to like turn them on. They take this very seriously. You know, you have people in these coolers. So they want to make sure that this doesn't happen. This exact thing that the Johnsons were saying was potentially happening. They want to make sure this doesn't happen. So they have many things in place to prevent it from happening. But in July of 2013, Lee touched in was on a Georgia NAACP conference call with other NAACP members, as well as Kenneth and Jackie Johnson and their lawyer, C.B. King. Lee told RollingOut.com in January of 2015, quote, not just misstatements of fact. I resigned because I was not going to be forced by the NAACP state president to go 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 money was not telling the truth. I was shouted down by many NAACP officers. I immediately resigned. So did most of the local NAACP officers, many of whom are professionals and church leaders. I worked alongside Reverend Floyd Rose for 15 years. I've always been a member of his organization, the Valdosta SCLC, which was previously the People's Tribunal. So the chapter voted me into the lead investigator position.

Reverend Rose had already conducted his investigation, but we repeated all of our steps together and shared information we had obtained separately. We also wrote open records requests to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for the personnel records of Dr. William Anderson, the private pathologist who conducted the second autopsy on Kendrick

Johnson's embalmed body. What we received caused us to cast doubt on Anderson's credibility. He was accused of unethical conduct when employed at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, end quote. Yeah, that's a lot. And again, it's just adding to the list of individuals or agencies or representatives of agencies who've come to the conclusion that this was a tragic accident. Again, so if you're going to cast that net, it's even getting wider because now you have members of the NAACP. SCLC. And then SCLC who originally were on the side of the Johnsons and said, hey, listen, just looking at this from the outside, looking in, something doesn't smell right here. We want to look deeper into it. And then they conducted their own independent investigations. And as they dug more,

they said, wait a second, this doesn't look like what we originally thought. And respect to them, whether you like them or not, or agree with their opinions for being able to reverse course, even though they went into it. You get some people who will put their foot in the ground and say, this is what I believe in. No matter what happens, they're going to stick with that until the wheels fall off. These people have enough integrity with- Because they don't want to look stupid at that point. You know, I think that's what it is. Exactly. But they had enough intestinal fortitude to say, hey, you know what? I think we got it wrong. And I stand by that. And I'll even resign from my position

because I believe in being ethically responsible and speaking their truth and not bowing down to the powers that be. And so I got to respect it. Oh, and there's more. Lee Touchton and Reverend Rose, they had some stuff to say. All right. So Lee, she claims that people should be aware of three things. First, neither of the autopsies performed on KJ recorded a beating or any defensive wounds. Secondly, she says Dr. Anderson's autopsy is not credible and neither is he. And lastly, after a grand jury was convened in Macon, Georgia in March of 2013, no indictments were issued, and the boys accused of murder had rock-salad alibis. She says she personally does not believe KJ was murdered because, based on the evidence, over 100 people would have to be lying and telling the same story for many years,

which would mean them risking their jobs, their retirement, and risking potentially going to jail and spending some time in jail because that's a crime. And she said, quote, I think the murder theory is not only false, but also ridiculous and based on only wild speculation and outright fabrication, end quote. Lee went on to specify what some of these fabrications were. She said numerous statements were made by the Johnsons and their attorneys that once she and her team followed up on them, they were so outrageously false that they had to be made with the malicious intent to lie. The Johnsons claimed no one from the school system cared about K.J. or came to his funeral. And they said this to Lee and the NAACP, but they also did make public statements that no one from the school had come to KJ's funeral. However, Lee found out that Superintendent Wes Taylor and Assistant Superintendent David Troy both visited the

family the night KJ was found. One of KJ's coaches not only attended the funeral, but he spoke about KJ at the funeral. And numerous other teachers were also not only attended the funeral, but he spoke about KJ at the funeral. And numerous other teachers were also in attendance at the funeral, including two members of the school board. And apparently Antonio Hampton, the funeral director, he saw them there and he was like, hey, hey, guys, thanks for coming. You know, come and sit out front. Like he actually testified to Lee that he saw them because he asked them to sit in the front. Yet, Kenneth Johnson told the entire Georgia NAACP state conference that no one from the school attended, but in reality, over a dozen or more school officials were there. The school also had a separate memorial service

for KJ, and, you know, all the school officials that she talked to, they said they were horrified, so sad about what had happened to him. They were distraught. They loved him. You know, he was a great kid. Nothing but nice things to say about him. Lee also said that Kenneth Johnson had claimed there had been a fight between KJ and one of the Bell brothers, but he had made it seem like it happened right before KJ died. And apparently Kenneth also said that he knew this because Rick Bell, the Bell brothers' father, the FBI agent, he'd invited KJ over to finish the fight and make it fair. But Lee said she could find no evidence that this conversation ever went down, that this ever happened. But she did speak to several school officials who remembered the scuffle between Brian and KJ on the bus. But this happened over a year before KJ died, so certainly not right before he died. And all of these school officials claimed that, yes,

the two students had had a little argument, but they'd patched things up very shortly after. Numerous people testified that the two of them had a good relationship, that they were friends at the time of his death. Lee also said that the Johnsons told the Reverend Joseph Lowery. So Joseph Lowery, he's, I think, in his 80s. He was originally part of like the OG civil rights movements back in the 60s. So he's a very big figure in the civil rights movement. So apparently Kenneth Johnson told this man that Reverend Lloyd Rose was with the sheriff, which Lee claims is not true and that the Reverend Rose is not controlled by any person, white or black. He's only with the truth. The Johnsons also claimed that they didn't want the $10,000 reward that had been put up by local businessman Roy Taylor

because they said he was related to the superintendent, Wes Taylor, which turns out that's not true. They are not related to each other at all. They just have the same last name. Lee went on to say, quote, The family posted the photograph of Kendrick's post-autopsy face on a giant poster in the middle of downtown Valdosta and all over social media and claimed he looked this way as a result of a beating. The photo was taken at the funeral home of his post-autopsy face before it had been reconstructed. In an autopsy, the skin is cut at the back of the head

and the facial skin is peeled down away from the face so that the underlying muscle can be examined. The funeral home had not reconstructed his face. The family plastered this photograph next to that of Emmett Till and claimed the two deaths were analogous. People believed that Kendrick looked like that when he was found dead. He did not. They still promote this photograph as how he looked when he was found dead, end quote. So for those of you who don't know, Emmett Till, this is a horrible case. And I understand why Lee's a little offended that they would put up a picture of KJ and one of Emmett Till because what happened to Emmett Till was disgusting. He was a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago, and he was murdered while visiting his family in Mississippi because he flirted with a white girl.

And this happened a long time ago. I think it was like the 50s, maybe even earlier, but it happened a long time ago. I think it was like the 50s, maybe even earlier, but it happened a long time ago. It was a different time. I mean, this poor kid was tortured. His body was broken and battered. This poor kid was clearly, he clearly had the shit beat out of him he was tortured so to to put up emmett till who we know is definitely like a racially motivated attack definitely he was murdered by these people beat up tortured before he was murdered to put that next to kj when you still haven't proven that that there was a murder at all and he definitely didn't look like what Emmett Till looked like. I can see that Lee's a little put off by that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's again, I keep wondering in my head and we may never have the answer, you know,

who was really driving, you know, the ship. That's what I really want to know. You know, were the Johnsons the ones making these calls or were there other figures who were basically speaking on their behalf? Either way, it's their son. the ones making these calls or were there, was there, were there other figures who were basically speaking on their behalf? Either way, it's their son. They should have, you know, they should have taken control and made sure that they, if they weren't making these decisions that they signed off on everything, but it does seem like there, again, there were some decisions that were made that like this comparison to Emmett Till that were not warranted based on

the very minimal amount you just laid out about Emmett and this particular case. And like that, Emmett Till, as you mentioned was, and everyone should go look that case up, but it was very obvious what happened in there to everyone, right? This is a case that that's not the situation. So there really isn't a fair comparison there. So for that to be plastered all over the place, literally, was unfair to not only the people directly involved, but also unfair to KJ because they want to get to the truth. And this is not the way you do it by putting out fallacies. Yeah.

First of all, it's disrespectful to Emmett Till. Yeah, for sure. It's a really, really horrible case, but it's very disrespectful to Emmett Till. And it is disrespectful to KJ because KJ, I think he would be like, listen, I want to be me. I don't want to be compared to anybody after death. I want my case to be looked into as Kendrick's case, not a comparison to, you know, a dozen other civil rights issues that have happened in the past because this is me and let's keep it at that i mean i don't know i can't speak for him but it's shock value right which is potentially really i don't know helpful and productive when you're trying to get things done but once again you can also go too far and lose legitimacy when you do things like that. And I see where they're coming from. I worked a case, Cody Joyce, out of out of Allegheny County. And it's no secret that I think that the Allegheny County attorney general's office, they didn't didn't do their job. And I feel like the individuals involved got away with murder. I really do. Or at least at minimum, you know, manslaughter.

So I actually went out and I protested. We had a big gathering. This was just on my own time. Went out to Allegheny County. We went to a park, you know, had media there. We got nothing. They didn't even respond to us. So it almost forces you to do things like this to get the attention of people.

Because when you do it the right way, with peaceful protests in a park with hundreds of people, with media there, Allegheny County didn't even bat an eye. Didn't know email, no letter, no nothing. We had people, we had thousands of people call the Allegheny County Attorney General's office. Not a single call back, nothing. So I see their side of it where when you play by the rules, you don't usually get any feedback. And sometimes you need to be shocking in order to get some attention. But you have to ask yourself, where do you draw the line? I agree with you. But I also don't think that they're similar because they were getting attention.

They were getting attention. They were getting attention. Yeah, this is very true. It's very true. The entire city did do what they could to make the Johnsons feel like, yes, you've lost your child. We're serious about this. Yeah, maybe the police department was sort of like shady in the beginning, didn't do everything that they should have. But you had an investigation, then you had DOJ investigation, and then you've got Michael Moore, you know, the I think it was the state's attorney pretty much saying like, this is wrong. You know, we're going to do something about this. They had public officials. And in, you know, other situations like the case I just covered on YouTube, Praveen Varughese,

you've got a mother fighting for justice for her son, and she can't get any city officials to even acknowledge her or approach this case or even, even you know do another investigation into it that's legitimate but i don't think that's what happened here like whether um the the people in valdosta and you know michael moore now michael moore is that his name michael moore yeah uh all of these people whether they were doing it just to look good you know just so that nobody could say they weren't doing it i don't really know what their intentions were in doing it, but they did it. So I don't think that things like that are necessary when you actually have wheels moving and you have things going. It just seemed like after every investigation, they weren't necessarily

getting the answer that they wanted. So they were like back to the drawing board almost. But then they didn't come back with anything, any new evidence. Yeah. Moral of the story, DOJ, do Praveen Varughese now. Do that one next. Yeah. I wish more cases. Yeah. That was very well said. There's a lot of cases out there that deserve this type of attention. And from everything we're talking about today, this case was, no stone was left unturned. I don't think anybody on whatever side of the aisle you're on would disagree with that statement. I mean, this case had more eyes on it than most cases get in their lifetime. I mean, we're talking like the biggest cases you could think of that this case

got as much attention. And that may be hard for you guys to hear and believe because there's questions that we still have, right? There's like, why are those shoes there? What happened to the organs? We don't know the answers to those questions, but there are people who do know the answers to those questions. It just hasn't been made publicly available because if those questions were truly unanswered, I have to believe if they had a good legal team, the Johnson's lawyer would have brought that stuff up in court and used it to show evidence of this cover-up, but that didn't happen. So they must have been answered at some point, right?

Absolutely. Whether it's behind closed doors or within an investigative report. Absolutely. And I would love to know the answers, by the way. You and I both. Lee touched in said that in the first week after KJ was found dead, the Johnson family made they made public statements that the sheriff's son or grandson was also involved in KJ's death. But Sheriff Pryne, he doesn't have a son or a grandson. Lee said,

quote, then the family started publicly accusing two boys whose father is an FBI agent. They have rock solid alibis. This information was given to us immediately after the case was closed, and it was given to the Johnson family. They have accused the family on the Georgia NAACP call in public, and now the Johnson family is suing the accused family for being involved in KJ's death, even though the Johnson family has been shown a mountain of evidence that these boys could not have been involved. As of last week, the Johnson family supporters on the numerous Facebook pages run by the family are accusing another family whose son is on the wrestling team. They've even posted pictures of the boy's 92-year-old grandmother and threatened that they are coming to get them. At the latest march and rally, the mother, who's Jacqueline, Jacqueline Johnson, she stated, quote, We are going to do to them what they run with it. They don't want to hear any such word of phrase of due process. They just want to go out there and get these people now. And that's what you run a risk.

You could definitely put these people's lives in danger where you make this accusation. And although it's just a preliminary accusation, this person could see this individual, this wrestler out in public and end up shooting them just because they believe what you said to be true. So you got to be really careful because there's some crazy people out there who are really passionate about these cases. And you have to be really cautious about what you put out there publicly as far as personal information. And this is definitely something I will never agree with because everyone deserves to have their due process and not on Facebook. Yeah. And to post pictures of family members, like, so you're not even just accusing somebody

that you have no evidence was involved in this crime, but now you're posting pictures of their family members and they're now going to get hate. And I have to constantly remind people sometimes on YouTube, like, yeah, we can, we can talk shit about the aunt of this person who says he's like a good guy, but he sexually assaulted a nine-year-old girl. So we obviously know he's not a good guy. So we can talk shit about her and question her judgment, but never should we ever be contacting these people

and threatening them because as misguided as they may be, they didn't do this. You know, they didn't have anything to do with it. And I see this a lot, a lot in cases where people will be like, oh, this is this person's father. This is this person's mother. This person is bad. So by default, now everyone who's related to them must be bad as well. And they are now our enemies as well. So it's kind of this like very convoluted telephone game where you're calling out somebody that you don't even have evidences involved. Now you're calling out their family members.

And you're obviously, yes, going to direct hate in the direction of those family members, which I don't know if that's what you wanted, but I don't know what other outcome you would expect to happen from that, right? Yeah. If your rationale behind doing it is you want to find the person who killed your son, then the best thing you could do is relay that information to authorities and not put it online, not only because it will hurt the integrity of the investigation, but it also notifies this individual, if you genuinely think they were involved, that now you're on to them. So it wouldn't be the way to go about it if your true purpose behind doing it is to

get the answers you seek. You don't want to do it on social media. You want to do it. You want to get it to the right people. And I'm not even saying like, oh, you should just blindly trust because, you know, you and I, you go back and forth about that all the time. Like, it would be frustrating for me to just hand over any evidence I had to the police and just cross my fingers and hope that they were doing the right thing with it. But you can do other things.

You can hire private investigators. You know, they did ask the NAACP and the SCLC to step in and do their own separate private investigations. So this is not necessary. Like you said, if this is legitimately a person who might be guilty now you've just let them know that you're looking into them and they're gonna you know if there's evidence they need to get rid of they're gonna start doing that so it's just a dumb move i'm not i'm not afraid or ashamed to say that it's it's a dumb move right and you can say it's a dumb move and also i and i think i'm speaking for you but but know that again, this is a family that's frustrated,

you know, and, and, uh, you know, we're not justifying what they did. Um, I'm sure if they, I'm sure if we had them sitting in front of us right now, I'm sure they would choose to have their son back and not have to do any of this. You know, they didn't ask for this, but yeah, we can see at the same time, you know, you can be frustrated, but still not make it worse for yourself and others around you and people that had nothing to do with it. So I think you're fair in saying that, that it's not a good decision. And we understand, we totally, we feel for them as far as they didn't ask to be in the situation, but they could have controlled the situation a lot more than they did. And you can't just completely clear them of any wrongdoing just because they went through a traumatic event. Because unfortunately, this is something that happens to a lot of parents, black, white, brown. It happens to a lot of people. Every day, every day all over the world. And I don't even, I don't necessarily even know

if the Johnson family was the one who was posting this, but it could have been their supporters, you know, but the Facebook page, I think what Lee touched on is saying is like these Facebook pages were run, moderated and controlled by the family. So at the end of the day, you know, whatever goes up on that page when you're the moderator and you're in control of it is kind of still your responsibility. I think that's where she was going with it. It's a question I keep asking myself, and I've said it to you like three times just this episode. I wonder how much involvement, how much of a pulse the family had.

And I say family, I mean mother, father, how much involvement they had with these individual decisions. And I don't have an opinion either way, but I would really love to know who was the decision maker behind some of these things. How involved were they? Or were they just a family in mourning who were seeing this and attached to it automatically because they were his parents? We may never know. There were so many people involved, so many civil rights activists, so many different groups. Who knows? Who knows? But I definitely do not think 100% of the decisions were made by the Johnson family. I think I can safely say that. Agreed. All right. Let's go to

break one more time and then we'll keep talking about what Lee said. And we're back. So Lee touched in. She also said that Marcus Coleman and Marcus Coleman was the Johnson family organizer. So I believe he was the one who is like setting up their rallies and their protests, probably writing emails and getting in touch with different activists around the country to see if they want to become involved. I think that's what he would do in that organizer role. She said he attempted to provoke a reaction out of the Valdosta police who were attending the rally for logistical reasons. And logistical reasons when you're talking about police at a rally, that's basically just standing there making sure nobody gets hurt, making sure, you know, I guess public property isn't destroyed, making sure that everything just stays, you know, good. So that's what they were there for logistically. But apparently, Lee said that Coleman had notified the police department that they would be marching to the Board of Education. But then at the last minute, they switched this up and then they demanded to march to the high school. Now, in your experience as a police officer, why would this be problematic as a police officer who's supposed to be there for logistical reasons for like a rally and a march?

Why would changing the location that you're going to march to last minute be kind of an issue or problematic? Well, when you plan out, you have a plan as far as the path they would most likely travel to get from point A to point B. and you may have certain officers on foot certain officers and vehicles you would more than likely give whatever the ending you know destination is you would give up the people in charge of that location a heads up that hey listen there's going to be some people peaceful protesting so prepare your staff and your logistical up you know areas as far as what how you want to handle this because they're going to be outside your building. So changing it up last minute does throw a little bit of a wrench in the plan. It's not the

end of the world, but it does make things harder. Claims were also made, I'm not sure whether it was by Marcus Coleman or the Johnson family or both, that police tried to harass and intimidate KJ's supporters, not only at the rally in the march, but later at a nightclub where members of KJ's family were partying. Lee said, quote, the VPD had no role in this investigation other than being the administrator of the crime lab which held his body prior to transport to Macon GBI. The outrageous behavior and false allegations against innocent white people is beyond belief. There is already one defamation slash libel lawsuit for five million against Ebony magazine and their writer, Fred Rosen.

There is going to be more. End quote. So what do you mean? What do you think she means when she says the VPD, the Valdosta Police Department, they didn't have a role besides holding his body at the crime lab? Is the sheriff's office and the valdosta so separate so the lowndes county yeah sheriff's office did the first investigation but the it was their jurisdiction but the valdosta police department they did not have a role in the investigation so is that what she's saying like why are we like attacking them when they didn't

have anything to do with this correct you know, even though it's the same town or city, whatever you want to call it, the sheriff's department and the police department are two completely separate agencies. Lee touched in, said that during that July NAACP conference call, she was told by CB King that the family had made multiple attempts to get the autopsy report and the toxicology reports from the GBI, but they were being stonewalled about the toxicology reports. And she found this odd because as he's saying this during the call, she's sitting there and in front of her, she has the autopsy file and the toxicology report that were given to her when she requested them like there was no issue so she was like uh what like i have it here and she also said um quote i was looking at the gbi autopsy and there's the

toxicology report right there the valdosta daily times published it on their web page in may end quote so may is what may to june june two months before he's saying this on the NAACP conference call. The Valdosta Times had already published it. She had it in her hands. She'd gotten it from the GBI, no problem. Lee said that web addresses were given during this call, urging people to send money to the family so they could fund this legal fight to get these documents that CB King was claiming they couldn't get. And then I guess a bunch of people on the call were like, oh, no, you know, what do you do now? Like, if you can't get these reports and CB King was like, well, we just we fight, you know, we

put a legal fight out, but we're going to need money to do that. And so here's, you know, different GoFundMes and web addresses that you can send money to so that we can get these reports. And Lee's over here like, what the hell is he talking about? I have this report. And so does the Valdosta Times. Lee said as far as she was concerned, the information that they were asking for had already been provided. And then the next month on August 21st, the GBI released a statement saying that all records requests pertaining to the case had been fulfilled. And they did this after getting multiple messages and calls from people saying, like, release the reports, release the papers. And they were like, we did already. You know, like, we have to make a formal statement now to tell everybody that all of these requests

that have been filed with us have already been filled out. We've sent the documents to everybody who wanted them. There was also an issue of the family and their lawyer telling people on the conference call that they were being stonewalled by the school when it came to the surveillance footage, but the attorney for the school district claimed that the school offered to have the family come in and watch the tapes multiple times, but CB King turned down each request. Now, Lee mentioned on the call, because she had talked to all of these people already during her investigation, and she'd asked about the surveillance footage as well.

And she said she was told by the lawyer for the sheriff's office that the videos were protected under FERPA to protect the identity of minor students. But she knew that the family had been given multiple opportunities to view the tapes, at which point she was yelled at, and one person on the call said, quote, I'm so sorry, the family has to hear this, end quote. Lee touched in, said, quote, the way the narrative came from the attorney and the father, the reaction from just about everyone on the phone was outrage, and yes, we are going to send money to this family. I don't have a problem with anyone sending money to anyone, but I do have a problem with the other side of the story not being told, end quote. Yeah, Lee really changed courses in this whole story over these four parts, huh?

She was a big advocate in the beginning to probably their biggest adversary in the end, right? I mean, that's fair to say. She was really vocal about the issues with the Johnson side of this whole situation. I don't want to call her an adversary necessarily because I don't think that it was personal. I just think she was offended because she- Or was it conspiracy theorist?

Put my tinfoil hat on. Conspiracy Stephanie is here. No, no, not in this case. because or was it or was it conspiracy theorist or put my tinfoil hat on conspiracy stephanie is here you know no not in this case um i i can't imagine why somebody would put a target on their back like this living in that city being a part of the naacp i can't imagine why if she didn't really believe this with with all her you know convictions that she would speak up publicly about this she might have just resigned from the naACP quietly, went on with her life, not put herself in this. But she was really like, I think people need to know this.

Like, you know, I feel like you're being lied to about some things. And I want to tell you. And now I'm at peace and I can sleep at night. But yeah, man, she went for it. I mean, like I said, I remember the first introduction to Lee at the beginning. And now, man, what a 180. She's brave. I'm not that brave.

I would have shut my mouth. I'm saying, okay? Because. I'd like to think, you know, I'd like to think I'd be, I don't know. I've had people try to kill me over things that I've said. So I guess, yeah, I'd like to think I would be. But you're right. It's tough because these are probably friends and family members of hers.

Yeah, she lives in that town. Yeah. I'd like to think I'd be that brave too, but then I know I wouldn't be. So I know. No, and again, we talked about it earlier. This isn't something where just one day she woke up and felt this way. She was on their side. She conducted her own independent investigation.

She consulted with others. And no matter where she turned, no matter what report she reviewed, when it came to the actual facts and not just people speaking about it off the top of their tongues, it always led to the same conclusion. And so she was seeing all this and seeing where it was going and just realized that what was being said publicly didn't line up with the facts of the case. And so she felt compelled to speak on it. So like you said, kudos to her for having the courage to do so. I think she was also really rubbed the wrong way about the Johnson saying nobody from the school showed up to his funeral because this is a, if this is the case and everything went down, like she said, right, this is a stupid thing to

lie about because it's so easily fact checked. You know, it's not even a subjective thing. Like, objectively, you can prove whether or not these school officials were at the funeral. So why would you lie about something that's so easy to disprove? You know, I'm not, so it seemed like she was really, because I read a couple interviews from her, it seems like she was really irritated about that specifically. And it seemed like she thought maybe, you know, that CB King and maybe even the family were lying about the fact that they hadn't gotten those records because they specifically wanted to raise more money to get these records. But the records were already available. So why would they be raising money for a legal battle to get the records? So it does seem like she is definitely suggesting that this was about money

and raising money for whatever reason. I don't know where the money went, but she definitely gave me the impression that she thinks it was all about raising money and getting people outraged so they would open up their pocketbooks. Yeah. You could tell that was definitely something that really bothered her based on some of the quotes she's made. She had a major issue with that because she probably felt like there were other cases out there that deserve that money and that attention and they weren't getting it. So I can see that it was personal to her to a certain degree. She's not the only one that went from being on the Johnson family side and, you know, doing the most to try to, you know, investigate and find out what was going on, the Reverend Floyd Rose, he's also come to the conclusion that KJ's

death was a tragic accident. He says that he believes there's just far too many whistleblowers to perpetuate a cover-up on a scale that would involve school officials, the GBI, and the sheriff's office. But he does understand why some people might be prone to believe this given the difficult history of race relations in the South and in Valdosta specifically. He said, quote, either he wasn't murdered or whoever did it was so powerful that they were able to hide him and cover up and have all these people lie. If this was the 1960s and you asked me that and it was Valdosta, Georgia, I would say, well, maybe,

but I just don't believe that. Nobody has convinced me of that. That's all in the mind of black folks. So when all this happened, they had a problem distinguishing the truth and what could be truth. The emotion is, here we go again, end quote. Reverend Rose also told USA Today, quote, you won't find a person of

any reputation in this town who says that boy was murdered. Are there other injustices around here? You bet there are, but this is not one of them, and I'm not going to be bossed around by whites or blacks, end quote. Damn, drop the mic. Drop the mic, Reverend. Shit, he just came in. He was like, uh, no, not by blacks or whites. No one's going to tell me what to do. Mike drop. And I appreciate that. Yeah. And he's essentially saying, hey, listen, I'm not saying that this this system is perfect.

In fact, it's severely flawed. But in this particular case, there's nothing here. That's what he's saying. He's saying I'm not justifying everything that's happened in the past or what will happen in the future. But when you look at this case in a vacuum, there's nothing here. His opinion. And he's saying something that's very true as well. You know, black people in this country are going to have that emotion. Oh, here we go again when something like this happens. I mean, as they should, right? There is no shortage of young Black men and women that we can talk about who have been murdered and abused because of the

color of their skin. So there's definitely a precedent set. And when you're a part of that community, which I'm not, so I can't even imagine like a fraction of how the Black community feels when things like this happen. I could never even speak on it. But when you're a part of that community, which I'm not. So I can't even imagine like a fraction of how the Black community feels when things like this happen. I could never even speak on it. But when you're a part of that community, I would assume that when something like this happens, that is your initial thought. And I don't blame them for that at all. I do want to say that I think once, you know, the investigations are done, especially with the Bell brothers, when their alibis were very, very obvious to continue down that path, it can be a little irresponsible. But I don't blame anyone for their initial reaction. And that's why he's saying,

basically, and Lee touched on it and Reverend Floyd Rose, they're like, yeah, when this happened, we did the investigation because we thought there could be something to this. They're like, yeah, when this happened, we did the investigation because we thought there could be something to this. Now we know or we believe we know that there isn't anything to it. And we're not going to go just keep saying that there is because that's the party line and we're going to tow it. We want to just tell the truth. Yeah, absolutely. Got to respect the guy for sticking to his word and going with what he believes in regardless of the kickback. And this is the same man who put up his house as collateral when Jackie Johnson was arrested and put in jail. Great point.

So nobody can ever question him as far as, hey, how committed were you to this situation? I leveraged my house against him. He was very committed. Yeah. How many people can say that? Well, as we know, this investigation has been reopened. But a couple months ago, so it was roughly one week after the case was reopened, Kenneth and Jackie Johnson, they went to the current Lowndes County Sheriff, his name's Ashley Polk, with what they believed or claimed to be the smoking gun. This was an audio taped confession. And the Johnsons said that they

had been contacted by someone in March who claimed to have an audio recording of a confession to KJ's murder. Now on the recording, you can hear a man say, quote, they're going to catch me anyways. I should have never done this. I was young and stupid. Kendrick didn't deserve this man. They're going to catch me anyways, end quote. Allegedly, the family paid $1,000 for this recording, and then they turned it over to law enforcement for authentication. The Lowndes County Sheriff's Office, they haven't revealed who this person is, the person who sold the tape

to the Johnson family. But Ashley Polk said that they pretty much figured out who it was within 15 minutes of having that tape in their hands. They said they saw the person in a picture who created the tape and who had sold it to the Johnson family, and they knew exactly who he was. He claimed to the Johnson family, I guess, allegedly to be the second cousin of the Bell brothers. And he said he was at like a family gathering or a birthday party. And then one of the brothers made this, I guess, just unprompted confession about killing KJ and he recorded it. Now Polk said, you know, they know the family, the Bell family. They know that he's not their second cousin, so he's not related to them. They've also dealt with this person before. Apparently he's been in trouble before for making false

reports. And now they've said that the recording is a hoax. Polk said that the faked recording could fall under cyber stalking because it caused emotional distress to an individual using a cell phone. So for all you trolls out there, every time you're mean to me in the comments with your cell phone, it's cyber stalking. Cut it out. I actually wrote that down. OK. Jesus, people are petrified now. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. Come for me for me yeah they're not scared so she said you know this is serious like it can be cyber stalking this is like a federal crime

and he would like to to take this this crime to the federal level because he finds that it's you know in very poor taste to put a family who's lost their son through something like this to give them false hope, right? Like, oh, I have this confession. They think that it's a smoking gun. They think that it's locked. They think finally this piece of evidence has come to the surface. It's going to break this whole thing open only to find out it's a hoax. That's emotional trauma to these people.

They don't need it. So Ashley Polk, he's like, I want to I want to prosecute this person. But apparently this unnamed individual, he also claimed he didn't act alone. But the police or the sheriff's department, they also have not revealed the identities of the people that he was collaborating with to do this. I guess they have to look into it. They got to figure out if he's being honest about who he said helped him. They have to kind of investigate that because he's known to be, you know, kind of a liar. The new sheriff, Ashley Polk, he's reopened the case in the hope of bringing closure to a community that has been divided along racial lines. He also told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that charges against this guy could be forthcoming if the Johnsons cooperate, but they have refused to answer any questions about their interactions with the guy who sold them the tape, which Polk finds odd, saying, quote, it's kind of unusual when the victims refuse to participate, end quote. The Johnsons and their new lawyer, so I don't know

if C.B. King got fired or quit, but they have a new lawyer. His name's Clint Rucker. And they say they want to conduct their own investigation on the audio tape and see if they can like independently authenticate it because Jackie Johnson, she's not quite sold on the theory that it's a fake or a hoax. She believes it might be real. So now they want to kind of do their own investigation on it. Yeah. You know, it's it's something where Polk is, I think, saying something without saying it. You know, if I'm to read between the lines here and just be honest with you guys, I feel like Polk is saying, you know, I feel like there's a coordinated effort to try to create something that doesn't exist. And it So you would think that the parents would want to have this person prosecuted as well for, again, adding this stress on them.

And the fact that they're saying, nope, we don't even want to speak to the police about it is a little odd. It's not completely unheard of, but considering everything else that's transpired in this case over the years, it does raise some questions. Yeah, because you've been putting yourself in their shoes this whole time, throughout this whole four parts that we've done on this. And I appreciate that. I think that's what everybody should do. Because you can't really look at somebody and say, oh, I wouldn't act that way in that situation. You have to really try to empathize, put yourself in their shoes. If this is me, if this is my child, how am I behaving? I can understand why they would do that because maybe I would as well. But in this situation, could you put yourself in their shoes and say if somebody sold you, charged you $1,000

for a fake audio recording of somebody confessing to killing your son, and then you found out it was a hoax, would you be like, I don't want to pursue charges against this person? Would you feel like you wouldn't even want to find justice for that? That's the thing. It's incongruous to what they've been doing before. I would go after them completely, but there's also, I'm sure at this point that Johnsons are just completely fed up with all law enforcement agencies and they're like you know what we're not talking to anybody anymore because we don't believe you guys we don't believe you guys are acting in good faith and you know what you can take it and shove it we're not gonna we're not gonna respond to your calls it could be just that simple so maybe they thought that the new sheriff

was gonna like get stuff done and reopen the investigation and they were like okay we have hope here and then they were like no this this audio reopen the investigation. And they were like, okay, we have hope here. And then they were like, no, this audio recording is a fake. And they were like, oh, okay. Like clearly you're not on our side either. Maybe you're part of this conspiracy too now. Now we don't feel like we can trust you. Same story. Yep. And so we're not going to play with you. We're not going to play your games. We're not going to respond to you because we know no matter what we say or do, you're just going to find a way to spin it. That could be their rationale on it. Well, now that the case has been reopened, Ashley Polk plans to use the evidence which was collected during the DOJ investigation. It's over 17 boxes full of files

and information. He's going to go through that. And he says he plans to start by figuring out if there's discrepancies between reports. And he said, quote, if there's questions and they're legitimate, I need to know the answers myself, end quote. And I agree. I wish I had access to those 17 boxes because I'm sure all the answers that we have questions to are in there. But this is exactly what needs to happen, right? You need to make a list essentially of all the questionable things and then go through these reports to see if you can answer them. And if there are discrepancies between reports, that's a great place to start. So I think that he's on the right track and he knows what he's doing. Kenneth Johnson told CNN that the family isn't asking for any favors. They don't want anyone to lie for them. They just want the truth,

which I think is what we all want. So we're on the same page there. So final thoughts. You want me to go first? Yeah, ladies first. I don't have many final thoughts because I think we gave our opinions throughout these four videos. I'm not as confused as I was before when I didn't really know anything about the case besides, you know, a quick recap, like the Wikipedia version of what happened in this case. I was very confused and I was like, something's completely wrong. But I'm not completely cleared up about everything either.

So I guess what I will say is murder, tragic accident, I don't know. What I do know is there's clearly not enough evidence to prosecute anyone for his murder. There's not enough evidence to even say that there was a murder. And that doesn't mean there wasn't. It doesn't mean that something sketchy or shady or underhanded didn't happen. But it means that as far as whatever you consider justice to be in this case, if you're Kendrick's family and you want somebody brought to justice for his murder, unless you can provide something that's, you know, even circumstantial,

even circumstantial, it doesn't have to be direct evidence at this point, even something circumstantial to put against the people that you're accusing of killing someone. You have to bring that forward if you want any kind of justice, if you want the wheels of justice to continue turning. Because until that happens, we can't just throw people in prison for murder just because you truly believe that that's what happened. Unfortunately, you know,

I know that that's probably not the answer that they want to hear. It's probably not the answer that a lot of people want to hear. But we do have a justice system in this country. And although it's flawed, it does state that you are innocent until proven guilty. And if you don't have enough evidence to bring someone to court and even have a judge, like consider the case, because he's like, what am I supposed to be looking at here? There's no evidence that you provided me. I don't see how you expect it to go anywhere at this point. So maybe Ashley Pope will find something in these boxes, something new that he can bring out and we can actually make moves towards finding out if and who is responsible for what happened to KJ or if

something happened to KJ and who's responsible for it. But until then, I feel like we're at a standstill. I don't know. What do you think? I think there's two different elements to it. We can break it down where there's an allegation of a murder and then there's an allegation of a conspiracy to cover up said murder. So let's reverse engineer it, right? Let's start with the conspiracy to cover up said murder, okay? Because a lot of the things that were brought up that we've talked about over these last four parts have really been it really comes down to is this, and please, if I miss one, interject and tell me, but if this were a conspiracy, if this were a cover-up, at this point, and I'm sure I'm going to miss some, it would have to have been initially the school department, the administrators that worked there, and also the students that would have been

present in the gym at the time when it occurred. It would also have to be the Lowndes County Sheriff Department, the Valdosta Police Department, even though their involvement was minimal, the GBI, the Crime Scene Lab, the Medical Examiner's Office, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and then also, as we just talked about a lot this episode representatives that were originally in the camp that kj had been murdered from the naacp and also the sclc all colluding to create this narrative hundreds upon hundreds of people who didn't know each other before this incident not only that the valdaldosta Times, right? Everyone coming forward and all coming to the same opinion and having similar stories and not a single outlier or someone to discredit what they're saying. That would be one of the most intricate, well-planned, well-thought-out cover-ups of all time for it to happen, right? Am I missing any entities that have been involved in this process? You got Steve Owens from Owens Transportation. He was the one that brought KJ's body from the crime scene to the morgue, to the funeral home. Right, the funeral home.

The funeral home, yeah. So a lot. So we're talking a ton of people that would have been involved, right? So you use the phrase casting the net. And I think that's one part. So that's the conspiracy. That's a really hard thing, I think, for anyone to believe, right? Second, let's go to the murder. And Reverend Rose said it perfectly. People having the inability to distinguish what could be the truth from what is the truth. So when we start an investigation, you explore all possibilities. You start with a very wide array of possibilities. What could this have been? Accident, murder? Was

this a fight that went bad and someone got hurt and they had to try to cover up and he died afterwards? All these different things run through your head as you're conducting your investigation. And as you continue to conduct your investigation, pieces of the puzzle start to come together and you're able to cancel certain things out. When you have the video, you start to find ways to explain it. When you have the organs, although you may not like what happened, you find ways to explain it and you start to cancel certain things out. And just because you're missing elements of said crime doesn't mean

you can say, well, because we can't show definitively this happened, there must have been a coverup. It could also mean that those elements do not exist. And on adversely, if it were an accident, as we've said, this would be a really crazy, tragic, but strange accident. You don't usually see people die this way. So there may be a sad reality that you may not get the answer to every part of your question as far as what exactly happened because we weren't there. And if it was only KJ, KJ is the only one who really knows exactly what happened in that very moment. So as you just alluded to a lot better, we have a due process. And when you're starting to build a case to possibly charge someone, there are certain elements that have to

be met in order to charge someone. And then you have to have an individual or individuals who fall under that category and do not have a solid alibi to support how they couldn't be part of said murder. And we don't have that here. So will we ever have a concrete answer that the Johnsons are confident in and believe in? I don't think so. I think this is one of those cases because of how many hands have been in the cookie jar so far. I don't think there's ever going to be a unified opinion on what happened, but I can understand why you and I spent four parts on this because there's so many elements to it, so many factors to it that I think it's warranted. I think there were a lot of mistakes made by law enforcement and other government entities and other private entities that could have really made this situation a lot easier for

them, for the family, for everybody involved. And because of that, that's why you and I spent four parts on it, because there was a lot to it. So I don't think we're, you know, I see some comments where people like, this is a close and shut case. This is an accident. I don't know why. No, that's not true. There's a lot here that could have been done differently. And then

there are also people on the other end of the spectrum who say, this is no doubt about it. This was a coverup. This was a murder. And there's clearly nothing that we've discussed in four parts that would suggest that definitively to be the case. So I agree with you. It's one of those things that might go on forever. But at this point, there's not enough to charge anyone. There's not even enough to say that, in fact, this wasn't murder, in my opinion. And I guess I just don't like the feeling that what happened to KJ is being used by anybody, right? Like the tragedy, regardless of what happened, it's a tragedy. This is a young life, a young, promising and talented life gone. And to think that anyone on either side of the

aisle is going to try to use that to make a point or further an agenda, it's upsetting to me. And it's not like it's unknown. We see this a lot, actually, that in death people can be used and, you know, they kind of justify it by saying, well, it's for the greater good. Like his death can be used to further this or to prove this why him being gone from this earth makes it a worse place to be. We have to focus on the victim. I don't like when, I mean, it's not that I don't like it because I know that there's a place for it, you know, to further social justice or not even just social justice, but any kind of justice to begin with. Because if something happens to one person, we know that if it's an injustice, it's happening to more than one person. So yeah, you do sometimes want to go macro and make it like a thing and go for it, but it should never be where the attention is not on KJ. And how often have we talked about KJ in these four videos?

And that's not our fault. And there's just, he was lost in this. Yeah. It's a great point. There was a lot of other entities that became the hot topic of the day. Right. And so, yeah, it's unfortunate, but I do think we will get to a point where I'm hoping that people come to a general acceptance. And again, quote Reverend Rosagrand, you know, distinguish the truth from what could possibly have been the truth. You know, ultimately Kendrick's family has to, you know, specifically his parents are going to have to sit down and really think about it. And I'm sure they do that every day. And I'm sure at some point they're going to find peace with it, even though they may not agree with it. And I'm sure they do that every day. And I'm sure at some point they're going to find peace with it,

even though they may not agree with it. And I hope for them because they have to stay on this earth without their child. They can do that for their sake because they got to live with it every day. You and I, we're going to go on to the next case. And our viewers and listeners are as well. It doesn't mean we're not thinking about them. It doesn't mean we're not thinking about KJ because we fully understand as parents that they're going through something that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. So with everything we've said right now, understand if anybody from Kendrick's family

is watching this or listening to it, we're thinking of you because regardless of what happened here, KJ is gone. He shouldn't be. And that's the real story. And Reverend Rose also said, you know, either this young man was murdered or there is such a huge, massive cover up that there is no evidence left that he was murdered. So at the end of the day, where does that lead us? Like you said, no solutions, no closure, no concrete answers ever in either of those two scenarios. And I truly do believe that those are the only two, you know, potential scenarios, that it was an accident or he was murdered. And there was such a really like intricate and well thought out conspiracy and cover up happening that there will be no sign ever that it happened.

And there's nothing you can do at that point i mean just look at something like you know jfk right how how long has it been and we finally gotten you know pretty much like i think that we from the redacted files that that have been released we can we can naturally kind of assume that what happened to jfk was orchestrated by our own government. Like they've pretty much said that, man. Like, but how long did it take for it to even come out to this point? And yeah, it's not been said straight out like, hey, will the real Slim Shady please stand up?

We did this to JFK. No, they haven't come straight out and said that. But it's definitely been like inferred multiple times by multiple entities and it's taken how long 40 50 years to even get like that like the tip of the iceberg it's just if if there's a massive government conspiracy yo the government is so shady man so shady go read edward snowden's book okay okay? But they're so shady, if they wanted something covered up to that extent, you would never find out about it. But I also can't look, not that KJ wasn't important to everybody that he knew and everybody in his life, but I can't look at this one kid hanging out in small town Georgia, playing football, going through with

his life. This one kid gets murdered, and this one FBI agent, Rick Bell, he's like calling the shots. He's like going to the president and being like, hey, we got to cover this up. And the president's like, OK, like, let's activate cover up conspiracy plan X and like go into it now. I don't see why all of those people would agree to it. They wouldn't. It would be easier to throw Rick Bell under the bus for them, which they would do to each other. Okay, the government, they throw each other under the bus all the time. It would be easier for them to just throw Rick Bell under the bus, let him and his sons take the punishment for it, than to participate in something like this when there's really no grander scheme behind it. It know, it's not like, it doesn't have large or widespread implications

for like national security or public health or things like that. And those are typically the things that they would put a lot of effort into covering up. So I'm not sitting here saying the government doesn't cover things up. We know they do. Like look at Operation Paperclip.

But anyways, we know they do. Stop her. Somebody stop her, know they do. Stop her. Somebody stop her, please. She can't stop. We know they do. Okay. So I'm not saying they don't do that. Like I will be the very last person.

If every person in this world stood in a line, I would be at the end of that line, the very last person in line defending the government. It's not me. All right. So I just don't understand why they would do it in this situation but if you guys have an idea of what sort of widespread implications kj's death would have that the government would be interested in sort of like putting like a cap on it then please let me know in the comment section because i am always down to have a conspiracy conversation with y'all

yeah i'll leave that one to her i listen i'm good for i'm i'm down for a good conspiracy listen we'll get into some good ones we'll do one we'll cover a case let's do jfk let's do something it'll be fun really it'll be fun yeah i'll do i don't care you don't even have to give me a christmas present this year man that was enough we're gonna we're gonna i do have a christmas present for you tonight by the way um so can we change gears a little bit guys you know this was four parts we thank you guys for sticking with us there gears a little bit, guys? This was four parts. We thank you guys for sticking with us. There's a lot to it and it was very in-depth and we went through a lot of information there and we hope you guys got a lot out of it because we definitely did. But to change gears up a little bit, to bring a little bit more of a lighter side to this

four part, this is a lot of work. Um, first off undercover pineapple, you guys really took it and run with it. So we're going to announce the winner right now. I have this automated thing that Stephanie was nice enough to, um, help me set up. And so there's no conspiracy theory here on how we selected it. Cause we know there will be, I'm going to literally just hit, pick, pick a winner. And it's going to randomly pick someone from the YouTube comments who wrote undercover pineapple now i know everyone wrote it on instagram and all these other places i we just can't include them all so i we probably should have been more specific but yeah i know they we didn't have like the rules uh at the bottom of the the the entry

but i'm gonna hit uh here we, here we go. Here we go. It's going undercover. Oh, hold on. What does it say? Uh, it's saying Steph frame. I don't know if that's going to show me the comment here.

So Steph frame wrote undercover pineapple. It does. That's Steph frame. So what I'll do is Steph frame. Congratulations. You won. Um, I'm do is step frame. Congratulations. You won. I'm going to send the book to you. DM me on Instagram. You're going to have to show me that you are who you say you are. Cause there's you figures. The person has no picture, no nothing,

but she wrote undercover pineapple. Love you guys. Thanks for all you do all the best. So, so I see this sometimes if Steph frame frame doesn't come forward okay we got to pick a second person so you want to do that again and pick a backup in case do you want to put that the hopes on that person because now you want to or you just want to pick it next week you want to pick a second one right now i feel like we're here okay all right we'll do another one so i'm hitting it again this is so exciting oh oh we got a picture laurie king she wrote undercover pineapple because i would really enjoy a new book to read autographed equals bonus um so laurie king i think you should give them both uh you know what i was just thinking now i feel bad laurie says she wants

a new book autographed now i feel horrible we shouldn't have done that now you gotta give them both a book i'm sorry laur King, you're getting a book signed. Your name's gonna go right up here. And Steph Frame. And then Steph Frame, if you come forward, you're gonna get a book too. I'm just Oprah.

You get a book. You get a book. And actually guys, this is my partner Stephanie's book right here. I'll give it to her at CrimeCon. Stephanie, there's your book. I didn't put your number one fan. I just wrote, I'll read it to you guys what I wrote to her. I wrote, Stephanie,

it's been a pleasure working with you. Undercover pineapple for life. Can you write love your number one fan, Derek? Stop pushing Stephanie, okay? You just made me give away two books. So that's it. The only other thing I had is we will have an official announcement for merchandise next week it's done it's legit we just got to give them time to set up but guys it's coming next week official announcement and i i think we both agree we saw the final um markups today we both approved them they look they look good and they're going to be exclusive to the people like yourself who've been with us from day one little hint there um and limited edition so the first round limited edition first round will be special for the people who've been with us

the ogs yep it's we're going to do it for a short period of time and then that that logo is going to go away and never come back um the only other thing I'll say about the book, and I know I had a lot of people say they wanted it. You can get it in bookstores, but to be honest, the cheapest place to get it is where? Audible. Audible. Or if you want a hard copy or something, Amazon. Buy it. If you send it to my PO box address, I've been doing this for years. You just got to give me time because I sometimes get a lot of them. If you put a note with it, I'll sign it to you and send it back to you. So just send it to me with your postage to send it back and we'll get it done. So I'll do that for everyone. But congratulations to Lori. Or if you have it and you're at CrimeCon,

bring it to Derek at CrimeCon so he can sign it. I'll sign it. Do you want to tell them about your little prize you're doing for him that you came up with for CrimeCon? My little prize? It's a good prize. Could you be more condescending? con my little prize it's a good it's a good price sending no i like it i think it's a cool idea crime weekly tote bag i also got one for myself and it's gonna have some crime weekly merch in there and derrick's book signed yeah i don't have a book yet yeah but i can write you like a little poem or something i'll write you a true crime poem yeah and you could you could sign the book too if you want to sign the book man but uh but um but yeah it was pretty cool it's pretty cool so listen we really appreciate everything you guys are doing with us we appreciate you helping the channel grow we're having we're talking about some tough

topics but i'm enjoying it this is something new for me stephanie's an og in this field she knows what she's doing but it's been it's been Your guys' support has been amazing. And I'm looking forward to seeing some of you at CrimeCon. We will talk to you guys next week. Until then, bye. Undercover Pineapple. Later.