Kendrick Johnson: Accident or Murder?

Imagine this. You’re 17 and in High School. As a 3-sport athlete, you have aspirations of playing professional football. One day, you decide to stay after school, watch the evening’s basketball game. Your parents know where you are; you told them you’d be home after the game. But you don’t go home. In fact, you’d never go home again. Instead, you’d spend your last days in the High School gym. That was the case for Kendrick Johnson on January 10, 2013.

Kendrick Johnson was born on October 10, 1995 in Valdosta, Georgia. He was described as an incredibly loving son. His father described him as being the son everyone wished they could have. He was well mannered and very respectable, and well loved by all.

After winter break, Kendrick returned to school, like all the other kids. On that second day back, January 10, 2013, he told his parents he was going to attend a basketball game at the school. He was a good kid, always kept in touch with his parents, never made them worry about where he was or what he was doing, so when he didn’t return home that night, his parents knew something was wrong. 

At around 10pm, his mother, Jackie, drove down to the school, to see if he was still there. After searching for her son for approximately 2.5 hours, she knew it was time to go to the police. She filed a missing persons report at around 12:30am on the 11th, but her son was not immediately located. In fact, he wouldn’t be found until later that day.

The school, Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia, had two gyms. In the old gym, a group of students were preparing for class. In the corner of the gym was a set of wrestling mats, rolled up, standing vertical, like they always were. Kids being kids, began to play and screw around, climbing up on the top. Then something caught the eye of one of the students. They saw what appeared to be a pair of legs, sticking straight up and out of the center of the mat.

The student called the coach over, and he saw the legs too. The mats were tall though, (measuring six feet tall by three feet wide) and he wouldn’t be able to pull the person out, so he laid the mat down, and carefully unrolled it. Inside was the deceased body of Kendrick Johnson.

The authorities were called immediately as the coach ushered all the students out of the gym. The school was locked down, and coincidentally, Kendrick’s mother, Jackie just so happened to be there. She was printing missing persons flyers.

Kendrick’s face was swollen and unrecognizable. His face appeared as though it had been smashed in. His arms were held stiff, straight to his sides. He was wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans, but not shoes. He was, however, found with 2 pairs of shoes. The first pair was split, with one shoe was under his head, and the other was outside the mat. The other pair was tucked underneath his legs.

Trying to understand what had happened, and why he was in the mat, face down, three students had an idea. They told investigators that it was common for students to store their shoes either behind or under the rolled up mats. Another student told police that he shared a pair of Adidas shoes with Kendrick, and that after gym class Kendrick would always “go to the mats, jump up and toss the shoes inside the middle of the hole.” So it made sense that that was what happened. After all – Kendrick wasn’t wearing any shoes when he was found. 

Based on that information, authorities hypothesized that Kendrick had fallen into the mat while looking for a shoe, and was unable to get out. His official cause of death was from positional asphyxia, and the case was ruled an accidental death by the Lowndes County investigators.

Lt. Stryde Jones, who headed up the investigation, stated: “We never had credible information that indicated this was anything other than an accident.”

Kendricks family did not agree, especially when you ask why? Why was he face down in the mat? If he was trying to reach in to grab a shoe, wouldn’t his arms have been outstretched instead of plastered to his sides? How did a second pair of shoes get tucked in under his legs? 

What’s more, Kendrick’s shoulder width measured 19 inches. The opening in the mats, when rolled up, all measured 14 inches. How could he have “fallen” into a hole that he couldn’t even fit into. It didn’t add up. To illustrate this, Kendrick’s father tried it himself. He laid a mat horizontal on the ground, rolled up with that 14 inch opening. He couldn’t get in any further than his head. 

The facts didn’t line up with the authorities conclusion. The only logical explanation was that Kendrick had been killed, then rolled up inside the mat before it was pushed into that upright position. 

Adding to the mystery, the school had security cameras in the gym that could solve the mystery. CNN gained access to the security footage taken the day Kendrick died, but that only served to create more questions.

There were 4 cameras in the gym. The cameras facing the mats were unfocused, and skipped around. All that could be seen in the footage was Kendrick walking into the gym at approximately 1:09pm. Another student entered the gym around the same time he did, but it did not appear that they were together. 3 minutes later a group of students walked through the gym, showing no indication that anything strange was going on. 

The footage never showed Kendrick leaving, and he never turned up for his following classes.

That seems innocent enough, until you consider that an entire hour of video footage was outright missing. CNN hired a professional video surveillance team. They noticed that the files they had been given were not the original files, and they had been altered in numerous ways. Some of the video files couldn’t even be viewed. All 4 cameras had the same chunk of time missing.

So what happened? Footage after the missing hour never showed Kendrick again, so the most vital information, the video that would answer the question, “What happened,” just happened to be missing. Was that a coincidence?

His family didn’t think so. Even though their son had already been laid to rest, they hired an independent autopsy. Kendrick’s body was exhumed and on June 15, 2013, William R. Anderson with Forensic Dimensions in Heathrow, Florida, conducted his autopsy. 

The first thing he discovered is that all of Kendrick’s organs had been removed, and his body was stuffed with newspaper. This was not all that unusual, if for some reason the organs couldn’t be returned, or had been donated. Except that wasn’t the case. His parents had no idea their son’s organs had not been returned to his body.

They contacted the funeral home to find out why their son’s organs were missing, and were informed that the funeral home had received him that way. According to the coroner, the organs were “destroyed through natural process” and “discarded by the prosecutor before the body was sent back to Valdosta.”

In lieu of his organs, the funeral home had to stuff him with the newspaper. 

Kendrick’s family filed a complaint with the regulatory body against the funeral home operator. An investigation ensued, and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office found that the funeral home did not follow “best practice” and that other material was “more acceptable than newspaper.” Nevertheless the investigation cleared the funeral home of any wrongdoing.

Kendrick’s family filed a civil suit against the funeral home, seeking monetary damages.

Anderson went forward with the autopsy, and what he discovered was traces of blunt force trauma to Kendrick’s right neck and soft tissues. Based on his findings, he suggested the death was not accidental.

On October 13, 2013, the US Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia announced that his office would open a formal review into Kendrick Johnson’s death.

The family moved forward and filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Lowndes High School, the Board of Education, the Superintendent, and the school Principal. The suit alleged that Kendrick “was violently assaulted, severely injured, suffered great physical pain and mental anguish, and subjected to insult and loss of life.” 

The lawsuit alleged that the defendants were negligent and violated Kendrick’s constitutional right to equal protection based on race. It alleged that the defendants ignored reports that Kendrick had been repeatedly attacked and harassed by a white student. It alleged that Johnson was attacked on a bus trip 14 months prior to his death. 

The lawsuit further alleged that another student “had a history of provoking and attacking” Kendrick at school, stating that the provocations took place “in the presence of the coaching staff and employees” after his mother complained about previous attacks. The suit also alleged that school officials failed to “properly monitor the activities of students throughout all areas” of the campus and to “maintain a properly functioning video surveillance system.”

The students were Brandon Bell, and his younger brother, Brian Bell. Adding to the intrigue – their father, Randy Bell, was an FBI agent.

The boys claimed, and have maintained their innocence. They have claimed that they were friends with Kendrick, that they genuinely liked him. Other rumors were circulating that Kendrick and Brandon were feuding over a similar love interest.

In November 2015, the Department of Justice filed a motion in the civil case to intervene and stay the case. The US Attorney said allowing evidence discovery in the civil suit to continue would have a “chilling effect” on the federal investigation, which had expanded into investigating possible obstruction and grand jury witness tampering.

After the Justice Department’s motion was denied, Kendrick’s parents dismissed the wrongful death lawsuit, saying that they hoped to refile it after the conclusion of the federal investigation. They were subsequently sued for more than $850,000 in attorney fees, and $1,000,000 in defamation damages.

In August 2014, a $5 million lawsuit was filed against Ebony magazine, after the magazine published a series of articles naming Brandon and Brian Bell as possible suspects in Kendrick’s death. The magazine used pseudonyms but was otherwise accurate in their descriptions of the boys, including the fact that their father was an FBI agent. The article used as a source an anonymous email to the sheriff’s office. 

In their lawsuit, the Bell’s assert that their sons were not involved in the death, are not considered suspects, and have been harassed as a result of the publication.

In January, 2015, Kendrick’s family filed a $100 million lawsuit against Randy Bell. In the lawsuit they claimed that Randy had instructed his boys to murder Kendrick. This lawsuit was later dropped and Georgia Judge Richard Porter ordered the family, and their attorney, to pay more than $292,000 in legal fees to the defendants, accusing them of fabricating evidence to support their claims.

Kendrick’s family filed a legal action to open a coroner’s inquest into his death. When the judge in that case delayed a decision, pending the outcome of the U.S. Attorney’s review, the family demanded that the governor of Georgia immediately authorize the inquiry instead. The family, together with the NAACP and other civil rights activists, then held a rally at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta. The governor’s office released a statement indicating that they would await the report of the US Attorney.

On June 20, 2016, The office of the US Attorney announced that no criminal charges would be filed. “After extensive investigation into this tragic event, federal investigators determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone or some group of people willfully violated Kendrick Johnson’s civil rights or committed any other prosecutable federal crime.”

On June 22, 2018, Kendrick Johnson’s family requested his body be exhumed for a second time, for a third autopsy. This one corroborated the findings in the second autopsy in addition to adding additional findings. One of these findings indicates there was blunt force trauma found on his right chest. 

The blunt force trauma to the chest is the information the family was looking for. A few months prior to the exhumation and third autopsy, on February 9, 2018, a witness gave testimony stating that an acquaintance confessed that another person killed Kendrick.

An excerpt from the affidavit states, “The person struck Kendrick Johnson in the neck with a 45lb. Weight or dumbbell.” It adds that an agent, in some way, “facilitated the editing of the high school’s surveillance video by corrupting or deleting some one hour and twenty-five minutes of the original recording.”

In March, Kendrick’s family was contacted by someone claiming to have a recorded confession. The transcript of the recording reads as follows: 

“They are going to catch me anyway, I should’ve never done this. I was young and stupid. Kendrick didn’t deserve this man. They’re going to catch me anyways.”

The perpetrator claimed to be a second-cousin of the boy who “confessed,” and told Kendrick’s family he was at a birthday party with family members when one of the boys confessed to having played a part in what led to Kendrick’s death. The confessor was purported to be Brian Bell. 

The person who created the tape contacted Kendrick’s mother, and the Johnson family paid $1,000 for the recording. They handed it over to the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office to authenticate. 

Now, when Sheriff Ashley Paulk got ahold of the recording, it didn’t take long for her to identify the confessor. She had heard the voice before – the voice of a person who had been in jail multiple times for giving false confessions.

“This is a terrible hoax. This woman lost a child,” sheriff Paulk said, “I can’t believe somebody would even do this for any amount of money.” Further disproving their claims, their office found no evidence that the Bell kids even had a second-cousin.

While creating and sharing the fake audio recording could fall under the heading of “cyberstalking,” by causing emotional distress to a person using a cellular device, the perpetrator is currently only facing misdemeanor charges.

“There’s the $1,000 and under Georgia law it’s a misdemeanor, but there are federal statutes we’re looking at,” Paulk said.

The family continues to believe that their son’s death was homicide. An attorney has said they believe the investigation was closed under suspicious circumstances fueled by pressure of retired FBI agents. Furthermore, Kendrick’s parents were persuaded to meet with two U.S. Attorney offices and the Department of Justice without legal representation, the attorney said.

In May 2019, Kendrick’s family refiled a lawsuit, contending that their son’s clothes and organs, including his brain, were disposed of to interfere with the investigation into the teen’s death.

According to their attorney, after the first autopsy that took place in the GBI lab, the organs were placed in a bag and placed back into Johnson’s body when it left the lab. He said more people finding their loved ones dead with their organs missing is a human rights issue.

In the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor killings, Marcus Coleman, a community activist who served as the Johnson’s spokesperson for the past 8 years, pushed for the case to be reopened. 

“As I engaged in community activities myself here and across the country, it just never sat well with me the way that Kendrick Johnson’s case was closed,” Coleman said. “And the uprising — as I like to call it — this summer just gave me the energy to pursue reopening this case.”

Initially, Coleman sought the release of the 2015 grand jury proceedings, after Kentucky’s attorney general did so in Breonna Taylor’s case. That led him first to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia, which he learned had recused itself from the case, then to that of the Northern District of Ohio, where it had been transferred.

In November, 2020, he and Kendrick’s parents met with the then-U.S. attorney in Cleveland and asked to have the case reopened. He said the process appeared to be underway, albeit slowed by the holiday season and the pandemic.

But they did get their wish, On March 10, 2021. The case of Kendrick Johnson was officially reopened

The sheriff’s office received what Paulk described as 17 “filing cabinet boxes” of evidence including documents and hard drives. Coleman said he and Kendrick’s family felt the number of boxes was symbolic, as it matched the years of Johnson’s short life.

“When the news came down, I can say that, in one breath, they’re grateful, they’re thankful for the reopening,” Coleman said. “But in that same breath, ‘cautiously optimistic’ probably would be the most accurate label. And I mean it’s just rightfully so considering all of the letdowns that they’ve had over the years.”

Sheriff Paulk does not consider the case to be a homicide. He also said that the Bell boys, Brian and Brandon, are not suspects. “I’m not accusing anybody of anything, but I want to start fresh with it and look at it all the way through,” Paulk told Atlanta NBC affiliate WXIA. ” I think the community deserves it.”

Sheriff Ashley Paulk will be personally leading the reopened investigation along with some officials who had worked on the case the first time, as well as some new faces. They will be re-interviewing people, and talking to new people. As for the 17 boxes of documents – his office already had access to the materials from the state’s earlier investigation.

Paulk noted that he was born and raised in Valdosta, and has known the Johnson family for decades, but emphasized that his office is “not starting out with it’s a murder it’s an accident. We’re starting out with this is a case we have to look at.”

The investigation will take at least six months. “This will be the first time anybody’s had everybody’s evidence in one place, so I’m planning to go through every bit of it,” Paulk said. “If we find a contradiction we’re going to resolve any contradiction, or try to.”

Another, similar, case is that of Kenneka Jenkins. Was she murdered, or was it an accident?