Morbid - The Tragic Death of Kendrick Johnson

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

Guys, this case has plagued us for years. It is one of those cases that provides more questions than it does answers. January 10, 2013, 17 year old Kendrick Johnson was found dead, rolled up in a wrestling mat in his high school gym. Initially, the case was quickly ruled a tragic, freak accident but after three autopsies, several false leads and a myriad of unanswered questions, Kendrick's family is no closer to finding out the truth about what happened to their son on that winter day in Georgia. Did Kendrick accidentally fall into a fatally inverted position in the rolled up mat? Or did someone put him there? Sources: https://allthatsinteresting.com/kendrick-johnson https://www.walb.com/2018/11/15/third-kendrick-johnson-autopsy-results-released/ https://face2faceafrica.com/article/his-body-was-exhumed-twice-for-a-third-autopsy-kendrick-johnson-the-black-teen-who-was-found-dead-in-a-gym-still-cries-for-justice-from-his-grave https://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/ga_fl_news/private-consultant-releases-new-kendrick-johnson-autopsy/article_9412b580-e940-11e8-9f3b-47e0bb7e0c97.html https://static.allongeorgia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/393322920-Kendrick-Johnson-Third-Autopsy.pdf https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/09/us/georgia-gym-mat-death https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdga/pr/justice-department-closes-investigation-death-kendrick-johnson Thanks to our sponsors! Embark Right now, Embark has an exclusive offer just for our listeners! Go to Embarkvet.com now! and use Promo code MORBID to save 15% off your Dog Breed and Health kit. Care/of For 50% off your first Care/of order, go to TakeCareOf.com and enter code morbid50. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena. And I'm Ash. And this is a full-ass morbid. This is a full-ass morbid. And if you notice, my voice is all weird because I just did some cameos and sang the mini morbid theme song to people. Because, you know, you're welcome. The things that she will do for you guys. Well, and exciting news. So yes, we are on cameo now. The link is in. our Instagram bio, I want to say, and if it's not, I'll put it there after this. But all of the, or 50% of the proceeds from Cameo are going to go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Exactly. And so what, so yeah, so I think whatever you pay, half of it is going, we're going to donate straight to there. And we might switch it up and switch up the charity that

we decided to donate to, but we're always going to donate at least 50% to. Yeah. a charity of some kind. Feel free to recommend some. If you guys, you know, have ideas about good charities that you feel like need more attention, need more funds, we're happy to do it. And I think we're decided what we're doing for June. So we'll announce that June 1st and let me know what your 50% will be going to. Yeah. So it's not going to a good cause, guys.

It's all worth it. And it's a lot of fun. It is fun. Yeah. We like being able to send weird little videos to people. Yeah. I think that's honestly pretty much it for business other than we had a super fun collaboration with, I like can't talk collaboration. Collaboration. Talk collaborate enlisted to our crossover with Christine from And That's Why We Drink.

Guys, we had so much fun with the entirety of it. And that's why we drink doing those crossovers. hopefully we are hoping that will not be the last of our collaboration with them because we had a blast. I mean, we have a fucking merch line to put out now with them. Yeah, we got to do our collab merch. Let's get it. We need Crystal Wild and Light to be on a shirt. Crystal Wild and Light. But we hope you guys enjoyed them too.

It's been a lot of fun to collaborate with people during this quarantine because I think it's like, I think collaborate, like podcasts have been collaborating so much because like we're all like nobody can be around each. Even people in the same podcast can't be in the same room together. So I think we're just like reaching out for anybody. Like please just be here with me. Like I need some sense of human communication. I need some sense of human touch. Yeah, it's helped. It's like made it feel like the world is still turning and we're having fun and everybody's

in it together. I'm in it to win it with all these collabs. And I think we've got a pretty exciting one coming up. We do. We have another fun one. I'm not exactly sure of the date yet, but we have another one lined up. I feel like you'll never guess who it is. No, we're throwing you for a loop with this one, but I'm stoked that this person wants to collaborate.

It's going to be a fun one. And hopefully they keep coming because this has been a lot of fun. Yeah. In fact, I jumped in to watch a live collaboration between True Crime Garage and Generation Y. Oh, yeah, you were telling me that. And it was so much fun to watch. Like, I was like, can. And now I'm like, Generation Y and True Crime Garage.

let's be friends please and thank you yes please our here's our virtual invitation to please be our for real because those are two of my favorite podcasts they've been listening to them both forever um so yeah so hopefully let's make that happen everybody go bug them tell them that they need to do a collaboration let's do it i'm into it let's just bug people into being on our show i just love making new friends yeah it's fun pod friends are fun yeah uh so i think tonight's case um Tonight's case is going to be, is a dozy of a case. Yeah. It's been highly requested lately though. And honestly for a really long time. Yeah. And it's been, it's been on my list to do. And actually, we've gone to do it a few times, like a few weeks.

Yep. And I've gone into it. And then I was like, I'm not ready to do this one this week. Because it's heavy. And it's so frustrating. Because this one is, I still right now as I sit here, don't know what. I think happened. I really don't. And so tonight we're going to be covering the case of Kendrick Johnson. So Kendrick Johnson, this is just, I'm going to go about this the only way that I think, the best way I think we can go about it, which is because I don't have an absolute like this is what I think happened. Right. I'm very much like all over the place with it, which I think a lot of people are. Yeah. It's really hard to have a concrete opinion about this. Because there's so many possibilities and like different theories and exactly. Like I have an idea of what I think might have occurred, but like I can't lay it down concretely. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go at this as unbiased and just give you the facts. We're going to tell you what we think, maybe just like speculate. But, you know, everybody's going to take what they what they think from this because unfortunately it does not have.

a whole lot of answers, which is always so frustrating. It is. It's so frustrating. So we'll start this off. Kendrick Johnson was 17 years old. He was known from his friends as KJ. His family called him KJ, which is such an adorable name. Oh, that's wicked cute. I love that. And I just picture like a little kid named KJ. Yeah. There's a little kid named KJ on dopey Tarty, which used to be on Bravo. I love it. He's like the cutest little nugget. I love the you immediately connected Bravo. You were like, Bravo connection. It's just how my brain works. Anything is a

Bravo connection. It's such a talent. So he grew up in Vandasta, Georgia. His parents are Jackie and Kenneth Johnson. They have been extraordinarily outspoken since their son's death, and you will find out why. Yeah, that's so important, though, in a case like this. Oh, yeah. And there's so many times where you hear of a case where you're like the only people who believed that, you know, it was a conspiracy and it was a

cover up with a parents and they fought and fought and fought till the bitter end. And then it turns out they were right. So it's like, you got to listen. So Kendrick was known as like pretty quiet, but like not quiet as like standoffice. She was just like a quiet like soul. But he was also known. His mom said he was a jokester around his house, how she described him, that he was like the light of the house that he brightened up the whole house. house. Like, his absence is very felt in their house. He kind of has a face that, like, tells you that about him. He has a very sweet face. Yeah, exactly. Like, a lighthearted face, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's just one of those, it's a friendly face that's, like, very rare. Um, he was also

very athletic. He was, um, he played three different sports, but his favorite was definitely football. Okay. He had dreams of playing college football and hopefully going pro at one point. Um, He went to Lowndes County, Georgia high school. So he went to Lowndes High School. It was in Lowndes County, Georgia. Okay. Now, to be clear, Valdosta, Georgia does have a reputation to be a place where unfortunately racism is still alive and well.

Well, that's fucked up. Obviously, unfortunately, you know, in every country, but like we're in the United States. In the United States, racism is still a thing. still around. It's still happening. We're seeing it all over the place. We just saw it recently in the news, like a big view, you know? So unfortunately in Valdosta, there is an unfortunate reputation that it is very alive down there. Which is like so unacceptable for this point in time in this country. It really is. It's insane. And, you know, I obviously, I am not saying everybody who is from Valdosta, Georgia is racist. No, by no means. Yeah. I do not want anybody taking this as like, you're a

whole county is racist. No. There's racism everywhere. Exactly. And it just so happens that Valdosta, when you Google Valdosta, Georgia, a lot of articles come up that have to do with racism. It's just there. There's a lot going on down there. And so this is a case of a young black man who died tragically, regardless of what way we cut it in the end. And the sheriff's department and the investigators that went about this case are all white dudes. This is just the fact that. in the case. This is obviously something we're going to all have to kind of keep in the back of our minds as possibly clouding how this was handled and whether it was handled as an accident or a homicide. That is something. Yeah. And it's just something we're all going to have to keep in the

back of our minds. It's a possibility that it really does affect this case. Unfortunately. Well, it's just like in like the Jeffrey Dahmer case because they were predominantly gay men. It's like the same deal. Certain things are going to affect. which is unacceptable, completely unacceptable. And in this case, it's race. And we also have to flip this on its ear and wonder if this was a white student who they found dead in this manner, would it have been handled differently?

Obviously, we will never know until, you know, that situation arose, but we can speculate. And my personal opinion is this might have been handled quite differently. Right. But, you know, we got to float the question into the universe. If this was a, the races were reversed, would this have been looked at more closely? Well, and people do need to ask questions, like, no matter what. Like, of course.

It's, that's how the world works. Yeah. And it's like, you know, take it with a grain salt, but that's just, these are just the facts. So, because unfortunately, race is going to play a big role in this case and how it was handled. And the fact that it's still not really figured out what happened. Yeah. Yeah. So Thursday, January 10th, 2000.

2013. CCTV caught Kendrick walking into the school gym at 1.30 p.m. I think in the school gym there was like an old gym and a new gym, they called it. Oh, okay. My high school was like that too. Yeah, and he was walking into the old gym where there were four CCTV cameras. Okay. So 1.30 p.m. they have them walking into the gym.

He was going to be staying after school that day to watch a freshman basketball game. So he didn't come home. You know, it started getting late. By 10 p.m., he wasn't home. He hadn't called. So his mother's worried. His mom's like, what the hell's going on? Should have been home.

So she immediately goes out searching for him. She's like, I'm going to drive around. See if I can see him. See, and if I find him, I'm going to kill him. Like, he's got to come home. Right. So she's driving around. She can't find him.

She's asking. She's calling his cell phone. She's getting nothing. By midnight, she was freaking out. So she called the police. And the police were like, okay, like, you know, he's a teenager. He's probably just out past curfew, like, fucking around. Like teenagers do that.

They're irresponsible. Ash used to do that all the time. I was just going to say, it's so funny because it paints such a picture because in high school I would go to basketball games and be like, oh, yeah, like I'm going to so-and-so's house after and I was not going to so-and-so's house. It's very, we've all been there. So see, it wouldn't be too crazy to think, like, oh, you know, maybe they're just fucking around with that. So he didn't come home all night. So January...

Not I never did. No. And so January 11th, 2013, the day after, Jackie, his mother, goes to the school. And she's talking to the administrators, the teachers. Have you seen Kendrick? What do you know? Was he in school for the whole day yesterday? Like, you got to tell me something.

So, and of course, they figured if he stayed out all night and, like, fucked around with him. curfew and all that. She was like, I figured he had to go to school the next day. Like, he was going to go to school. So I was going to get him there and be like, now I'm going to kill you. And she was probably just like, what the fuck? Like, this is not anything she's ever had to deal with before. Exactly. So they offered to help. They said that they, he was not marked as being in school that day. And they said, why don't we print up, you know, help you put that up, like, posters, like missing posters. We'll ask around to kids. So she's like, cool. So this is when she hears from teachers, too, that teachers are like, whoa, he didn't show up yesterday to his third and fourth period classes.

I was going to ask you that because 130 is like normally school isn't over yet. Exactly. So they were like, wait, what? And they were like, yeah, he didn't come to his third and fourth classes. So they look at the CCTV footage and he's entering the gym at 1.30. That seemed to be the last that anyone saw or heard. Right. So 10.30 a.m. that day on the 11.000.

11th when she's in school asking, like trying to get information. 10.30 a.m. They, like I said, they have the two gyms, the old gym, the new gym. The old gym was kind of used for storage as well as like, you know, gym activities, like smaller ones, because it's a small gym. Okay. But the storage was mainly around the perimeter of the gym, and there were gym mats that were always rolled up in a corner.

I can literally picture like the gym that was in my school. I feel like everybody's gym had those gym mats that were always somewhere. Yeah, the big blue ones. Yeah, and some of them were vertical against the wall, and then some of them were rolled up and, like, laying horizontally on the floor. Yeah. And they were rolled up very tight. Like, they were, like, wrestling, cheerleading, you know, tumbling mats. Yeah.

And they were all six feet tall and about three feet wide. So this group of kids who, according to some sources, a couple of these kids were the superintendent's daughters. The superintendent is West Taylor. Of course he is. They were hanging out in the old gym. And they noticed something at, like they're looking over at the mats, and they notice that there's something white sticking out of the rolled-up gym mats. And this mat that they see the white thing sticking out of is against the wall vertical.

So then they notice this is a pair of white socks sticking out of one of those mats. Oh, God. And they're like, whoa. So then they look close. and they see that there are feet in those socks. So now it's looking like someone's in that mat. So they take down, so they call a teacher over. They lie the mat down on its side and they said that they immediately all smelled like vomit and decomposition, basically.

Oh, God. And they see a little blood and they see that there is a human being inverted inside of that rolled up mat. Right. So they've found a. dead body. That dead body is Kendrick Johnson. That's so, like, what happened in between then for you to find a body like that? It is, this is when things get really frustrating. In a school, too, of all places. There's a lot that we're going to talk about that just doesn't have answers. That is very frustrating. Right. So they call the police immediately, obviously. And so these bunch

of rolled up mats that he was found in were, again, always in the gym, very tightly rolled up. They were stacked up against each other and next to like small bleachers. But they were bleachers that were only like two bleachers high. They're not like the big bleachers you're thinking. Yeah. Like go up almost to the ceiling. So it's not easy to get on top of these like nuts. Yeah.

And especially I would think to lift another human on to them. Yeah. So a lot of kids, so you had to like pay for lockers at this school to like for gym. A lot of kids didn't want to pay for the locker. And so they would throw their things in these mats to keep them safe while they were, you know, at sports or whatnot. Right. And honestly, this doesn't, that doesn't even make a whole lot of sense to me because I'm like, that seems like hard to retrieve back. Okay, I was thinking that and I just was like going to move over it not to like interrupt.

But I was like that doesn't even make any sense. It doesn't. A lot of kids said that they did it. So I guess it's a thing we did. It would feel like it was easier to steal. Yeah. I'd be like, you know what? Yeah.

It's just a weird place to put them like, I would shove them behind them. mats, if anything, not in the mats. Or like in the bleachers. Yeah, it's weird. But so Kendrick was found in these mats, feet upwards, head down, inverted in the mat. His, one of his arms was by his side facing his feet. So, like not reaching forward. The other arm was reaching, was in front of him.

The mats are very tightly rolled and wouldn't allow any normal size person, really, to squeezed down into them without getting stuck or even not being able to go through them. Police had found a pair of shoes next to him in the mat. Okay. So there's a pair of sneakers squished next to him like behind his knees. Probably like they were put in there afterwards, you would think. When you look at it, it's really the only explanation is that they were put in after he was put in. It doesn't make any sense.

There was another pair of shoes which one of the shoes was outside the mat. and the other one was in the mat, but it was under his head, so on the floor. So there's two pairs of shoes. Yeah. Three shoes in the mat, one outside the mat. Exactly. And the one shoe that is in the mat, like in front of his face, basically, is on the floor where, you know, we assume he's reaching for. That's what everybody's thinking.

Okay. But that shoe that's in front of him on the floor. It's sitting there. And there's a pool of blood on the floor underneath his head because he's upside down in this small area. Blood is going to rush to your head. It's going to rush to the lowest point of gravity. And regardless of how you're laying after you die, there will be purge fluid that's going to come out of orifices in your face. You're going to purge blood.

There's going to be stuff coming out of your nose and ears and eyes. So even if there's no wound, it will still come out of your nose and stuff. You're still going to purge, yeah. And it's still going to be like a mixture of blood and all kinds of time. Because the blood's not moving around your body anymore. Exactly. So it's just leaking out, basically. Okay.

Which this kind of harkens back to John Wayne Gacy, how he used to shove things down the boy's throats because he didn't like that after they died, they leaked. Right. So he thought doing that he would stop them from purging out whatever was in there. Okay. So that makes sense that he was lying upside down or hanging inverted in a very tight area. Yeah. So he purged out fluid, but the shoe that was in that fluid is on top of the fluid.

And there is no blood or fluid on top of this shoe. So meaning that was already there when the shoe was put in there. So the shoe was put in there like hours after he passed away. Assumidly, because of course we can think of, you know, was he grabbing the shoe? He grabbed the shoe and realized he couldn't. get out. But then, like, I've heard people speculate that, okay, was he already, like, purging fluid and then he dropped the shoe into it? But if you're purging that fluid, you're not conscious. And you're not going to drop anything because when, like, is it rigamortis when that have set in?

Yeah, but you probably would drop the shoe, I would think, like eventually. But it just doesn't make sense that he would be conscious enough to drop that shoe. Right. While I've already perjing already that fluid. Exactly. So that doesn't make sense. sense to me and there's really no explanation to why that shoe is on top of that fluid and that there is no fluid or blood on that shoe. Now, does that shoe ever get identified to a human? I mean, I haven't read anything that said this, but there is speculation that it did, like, belong to him and a friend who were, like, sharing gym shoes.

I will post a photo of the crime scene photo of that shoe so you can see for yourself that it is pristine clean and it's lying in a pool of blood. Because I'm like, in my mind I'm trying to think like, oh, was somebody in gym class, like those were not their gym shoes. So they just tossed them in the mat where people toss their things. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm like, is that a possible answer? Yeah.

And then they were like, oh, shit, I don't want that connected to me. Like forget my shoes. Yeah, like they just threw them in there and then were like, oh, shit. Yeah. That's fucked up too. So that person should be. You can't be doing that. Yeah, you can't do that.

Possible answer, I guess. It absolutely is. So we're going to come back to the CCTV footage later because I'm sure people are like, wait a second, you said there was cameras in this gym, what the hell happened? Right. Oh yeah. You'd think that would be a help, but trust me, it's not. The evidence is gone, huh? So he is obviously taken for autopsy. It's done initially by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. So the cause of death that was found, and it was done, the initial autopsy was done by Dr. Watson. The initial cause of death was found to be positional asphyxia. So he suffocated in the mat.

He did. That's what they're saying. But here's the thing with positional asphyxia. It's very rare. It's often found in infants in, like, car seats or something. where somebody will put their child, an infant in a car seat and let them fall asleep. And then the infant will flex their neck forward to touch, like their chin will touch their chest. Yeah.

And they'll cut off their airway and they will asphyxiate that way. Okay. Or the kid will put their head in a different position like back or to the side. It's like hyperflection and they will suffocate. So they're saying that because he was upside down, with and he was upside down for what they determined to be 21 hours wow yeah so he was upside down in that mat for 21 hours they're saying that he was smushed in there couldn't breathe cut off all oxygen because now his body is cutting off any air coming from the top so he's nothing he can't

breathe in there he's being smushed and he's upside down so he's suffocated now that's a fucking nightmare Yeah, the thing is, it's a lot of it has to do with hyperflection of the neck that I found, like all the cases of positional asphyxia. Did he have room for his neck to be hyperflexed? Well, no, and gravity wouldn't allow it because hyperflection is like when you put your head back, so like the back of your head's touching your, you know, almost touching your back. Right, right. Or your chin is touching your chest. He was just hanging there. So, of course it may, could he asphyxiate?

Absolutely. it's a very big possibility. Yeah. And being upside down for that long, you are going to die. Eventually, all the blood's going to rush your head. Your blood can't be in your head for that long. Yeah, and you're going to go unconscious, then you're going to lack oxygen and boom, you're done. But it is, and I think the doctors are even kind of like a positional asphyxia is kind of one of those like, yeah, we're going to call it that kind of thing.

Because we don't know what else to call it. We don't know what else to call it. But they basically said it was accidental. This was a tragic accident. I don't believe that at all. Well, in what the sheriff's department concluded, they were like, okay, it's an accident. It's a tragic accident. What they said was they were like, okay.

So he had some kind of gym-related class at that time that he was in the gym. They said multiple sources said he and another student, like I was saying, shared a pair of gym sneakers. Yeah. And they said one class he would use them, the other class the other student would use them. In between, they would store them in one of those mats. so that the other one could just retrieve them whenever they needed. Right. So they said January 10th, when he disappeared,

was a few days after everyone had come back from winter break, and the gyms had been cleaned and organized and tidied up. Apparently, some of the mats that were laying on the ground had been straightened up to stand up against the wall. So it covered his shoes. And they were saying what probably happened was they were using one of the mats that was laying down. which would make it easy to grab the shoes in and out of.

Yep. And it got turned. But that mat had got turned up. But then why would you dive in? He wouldn't dive into a mat to get his shoe. That doesn't make any sense. Exactly. So, and that's why this doesn't jive with me.

Because the Sheriff's Department wants everyone to believe Kendrick was reaching in for his shoes. And just fell. They would have been like six feet deep. Well, they're saying he just fell face forward into this. And it's like, no. That doesn't make any sense. So the mat itself was measured to be, the opening was measured to be 14 inches. Okay.

His shoulders were 19 inches across. Right. So it just doesn't really make sense. He had to be like actually like genuinely like smushed in there. And the only thing I can think of is he was reaching with one arm down to get that shoe. And that makes your shoulder. there's less wide if you do that. But even that, even if I'm willing to to concede that, he's not going head first into a upright mat to get his shoes. Because if anything, you'd just

knock the mat over. Exactly. You'd knock the mat over and you have your shoe. Exactly. It's like, you would just look to see which one had your shoe. Maybe you would like peek over the top to see if which one had your shoe. When you see your shoes, you just tip the mat over and get it that way. And the other thing, had he fallen in, I feel like in an accident, he'd be yelling for somebody to come help him. Thank you. That is my other thing is, again, this is like 1.30 in the afternoon.

There's people coming in and out of that gym. There was a basketball game, like a pickup basketball game, going on in that gym. If he fell into that mat, he would start yelling. You would be screaming for someone to help you. You're stuck in you're panicking. Someone would hear him. It's a small gym.

And it's a gym. He's going to echo off the wall. They're going to hear you outside. It takes a while to suffocate like a... Exactly. You're not going to go unconscious right away. That's just not how it works. And that's not what happened. How did no one hear him screaming for help?

There's no way that you would be upside down in a mat, suffocating and not being able to move and panicking and not screaming or making some kind of noise. And in the first place, I don't think he entered that mat alive. No. Already. I'm like, no. Thank you. And that's where I sit. don't I can't tell you what happened. But he didn't go in there alive. I don't think he went in there

alive. I just don't. I don't believe that. Maybe, maybe alive, but not conscious. Exactly. Because he, would he have had to be alive to do, to be leaking? No. I hate saying that. No, he wouldn't. Okay. Okay. So maybe he, yeah, he either wasn't conscious or he wasn't alive. There's no. It just happened shortly after death. So it's, I don't believe he entered that alive or at the very least he didn't enter conscious. I really don't. I agree with you. I don't think this was a tragic accident where he fell face first into a mat. No, because he just never would have, he never would have dived or dove, however you want to say it, into a mat to get a shoot. That's literally preposterous. And that's the thing that like, no matter what kind of evidence they bring forth to be

like, oh, this was a tragic accident, I can't get my brain around the idea that like, I mean, teenagers are stupid but that's not I don't know anybody who would dive head first into something that is very clearly too small for them to get to we're also like pretty lazy we wouldn't go to that effort we just kick them out over but that's the thing it's like I love how you're saying we like you're a teenager still no I realize that after I said it I feel like I put myself back in the gym for this episode to like you were like you know us youths no but you know what I mean like I'm thinking of myself in that gym and like what I would have done. So I'm like, teenage me would never be like, I'm going to fucking muster up the effort to dive in there. I'd be like, fuck that. Well, and the other thing is it's like, okay, these mats are six feet tall. Right. So did you jump up in there?

The math doesn't add up. Like you wouldn't, I don't think Kendrick would look at this six foot tall mat and be like, okay, if I squeeze my head down into this mat and try to get it that way, you're, you're not even going to be. it'll reach the bottom. Never mind, get yourself back up. Your whole body is going to be in that mat now, and you know this. The other thing is he wouldn't have been able to just, like, standing, like, peek in there. He would have had to, like, jump or something onto it, thus making it fall down. Which in any event, he would just be like, let me just knock this over real quick and get my shoes. Like, so moral of the story is that didn't happen. Too much work. It's too much work. And it's logically just doesn't make sense. It really doesn't. So what did happen? So, so, so, All right. So there is a death scene video that the investigators took where they're walking from the parking lot into the crime scene and they have every, you know, they give you the whole scene.

And it shows the mat that Kendrick was found in is on its side like they had because they had knocked it over the kids and the teacher to get him out. And when you look at it, it's next to a bunch of other mats. So I still want to know, like, how did he get up there to begin? Because if you're telling me, you're telling me, what I can believe is I can believe something happened and I can believe someone knocked a mat down, shoved him in there and then stood it back up. Right. Yep. What I can't believe is that he somehow got into, like in this mat himself, because I don't know

how he even got in there if that's the case. Somebody had to have put him in in, and I agree with you, while it was laying horizontally and then just pushed it back up. Because there's mats on either side of the mat that he was in. So it's like, how would he even got up? up there. Right. It would have had to been laying in the middle of those two mats like protruding outwards. Yeah, it's very strange. It's strange. And then like we said, the noise factor, he would be screaming or making some kind of noise. Someone would see struggling in that mat. He would be

thrashing around trying to get out. Right. Somebody would be like, why is that mat like grooving over there? And somebody would be like, yelling. Yeah. Like, come on. And it's like, and honestly, I think it's pretty insulting that the sheriff's department is spinning that tail and being like everyone just believe that because it's like yeah wow you must really think we're stupid well because if you take literally three seconds to give that a shot in your mind you're like no you can that doesn't make any like I wouldn't do that and I don't think anybody else would either and that's the thing it's like you you can sure you can be like wow that yeah maybe it's a tragic accent and then as soon as you look even just past the little film that's in front of your face you're like oh and you can just pull that

shit right apart. You're like, none of that makes sense at all. But I think people like a quick answer. They like to be like, oh, nothing happened. That's such a bummer. Let's move on now. And it sounds like they really wanted to, you know, get this gone. Yeah. So speaking of the crime scene. Yes. The crime scene was not exactly taken care of. Good. In the crime scene, the death scene video where, like, you see the investigators point of view walking into the scene, you can see that none of them are wearing covering on their shoes. Which is a big no-no. Yeah, that's a big no-no.

It's definitely like, why? And it's funny to me that they're even being photographed with that lack of PPE because it's like, wow. You really want to put that on the record that you just were not careful at all. Yeah, we're just like, all right. I mean, cool, dude. All right. But so, yeah, so they're not wearing coverings on their shoes, which not only makes, you know, them look bad in the sense that they're traipsing around the, or they're getting stuff on their own shoes and bringing it elsewhere. But it's also your traipsing all over evidence and bringing things in off your freaking shoes.

That's going to make for a very tough investigation. Exactly, which, lucky for them, they didn't really want to do an investigation to begin with. So they didn't really, they already, they went into this scene saying, oh, it's an accident. That's it. And then not even going to look into anything else. Even going back a little bit, like the things that you're bringing in, you're in a school. There's DNA fucking everywhere. Like, exactly.

And they didn't cord and off the crime scene. So they didn't put crime scene tape anywhere. People were walking in and out of there. They did not. People could come as close as they want. They also, so there's the unknown. pair of shoes, and there's also another pair of shoes and a hoodie that was around these mats. No one ever collected these things or asked where they came from or found out where they came from.

That's the main thing. I want to know who this other pair of shoes belongs to. Yeah, they never looked into it because they didn't collect these things as evidence. Yeah, it could be explained away, like how I explained it earlier, but that could also be a pretty big lead. And you have to treat everything like a lead when you're investigating something. Well, and it would also help them establish times of death and times of when he was assaulted, if he was assaulted, when he was assaulted. Because if some kid is saying, oh, yeah, I threw my mat, my shoes up into that mat without even looking, those are my shoes. Then they could go, what time did you do that? Like, what time was your gym class? And when they find out what time, cool, well, he was already in the mat at that time.

So now we know that it's this smaller chunk of time instead of 21 hours that we have to work with. Or just look at like what gym classes were in the gym at that time. And, in, it's, interview all the people. Who was in there. Exactly. There was also dried blood on the wall near the mat, like smeared on the wall. Which how did have happened if he was inside the mat the whole time. Well, that blood didn't belong to him. Oh. But they never found out who it belonged to. Yeah, why is there just blood in a gym? So they just didn't find, they, once it was said that it wasn't his, they were like, oh, then we don't care. And it's like, well, what if that was his attacker's blood? Which it most likely was, because how often do you just find blood in a gym?

Exactly. So the other crazy thing to me is that investigators waited six hours from when they found his body to when they called the coroner. What? Why? Yep. So the Louns County coroner was Bill Watson. And they literally waited six hours. So that makes it harder to determine cause of death, time of death, anything. harder is not even the word for it. Like, makes it near impossible. Well, and not only that, it's against the law. It's a violation. It's a violation of Georgia law. Because Georgia law says, and I quote,

and I quote, upon receipt of the notice required by codes so saying when you find a dead body. Yeah. The coroner or county medical examiner shall immediately take charge of the body. If a registered professional nurse authorized to make. a pronouncement of death under code section blah blah or a qualified physician is not available a coroner deputy coroner or medical examiner's investigator may make a pronouncement of death at the investigation scene if and only if one of the following conditions is met and then it says you know the body is in a state of decomposition the body is skeletonized the death has been established by quality

or qualified emergency medical services personnel okay so what it's saying is as soon as as you find a dead body that is dead in a manner, you know, a violent or unnatural way. Yeah. You immediately call the coroner or the medical examiner's office and they have to immediately, they take ownership of that body immediately. Yeah. Duh. Six hours is totally against that law.

Completely against it. And what Bill Watson said, the coroner, he said, quote, when they asked him, you know, what does six hours do with like, what? between waiting to call you. And he said, quote, well, it compromises my investigation 100%. I don't know what the county sheriff's office personnel did when they got on the scene. The death scene, in my opinion, has been completely compromised. Yeah, you would think.

And he works for the county. And he's saying, like, they fucked up. I don't, like, I got what I got. But I can't tell you that this is what it is. I got it six hours later. Because it's like, this is also going to come down on him. And it's not his fucking fault, really. And that's why he ends up just being like, well, positional asphyxia, that's all I can tell you.

Right. Because everything else is compromised. I don't have anything else to go off of. Like, you're supposed to be able to get to the scene. You're supposed to get, be able to get like a liver temperature on the body. You're supposed to be able to... Get the whole thing roped off. See the body in its state that it was found in.

Like, it had already been moved several times. There was already people walking through this crime scene. I mean, he... Different DNA, different markings, like, validity. Yeah, he got fucked out of how. having an actual, like, decent death investigation. So, on May 23, 2013, reports came out written by two paramedics

that arrived on the scene from South Georgia Medical Center, mobile health care service. And these two reports of the two paramedics that were on scene, they said that the office, they said right to the officers when they got there, they were like, guys, this should be closed off as a homicide scene. Right. Like the paramedics take one look at this kid and we're like, why is this not closed off as a homicide?

Right. And the officers were like, oh, we think it's an accidental death, blah, blah, blah. And they were like, from what we saw, and they signed, these are reports that they signed, they said what we saw was foul play. That's what we saw. And that this kid obviously something else happened here. Uh-huh. They basically, and like I said, they didn't collect any evidence from the scene. They just kind of left everything and were like, oh, track.

accident, that sucks. See you later. Right. Like they made that decision right away and they did not, you're supposed to work a scene as if you have no idea what happened. You're not supposed to go in there and automatically have this is an accident, so I'm going to treat it as. Yeah, you need to treat it as I need to find out anything that possibly could have happened here. Even if you go in there and you're like, I think this was an accident, you need to go, but what if it wasn't? And prove it. Right. Yeah. The United States Attorney for the Middle District of of Georgia, Michael Moore, announced on October 31st, 2013, that the FBI was going to investigate

the circumstances of Kendrick Johnson stuff. Yeah, you would think so. So now we're going to go back to, because this is when things start heating up, now they're looking at all this stuff, and they're like, wait a second, where's the CCTV footage? Because there's four cameras in here. The police did not get this right away. They didn't ask for it right away. Which they should have because now there's been time to get rid of it.

Now they've just let the school hang with the CCTV footage. And sometimes things are cut off. You know, like it will only be from a certain date to the certain date and then it gets rid of everything else. Exactly, which that's not what happened here, but they literally just let them have this footage for however long to do whatever. So hit me up with what happened. And then they asked, and when they police asked them to turn it over, they didn't go and get it or have somebody bring it to them, like an IT person. They just asked the school. They were like, can you just give us what you have from that day?

So they let the school determine what they thought, yeah, would be turned over. No. Now, when have you ever heard of that happening? Well, when a forensic, you'd be surprised. This happens a lot. That's how, that's when you hear like, oh, but there's surveillance footage and you're like, where'd it go? Right.

This is exactly why. So frustrating. They had a forensic specialist, like a video surveillance specialist look into this video footage that they got. Okay. And what he said was he said, these are not the original files. Like the police did not get an original copy of this. They got a copied copy. And they said, something was altered here. And he said, the image quality was altered. So he said it's much grainyer than what it should be. And he said, there's definitely information lost because of that. And he also said a number of files were corrupted because of the processing process.

And he said there was tons of fuckups with that. So he said there's a ton of corrupt files. And he said there is also a hole in time where no camera provides any record. That makes that gives me the creeps. That is freaky as fuck. And like I said, there was four cameras in that gym. And so the one camera records until 12.04 p.m. that day. Then there's nothing.

Yeah, no. And then it picks back up at 109 p.m. Why? That doesn't make any sense. The second camera recorded until 11.05 a.m. and then nothing and then picks up at 1.15 p.m. The third camera records until 11.05 a.m. then nothing and then picks up at 11.15 p.m. No. The fourth camera records until 12.04 p.m. and then nothing and then picks up again at 109 p.m.

That's fucking terrifying. because you know why that's so scary. Somebody that worked at that school had to sit there and get rid of that fucking footage and knows exactly what was on that footage. That's what is so frustrating. That gives me the chills because it's like, you know what happened and whatever happened was not good. No, and these are a couple of hours for all of these cameras that are just not accounted

for. Right. They're just not accounted for. And it's like, we should have this whole thing on camera. There's four cameras in that gym. Right. What the fuck? That's the whole purpose of them being there.

So I think this is, I mean, the family, Kendrick Johnson's family immediately had their ears perked up right from the gecko. Because they're like, nobody cares and you're fucking up this investigation. Well, they could see from the gecko that this was being treated as this was a tragic accident, let it go. Nope. Move on. And don't let go. Well, when this whole CCTV thing came out, they were like, what the fuck? This is not an accident.

So there is a lot of. photos that go along with this case. There's a lot of photos of Kendrick after his death that are very scary. They're not pretty. They're not found one of them. They're real gruesome. If you're going to go look for them, just be they're everywhere. I mean, literally everywhere.

But just be forewarn that it's a lot. You're going to see a lot. It's not the fact that it's like a dead body. It's the fact that it's a dead body in the condition it was in that you're trying to tell me it was an accident. And it's like, no. Yeah. It's definitely, he looks very deformed. And a lot of people got into a big, like, hoopla about these photos because also the family themselves were the ones who released these photos to the public. So they, like, they want you to see these photos because they want you to see. Because they're like, this wasn't a fucking accident. Yeah. Exactly. So this is like, if you're looking for them, like, know that the family, you have the family's blessing to look at them because they want you to see. But the problem was, there's one problem. here. There's one photo that he looks decidedly worse in, and it's a close-up of his face. He's very

bloated, very disfigured. I mean, his lips are all messed up. They're swollen. I mean, he does not look. He looks like somebody took something very heavy and just slammed it into his face. I mean, it's a really bad photo. That's the photo that the family used a lot on their signs and stuff to be like look look at his face like how can you tell me this is an accident that he died of asphyxiation like this is not but the problem with that was they were saying this is what he looked like when he was found that's not what he looked like when it was six hours after nope it was after an autopsy now if you don't know what happens in an autopsy that might not mean a lot to you because you're like okay well whatever but the problem with that one is

is when you look at the photo of him right after they found him, he still looks horrible. I mean, he's still disfigured because he's swollen and his features don't look like him. Because, again, all the fluids and blood rushed to his head and his face. Right. So he looks very bloated, very swollen, very, it's scary. But this other photo just looks drastically different. And they were putting these on signs and saying this is what he looked like. He obviously was beaten.

He was obviously assaulted, blah, blah, blah, which I get. I totally get. But the reason is, the first time that the family saw him was after his autopsy, they saw this. Right. That doesn't look like your child. And if I saw that, I would be like someone assaulted my child. Yeah. There's no. So I totally get why they took that and were like, this is a beating. But the problem is it misled a lot of people into thinking that that is the face of somebody who's beaten in the face. When in reality, in the autopsy report, I have the autopsy report. I have the autopsy report. report right here. They did open his skull to look at his brain. So when you open someone's skull, the way you do it is you make an incision around the back of the head, connecting the temporal bones, then you flay the scalp forward, laying it on the face. And what happens is the skin of your face is going to slip down. It's going to be different than what you look like.

Normally. Yeah. And then they're going to use a bone saw to open up the skull, take the brain out, put it back on, then you just kind of pull the scout back on top of that kind of like wonky skull cap, basically. But it won't look the same as what it did before. You're going to look a little different. Yeah. Yeah. The skin is going to slip. It's going to loosen up. It's going to make, and they also, you know, they opened up his larynx. They opened up his neck to look at that. So things are going to shift and move and, you know, along with all the swelling and the fluid and. But it's also, I think it, you know, it would be important to explain that to a family. And I hope that was explained. to them. Exactly. And I think people saw this and thought it was the result of a beating that

he looked like this when in reality, I'm pretty sure it was just from the autopsy that he just happened to look a little different. Yeah. But look, it took you like literally maybe a minute to explain that. Yeah. And that's the thing. Somebody should have just been like, this is obvious. This is not from wounds that he received, you know, from a beating. And that would give the parents like some kind of peace and comfort, you know. Yeah. And honestly, I mean, All photos of him after death are really horrifying anyway. So it's not like you look at it and you're like, yeah. But when you see him right afterwards, he doesn't look like he's been beaten about the face.

But, you know, the other one he does. But they got, a lot of people got upset when they found out that that was from an autopsy and not from that because they felt like they were being misled. Okay. When I don't think that's the case. Right. They just were going with what they are. And I don't think that was the intention, exactly. Exactly.

I don't think that was the case at all. But they did get a little bit in trouble for that. So either way, looking at him again, like I said, not great. He definitely looks real rough. And it probably made it really hard to determine what was a wound and what was just swelling and blood pooling. And like, you're going to have to determine what was a hemorrhage and what is just blood pooling. Well, and the average day-to-day person doesn't realize that all those things happen after death. I mean, you really only understand that if you study death.

Exactly. Are you working like the death industry? In the crime world, you know? Yeah, but after 21 hours inverted in a small hot, cramped position where every fluid is settling into the lowest point of gravity, shit's going to look real rough. And liver mortis is like, like I've said a million times before on this show, liver mortis is when, you know, blood settles in the lowest point of gravity after you die. It's going to be visible to the naked eye within a couple of. of hours after death. It's going to be at its maximum peak between like eight and 12 hours after death.

So he was well over that time frame of being inverted in this strange position. And so he was going to have, I mean, over the peak liver mortis, just like redding of the face, discoloration, swelling, blotching, all that good stuff. All of the above.

Now, Reverend Floyd Rose, he was part of the Valdosta Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the family asked him to aid in an independent investigation into this now, because now they're just looking for any help because no one's listening to them. No one's willing to talk to them. No one's willing to even look at the possibility that this is not a tragic accident. So he agrees to help. He became like a big player in this case.

Like he supported their investigations. And he actually ended up putting his house up for collateral ones. Oh my gosh. When the family and also the supporters of the family ended up doing like a protest at the courthouse and they all ended up getting like arrested for like civil disobedience or something stupid. Which is absolute bullshit. But he put up his house as collateral to bail him out.

Wow. So he like really got into this. Good for him. Later, which we will mention later he does change his tune a little once he gets some more information. So this is when the family requested a second. autopsy because now they're like, fuck you, if you're not going to take us seriously, we need him exhumed. So his body was exhumed. And they hired a private medical examiner named Dr.

William Anderson. Okay. If you Google Dr. William Anderson, he's from Florida. He's done a ton of cases. He's worked with Dr. Michael Baden. Oh, shit. Which like, whoa, whoa, swoon. So he's like a big deal. some high profile cases. He knows what he's doing. Yeah. He found in his second, when he did this second autopsy, he found first, the first thing he noticed was that every organ was removed from Kendrick's body. What? And in its place was newspaper. Okay. Now, the Harrington funeral home in Valdosta, Georgia was like, yep, we did that. funeral director said the organs were gone when they got the body.

Why did they put newspaper in? He said, it's not best practice to use newspaper to fill out a body, but they used to do it back in the day. And what I think they think is that the funeral home offered to do this, you know, embalming and everything and preparing the body for free for the family. Uh-huh. So they might have been doing it the cheapo depot way and just were like, like let's shove newspaper in there.

To fill out the body, you mean to make it, because he would have looked like organs were missing? Well, yeah, when you, you wouldn't believe how much you, your body, its shape relies on all your structures being in place. Like, it's not just your skeleton. No, it's like if you, your organs really do need to be in there to like keep you looking like a human. See, I never actually realized that.

So that's interesting to know. You really wouldn't. Yeah, you really wouldn't. And like when we do an autopsy, if we, because you get consent, that's a big, big thing. To remove the organs. You ask the family, do you want us to return the organs back to the body? Because some people want that. Yeah.

I mean, there's plenty of people that don't want their loved one going into the other world without their organs. Or you say, can we keep the organs for research or donation or. But one way or another, it's the family's decision. The family decides. That is a, that is at least where I work, that is a big part of the consent process is you need to know what to do with those organs. Now, do you know if this family, the Johnson family, was asked? I couldn't find anything that says whether or not they gave consent either way. Right.

So, but it doesn't look like they were psyched about this, but I don't know what the whole thing. Seems like they didn't know. Because it was a big deal that like they found out that his body had newspaper. That I would be. livid to find it out. And I know like when sometimes when bodies will get sent from like a hospital to a funeral home for the embalming process, if they've chosen to keep the organs at like for research purposes not return them to the body, we'll put like big like gauze pads in there.

Okay. Like just to send it over to the funeral home and then I'm not positive what they do over there. I think they use like cotton a lot of the time to fill out a body. that I never knew any of this. That's really crazy to me. Yeah, because especially like things like if you, because a lot of times we'll take like the we and again, you need consent for this.

Yeah. But like if you're doing, you know, research, you can take out eyes. And when you take out eyes immediately, again, you don't even think about it, but your eyes just sink your eye sink right in. So they need to like put something fake in there. But yeah, it's the rest of the body's the same. way. Wow. That's cool, but also not cool. So I think it was strange. A lot was made out of that, but it ends up just being like, yeah, that happens. It's not best practice to put newspaper in there,

I guess, but like they used to do it and maybe this was just one. They were trying to cut corners. I don't like that. But the Georgia Secretary of State Office did investigate the funeral home just to be sure and they didn't find any wrongdoing. practice. Okay. But, and this is what's confusing to me, the funeral home had signed off saying, because again, when you release a body to a funeral home, you're releasing the belongings, too, and the things on the body. Okay. And they signed a thing that said that they received him with all organs, and they signed that they received him with the original clothing that he was wearing, but all of those things are missing. Okay. So what did this funeral home do? And that was just kind of like,

with the organs of like? Not sure. Or were they, did they do something with the organs? Or were they lying and they said that it did have the organs when it didn't? And also, why lie about that? Like, it's also not something that you just like sign that waiver that like, like, yeah, we got everything like moving on. Yeah.

No, that's a big deal. Like you can't, you can't just assume that all the organs are in there. You got to make sure. Like you got to. Yeah. I wouldn't send my loved one to this funeral home. Yeah. That would be like us releasing a body and like not checking the toe tag and just being like,

yeah, I bet that's Sam. You know what I mean? Like that's just like releasing the wrong body. Like you have to be sure about these things. This is a human being. It's a very big deal. This is a human being. This is someone's loved one.

You need to take, yeah, take a few extra moments and inconvenienced yourself to make sure that you have all of. It shouldn't even be an inconvenience. Like, yeah. It's just very, it's the whole thing is very strange. Yeah. So that was the first. thing that they found during the second autopsy. Like what? Then they went on to find the cause of death and see if they agreed that it was

positional asphyxia and if it was accidental. Well, this medical examiner did not agree with that cause of death. What did he think? What he thought was he thought it was blunt force trauma to the neck. Okay. And in the actual autopsy report, the cause of death is blunt force trauma trauma, right neck, acute hemorrhage, soft tissues of upper neck, acute periostal hemorrhage, posterior body, and right mandible, areas of acute hemorrhage involving carotid artery bifurcation and carotid body. Okay, so something very different than exfixiation. Exactly. So what they are saying is that somebody, and what he initially said was somebody did some kind of karate chop motion to the back of his neck.

And what I found was that he was claiming that it hit in a spot and in such a way that it hit the bifurcation of the carotid artery, which is when it like splits off. And it caused immediate like heart stop. Wow. Because your carotid arteries are very important to your heart. But you would have had to hit very hard for that. Right? Well, there's also no, I don't.

think there's any precedent set for that. Like I, from what I could see a lot of other medical examiners that were asked about this were like, I've literally never heard of that happening. Like, it's never been a thing. But I guess he's saying, so he's saying there's a bruise on the back of his neck that was not noted in the first autopsy. And he's saying that this bruise, which is only two to three centimeters long, so it's small. But he's saying he thinks that is where something happened. That's the blunt force drama. I just don't think that, I mean, it's, I don't know. I have absolutely like no medical knowledge, but to think that somebody could do that with their hand and then only leave a two centimeter bruise. Well, and they're not, he's not saying it's,

it necessarily had to be a hand. Okay. But it's got it like, like a karate chop kind of motion. So it could be with something. Okay. But the, and he said basically the cause of death was the blunt force trauma and then he was put upside down and nothing. Okay. So there are, and like I said earlier, I think I saw like people on like Reddit and stuff talking about Dr. Anderson, this medical examiner. And a couple of people who you could see were very biased on the side of like, this is an accident.

They're trying to get it to be a murder. We're like, oh, Dr. Anderson like got fired from multiple jobs and he's not like a real medical examiner. That's bullshit. Oh, well, that's weird. certified forensic pathologist. Like, he is certified. I swear he's, like, more certified than the guy from the West Memphis three case.

That is what is wrong with the internet is you can just say anything you want to fucking say and call it fact. And if you, you can be so biased on one side and then just like tilt the narrative to fit that. And it's like, no, that's not true. Like, he was not fired. Like, is that two to three centimeter long bruise kind of like, I don't know about that? Yeah. Sure. But I'm, like, one, I'm not.

doctor and two that doesn't mean he is he's a reputable medical examiner right like he's i'm not going to take that away i was just because he can't take that away he's a good medical examiner so who knows i'm just we just got to put the facts out so many twists and turns so on march 17th 2014 CNN reporters said that they got uh an anonymous email they got this um they or they didn't get it, but they were able to get access to it through the Georgia Open Records Act. Okay. And this anonymous email was sent to the Sheriff's Department. Okay. It was dated January 27th, 2014, and it was written by a teenage girl, but she wanted to be anonymous, but they ended up obviously finding out who she was. I didn't know about this. I knew a little about this case going in,

but I definitely didn't know this. Yeah, there's a lot of twisties. On the edge of my seat, not even lying to you. It's very stressful. Um, but she said, in this email that someone had confessed to murdering KJ. And it explained where this confession took place when, you know, why and how. She named four students and investigators spoke to these four students and ended up ruling them out very quickly. Several accused trial actually stood in front of a grand jury to testify, but nothing came out of it. And they're not identified? No, they're not identified.

But because, and they were found to be not guilty. Not connected. Now, I do have the email. So I'm just going to read the email that was given. It says, My best friend was at a party Saturday night with Redacted. And Redacted was upset about something that Redacted had said to her. So her and my best friend started talking.

And by the end of the night, Redacted had told my friend everything that the whole nation has been wondering for the past year. She told my friend what really. really happened to Kendrick Johnson. Redacted said that about a little over a year ago, she had sexual intercourse with Kendrick Johnson while she was dating Redacted. Redacted found out and threatened KJ. KJ told Redacted to meet him in the old gym

after third block and he would have his knife ready. Redacted, Redacted, Redacted, Redacted, Redacted, met KJ and killed him. Oh my God. Redacted also had been heard admitting to killing KJ more than once over the phone. His brother, redacted, also got drunk at a party on the 4th of July and told many people that redacted killed KJ and that he redacted was tired of keeping it a secret.

So that's fucked up. So that email is crazy. It names, when it brings up the brother, like this person's brother said that, blah, blah, there are two brothers that are brought into this, but we're quickly said not to be. I don't know. That seems like a very clear picture. And it kind of does make sense because you would need multiple people there, in my opinion, to get one person. I don't think one person could have put another person in the mat.

I think you'd need at least two people. I definitely think that if this is the case, then I think there's definitely more than one person involved. And like teenage boys and girls, it's like, oh, Oh, God. Exactly. And everything's very dramatic and very life and death when you're a teenager. And so nothing really came out of this because they were like, well, we talked to them and they, no. I want to know how they ended up ruling it out.

They just kind of, they were like, yeah, they had they said some of them had alibis and they were like some of them just doesn't match up. And they didn't have evidence. Okay. All they have is this girl, this random teenage girl saying that she heard it. Right. It's the same as like the West Memphis three. You hear something. That is true.

You could be lying. but I don't know. But it's all fishy. Now, July 28, 2014, the Johnson family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Lowndes County High School, the superintendent, and the principal, and the Board of Education.

Good. The lawsuit specifically said that this boy, a student who went to school with Kendrick, named Brandon Bell, had attacked Kendrick before many times, sometimes in front of authority figures and was bullying him.

And they said his mother had complained to the school before and nothing had been done about it. And Bell was a wrestler. He had a younger brother named Brian Bell. And their father, Rick Bell, happens to be an FBI agent. Oh, okay. So that's interesting. Real interesting. Jackie and Kenneth, Kendrick's parents, said,

He was being bullied. Like, he was not friends with these boys. He was being bullied by them. The brothers claim up and down that they were friends with Kendrick. They never had bad blood with him. Doesn't sound like it. They were friends when he died. It's all very shady.

I highly doubt that. But his parents, his parents swear that they were not friends. So, it's like different stories on either side. But Brandon Bell was on his way to a wrestling. tournament when Kendrick was supposedly killed. Okay. So he does have an alibi. The bus left supposedly at 1230 to go to this wrestling tournament.

Kendrick was alive and on film at 1.30 entering the gym. Later, there was some like hoopla because people were looking into like the trip like itinerary and stuff for that day trying to, because you know, like websites and all that. And they were trying to find out, you know, like, did it actually leave at 1230, or is he just hanging on to this story because he doesn't think people are going to look into it? Right.

And a teacher had previously put an itinerary of the trip somewhere online. Uh-huh. And it said the wrestling match started at 4 that day. So. And people thought that this meant that the bus left at 4. So it became like a thing like he could have been in the gym. But it turns out the wrestling match started at 4. It likely left before he was dead.

But we can't be sure. Sure. Everything's kind of wonky. One was the wrestling match like four hours away? I'm confused. It was. It was in a different county. So it was far away. And then his brother was supposedly in class at the other end of the school when all this was happening. So it's like, but the Johnsons believe this whole thing is a cover up because their father is an FBI agent. They can make whatever they want to happen.

And this, I was going to say they made. whatever happened that they wanted with the footage. So it's not... Yeah. It's not unlikely that a teacher would be like, nope, he was in class. And what they believe is that the school is in on this cover-up. They probably got paid off or something. And that it's a whole conspiracy theory. Yeah. Which, I mean, you can look at it from the side of like, no, that doesn't make any sense. And you can also look at it on the side of...

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So it's like... Have you ever heard of hush money? It's not crazy to think that this could have happened. It's not. This makes me, it bums me out that shit like this still happens. Yeah. And I guess there's CCTV footage showing Brian Bell walking away from the gym at one point in a white zip-up shirt.

And what people thought looked like a stain of possible blood on his right arm. But that was actually just a logo on, like that, but the CCTV footage was so grainy that it made it look like a swipe of blood. Jesus. But they showed the thing and it does, it is just a logo. But it also shows how quickly like you can jump to a conclusion. And then you're like, oh, shit. And then it comes forward and you're like, damn it.

Right. These brothers did refuse to cooperate with this investigation at all. They didn't want to help at all. That's nice. If you were friends, you would think that you'd want to help. Exactly. And there was interviews with them. Like people did interviews with them.

I think there's only like one interview with them. And they're very adamant that they had nothing to do with it, that they were friends with Kendrick. And they were like, people can judge us however they want, but we know the truth and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, to be honest, one of them seems more convincing than the other ones. One of them I was looking at and I was like, sir, you should probably try a little harder. Well, dad's an FBI agent. He doesn't have to. That's the problem, man.

That's what keeps you coming back to that, is you're like, they have. that that is working against them in this situation. You imagine you work your fucking whole life to be an FBI agent and one of your kids kills somebody? Not saying that happened because we don't know. But can you imagine? Then you're like, cool. Thanks a lot.

Yeah, you're like, awesome. They did confiscate the phones, computers, and records from Brandon Bell, Brian Bell, their father, Rick Bell, and Brian Bell's girlfriend. They were all seized. They found nothing. Well, he's in the FBI, too. Probably knows how I get rid of information. That's the other thing.

It's like, this is all well and fine, but he's an FBI. Right. They have a lot of power. Now, later, Brandon Bell actually got like a crazy football scholarship to Florida State University as a linebacker, but they withdrew that scholarship because they were just... Too much in question. They were worried about the potential of them possibly giving a scholarship to a potential murder.

I mean, yeah. which that really sucks if he didn't do it. That's the thing. If he didn't do it, that sucks. That's really sad. Because then it's like two lives are a little bit. I mean, his life is. Yeah, or affected.

Yeah. But like affected by this, you know. But if he did do it, like, good. So January 2015, the Johnsons filed a $100 million lawsuit saying Rick Bell ordered his sons to kill Kendrick. So they filed a suit. saying this whole thing was planned. Hold up. What? Yeah, that it was a big conspiracy theory, a big cover-up.

Now, unfortunately, they didn't have a whole lot to back this up besides just them saying it. Is he like a known racist or something? Like, is that what they're trying to say? I don't think so because I feel like if you're an FBI agent, you have to like, you can't be a known racist. You at least have to not outwardly portray your racism, I would assume. But what are they going off of that the dad wanted this to happen? well, that's the thing.

It's just like, I think that's the thing that was working against the Johnson's a little bit is they started getting a little too, they were casting their net a little too wide. Okay. When it comes to what they were going to accuse people of. Because they just wanted backfires, I mean. They just want answers. And that's, they deserve answers. Yeah, and you're going to go to all these wild places in your mind when your child is taken from you.

Right. Yeah. And my God, I hope they get answers because I want answers. But, yeah. November 2015, the Department of Justice filed a motion to stay, the case. And a stay of proceeding would mean that they would stop all further legal process. This can be lifted later, but this motion was denied. So Kendrick's mother, Jackie, decided she was going to dismiss that original $100 million lawsuit

because she said they wanted to find out what the Department of Justice was going to see during their own investigation. Right. And then they would figure it out from there. So then the Johnson's got sued themselves. By who? For $850,000 for attorney fees. For attorney fees and for defamation. Okay. I knew it was going to be defamation. There was a lot of people, like I said, that they brought into this. There was a lot of names that they threw out that they accused. And these people were getting like death threats and people getting like, you know, reputations ruined obviously. and all that. When you think about it, it's like an FBI agent, a superintendent of a school, a whole school. It's starting to get crazy.

So they did get sued themselves for the attorney fees of these people. So June 20th, 2016, the Department of Justice announced no criminal charges would be brought forth for Johnson's death. They said they couldn't find anything criminal about it. Now, this is when in 2016, the anonymous got into this. You know who anonymous is. Yes. Well, or isn't. So they got into this whole thing.

And they decided that they were going to take a look at it because, you know, that's what they do. They look at these kind of things and they decide, you know, whether it's worth getting into themselves. And they looked at it. They looked into it, and they immediately were like, oh, this is a fucking cover up. Yeah, of course it is. And we're going to expose this shit. So they put out like a 10-minute video that was basically them going over just everything that they had that they said, look, this is a cover-up. I keep getting the craziest body chills throughout this.

Right? Like my whole like. And the video was online. But I'm going to play like the end of this video. because it will give you like the hebi jibis so let me just get the video oh shit i already have chills dude there is a cover up of mass proportions involved as to georgia there is no way that the official starry could be the truth kj was found beaten and bloody stuffed inside of a meth that he could have gotten out of the collection of evidence was mishandled purposely to help cover up the crime

the surveillance was edited with hours deleted the only DNA tested the blood on wall to match kj's and it didn't match. What really happened to Kendrick Johnson that day? Who killed that boy before he could begin exploring life after high school? Why did the authorities not do a full and complete investigation into the death of this team? With every piece of new evidence that is revealed there are more questions raised than answers given. Some black students were told they were not allowed to be interviewed by law enforcement. Administration at Mounds High School told students if they talked. Their graduation would be threatened. The people were not allowed to be interviewed. The people were not allowed to be interviewed. The people were not. of Valdastra know a cover-up has taken place in that local law enforcement will harass and arrest them for providing false statements. The people are afraid of the backlash if they come forward. The time has come for those people to join the fight for justice. Expose the corrupt for who they are. Expose the racism that is alive and well in Valdastra. The time has come to stand against the oppressors and fight for the truth. We are anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Georgia, you should have expected us.

Yo, I'm freaking the fuck out right now. I don't know why I almost started crying. Like, I'm a little bit crying. Doesn't it make you like, overwhelmed? Yeah. Because you just feel it. Like, you're like, fuck yeah. Like, come, figure out what happened.

Why wasn't this hell? Holy shit, I'm moved. It moves you. It really does. Yeah. The fact that I didn't, I didn't know that they threatened their graduation if they talked. Isn't that crazy? Like, that's the shit I'm talking about. I don't give a fuck about walking across your dumbass stage anyway. Seriously, like, fuck you. Like, what? And that's the thing.

And it's like, like, people of color in Valdasta, Georgia have been stifled from speaking up before. Right. There was a recent article where there was a recent political rally of some sort, where people of color were taken out of this and not allowed to even be part of it. I knew that. That's like, and it was, and it happened several times. And it's like, there is a history of this happening. And it's like, it does need to be addressed and it does need to be taken into account during this case. I just don't understand. Like, I cannot wrap my head around 2020, this still existing. And I'm not saying it doesn't. I'm saying I know that it does. And I can't wrap my head around the fact that people are still so ignorant. And so racism is. so crazy to me. It's like, right, hating someone because they look different from you. Like, have a different color of skin. Right. It just doesn't make sense. Why is one better than the other? It's beyond my comprehension. And maybe it's because like, I mean, it is you grow up in a

family and it's told to you from whatever. Right. But like, it happened to grow up in a family that was told the exact opposite. Inclusive of all. Right. So I guess that's why. One race. Like I know that racism exist in a lot of different races, but especially in the community of people of color. And it's like, yeah, like, like black people are still not allowed to get ahead. And it's not, get go for a jog. You can't go to school. They're silenced. You can't go to the corner store. You can't even, I mean, you can't even sit in your own house. Remember the guy recently who the police officer walked into his fucking house and shot him dead while he was eating ice cream on his couch? Yeah. Not bothering a single person. It's, sorry, that's so frustrated.

It pisses me off. That's why it's like, no matter what happened here, this was not investigated properly. And it's, and it wasn't investigated properly quite possibly because he is a black kid. And this is, it's not fair. Like, if it was a tragic accident, okay, but prove to me that it's a tragic accident by doing your fucking due diligence and get me the evidence that says it is. Because right, right now. You're not giving it to me. Right.

It's, and why? Why are you not doing it? Because it's like, so far, sure, I can, somewhere in my mind I can be like, maybe this was a tragic accident, but you're not proving it to me. I don't have, I can't say for, like, but in my heart, I don't believe that Kendrick Johnson went into that mat, fully conscious. Nope. Not one ounce of me thinks that.

I just don't. I don't think it happened that way. Nope. But unfortunately, so far, we have not. Not found out yet. But when was that statement released by Anonymous? That was in 2016. Okay.

So it did like, you know, people started looking more into it. I mean, they let out some stuff that people didn't know about. But again, not a lot was done because this case is like at a grinding halt. Right. But then in August, on August 10th, 2017, the Johnsons ended up having to pay $200,000 of that $850,000 lawsuit for attorney's fees. So the Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine, he's a dozy. Bad dozy or a good dozy? A bad dozy. So CNN did it did like agreed they did an interview with him or he agreed to do an interview with them. So CNN shows up. He welcomes them

into his office and then immediately when they're like, okay, we'd like to talk about like, you know, the Kendrick Johnson case and like, wow, you guys ruled it as accident. He stood up, said, I will not talk about that on camera. This is on camera. Like why? And when the reporter was like, why won't you talk about it, he goes, because I don't want to talk about it with you. Okay.

And not for nothing, the reporter was a black man, just saying. Oh. And not only that, he took this man and he led him to the back door and was like, you can leave now. Like he literally kicked him out of the sheriff's department. The second this man asked about Kendrick. Johnson. Like, you literally kicked him out the second he just asked. He didn't even imply anything at all. He was not aggressive. He did not accuse anyone of anything. He literally asked to talk about this case and why they

ruled it an accident. And this dude lost his shit. If you were fully convinced in your investigation that this was an accident and that you gave it the best investigation you possibly could have, you would sit there and explain your hard work and explain why you felt that way. Because if you felt that way, you feel strongly that it was that. Exactly. That's the thing that's really, it's like, he didn't want to have to sit there. He was afraid he was, I guarantee he was afraid he was going to slip up in something he said. Oh yeah. Well, that's the thing. If you're, if this is an accident, tell me why it's an accident, man. Explain it to me. And you can't. Because there's so much that they didn't do here that could have proved no, this was not an accident. Well, and Reverend Floyd Rose,

the one who like really supported the Johnsons like opened the investigation for them. He said he did say if the evidence says that he was not murdered, then we need to let it go. No, we don't. It was an accident. And I think he's just basically being like, let's all try to heal from it basically. No, let's not get it. But that's him. He definitely changed his tune a little bit.

So June 22nd, 2018, the Johnsons ordered a third autopsy for. Kendrick. So he was exhumed again. The results of this autopsy, the cause of death was apparent non-accidental blunt force trauma. So it basically confirmed the results of the second one. Yep. And they said it was in the right neck and thorax area. Which is like they said before. Yeah. So it confirmed the second autopsy. So February 9th, 2018, there was Kenneth and Jackie Johnson filed an affidavit that said, someone confessed that their friend confessed to murdering Kendrick. Another confession? Yep. Now, all the names have been removed from the document, so you can't see it, but it says, quote, the person struck Kendrick Johnson in the neck with a 45 pound weight or dumbbell.

Uh-huh. And it said that this person who did this also, quote, facilitated the editing of the high school's surveillance video by corrupting or deleting some one hour and 25 minutes of the original recording. So this person hit him with a dumbbell and then was also able to have access to the security cameras, like broken somehow or alter them. Aided in the cover-up of it. Okay. So in your mind, does that say a student or in your mind does that say a faculty member? I mean, if I'm like going out out of limb here. I'm saying somebody who has the means to do this, which to me would be someone whose father is in the FBI. But I don't know. Because again, I don't know. Like, I don't know. This was filed. This affidavit was filed saying this. People wrongly and falsely confessed to things

all the time. Yeah. And this is a very high profile case that people want to always want to be involved in attention with these things. So I don't know. And that's the thing that kills me. I'm like, I don't know. But the altering of the video, I mean, you're so right. You're like the nail is hit right on the head. It's like his dad worked for the FBI. That's. But again, I'm not going to sit here and accuse Brian and Brandon Bell of anything because there's also no evidence that says that they did it. Right. Just like there's no evidence that says to the contrary. So it's like, where is that fucking security footage? Why? Nothing is ever gone. That's, that's my issue. Nothing is ever gone. I know. And it's like, where is it? Go somewhere.

Well, after that, the only update I could find for this case is January 2020. So this year. Okay. A couple months ago, really? Yes. And Kenneth and Jacqueline Johnson filed a suit for $75,000, naming an FBI agent and his sons, Loun School Superintendent West Taylor. Former Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine, Lowns County Sheriff's Officer Stride Jones, Stephen Owens, the owner of a transport service, Lones County as a whole, the medical examiner Mary Ann Gaffney Craft and Robert Bryan and a death investigator for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

I mean, good. That's all I could find about that and there's no update on it. To that, it takes so long. Yeah. But so far, it seems like this thing just keeps hitting brick walls. And every time you think that there's something that's getting you somewhere, it just crashes to the ground. Because it's like, you someday, if you give up, you don't know that the answer is still out there. It's like, yeah.

And parents don't give up on their kids. They just don't. No way. You just don't. I mean, you can't ever know. Like, I would never be able to give up until I had concrete proof of what happened. And I would just keep going forever and ever and ever. Exactly.

His poor family has probably spent their entire, I mean, now they're spending their entire lives dedicated to this. All their finances probably revolve around this. Like, just, if you know anything, cut forward. Exactly. That's not fair. And it's so frustrating because it's, I can sit here and I can logically say in my mind that, sure, there is a chance that he fell into that mat. And I think it's a very, very, very, very small chance. But it's a chance.

Right. And it's still there. I cannot say with 100% certainty that that did not happen because I wasn't there and because the evidence doesn't support either side. But where does the blunt force trauma come from? That came up in two out of three autopsies. But that's the other thing. So it's like I feel like that almost takes that chance away.

But why wasn't that noted in the first autopsy? Because that wasn't even a real autopsy, I feel like. You also have to look at the fact that that bruise was two to three inches long. That is weird. That that carotid artery bifurcation, blood force trauma is really not a thing. Now I'm thinking, though, think of a dumbbell and you know how they have those little etches where it's like each one of them is probably about two to three centimeters. Yep.

It's true. It's not a pentagon. It's like a mini agon, but. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's those little things and one of those could have just bruised. Oh, it's absolutely, absolutely possible. And that's the thing.

Both of the sides are possible. If I have to lean towards one side, I lean towards... Homicide. Yeah, I lean towards he didn't go into that mat willingly and he didn't go into that mat conscious. I'm not even, I don't even think I'm leaning. I think I'm fully on the side of. Yeah, I just, I can't sit here.

You're a very logical person. I can't comfortably sit here and say that I think he fell into that mat. I would, I can't argue that side. I don't think there is any argument for that side, really. I think there's way too many arguments against. that to rule it out as a possibility. Yeah. But it's like I also can't say, you know, I know what happened because I don't. No, me either, because you definitely don't. But I think there's definitely a lot worth looking into and I think things weren't done properly. They weren't done thoroughly.

And I think that absolutely has to do with race. Yeah, and they should be held accountable for it. I think it's really sad that that's still up. Fuck this up should have to do their due diligence and they should have to reopen this case and they should have to do the steps they should have taken initially. Well, and you kept saying prior sheriff, so there's a new, there's a new sheriff in town. It's a new sheriff in town. It's like, why don't you take care of business? Like, I know that's one of your own, but do you really want to protect a cover up? Like, I don't. I don't. I guess the new sheriff did say, if new evidence is brought forth, we will look at it. Like, if there's new testimony brought forth, we'll look at it. The blunt force trauma, the second fucking, uh, admission.

of guilt. But that's the thing. What can they do with that stuff? I know it's so frustrating. I'm just pissed off. It's like that's the thing. It's like you're like, oh, there's evidence and you're like, but they literally can't do anything with that. It's like circumstantial evidence. That's second confession. It's like, yeah, that's just confessions are confessions. I'm really angry right now and I'm really frustrated. It's very frustrating. And I just, you know, I'm sure everybody's, this is one of those cases. Everybody has an opinion about it. Everybody has stuff to say about it. Yeah. We'll definitely, we're going to post this on Instagram and all that, but everybody feel free to have discussions, but please keep it respectful. Keep your discussions respectful because you know what? None of you know what happened. None of us know what happened.

Unless you were there. The only people know what happened are the people that were there. So we can't all sit here and tell each other that we're idiots and like all that mean stuff. It's really kind of a waste of time and you should really talk about somebody that was potentially murdered and keep it respectful because that's definitely what that person would have. wanted. Exactly. So definitely discuss. Just make sure that you're, you know, having lively and respectful debates because we love that. So that's the tale, the twisty, crazy, ongoing tale of the tragic, no matter what way you spin it, death of Kendrick K.J. Johnson. It's like a devastating death, no matter which way you slice it. Takes a lot out of you. Well, on a brighter note, even though I don't even want to go to a brander note because this is so sad. Let's say who this episode was brought to you

by this week. Our patronesses. We have nine special patronesses that this episode was brought to us by. Sorry if I backed up a little bit there. I was coming in my paper. All right. So number one is Alyssa Latham. Alyssa. Thank you. Thank you, Alyssa. Next up is Heather Rose. Heather Rose. Thanks so much Heather Thank you, Heather. Stephanie Carrera, a longtime patron. Stephanie Carrera, thank you for being such a loyal lady. You're the tits. You're the best.

Next up is Andrew Overby, who loves his girlfriend, Elena, a lot. And he dedicated in her name. That's funny. Thank you so much, Andrew. Next is Elizabeth Cubit and Emily Schultz. Elizabeth Cupid and Emily Schultz. We love you. Thank you so much. Next we have Katie Krupa. Katie Krupa. Yes, we do. Like King Kupa. Yes. I got a bone to kick. That's actually I was thinking of the actual like Mario Brothers thing. And actually I was thinking of King Kunta, which is a

Kendrakemaa song. I was like, I got to know what that is that you just. Sorry. We're on. That's really just how our brains work. That's a good point. That's pretty much. us in a nutshell. Wow. Next, I'd like to wish Reese Franklin a happy birthday. Reese Franklin, happy birthday. And thank you so much. HBD. Then Carion wants to wish a happy birthday from their girlfriend. Carry on. Thank you for the happy birthday. Yeah. Wish that we gave someone. Yes, okay. Then I try to get everybody's shoutouts together in one place, but it's really difficult. Camio is a much more organized way of doing it. Next is Heather P. from Cody.

Heather P. from Cody. Yes. Thank you. And then Chris Meeks would like us to shout him out and also his friend Phoebe, who he refers to as thief. So Phoebe, what did you steal from Chris? Phoebe, what's you doing? Did you steal his heart? I don't know. Did you? Thanks, Chris. And I just made it really awkward for them. You did. You made it real. You're welcome. Well, thank you. Well, Thank you to all of our lovely patronesses and their girlfriends and their friends and their loves and everything. All that good stuff. All of you. You're beautiful.

We love you. As always, you can find us on Instagram at Morbid Podcast. You can hit us up on Twitter. A Morbid Podcast. You can send us a Gmail. Morbid Podcast at gmail.com. And you can donate to our lovely Patreon. And we will shout your name out at some point in time.

Patreon.com slash morbid podcast. We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you try to kill somebody and make it look like a cover-up and that anonymous is coming after you because they know that there's way more evidence and you can't be sitting here telling me that this was an accident. When it wasn't an accident, you treated it like it was an accident from the start and it just wasn't.

Okay, bye. Don't do it. I think that might have been one of my best. I didn't take a breath in between. That was. Hi. Bye. Bye.