The parents of a Georgia high school student whose body was found in a rolled up wrestling mat have filed a lawsuit against the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office over what they say is “false information” connected to the death investigation.
Kendrick Johnson, 17, was found dead in at the Lowndes County High School gym in 2013, as CrimeOnline previously reported. The GBI determined Johnson’s death was accidental — despite two independent autopsies finding the teen died of non-accidental blunt force trauma — and the FBI concurred. The sheriff’s office reopened the investigation in March 2021 and reiterated the accidental ruling nearly a year later.
Sheriff Ashley Paulk, who released a synopsis of the case file last year concurring with the official report, then offered $500,000 of his own money to anyone with evidence that Johnson was murdered. He called the family’s continued press for information a “witch hunt.”
Police say that Johnson crawled into the mat to retrieve his shoes, became stuck, and continued to burrow into the mat until he became completely trapped and died.
The teen’s parents believe he was murdered and have implicated two classmates — brothers — in their son’s death and say school officials and law enforcement have covered it up.
“It’s a shame that we have been having to fight for 10 long years and nobody seems to care about Kendrick. He’s just another child that they want to sweep under the rug,” said Kendrick’s mother, Jackie Johnson, according to WAGA.
Johnson’s family says that the official version of the teen’s death says falsely that there was no trauma or bruising on his body.
“All the evidence they collected contradicts the cause of death on the death certificate as well as the synopsis,” said the Johnsons’ lawyer, Jonathan Burrs.
“They killed the wrong child, but they got the right parents because we are going to continue to fight for Kendrick,” Jackie Johnson said.
The Johnsons’ federal lawsuit seeks $1 billion in damages.
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[Featured image: Kendrick Johnson/Contributed]
