true crime

Kendrick Johnson

(don't know when he was born)

--death--

On January 11, 2013, the body of Kendrick Johnson was discovered in the gymnasium of Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia, found headfirst in the center of a vertical rolled-up wrestling mat. The body was discovered by fellow students who had climbed up to the top of a cluster of mats, each of which stood nearly six feet tall and three feet wide.  An autopsy by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) stated that Johnson had died from positional asphyxia, and the case was ruled an accidental death by the Lowndes County investigators.

Authorities hypothesized that Johnson had fallen into the mat while looking for a shoe and died after being unable to get out. Three students at Lowndes High School told investigators that it was common for some students to store their shoes behind or under the rolled up mats, Johnson was not wearing shoes when he was found. student at the school said that he shared a pair of adidas shoes with johnson, and that after gym class johnson would always "go to the mats, jump up and toss the shoes inside the middle of the hole."

Lt. Stryde Jones, who headed up the investigation for the Lowndes County Sheriff's Office, stated: "We never had credible information that indicated this was anything other than an accident."

Johnson's family questioned this hypothesis. Unsatisfied with the result of the investigation, they hired an independent autopsy conducted by William R. Anderson with Forensic Dimensions in Heathrow, Florida, on June 15, 2013. Anderson claimed that his findings indicated traces of blunt force trauma to the right neck and soft tissues, and suggested the death was not accidental.

--Subsequent events and legal actions--

After the opinion of the private pathologist was released, Johnson's family stated that they believed Johnson had been murdered. The family retained the services of attorney Benjamin Crump. On October 31, 2013, U.S. Attorney Michael J. Moore announced that his office would open a formal review into Johnson's death. Crump's application to practice law in Georgia representing Johnson's parents was not ruled on, and he withdrew from representing the family and is no longer participating in the case.

Johnson'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 U.S. Attorney.

--body--

  The independent autopsy found that some time after Johnson's body was recovered from the mat, and had passed through a funeral home, it had been stuffed with newspapers. The funeral home that processed the body following the FBI's autopsy stated that they never received Johnson's internal organs from the coroner; the organs were said to have been "destroyed through natural process" and "discarded by the prosector before the body was sent back to Valdosta," according to the funeral home owner. That left a void, which the funeral home filled. The funeral home owner stated that it is standard practice to fill a void in this fashion, and that cotton or sawdust may also be employed for this purpose. Johnson's family filed a complaint with a regulatory body against the funeral home operator.

A subsequent investigation by 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." Nonetheless, the investigation cleared the funeral home of any wrongdoing. A spokesperson for the Secretary of State said that the investigation found that the funeral home "didn't violate any rules." The Johnson family subsequently filed a civil lawsuit against the funeral home, seeking monetary damages.