It’s been over a decade, the family of a Georgia teen (Kendrick) was discovered deceased, balled up in a gym mat. They’re moving forward, continuing their fight for justice by filing for an overview judgment in their lawsuit against prosecution enforcement officials over the investigations into the death and autopsies that ruled it was a freak accident.
Kenneth Johnson, father of Kendrick Johnson stated he believes the goal for justice is finally making headway. Kendrick Johnson was found wrapped in a gym’s wrestling mat in his high school in Valdosta Georgia early January 2013.
It was reported by officials initially claiming Kendrick deliberately crept in the mat to get his shoes and suffocated –- ruling his death accidental!
It has been announced $1B federal lawsuit against investigators
But the Johnson family confidently determined long ago that someone had killed Kendrick Johnson
“We know all along they would not be able to dispute all the evidence we put forth, because it’s their own evidence,”
Kenneth Johnson stated.
Johnson expressed once that marks on Kendrick’s side were not self-inflicted and that his son,
“didn’t get into the mat by himself.”
Also, Kenneth Johnson spoke about the statements from officials — a copy of which his attorney stated they now have only after the investigation from filing a lawsuit in September on behalf of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office and Lowndes County Medical Examiner shows inconsistencies.
The Johnson family is hopeful a US federal district court judge will overturn the motion for summary judgment in their lawsuit.
In 2016, a Department of Justice investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to press federal civil rights violation charges in the case of Kendrick Johnson’s death. The investigation noted that meeting the high threshold of proving both the act of killing and the racial motivation behind it beyond a reasonable doubt would be challenging.
The Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office reopened the case in 2021 and, after 10 months, once again concluded that it was accidental. The GBI has not conducted an independent investigation of the case, but it did perform an autopsy. The DOJ stated in 2016 that the autopsy described the cause of death as accidental, resulting from positional asphyxia, essentially meaning that the individual became trapped upside-down in the rolled-up mat and suffocated.
A succeeding independent autopsy ordered by the Johnson family declared the death was not unexpected but in fact was caused by “blunt force trauma to the right side of Kendrick’s neck, near the jaw.” Examiners did a third autopsy back in 2018 that also showed results of “apparent, non-accidental, blunt force trauma” and the discovery that some of Kendrick’s organs were missing.
A civil rights advocate Johnathan Burrs on the suit, expanded on the family’s quarrels. He voiced several additional points came out in their lawsuit investigation process, and with the latest information, Kendrick’s family filed the motion for summary judgment for a portion of the case.
The filing clearly states that the GBI and other defendants named in the suit have failed to adequately dispute the facts they allege. A decision from the judge is expected within the next 30 days.
At the end of this story, you can access the legal document.
The family is confidently asserting that the new information revealed through the lawsuit is substantial and warrants a thorough reopening of the entire case for investigation, particularly given that no one has ever been charged with the death.
The family has filed an application to reopen the case under Georgia’s recent Coleman-Baker Act, which requires the GBI to reinvestigate cold case murders. When asked for a comment, the GBI stated that they stand by their original autopsy.
Full GBI statement said:
“The GBI has received numerous inquiries from the public about our involvement in the 2013 Kendrick Johnson death investigation. This case was investigated by the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, and the Department of Justice. Our agency assisted the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office in the case by processing the scene. Our Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy on Johnson. This investigation is closed. All GBI documents pertaining to the case are available upon request through GBI’s Open Records Unit.
The GBI Medical Examiner’s Office conducted a thorough autopsy on this case. The case is closed, and we stand behind our original findings.”
