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The Case of Kendrick Johnson is Gaining Renewed Attention

Kendrick's Parents. Photo by Russ Bynum via AP

On January 11, 2013, a Black teenager, Kendrick Johnson, was found dead and rolled up inside a wrestling mat by his classmates at Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia. His case has received renewed attention on social media recently after the charges against the suspects involved were dismissed last week.

Officials ruled Johnson’s death an accident, but Johnson’s parents, Kenneth and Jacquelyn, suspected foul play and filed a $100 million dollar civil lawsuit in 2015, which they later voluntarily dismissed. 

They alleged that Kendrick Johnson was encouraged to go to his High School’s old gym by a female student who was left unnamed. Upon his arrival, they believed that two brothers, Brian and Brandon Bell, assaulted Johnson at the command of their father, former FBI agent Richard Bell. They also believed that the assault caused a fatal injury that resulted in Johnson’s death. 

The plaintiffs, Kenneth and Jacquelyn Johnson, claimed that the defendants— Brian, Brandon, and Richard Bell, Chris Prine, Wesley Taylor, The Lowndes County School District, Stryde Jones, Stephen Wesley Owens, Rodney Bryan, Lowndes County, and Dr. Maryanne Gaffney-Kraft—conspired to “cover up the circumstances surrounding Johnson’s death.” They also alleged that the defendants interfered with their access to “both state and federal courts.”

The case was dismissed, and no extension of time to serve was granted.

The eldest Bell brother claimed that he was out of town, while the youngest insisted that he was in another part of the school at the time of the incident. 

The Lowndes County Sheriff’s office explained that on January 10, Johnson entered the wrestling mat to retrieve a lost shoe and got stuck. This claim was originally confirmed by the state medical examiner Maryanne Gaffney-Kraft, who concluded that the cause of death was “positional asphyxia.”

Unsatisfied with that account, Johnson’s parents had his body exhumed and examined by forensic pathologist Dr. William Anderson in June of 2013. Dr. Anderson concluded that Johnson’s death was a homicide due to evidence of “unexplained, apparent non-accidental blunt force trauma” to Johnson’s neck. 

A federal investigation was launched on October 31, 2013, but was later closed due to insufficient evidence.

Similar to Johnson’s parents, many believe the case was homicide and are seeking justice for the teenager. A petition was created at the start of this year that has since accumulated over 1.5 million signatures, which sparked the reopening of the case. 

Many believe that there is a satisfactory amount of evidence to charge the Bell brothers with the murder of Kendrick Johnson. The Bell brothers have since admitted to their roles in the murder of Johnson, and a formal report was voluntarily given by Ryan Anthony Domek-Hernandez in 2017. However, the brothers still maintain their innocence in official settings and have faced little to no repercussions for their alleged involvement.

 


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