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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it but she said girl this title sounds so you and let me tell you it did.
I've been listening to it while I walk and I am absolutely loving it.
I love all the different narrators. I love Audible.
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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. 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 um the link is in our instagram bio i want to say and if it's not i'll put it there after this But 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 uh whatever you pay half of it is going we're going to donate straight to there and uh we might switch it up and switch up the charity that we decide to donate to, but we're always going to donate at least 50% to a charity of some kind.
Feel free to recommend some if you guys 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 you know what your 50% will be going to.
Yeah. so it's all 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, enlist in.
To our crossover with Christine from And That's Why We Drink.
Guys, we had so much fun with the entirety of 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, so.
Yeah, we got to do our collab merch, so.
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 other.
Even... People in the same podcast can't be in the same room together.
So I think we're just reaching out for anybody.
Please just be here. 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.
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. Here's our virtual invitation to please be our friend.
For real. Because those are two of my favorite podcasts.
I've been listening to them both forever.
So, yeah. So hopefully, let's make that happen, everybody.
Go bug them. Tell them that they need to do a collection. 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. So I think tonight's case tonight's case is going to be is a doozy of a case.
Yeah. It's been highly requested lately, though, and honestly, for a really long time.
Yeah, and it's been on my list. to do and actually we've gone to do it a few times like a few weeks 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.
Okay. So Kendrick Johnson. This is just... I'm gonna go about this the only way that I... 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 like 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 think from this because, unfortunately, it does not have a whole lot of answers.
Yeah. 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 nickname.
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 Tardy, which used to be on Bravo.
Yeah. I love it. He's like the cutest little nugget.
I love that you immediately connected Bravo.
You were like, Bravo connections. It's just how my brain works.
Anything is a Bravo connection. It's such a talent.
So he grew up in Vendosta, 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 the 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 standoffish.
She was just like a quiet like soul. Yeah, 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.
Like his 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.
He was also very athletic. He played three different sports, but his favorite was definitely football. football.
He had dreams of playing college football and hopefully going pro at one point.
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 um you know in every country but like we're in the united states in the United States, racism is still a thing.
It's 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, you know.
So, unfortunately in Valdosta there is an unfortunate reputation that it is very alive down there.
Which is so unacceptable for this point in time in this country.
It really is. It's insane. I obviously I am not saying everybody who is from Valdosta, Georgia is racist.
No, by no means. I do not want anybody taking this as like your 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'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 facts of 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.
Well, it's just like in 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 how it goes And we also have to flip this on its ear and wonder if this was a white student who they found dead in this manor, would it have been handled differently?
Obviously, we will never know until that situation arose, but...
We can speculate, and my personal opinion is this might have been handled quite differently. right um 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, 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 of 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, 2013, CCTV caught Kendrick walking into the school gym. at 1 30 p.m okay i think i think in the school gym there was like an old gym and a new gym they called it oh and he was 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 him 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 um 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 right um so he didn't come home all night so 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 gotta tell me something. So, and of course they figured if he stayed out all night and like fucked around with 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 he was not marked as being in school that day.
And they said, why don't we print up, you know, help you put down 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 1.30 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 1.30pm.
That seemed to be the last that anyone saw or heard.
Right. So, 10.30 a.m. that day on the 11th when she's in school asking... like trying to get information, 10.30 a.m.
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 maps 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.
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 Wes Taylor. Of course he is.
They were hanging out in the old gym. And they notice something 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 closer and they see that there are feet in those socks.
So now it's looking like someone's in that map.
So they take down, so they call a teacher over. uh they lie the mat down on its side and they said that they immediately all smelled like vomit and decomposition basically oh god um 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 things.
Yeah. And especially I would think to lift another human onto them.
Yeah. so a lot of kids um so you had to like pay for lockers at this school to like for gym um A lot of kids didn't want to pay for the lockers, and so they would throw their things in these mats to keep them safe while they were at sports or whatnot.
Right. And honestly, that doesn't even make a whole lot of sense to me because I'm like, that seems like... hard to retrieve okay i was thinking that and i just was like gonna 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 it would feel like it was easier to steal Yeah, it's just a weird place to put them.
I would shove them behind the 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.
One of his arms was by his side, facing his feet, so up, 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-sized person, really, to squeeze 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. Right. 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. 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 perch, yeah. And it's still going to be like a mixture of blood and all that.
Because the blood's not moving around your body anymore.
Exactly. So it's just leaking out, basically.
Okay. This kind of harkens back to John Wayne Gacy, how he used to shove things down the boys' 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.
Assumedly, 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?
And then dropped it? 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 rigor mortis 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 purging already that fluid.
Exactly. So that doesn't make 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 I'm like, is that a possible answer?
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 they were like, oh shit.
Which 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 hyperflexion and they will suffocate.
So they're saying that because he was upside down, 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, a lot of it has to do with hyperflexion of the neck that I found, like all the cases of hyperflexion. positional asphyxia.
Did he have room for his necks to be hyperflexed?
Well, no, and gravity wouldn't allow it.
Because hyperflexion 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 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 um 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 need 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.
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.
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 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... 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... is he was reaching with one arm down to get that shoe and that makes your shoulders less wide if you do that.
Right. Even that, even if I'm willing to concede that, he's not going headfirst into an 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.
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. 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 and you're panicking. Someone would hear him.
It's a small gym. And it's a gym. He's going to echo off the walls.
They're going to hear you outside. It takes a while to suffocate.
Exactly. You're not going to go unconscious right away.
That's just not how it works. Right. 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 it's i 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. Or maybe alive, but not conscious.
Exactly. Exactly. Would he have had to be alive to be leaking?
No. I hate saying that. No, he wouldn't have had to be alive.
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.
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 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 headfirst 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.
I know. I realized 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? I'm thinking of myself in that gym and 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. Exactly. Well, and the other thing is it's like, okay, these mats are six feet tall. right so did he jump up in there 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 able to 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.
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... Alright, so...
There is a death scene video like 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. uh... and and when you look at it it's next to a bunch of other maps so I still want to know, like, how did he get up there to begin with?
Because if you're telling me what I can believe is I can believe something happened.
And I can't believe someone knocked a mat down, shoved him in there, and then stood that mat back up.
Yup. What I can't believe is that he somehow got into it 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 them 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 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 map.
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... 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. That doesn't make any... Yeah. Like, I wouldn't do that, and I don't think anybody else would either.
And that's the thing. It's like... Sure, you can be like, wow, yeah, maybe it's a tragic accident.
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.
Yeah. But people like a quick answer. They like to be like, oh, nothing happened.
That's such a bummer. Let's move on now.
Exactly. And it sounds like they really wanted to get this gone.
Yeah. so speaking of the crime scene yes the crime scene was not exactly taken care of good um in the in like the you know the crime scene uh the death scene video where like you see the investigators point of view walking into the scene right 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? It's funny to me that they're even being photographed with that lack of...
Right. 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 you're tracing all of our evidence and bringing things in off your freaking shoes.
Yeah. 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.
They went into this scene saying, oh, it's an accent.
That's not even going to look at 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 cordon 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 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 possibly 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?
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, I
Or just look at what gym classes were in the gym at that time and 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 I would not 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.
Uh, what? Why? Yep. So the Lowndes 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 makes it 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 code.
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 blah, 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 qualified emergency medical services personnel.
Okay. So what it's saying is... As soon 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. 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 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 you would think And he works for the county, and he's saying, like, they fucked up.
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. 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 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 was it had already been moved several times there was already people walking through this crime scene i mean dna different markings, like, liquidity.
Yeah, he got fucked out of having an actual, like, decent death investigation.
So... On May 23rd, 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... uh closed off as a homicide scene right like the paramedics will 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 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, tragic 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 such.
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. The United States Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, Michael Moore.
Announced on October 31st, 2013, that the FBI was going to investigate the circumstances of Kendrick Johnson's death.
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. 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.
So hit me up with what happened. And then they asked, and when the 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 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 come from?
Right. This is exactly why. So frustrating.
They had a forensic... specialist like who 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 grainier than what it should be.
They made it blurrier. 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 of fuck ups with that so he said there's a ton of corrupt files and he said there's also a hole in time where no camera provides any record that That gives me the creeps.
That is freaky as fuck. Right. And like I said, there was four cameras in that gym.
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 1.09 p.m.
Why? That doesn't make any sense. recorded until 11.05am, and then nothing, and then picks up at 1.15pm.
The third camera records until 11.05 a.m., then nothing, and then picks up at 1.16 p.m.
The fourth camera records until 12.04 p.m. and then nothing and then picks up again at 1.09 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, that's sinister as fuck. 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 Yeah.
Right from the get go. Because they're like nobody cares and you're fucking up this investigation.
Well they could. see from the get-go that this was being treated as this was a tragic accident let it go nope move on And don't let it go.
When this whole CCTV thing came out, they were like, what the fuck?
This is not an accident. 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. I accidentally 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 forewarned 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, 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, know that 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 um 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. 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 when you look at the photo of him right after they found him, He still looks horrible.
I mean, he's disfigured because he's swollen and his features don't look like him.
Because again, all the fluids and blood rush 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. That doesn't look like your child.
And if I saw that, I would be like, someone assaulted my child.
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 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 lay 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.
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 scalp back on top of that kind of like wonky skullcap.
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 gonna slip it's gonna loosen up it's gonna make and they also you know they opened up his larynx they opened up his neck to look at that so right things are gonna shift and move and you know along with all the swelling and the fluid and But I think, 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 autism. autopsy that he just happened to look a little different yeah um but look at it 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.
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. when I don't think that's the case.
Right. They just were going with what they had.
And I don't think that was the intent. Exactly.
Exactly. I don't think that was the case at all.
But they did get a little bit in trouble for that.
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 right blood pooling and like you're gonna 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 so it's like 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 gonna 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 hours after death.
It's going to be at its maximum peak between like 8 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 reddening 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 a big player in this case.
He supported their investigations. And He actually ended up putting his house up for collateral once 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. Yeah. But he put up his house as collateral to bail them out.
Wow. So he like really got into this. 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.
Um... He's done a ton of cases. He's worked with Dr. Michael Baden.
Oh, shit. Which, like, whoa, whoa, swoon, swoon.
So... So he's like a big deal. He's done some high profile cases.
He knows what he's doing. Yeah. He found in his second, when he did this second autopsy.
Uh-huh. 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. Now, the Harrington Funeral Home in Valdosta, Georgia. was like, yep, we did that.
And the 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 let's shove newspaper in there to to fill out the body you mean to make it because he would have looked like organs were missing Well, yeah, you wouldn't believe how much your body, its shape relies on all your structures being in place.
Okay. um like and like it's not just a skeleton no it's like if you your organs really do need to be in there to like keep you looking like it See, I didn't 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. I mean, there's plenty of people that don't want their loved one going into the netherworld 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, 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.
So 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. But it doesn't look like they were psyched about this, but I don't know what's the whole thing.
Seems like they didn't know. Yeah. Because it was a big deal that, like, they found out that his body had newspaper in it.
That I would be livid to find 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. purposes not return them to the body we'll put like uh 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, but...
I never knew any of this. That's really crazy to me.
Yeah, because especially like things like, like if you, because a lot of times we'll take like, though 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.
Yeah. Yeah, that would sink right in. Right.
So they need to like put something fake in there.
Wow. But yeah, it's the rest of the bodies the same way.
Wow. That's cool, but like 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 what they were trying to cut corners.
I don't like that. The Georgia Secretary of State office did investigate the funeral home, just to be sure, and they didn't find any wrongdoing.
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.
And they signed a thing that said that they received him with all organs.
And they said 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 the funeral home do with the organs?
Not sure. 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, 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 gotta make sure. Like, you gotta... 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.
Yeah. 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 inconvenience yourself to make sure that you have all of it.
Well, and it shouldn't even be an inconvenience.
Like, fuck off, it's your job. Yeah, it's just very...
The whole thing is very strange. So that was the first thing that they found during the second autopsy.
Yeah. 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, okay. 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, right neck, acute hemorrhage, soft tissues of upper neck, acute periosteal hemorrhage, posterior body and right mandible.
Areas of acute hemorrhage involving carotid artery bifurcation and carotid body.
Okay, so something very different than asphyxiation.
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 sent for the 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.
Mm hmm. 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, he's not saying 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 he said basically the cause of death was the blunt force trauma.
And then he was put upside down in that thing.
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.
Yeah. We're like, oh, Dr. Anderson, like, got fired from multiple jobs and he's not, like, a real medical examiner.
That's bullshit. He's a board-certified forensic pathologist.
Like, he is certified. Um... 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 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.
Is that two to three centimeter long bruise kind of like, I don't know about that.
Yeah. Sure. But one, I'm not a doctor. And two, that doesn't mean he's a reputable doctor.
Medical exam. Right. Like he's, I'm not going to take that away from him.
I was just going to say you can't take that away.
He's a good medical examiner, so who knows?
We just got to put the facts out there. Somebody twists and turns.
So on March 17th, 2014, CNN reporters said that they got An anonymous email.
They got this, or they didn't get it, but they were able to get access to it through through the Georgia Open Records Act.
And this anonymous email was sent to the Sheriff's Department.
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.
I'm straight up on the edge of my seat, not even lying to you.
It's very stressful. 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.
Convenient. Several accused stood 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.
And they were found to be 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 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, 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 blah There are two brothers that are brought into this, but were quickly said not to be.
I don't know. That seems like a very clear picture and it It 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, 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 then they were like, some of them, it just doesn't match up and they didn't have evidence.
Okay. All they have is 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 28th, 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 swear that they were not friends.
Right. It's like different stories on either side.
But Brandon Bell was on his way to a wrestling tournament. when Kendrick was supposedly killed.
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 130 entering the gym.
Right. Later, there was some hoopla because people were looking into the trip... like, itinerary and stuff for that day, trying to... Because, you know, like, web sleuths and all that.
Yeah, let's tear it apart. 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.
And it said the wrestling match started at four that day.
And people thought that this meant that the bus left at four.
So it became like a thing like he could have been in the gym.
But it turns out the wrestling match started at four. it likely left before he was dead but we can't be sure everything's kind of wonky you know when was the wrestling like four hours away I'm confused it was it was in a different it was in a different county so okay 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, happen.
And this, I was going to say they made whatever happened that they wanted with the, 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.
You 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 as...
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. But the CCTV footage was so grainy.
It's blurry. that it made it look like a swipe of blood.
Jesus. But they showed the thing and it is just a logo.
But it also shows how quickly like you keep getting like excited for a lead 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... 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. uh 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, daddy'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.
Can 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. in records from Brandon Bell, Brian Bell, their father, Rick Bell, and... um brian bell's girlfriend they were all seized they found nothing well he's in the fbi too he probably knows how to get rid of information That's the other thing.
It's like, this is all well and fine, but he's an FBI agent.
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.
Mm-hmm. but they withdrew that scholarship because they were just questioned.
They were worried about the potential of them possibly giving a scholarship to a potential murderer.
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 like a lot because then it's like two lives are a little bit not. i mean his life 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 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 Johnsons a little bit is they started getting a little too...
They were casting their net a little too wide when it comes to what they were going to accuse people of.
Because they just wanted answers, I mean.
They just want answers. And that's, they deserve answers.
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, and then they would figure it out from there.
So then the Johnsons 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.
Right. There was a lot of names that they threw out that they accused.
And these people were getting like death threats.
And these are big names. 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 um 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, 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 legs have chills. And the video is online.
But I'm going to play like the end of this video because it will give you like the heebie-jeebies.
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 story could be the truth.
KJ was found beaten and bloody. stuffed inside of a mat 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 teen? 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 of Valdosta know a cover up has taken place and 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.
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. Lowndes County 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 dumb ass stage anyway.
Seriously, like, fuck you. Like, what? And that's the thing.
And it's like... Like, people of color in Valdosta, 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. 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.
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 or have a different color skin.
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. Like this 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 exists in a lot of different races, but especially in the community of people of color and it's like, Yeah, like black people are still not allowed to get ahead.
And it's not... You can't go for a jog. You can't go to school. school.
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 frustrating.
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 because, 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 now, you're not giving it to me.
Right. And why? So far. 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 or, Not one ounce of me thinks that.
I just don't. I don't think it happened that way.
But... Unfortunately, so far, we have 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 on August 10th, 2017, the Johnsons ended up having to pay $200,000 worth of that $850,000 lawsuit for those attorneys fees.
So the Lowndes County Sheriff, Chris Prine, He's a doozy.
A bad doozy or a good doozy? bad daisy 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? 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.
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 and something he said.
Oh, yeah. Well, that's the thing. 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, Reverend Floyd Rose, the one who really supported the Johnsons, opened the investigation for them.
Yeah, what happened? Um, 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. Disagree.
And I think he's just basically being like, let's all try to heal from it, basically.
No, let's not get them. 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 and 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 a... 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.
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 footage. 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 to 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 going out on a 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 confess to things all the time yeah And this is a very high profile case that people always want to be involved in attention with these things.
So I don't know. And that's the thing that kills me.
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.
Just like there's no evidence that says to the contrary.
Where is that fucking security footage? Nothing is ever gone.
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.
A couple months ago, really. Yes. And Kenneth and Jacqueline Johnson... filed a suit for $75,000, naming an FBI agent and his sons.
Lowndes School Superintendent Wes Taylor, former Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Pryne, Lowndes County Sheriff's Officer Stride Jones, Stephen Owens, the owner of a transport service, Lowndes County as a whole, the medical examiner Mary Ann Gaffney Craft and Robert Bryan, and a death investigator for the Georgia Bureau of Investigations.
I mean, good. That's all I could find about that.
And there's no update on it. But 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 a...
Something that's getting you somewhere. You know what?
You have to keep going 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.
If you know anything, come forward. Exactly.
That's not fair. And it's so frustrating because 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 he suffocated and died.
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 and 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, blunt 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.
Yeah. Each one of them is probably about two to three centimeters.
Yeah. 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 him.
Yeah, those little sides of it. Oh, it's absolutely.
It's 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. I don't even think I'm leaning.
I think I'm fully on the side of. yeah i just yeah i can't sit here i can't i can't comfortably sit here and say that i think he fell into that matter 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 neither, 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 happening. 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 it's there's a new there's a new sheriff in town new sheriff and 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 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... 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.
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 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.
The only people who 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 brighter note because this is so sad.
Let's say who this episode was brought to you by this week.
Our Patronuses. We have nine special Patronuses that...
This episode was brought to us by... Sorry if I backed up a little bit there.
I was moving my paper. All right, so number one is Alyssa Latham.
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Patreon.com slash morbid podcast. We hope you keep listening.
And we hope you. Keep. It's weird. But not so weird that you try to kill somebody and make it look like a cover up and then 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.
Take a breath in between. That was hyped.
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