THE KENDRICK JOHNSON MURDER-Fred Rosen and Beau Webster

they realized it was a body. According to Lounge County Share of Chris Prine, Kendrick Johnson died while reaching into an upright gym matt in the old gym on January tenth, trying to retrieve a sneaker that had fallen inside. Instead, Kendrick fell in, couldn't get out and smothered to death from positional affixiation. The original autopsy report ruled Johnson's death an accident, stating that the teen suffocated while getting stuck

in a gym matt while reaching for a sneaker. However, Johnson's parents weren't convinced there was an accident, and they got a court order to have their son's body exhumed. A second autopsy report showed the teen's death was not an accident, stating that Johnson had sustained non accidental blunt trauma During an autopsy. Eternal organs are removed and examined before return for burial. But when the private pathologist who conducted the second autopsy on Johnson open up the teen's remains,

the brain, heart, lungs, liver, another viscera were missing. Every organ from the pelvis to the skull was gone and had been replaced with newspaper. Federal prosecutor now Michael Moore is reopening the case. The book, the case that we're featuring this evening. The story that we're talking about is the Kendrick Johnson murder. With my special guest, Fred Rosen and Bou Webster. Welcome back to the program, gentlemen, Fred Rosen and Bo Webster, by pleasure, sir.

was interested in maybe pursuing the investigation. My background is law enforcement in South Florida in the Fort Lauderdale area for years, and I've had my private investigator's license and agency for the past eight years, where we do all types of investigative work, a lot of high profile criminal

cases along with large murder cases. I went to Valdosta and actually met the attorney representing the family and met mister and missus Johnson at that time, and came on board as a investigator to try to determine what exactly happened to their seventeen year old son, Kendrick Johnson.

twenty eleventh February during the trial of Gary Hilton. I was working on a book called Traales of Death, which was about Hilton, who was a serial killer and he killed people three three different states, and Bow and I sort of hit it off and we continued to talk and to each other. And sometime around oh, i'd say April of this year, Bo called and told me about this young man who had been discovered in the old

gym at this high school in Valdosta. I didn't even know where Valdosta was then, and you know, I'm more familiar which is going down the I ninety five Carter on the east coast of the United States, you know, and just going you know, through the you know, the

coastal area. And Bo told me that he this boy had been discovered rowed up in a gym that dead, and I took one look at the photograph, which looked like his face had been at the time, we thought that he had been the face had been beaten in We since discovered there was other damage as a result of what had occurred, but in any case, it didn't make much sense to me. And quite frankly, you know, I have a child, and as do most of the

people working on this case. And as soon as I realized, you know, that the appearance at that point didn't have any other resources as far as anybody to investigate from them, with exception of course, mister Webster, I said, I'm in you know, and then what I did was I got someone else involved who I work with, and I started investigating and working with Bow and I went down to

Georgia back in June. BO and I then went to see one of the people involved in the case, who was a paramedic who was the first on the scene. And that's when I knew that this thing was pretty serious because that paramedic, when Bou tried to talk to him, was extremely scared. I've never seen an individual as scared as this guy was, and I knew something was up, and so I just stayed on it with both.

And he came out of his house. He was holding his son and when Bo explained that he was there to talk about Kendrick Johnson. This guys, this guy frows. I mean, he got and his voice got. It was very his voice trembled, and he was scared, and he wouldn't talk to us. He was very bright. He just said, you know, go talk to the hospital that I worked for as something of that nature. He went back in his house, closed the door, and both turned to me

and said, Fred, these people are scared. And I, you know, I sort of looked around me, and you know, I was a bit paranoid at that moment, to be honest with you, Dan, And that's exactly the way that I felt the entire time I was in Valdosta, which is like somebody was watching me. And I'm convinced now that there are individuals there that we're keeping track of us.

And I don't think we're being paranoid about it because we're out to get to the truth and there are people who don't want the truth to be out.

was the report in the beginning? Again, Bo, you knew about this story first, so maybe you can tell us what you first knew and what was the official line and who were the players, the characters that were imparting this information to the media.

the secondary gymnasium. Because they have they have a newer, large facility that they play most of most of their basketball games and any other kind of activities are in the newer complex. So this is called like a secondary gym, and there's surveillance cameras in the gymnasium as well as you know, the surroundings of the school. And he never reported to his third or fourth block, so he was missing, and he went that evening missing, never came home, which

was very unusual for him. According to the parents, they would always have contact with Kendrick, and he would call if he was running late and let them know that maybe he was staying after for a basketball game or you know, some other activity at school. And he didn't show up at home later that night, and the parents were concerned, naturally, and three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, you know, it's still a school night,

and he's still missing, and no word from Kendrick. And so then there was a missing report made the next morning, and Kendrick's body was found around between nine thirty and ten o'clock on Friday morning by students and the faculty

members of the high school. And that's when it's just it's the strangest case that I think I've ever worked in investigation or in law enforcement, where there's just so much, so much evidence that was never collected and gathered and the Sheriff's department naturally was notified immediately that there was a body found in the gym and that the body was found vertically wrapped up inside of a wrestling mat, and that's what alarmed everyone, and all of a sudden,

the Sheriff's apartment becomes involved in an investigation and Georgia Bureau of Investigation was notified to respond as well. And generally the coroner is notified immediately when there's a death or a or a victim in a crime, and the coroner was not notified until later on in the day, which was maybe a round between four and four point thirty in the afternoon, which is very odd.

into this match. And it's a huge mat It's like it's at least six feet tall, and he reached in, he lost his balance, he fell in, he couldn't get out, and he was in such a position that he couldn't breathe, and he died and that's it, end of story. And at the same time, Wes Taylor, who is the superintendent of the school district, sends out a press release saying, oh, this is an awful thing. You know, we hope that the family will get over this. You know, now it's

time tomorrow, et cetera, et cetera. And it's like everybody just wanted to sort of like push it aside and wipe it away. Except we got one little problem then, okay, which is that the clothing that Kendrick is wearing disappears. His the matt disappears. As you pointed out. By the time the body is presented to doctor Anderson, doctor William Anderson in Orlando for the second autopsy, the organs have disappeared, and to date the surveillance video has disappeared. So what

do you make of all of that? That's you know, what do you make of all of that? And at the same time, the most important element I think of this is this, the jurge of Bureau of Investigation does the autopsy. The results don't come out until May the second, and they claim again positional asphyxia. Except this one little problem. Positional asphixia means would mean that the boy's lungs would

have filled with fluid as a result of suffocation. His lungs in the report weighed the normal amount, which means he didn't die from positionally six years That is a key to understanding this whole thing. And even though this doctor comes out with this report, the GBI refuses to take a look at it. They refuse to review what the doctor has done or their own findings and set as the sheriff and they just want to close the whole thing down and say, hey, you know, he just

fell in. Oh, and I might add one other thing. We have an email from a GBI executive in which this individual says, oh, he wasn't reaching for a sue, he was reaching for a book. They can't even get their story straight, which is what I wrote him in Ebony dot com, where I've been reporting on this. They can't get their stories straight. Dan, it's it's it's it's in some ways it is mind boggling. But they can get away with it because the dealing with the authorities

in Georgia. And you know, I'm pretty straightforward in some of the in what I say, it's like walking into the nineteenth century, Okay, people in the most The thing that I really need to emphasize is this, if you're African American and you're in Georgia, you're in most places you're a second class citizen, and especially in a place like Valdosta, you're a second class citizen, even though this

is the twenty first century, and people are scared. People are scared, and they're scared of the cops, and they're scared of talking, and of course that makes our job that much tougher. And now I'll just shut up in my boat tore for the rest of the show.

to do it. So that alone tells you that, I mean, there's just no way that he could conceivably just push himself down or jump into the inside of that mat and die of affixiation to retrieve what is said to be either tennis shoes or a book. There are two different stories to that. And he you know, he was a triathlete, so he was in great shape. According to his dad, he was very strong and able to take care of himself. So even if he was inside of a mat, he would have been able to knock the

mat down and get out of the mat. But it just doesn't make any sense. And probably a couple months after I started the investigate, well immediately after I started the investigation, I started asking for the surveillance tapes, which was never to this moment, has never been given to me. And I think the family maybe just got some of the surveillance tapes in the last couple few weeks. But I asked to go into the secondary gym where the

body was found. Weeks after I began this investigation, and the family attorney and mister and Missus Johnson and myself went to the gym so that we could go inside of the secondary gym, take photographs, take measurements, look to see where all the surveillance cameras are placed, to get a good idea of what the inside of that gym looks like. And we were told at the front door of the administration office that your investigator is not welcome here today. And I mean it really floored me and

alarmed me that you know what's going on here? Why can't we go into the gym? And I was turned away, and I was told that I expect to call within a week that I could return and then go back

into the gym, And that call was never made. And back probably two weeks after school broke for summer session, for summer break, that's when I had received notice that we could go into the gym and take a look at everything, take our measurements, take photographs into the secondary gym at that time, which was months after the fact, and it's I mean, it's just very frustrating to me, and I know how frustrating it is to that family

to you know, to have to go through this. They were allowed to go in the gym that day, but I mean by that time, there's no evidence whatsoever probably to gather and all the information and all the evidence that we've asked for in all these months, what is it nine or ten actually ten months now, all the evidence is not available. It's either been destroyed or it's

been held somewhere. But I have not seen any of the evidence, the matt, the clothing, anything that would pertain to, you know, to Kendrick's body or any type of DNA that might have been gathered.

exhume their son's body for a second autosy. So Fred tell us about that endeavor, that initiative to do that and what has resulted from that second autopsy report.

were the petition was granted. And what makes that interesting is that the petition was granted on May the first, and that made headlines. At that point, there were very little and there was very little in the way of publicity. The following day and they second, the authorities stole the

headlines back. That's when they released the results of the first door autopsy, where they claimed it was physicial asshixiation about six weeks later in the middle of June, and Bow could comment more on this because he was there. Kendrick's body was disinterred, you know, the vault placed on a flatbed truck taken to Orlando, Florida, where doctor William Anderson performed the second autopsy. When he body was presented to doctor Anderson, he you know, he opened up the body.

That's when he discovered the organs were missing. But he did something that the first autopsy that had not been done at the first autopsy, and that was he dissected Kendrick's neck and he discovered a severe hemorrhage. And in his opinion, the boy got from one blow to the neck which caused his heart to stop. That is his opinion.

And what again, what makes this interesting is that that is that second autopsy, the results are widely accepted within the African American community, though within the white community not

not so much. So you have you have this this this uh economy going on, and you have and so, which makes it very very difficult to to get to the truth because for every step forward that we make in the investigation, somebody else will come back and say, you know, it's some sort of explanation, uh that that that the the second autopsy doesn't have any valid results for whatever reason. People had actually gone after doctor Anderson's reputation in order to discredit the results of the autopsy.

But it was that autopsy that really we were waiting for. The results came in in September, and by that time, the US Attorney, Michael Jmore for the Middle District of Georgia, had received the report from the attorney representing the family, and he'd already started to review the materials. And I kid around with mister Borrow when I get him on the phone. Both actually met him a couple of times. I've only talked to him on the phone. But when I talked to him, I go, are you the only

federal federal official who's earning his money? And he laughs and he's a really regular guy, and he is he is really concerned with getting to the truth, and so that set an autopsy is really what started to propel things forward and gates to gather some steam. As you pointed out regarding getting attention.

very odd. I mean, it's it's just hard to understand. Uh. And then UH, when I was out doing the uh preliminary investigation and pounding the street every day talking to you know, witnesses and people that might be able to shed some light on and give any type of information that might be helpful, I would talk to faculty members and students, and the faculty members just said that they could not talk they are forbidden to talk to anyone pertaining to the investigation, and that I would have to

go through their subordinates. There, you know, because they would they would stand a chance at losing their jobs, losing their retirement. So you know, when you've got people that probably know something and you can't talk to them because they're scared and they've been threatened, then you know, it's hard to conduct an investigation like that. I mean, they've even had they've even had faculty members I guess leave the school for whatever reason. But it's a sad thing because.

evidence pertaining to this case. And now they can go ahead and move forward and hopefully there's justice right around the corner.

and another suspect from another school. And I wanted to mention this too, is that even Michael Moore has said that he has he's warning his jurisdiction is limited as a federal prosecutor, but he said, after lengthy review of evidence collected by authorities and the family's own investigation investigator, that sufficient bases exists to warrant a formal review of

the facts. Now, for us folks that aren't so familiar with these kinds of things, tell us what exactly can potentially happen from this, What would be the likely outcome if he does this review? And again, is a review a reopening of the case, or what exactly is the review and what can the review actually lead to?

different areas. One a civil rights violation, that is, Kendrick Johnson lost his life because he was African American and essentially.

prosecute in federal court. Now, the third thing he can do is he can use what is known as the Ricos statutes in the States, which originally were designed to prosecute the mob or the mafia, but have been used successfully to prosecute when you have a conspiracy exactly what we're talking about here, where you have a number of different agencies that get together and conspire to conceal the truth.

And those agencies can be anything from police agencies, it could be it could be school agencies, it could be whatever it might be. But he follows that evidence, on the other hand, and so we get it. It's are you start you know, I look, it's it's historical really, because he has to make a decision about who has venue. Is it the state, is it the federal government, And he's got to go on the basis of what the

evidence is. And a lot of the evidence that he is looking at is the evidence that bo has gathered, including identifying suspects. So what's happened as we speak is that mister Moore has gotten agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to come down to make and who he's met with, and then they would dispatch to Valdosta to begin their investigation and interviewing interested parties, and then that he'll take all of that information into account and make

a decision about what he's going to do. How'd I do.

But there's uh, you've got you know, g b I and the local law enforcement agencies that I guess you know are connected with that first autopsy being in Macon, Georgia, and that's where you know, the conflict's been and that's where uh, the first initial autopsy, first autopsy comes back that there was uh, you know, natural causes as asphyxiation, and we all knew that that was not the case. I don't know if there's anything you want to add to that or not, but.

not going to look at it. They dismissed it. They did never worked at him and and that, and they they're they're not being uh as as doctor Anderson said, how do you call yourself a scientist when you're not open And the answer is, I'm sorry, you're not a scientist. If if that's you know, if this is the way you're can act now in terms of doing a third or autopsy, Uh sure, I mean I understand exactly what you're saying. I don't know how practical that would be.

But that's not but it's a relevant quite frankly, because it's not going to happen. The state is not interested in doing this. They are they're saying, hey, this ish it okay, and numbers significant members of the of the white community are backing up the state. So you know, it's stair autopsy, you know, to get a third opinion.

see a third autopsy. I mean that would naturally be left up to now, it would be left up to the government and to mister Moore if they if he called for a third autopsy. But I just don't see that happening, and it you know, we we've done We've done so much leg work on this case and so

much paperwork and so much pay per trail. I mean, we've got uh, I've got my paralegal that does a lot of great work for me, Matt Mingus with Steven R. Andrews Law Firm, that he has drawn up motions and drafted so many documents asking for all the government, state government, and law enforcement agencies, the coroner, the funeral homes. He's asked for. You know, we've just asked for so much information and we've gotten some of it and some of

it we haven't. You know, we asked for the county commissioners to have a meeting with us months and months back, and they said, yes, we'll go ahead and set it up. However, you're going to have to you're going to have to be with our county attorneys when that meeting takes place. And I said, that's not a problem. We'll be glad to address everything we have with them as well. And the phone call never existed. They never got back to us.

And the school board was the same way. We've asked for meetings with the school officials and that we wanted them to be present so that we could address our issues and find out exactly what was going on in the school. And to this minute, we've never had that meeting as well, they've never gotten back to us.

because that's what we're looking for. Is to find out who murdered Kendrick Johnson and if he if you're saying the juror the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is not going to help out. And and the other question I want to ask, and sorry for the convoluted question, was what's the significance of the organs in both of your minds? Is there any significant significance at all to those missing organs?

The answer is yes now in terms of in terms of the organs, I think that the organs being missing that would not have been an uncommon thing ten years ago, especially in some some more remote venues in the United States. What are you gotta do is look at it from this point of view. Organs are organs of a person who you think has been killed. Are evidence? Bill Okay put it together. The organs are missing, the mat is missing, the clothing is missing, the surveillance video is missing. Somebody's

somebody's are hiding something. And one of the great things that you have done then is a result of our last conversation about this back in June, an individual heard this in Georgia and he came forward as a source. And I've nicknamed him the Falcon after the Marvel comic books character because I'm a comic bookiek And he has helped me understand what it's like to be African American in Georgia and specifically in Valdosta. And he has really

helped need to understand what's going on there. And this is the kind of stuff that I haven't written about yet because in writing Family dot Com, I'm doing more of the news stuff. But when I do the book on this and and uh and and then I'll be able to really get into this because to me, this is what's really interesting, which is the the the the fears that people put up with the the the the barriers between the races and and what, you know, what

people believe. And it's amazing, Dan, with everything that we have talked about I'm here tonight. I've talked to tow uh Caucasians in uh in Valdosta who want to maintain that Kendrick died from physitional association, which is about the same as saying that, uh, the Starship Enterprise exists, you know, I mean, I'd like to believe it does, but it doesn't. I'm sorry, not yet. You know, maybe in a couple

of centuries. You know, I'm you know, my apologies to Bill Shatner, but you know the the it's just you know so, but sort of answer your question. Uh, you know, I've been in a long way around. Mister Moore can absolutely bring murder charges. And again Bow is being being very uh uh He's much more circumstance than I am. And and uh, but the fact is Bow has identified

the suspects. Okay, he's identity and and this, and mister Moore is using those information to now go and you you know, the FBI is using this stuff as leads and and they're in Aldasta, and I'll and if I was those bad guys and I was listening right now, I would say that you know, one of you going to come forward and make the deal. Real quick. Uh, and and because otherwise they're gonna throw the book at you.

this because it looks like a big story. It looks like a That's what I realized when I first looked at this, that that instinctively, there's so much going on with this, not only cover up, but there's it's a very very incredible story.

many of the kids are juveniles. You have to have the parents present when you talk to them, and the parents are even trying to get the uh, you know, the children, the students to partake and and give you, you know, quality information. And it's hard to do when you when you first start out because of the you know, the threats and people they're just they're afraid to talk.

They have they have nothing to say. And we finally gained enough trust in these people that they have come forth and now we just have to put it in the hands of the Department of Justice. And I honestly do believe that you know, the right person is there to lay this attack, and that being mister Moore.

since mister Crump came on board the film. There's also a public relations person that's been hired or work out of Atlanta, and so very you know periodically that they're releasing information. I can also tell you that CNN is CNN has been on this from the beginning, but I'm actually and bo is that we're working with NBC and they've been on this actually since way before CNN. But

we're building it, you know what I mean. We're not going out there and saying you know, X, Y Z and D, you know, just for the sake of saying something. We're building this thing, and we're continuing to investigate. So while mister Moore is doing his investigation, we're not stopping. We are not stopping. We are involved actively in investigating this case and inactively investigating the suspects.

these people. So there's certainly two really very fascinating stories. But I think the most interesting to me, is the cover up? Really?

out there, thousands and thousands. I mean, it just goes on and on of how much support there is from the white community wanting justice and just thinks that you know, that this crime that was done to this seventeen year old is uncalled for, and there's a lot of support

out there. And you know, if anyone that's listening to this radio talk show tonight, if anyone has any information that they can pass on, you know, we would greatly appreciate it, because you know, it comes down to would you want I mean, we all have children and we love them very much. Would you want your child going to school on a daily basis with a murderer or murderers that is responsible for committing such a heineous crime.

I know I wouldn't and I would put my foot down, and you know, I just hope that someone, you know, will come forward, and we are getting a lot of great valuable information from people that we're in contact with on a daily basis, and we just hope that it continues. And you know, I want to thank you for this

airtime because it certainly does help. I know that when we had our first one hour talk show back in June, we got phone calls from all over and it's just great to know that there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of attention to it, and people are interested and they want to do the right thing, and you know, I thank you very much.

the things that have gone on have been encouraging to me, and so I really appreciate what you guys have done as well. And I'm really looking forward to further developments in this story.

calling and what kind of information they may have. So, gentlemen, we're almost wrapping up here. We've got a couple more minutes. And sure, so you were saying that you're still pursuing every kind of all all the leads and then the investigation where has pointed you. So you're still furthering that. What is the next I guess what is the next thing that you are going to be doing? I guess in the very very near future regarding this case, both.

of the case. And I plan on doing that in a very near future and still having contact with mister Moore maybe once or a couple of times a week, giving more information because like I said, we have interested parties out there that we're in touch with every day, and UH, as we gather more information, we're comprising everything and UH all this information again will be turned over to UH the federal government, and they can they can take all this material and you know, do what they need to do.

of awareness that I'm seeing out on the web. And I think that with everybody's concerted effort, the family, the attorneys, the investigators, the Red Rosen and excellent true crime writing Ebony magazine, and all the articles that are appearing on the web just in the last little while, especially with the information with the surveillance video being posted. People love videos, So I mean, I really think that this case is

going to gain national attention as it's so deserve. It deservedly does, and I think that we'll be looking forward to not not a happy ending, but at least justice being done. And I think people can pat themselves on the back when that happens by caring and sharing the information and demanding justice for this young man, Kendrick Johnson. So I want to thank you gentlemen both this evening and I wish you the very best and hope to hear from you very very soon with some real good

news concerning the Kendrick Johnson murder case. Thank you, gentlemen, Thank.