EPISODE 50 - The Strange Death of Kendrick Johnson

He was completely unarmed , completely unprovoked . George Simmerman , who was out doing a neighbourhood watch , felt that Travion was out of place in the middle class area . He shot and killed Travion . He got away with it . Basically , he didn't have any punishment at all .

So the Facebook post was posted by someone called Alicia and it was titled Love Letter to Black Folks and it reads we don't deserve to be killed with impunity . We need to love ourselves and fight for a world where Black Lives Matter . Black people , I love you , I love us . We matter , our lives matter .

And then , from that post , the hashtag Black Lives Matter quickly took off .

I've written it all out and researched and everything , but it's just another like Matthew Shepard where it just infuriates me Absolutely , infuriates me , and yeah , to the point where I'm quite ashamed of being white . Okay , do you know what I ?

In New York , 88% of police stops were Black people and only 10% were white .

Even now we think that we're so advanced and you know , yeah , we're really making progress we're actually not . Racial hate crimes reported in the UK in 2011 was 35,944 . Then I've skipped , because I got the stats for every year Skipped forward to 2017 , more than doubled to 71,264 . And in 2021 , the racial hate crimes reported in the UK were 109,843 .

So it's just going up and up and up and up . The curve literally just went straight up in a big arc and that's not the way that we want to see it going . We want to see it curving down . In 2022 , going into 2023, . Racial hate crimes were coming in at a higher rate in Greater London area , with the highest amount of 19,586 .

The West Midlands had 8,897 reported cases and in our area , essex , where we both grew up , we had 2,971 . And what surprised me and it may surprise you that the City of London so the bit right in the middle actually came in at the lowest with just 130 . And I say just 130 is still 132 many . But yeah , I don't know . That just really surprised me .

I thought blimey City of London had the lowest 130 when Greater London . So that's like , yeah , dagnam Parking it's now gone into like Brentwood . I think that's on the cusp of Greater London . But yeah , how can you go from like 19,586 all in the Greater London area and then right in the city centre of London , 130 ? Mind boggling , right .

Black Lives Matter , random blams done , done , okay . So today's episode obviously comes with a trigger warning . We cover a great deal about , obviously , racism and there are some graphic descriptions of violence . I warn you . Now I will also briefly talk about the brutal murder of a baby .

So if it's not something you want to hear , then maybe skip this episode , but I beg that you don't , because these horrors need to be heard and processed in order to ensure that this disgusting racism stops . So I understand that it's uncomfortable .

It was very uncomfortable doing the research for this story and it's put me in a bit of a funny headspace for the time that I've been doing it and I'm not going to stop . I'm going to keep going with this case . I'm going to look into it more . But yeah , this is a story that I feel very passionate about .

I do not believe , because it's a controversial one . There's one side and then there's another side . Some people think it was an accident . Some people think that it was murder . I believe it was murder . I am 99.9% certain that this was murder . I can't say 100% because I wasn't there .

I have tried to write this story being unbiased and neutral , and then I thought no , why should I ? This is how I feel and this is me speaking , so I am going to say it the way I think and the way I feel about it . You are obviously all entitled to your own opinions and feelings . If you feel differently to me , let us know .

If you feel the same as me , let us know . But maybe this is an episode that we can do a discussion on in the future , because I'm going to keep going with it , like I said , without further ado . This is the tragic story of Kendrick Johnson .

I used to feel very differently about this case when , I think a good few years ago , I listened to some podcasts on it and I kind of came away with it thinking it was just an accident . It just sounds obvious .

For those of you that don't know , obviously I'm going to go into the story , but it's the story of a 17-year-old African American who was found deceased inside a gym mat in his high school . The police said that he was reaching for his gym shoes and he got stuck and couldn't get out and he died . I took that for exactly what it was .

Having looked into it and done some research , I have completely done a 180 . I do not feel like that anymore . I think this was murder and yeah there's a lot of controversial or conflicting evidence and information isn't there .

During the era of slavery , val Dosta was a plantation town and the local economy relied heavily on the labor of enslaved African Americans . Slavery was deeply ingrained into the social fabric of the city , with white residents holding racist beliefs and attitudes towards the African Americans .

After the Civil War , the abolition of slavery , val Dosta , like other southern cities , implemented a system of racial segregation known as Jim Crow . Have you heard of Jim Crow ?

African Americans were subjected to discriminatory laws and practices , including voter suppression , limited access to education and healthcare , and economic inequality . So Mary Turner was a prominent figure in the history of racism in Val Dosta . She was an African American woman who lived in Brooks County , which is right near Val Dosta , during the early 20th century .

In May 1918 , a white mob lynched a black man named Sidney Johnson . Funnily enough , johnson Weird Mary Turner , who was eight months pregnant at the time this was , I should mention . I found out after this it was actually her husband . So Sidney Johnson was her husband and I didn't put the two together because her name's Mary Turner .

But she publicly denounced the lynching and threatened to have those responsible arrested , as in very similar to the witch trials . Her outspokenness and defiance angered the white community and , in retaliation , a mob of white men targeted Mary . The exact details of her death are harrowing and disturbing . You have been warned .

I will go through it as briefly as I can , but the mob kidnapped Mary Turner and took her to Folsom's Bridge , located near Moorvan , a small town , like I said , close to Val Dosta . There , they tied her upside down by her ankles and set her on fire While she was still alive . This is awful .

While she was still alive , they cut open her abdomen , causing her unborn child to fall to the ground , and the mob then stomped on the baby and obviously killed it . After this horrific act , mary Turner's body was shot with hundreds of bullets and left hanging from a tree as a warning to other African Americans who dared to challenge the white supremacist order .

There is now a big memorial plate dedicated to Mary Turner and her unborn child . In 1922 , the KKK or the Clue Clucks Clan was huge in Val Dosta . There's several photographs and there's just hundreds and hundreds of these twats .

And in 2018 , in a local restaurant called Jimmy John's , a video circulated the internet of staff at said restaurant in homemade KKK outfits , being twats and saying you know , meanwhile at Jimmy John's . And they're standing there dancing in these KKK outfits . Not cool , guys , not cool .

And on the anniversary of Mary Turner's death , her memorial was shot with bullets . So there's just so much racism still there and disrespect . But today in Val Dosta there's still a huge battle against black and white and racism still remains on a massive level . So that gives you a bit of an understanding of the area . I was unaware of this .

So when I found that out I thought , huh , now that kind of makes a bit more sense . These , you know , the people that are saying this was murder . I kind of get it from . You know , putting all the pieces together , you think , hmm , this actually stinks of racism .

Now I'm going to give you some history on Kendrick , and I will be referring to him as KJ , as that's how he was known to his friends and family . Kj was a good kid . He was a brilliant basketball player , he loved sports and he loved school . He was 17 years old and an African American . He was super close to his family and he loved his dad .

Everyone says he was super , super close to his dad . His dad , kenneth , was a truck driver and spent a lot of time , sort of you know chunks of time away driving his truck . His mum , jackie , along with Kenneth , had lived in Val Dost of their whole lives and they had five children altogether .

On January , the 10th 2013 , kj's family became worried when he didn't come home from school . His family all started calling each other saying have you heard from KJ , have you seen him ? But no one had . Kj's mum , along with his sister , drove back to the school and started driving around looking for him . They couldn't see anyone anywhere .

They spoke to the bus driver and the bus driver said well , he wasn't on the bus this evening , so don't know where he is . On that evening , when it started getting dark , jackie called the police and the sheriff came out and spoke to her and he said to her oh , he's probably just laid up with some girl .

And she was like my kids know to be home after dark . They know to come home . Kj knows to come home . If he has not come home , something's wrong . But the sheriff pretty much just sort of wrote a report and said all right , well , I'll have a drive round and see if I can see him , but it's probably nothing , I wouldn't be too worried .

Kj's dad , kenneth , who was actually on a job driving his truck , said that when he spoke to Jackie and she said I've spoken to the police , I've told them that he hasn't come home . They think it's nothing . It started to approach midnight that night and they still hadn't heard from him .

Kenneth said I had to pull the truck over and go and lay on my little bed at the back and he said , as I did , I knew that my son was dead . I knew that I wasn't going to see my son again . The following morning KJ's sister , kenyetta , and mum went back to the school . They were there at eight o'clock , searching the school , going around the school .

They went into the school . They were looking in these classrooms , having a look around , and then later on in the morning Kenyetta said that there was a lot of people around the old gym and when Kenyetta went to the door , the police and there were some officials there , I guess like officials of the school , maybe some from the police department .

But she said they just would not let her in and she knew that there was something wrong because there were other students already in the gym . So why wouldn't they let her in ? She went and told her mum . Her mum came to the gym and her mum , jackie , just went up to the sheriff and said is that my son ? Did you find my son ? And the officer said yes .

Jackie broke down and was obviously absolutely devastated . Jackie then told Kenneth , who headed home immediately . There were a lot of students , as I said already , in the gym when they discovered KJ's body and they said that when they pulled the gym mats down you could see KJ's feet sticking out the top and she said the smell was horrendous .

At that point they knew that one of their classmates was dead in the gym . Although this was now a crime scene , the school kind of carried on as normal .

We've got KJ's mum , jackie , who was sitting there screaming and crying outside the gym and there was just hordes of children walking past her as she was sitting there , just going to the next class , like it was a normal day . The police came out the gym and said unfortunately KJ is dead , we've found him , we don't suspect any foul play .

And the family thought you've just found him , he's still in the gym , you haven't even taken his body out , he hasn't been examined or all they knew he could have been shot .

In particular , it just means that all the fluids would go to the top half of your body , so your lungs would fill up with fluid , you would bleed , you would almost sort of drown within your own body . All the fluids would go to your head and your lungs and so your brain would swell , and all that . Yeah .

So it's like saying that you basically you sort of suffocate . So asphyxia , you would suffocate because of the position that you're in .

There's a gap of about 14 inches in the middle and he was stuffed down like in the middle of a toilet roll , if you can sort of picture that . So he was head down , he had one arm over his head and in a horrendous condition . His family began this protest at the courthouse . They couldn't understand how this could have possibly been an accident .

He wasn't silly , he didn't do ridiculous things , like you know , thinking it was a good idea to go head down into a six foot tall gym mat . And they just couldn't understand how he could end up head down , upside down , in the middle of a gym mat , squeezed himself inside and just died . So I'll explain a little bit more about the gym mats in particular .

So the kids at the high school didn't all have lockers , so they used to drop their gym shoes behind the gym mats , and originally I thought they used to put their shoes in the gym mats ? Yeah , but after hearing a statement from several of KJ's schoolmates and friends , it turns out that they didn't do that .

They used to throw their shoes behind the gym mats and if any of the shoes had sort of gone , you know , they might have thrown it and it bounced and it went down inside . They said we would never have climbed . I mean , how can you climb up on top of a six foot gym mat anyway ?

But if they went down inside one of the gym mats accidentally , he said we just used to push the gym mats , yeah , and just push them and tilt them and either kick it out with your foot or one of your mates would hook it out or fail in that if you were on your own and you thought , ah , one of my shoes , I bet it's gone down inside that mat .

He said we just used to push them over . Yeah , you know , I mean they are at the end of the day they're foam , I know they're heavy , but I mean these are 17 year old boys .

Why would you climb in the top when you know that you could just push them over and pick shoes up ?

So , as his dad , Kenneth , said , we had to make some noise Because this was very quickly being brushed under the carpet . No , no , it was an accident . No , and his family were like no , it was not an accident . So they linked arms outside the courthouse and refused to let anyone in until they made a scene , basically .

So they ended up getting arrested , which is what they wanted , and they made a stand and they started this protest against sweeping everything under the carpet . So questions started being asked , and one in particular was circulating wildly If this was a white kid that had been found dead , would it have been brushed under and labelled as an accident ?

Personally , looking at all the other evidence , I don't think .

I can't do a report on that because that's not true to how he was found . Yeah , it's ridiculous . Georgia law states that a coroner should be called as soon as a body is discovered , like it should be their first call . You find a body , call the coroner . The coroner then makes a report on what is found .

What is seen , what is found , the condition of the body , the temperature of the body , time of death , calls of death All of that is so important . The police called the coroner . Do you know how many hours after ? No , I don't . Five hours , oh gosh .

Five hours after they found KJ , they called the coroner and they'd already unrolled him from the gym mat , repositioned him , kj's dad . He made like demands , demands . I am going to see my son's body .

And when they unzipped the bag that KJ was laid in , he said there was almost a sort of puff of warm air that came out . That he thought it's not like . I've done this a lot , but I remember it surprising me and thinking why is he being kept in such warm conditions ?

I thought it had to be cool conditions , but , yeah , so he said that was that was bizarre . Bill Watson , who is Lones County , Georgia , Corona , said that KJ's body had been moved and the scene had been compromised , and this was far from the usual protocol .

So some evidence at the scene that was inconsistent , to say the least , was there were trainers at the scene that were not KJ's , which you might say , yes , but the scene is where all these teenage boys kept their trainers .

Yeah , However , they had a dried red substance on and the police said well , we didn't take them in as potential evidence because it wasn't blood that was on the trainers . Having learned about usual protocol for investigators . Everything is taken into evidence . Everything that is in that crime scene is logged and noted and put into evidence .

These trainers that had this mysterious dried red red substance on weren't taken into police evidence .

Although it was tested to say yes , it was blood , it wasn't tested to see whose blood it was and it was not logged into evidence

either . There was a second pair of trainers that were KJs , which is the trainers that you're talking about . That were on top of KJ's feet . Just kind of his legs were sort of at the side , leaning to the side of this inner tube , and they were kind of dropped down by his legs . These were not the trainers that he was reaching for .

These were the trainers that he wore to go to school in . I don't find this as bizarre because I think what if , potentially , at some point , he kicked his shoes off ?

I mean , I don't know , maybe it was in a panic to try and get out , I don't know , but I just I kind of thought , well , if he was upside down and he kicked his shoes off , then they probably would have fallen down by his legs .

Trainers , if you're gonna use the only thing that you can use , which is your feet to get you out , your trainers are gonna do that better than your socks wheel . So I don't feel like he would have kicked his trainers off .

They were on top of where he was , which is a bit bizarre . There were another pair of trainers that were KJs and they were in the bottom of the rolled up mat . So these were the trainers that the police say that he was reaching for , and the strange thing about these is that they were absolutely spotless . They were super , super clean .

And this is strange because , being at the bottom , kj had unfortunately bled a lot . He'd also vomited quite a lot , but the shoes were on top of said blood and vomit , which is just , I think we discussed it before , didn't we ?

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And if they weren't sure that this is what happened , that's what they said anyway . So what was the reason ? Anyway ? So the next bit of evidence that they seem to have skipped over is the CCTV footage . So there are four cameras just in that gym .

There's cameras that cover like the whole gym , there's cameras that cover like the whole of the school , but there's four cameras in the gym and they cover the whole gym apart from the area where the rolled up mats are . And there's something really weird about this , and I'll give you the information and then I'll say why I think that this has happened .

So one camera records or camera one , I'll call it so . Camera one records the whole morning up until 12.04 . And then it resumes at 109 pm . So this is all . This is all that I'm talking about . The day that KJ dies . Camera two records the whole morning up until 11.05 am . It cuts out . It then resumes at 1.15 pm .

Camera three , pretty much exactly the same as camera two , records the whole morning up until 11.05 , the same as camera two , cuts out , resumes at 1.16 pm . So they're cutting out and they're coming back on sort of around 109 , 1015 . Camera four , exactly the same as camera one , records up to 12.04 , then cuts out and resumes at 109 .

So cameras two and three exactly the same . Cameras one and four exactly the same . So the time that cuts out is when cameras outside the gym in the hallway record several males entering the gym . These cameras are motion sensors , so if the lights are on in the gym or if there's motion , they record and they always do .

Why didn't the cameras inside the gym pick up these males that were heading in ? Because they were seen from the outside . But this is when we've got from about 11.05 to quarter past one , there isn't really anything showing inside the gym . Well , there's nothing showing inside the gym .

So we know from that that from at least 12 to one 12 o'clock to one o'clock in the afternoon we know that there was several males students that went inside the gym . Then at 109 pm KJ is seen entering the gym and this is the last time that KJ is seen on camera until his body is found and brought out .

In the hours after this the cameras go on and off with multiple people going in and out . None of the kids say they saw KJ climbing into the mats , struggling near the mats trying to get shoes , shouting nothing . No one says anything about it , not even the discovery of KJ's body was on the tapes . So it's literally .

It shows KJ going in the gym , running across the gym and then the next thing that's on the video is his body being brought out and that's it . So from that it cuts out and then there's nothing . In June of that year the Johnson's hired Dr Bill Anderson to possibly look at doing a second autopsy .

So like they just weren't getting anywhere with any of this , they thought it was so , so suspicious . They were convinced that he'd been murdered . So I mean it takes a lot for a parent to say For you to assume . Yeah , we want to assume the body of our child , but that's what they looked into anyway .

And Dr Bill Anderson said that he would have a look at his original KJ's original autopsy report . So when he examined the original autopsy report , dr Anderson found that , as we spoke about earlier , in positional asphyxia the lungs fill with fluid and become very heavy .

And on the report he said Well , kj's lungs are normal weight and also no fluid was detected in his lungs and he thought that absolutely cannot be positional asphyxia then . So he said Okay , based on that knowledge , we need to exume KJ and carry out a second autopsy . So that's what they did .

When Dr Anderson darted the second autopsy , he was horrified to discover that all of KJ's organs were missing . He found lots and lots and lots of balled up newspaper . And he said this in my career this has never happened .

During an autopsy the organs are taken out , they're examined , put into bags and then the bags are put back inside the body and then stitched up . Why had KJ's organs been taken ?

Why not say that you know his lungs ? Yeah , but why not say he died of positional as Fixia ? His lungs weighed a tonne ? Yeah , you can watch that . Yeah , you know and do that as well . I don't understand that . Why say that his lungs were normal weight and didn't contain any fluid , but then he died of positional as Fixia ? It doesn't make sense .

But very few bits in this case do make sense , to be honest . Bill also found cuts and abrasions on KJ's hands and a few on his face as well , and he said that's consistent with a fight . The cuts look like fingernail marks and he said they were done . The cuts on his hands in particular were done very , very soon before his death . They're very open .

They haven't had a lot of time to bleed , definitely right before his death .

He found an area on KJ's neck that had huge bleeding and it was around his carotid artery , and he said this was consistent with blunt force trauma . In his original to all topsy-repoly it states that there was bruising on KJ's neck and lower jaw From doing that .

Second all topsy obviously they weren't able to do a full all topsy , but he said , with the cuts on his hands , abrasions on his face , this bruising on his lower jaw and neck , a hemorrhage in there , just points to the fact that he looked like he was in a fight .

A federal prosecutor called Michael Moore , who was investigating KJ's death , stated that , like he wouldn't rest until all these questions had been answered , and he stated this on television for everyone to see . One , what was the cause of KJ's death ? Two , was his death the result of a crime ? Three , if it was , who committed the crime ?

And he said quote , I will follow the facts wherever they lead . And when KJ's family heard this , they thought finally , finally , finally , we are going to get some justice for KJ , we're going to find out what really happened to him , and as the investigation began , there was one common fact that arose time and time again , and this was the Bell Brothers .

I'll give you some history on the relationship between KJ and the Bell Brothers . A year or so before KJ's death , kj had got into a fight with another student called Brian Bell . They were on a bus heading for a playoff game and Brian was like the other guys on the bus .

The other students on the bus said that Brian was playing kind of rough with KJ and KJ wasn't about it . He wasn't playing back , he wasn't like in the mood , he didn't find it funny . He was like not cool , brian , not cool .

But Brian then grabbed KJ by his dreads and kind of pinned his head down and he was holding his head down and laugh it like proper bullying , do you know what I mean ? Like just laughing at him and KJ kind of pulled Brian's hands off his hair and you know , kj was obviously like pissed by then . So a fight started and there's no doubt about it .

Kj beat Brian in this fight and Brian was visibly pissed about it . But when , when they got off the bus , when they got to the game , kj was made to sit in the police deputy's car for like the whole time and they let Brian sit in the stands with his parents and watch the game . So , like , what's that about ?

After this , kj said that he would regularly see a student called Brandon staring at him , like just staring him out , and Brandon was going around the school saying that this fight between Brian and KJ was not over . Oh , and did I mention that Brandon is Brian's brother ?

And one day KJ called his dad and said something really weird happened today at school . Rick Bell , who is Brian and Brandon's dad , came up to me and said that fight you had on the bus was unfair . You should come over to our house and refight him . And KJ's dad was like what did you say ?

And he said I just looked at him like he was crazy and walked away . He was like it was obvious that Brian's dad was pissed that his son had lost a fight . Oh , and also I should mention that a little bit about Rick Bell , the Bell brothers dad . Yeah , he was an FBI agent .

Yeah , and this he's talking to a black 17 year old . Like what was he thinking ? yeah what an idiot to do that and say , yeah , that fight you had with my son , that was an unfair fight . What was unfair about it ?

Yeah , they start lost yeah , and the fact that he's willing to put his own son in back into the fire and like potentially his son could get really badly hurt . And he's like come round to our house and fight my son . And obviously Rick Bell denies that this conversation ever happened .

The police then interviewed Brian Bell and they spoke to him , obviously more about the day KJ died . Brian stated he was nowhere near KJ and didn't see him at all all of that day and then all of a sudden the whole Bell family loyal up , strange that .

And then something really weird , something even more weird , or just as weird all the witnesses , when they were talking to the investigators , said why do I keep getting questioned by FBI agent Rick Bell ? And the investigators like , huh , why is he questioning you ? And the FBI went to Rick Bell and they said listen , you cannot be involved in this case .

Like we're questioning your sons about it . You cannot do that , you cannot go and speak to the witnesses . And he was like oh yeah , yeah , oh yeah . Whoops , the investigators who , when they spoke to the witnesses , they said they weren't directly threatened , but they felt threatened . They said that Bell was . It wasn't . You know .

It's like it's not what you said , it's how , how you said it it was exactly like that .

So they said that Bell was speaking to them in a threatening manner and also Bell was like turning up at witnesses , places of work and some of them , he was literally just like standing outside waiting for him , yeah , like across the street , you know , and they'd be sort of going about that you know business and they'd look out at the ocean .

Rick Bell's over the street bogging at me through the window and it was just weird . He was just like lurking outside their places of work , outside their homes , things like that . And on July 21st 2015 , just after 5am in the morning , the FBI raided the Bell's house and I didn't go too much into what they found .

It's quite difficult to find what came of that , but they said FBI raided Bell's house on the 21st of July around 5am Because it was on the news , it was all over the telly , it was all on the news . So that's kind of how we sort of found out about it .

The thing about this that speaks the loudest is in order to have a raid done and to get a warrant to search property , a judge has to sign off on that . So what did they have ? What evidence did they have ? They can't just go well , their kids fought on a bus . What did they have that ?

They showed the judge that the judge went yes , and this was a big raid . It was a big raid . There was big armoured vehicles , many , many . I don't know how many officers were there , but they were armed , they had guns and everything and they raided this house at 5am in the morning . What were they looking ?

When they asked Brian Bell who was the one that had the fight , when they asked Brian if he had anything to do with KJ's death , brian said quote no , he was one of my good friends .

Quote my best friend was at a party Saturday night with blank and blank was upset about something that blank had said to her . So her and my best friend started talking and by the end of the night blank had told my friend everything that the whole nation has been wondering about for the past year .

She told my friend what really happened to KJ and blank said that about a little over a year ago she had had sexual intercourse with KJ while she was dating blank . Blank found out about it and threatened KJ . Kj told blank to meet him in the old gym after third block and he would have his knife ready .

And blank , who had just transferred back to LHS , met KJ and killed him . Blank has also been heard admitting to killing KJ more than once over the phone . His brother , blank , also got drunk at a party on the 4th of July and told many people that blank killed KJ and that he , blank , was tired of keeping it a secret end quote .

When I first read that , I thought that they were definitely talking about Brian and Brandon .

Then , shortly after this , kj's case was moved to Ohio and this meant the investigation was being dealt with by , you know , in a totally different state with totally different investigators , and nobody knew why . There's no reason for it , absolutely no reason .

It was just like well , because the FBI stated to the Johnson family that they knew KJ had been murdered , they knew it wasn't an accident , but they didn't have enough evidence to support it . And this was their exact words we don't have enough evidence to support murder . So they did have some evidence . What was it ?

What was the evidence that they had that they wouldn't share , that they had that pointed to murder . Because it's just , you can't be like we suspect murder . They've got some evidence , but not quite enough . Yeah , you've got some , so there will be more .

You know , if you've got some evidence that it was murder , if you look deep enough , you will find something . I know you will . I don't know how long it will take , but just anyway .

The Department of Justice , or DOJ , got the Johnson family for a meeting and they said there was like Kenneth Johnson and Jackie Johnson , kj's mum and dad , and there was about eight of them from the DOJ and they said the shoe inside the gym mat was planted there . We know that there's no way that it could have been an accident .

I'm thinking maybe someone tilted the mat and put a shoe under there and said we'll make it look like he was reaching for his shoes . Do you know what I mean ? Yeah , I don't think that's possible . But the DOJ said we know that that shoe was planted there . They said that they knew KJ was killed and it wasn't an accident , but they couldn't prove it .

After this happened not just like one or two seven judges recused themselves from KJ's case and I had to look up what recused mean because I thought I've never heard of that . It means that judge wants to remove themselves from the case . They feel that they cannot be fair or unbiased and they don't want to be involved in that case .

Oh , and that happened Seven times . That's the Seven judges . What was going on behind the scenes ?

But he had to subpoena all those people .

So , unfortunately , they decided to do a third autopsy . So on November 15th 2018 , five years after KJ's death , his body was exhumed for a second time . They found that it was blunt force trauma to his neck and his chest . Kj had a huge hemorrhage , which proves blunt force trauma . The third autopsy was ruled non accidental death .

Cause of death was blunt force trauma . They filed these results with the authorities and were told sorry , we're not interested , the case is closed . The FBI report on the CCTV was lost , so it was not available to anyone and the family again was like nope , we're going to see if we can get this sorted .

And it was actually , ironically , it was a team of filmmakers that were making a documentary about KJ that found this report and , obviously , because it was footage that was being prepared to potentially use in court , a lot of it had been redacted , a lot of it , you know , the students had been blacked out so that you couldn't see all these people that weren't

involved . So they thought , well , we kind of want to see the real footage , like we want to see the bits that have been redacted so unbelievably . They found it , and they found the most incredible piece of evidence Guess , who they saw walking next to KJ moments before he entered the gym and died .

This is the same Brian Bell who said that KJ was a good friend of his . The same Brian Bell whose father was an FBI agent . Same Brian Bell who had a fight with KJ publicly on a bus and was shamed . Kj was a notable figure in Brian Bell's life . I'm pretty sure he would remember walking alongside him Lair .

So when this evidence was shown to the investigators from Val Dosta who had been shut out of the case they're the ones that had been desperate to find evidence and get justice for KJ they were shown this evidence , like all these years later , and they said not at any point had I been shown this video . I never knew .

You know , we had Brian Bell sitting in front of us saying I didn't see him at all that day . I was nowhere near the old Jim . I was nowhere near KJ , didn't see him . If we'd seen that evidence , it would have pointed directly towards suspicion on the Bell brothers 100% . So why did Brian Bell lie and say that he hadn't seen KJ all that day ?

When they examined the description of the CCTV because all points of it are noted , you know , in this section at this time , this is what happened . It even says KJ observed in covered walkway moving towards camera Bell observed in the same location at this time . Why was that not put into evidence ? Why was that held from all the investigators ?

It's a pivotal part of the investigation . Rick Bell was fired from the FBI . To this day , no one has been charged with KJ's murder .

And yes , I am calling it a murder because I just cannot see it as an accident . I think it's clearly and obviously a murder .

And it says I recently became aware of a statement made in Florida in 2017 by Ryan Hernandez . He was a , or is still , friends with Brandon Bell . So Brandon Bell is the brother of Brian Bell and the son of former FBI Special Agent Rick Bell . His statements declare that Brian Bell killed Kendrick Johnson and Ryan Hall was with Brian Bell at the time .

It states that Brian called his father , who worked for the FBI at the time .

It also states that former FBI Special Agent Rick Bell called Sheriff Chris Prine after being made aware of Kendrick's death and they then proceeded to cover it up Not only cover up a crime , but they went so far as to remove Kendrick's organs and stuff him with newspaper to help cover their tracks . It's disgusting , isn't ?

And also if you go to Facebook Justice for Kendrick Johnson and just show your support , because Kendrick Johnson's life matters and we need to do something about it . So , even if we're just showing our support and showing that we're behind them and we're in pursuit of the truth , it helps to have a big lot of support .

So , even if each one of us that listens to our podcast and has listened to this and thank you for staying all the way through to the end and I'm glad I didn't have an absolute meltdown , but I know the Matthew Shepherd yeah , I'm close to it and it's I am super passionate about this and I really want us to continue looking into this .

So , sarah and I will continue to follow this case and we'll bring any updates to you guys if we find it and , similarly , if any of you guys listening , if you've got any more information on this or anything that we didn't mention , please send it to me because I would love to hear it and if there's anything we can do to help , let us know .

His dad got in to prove that there was no way he could have got in . It was that he was put in there and rolled up . He wouldn't have been able physically to climb in and get stuck how he was stuck .