Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk confirmed on Tuesday (March 9) that he reopened the case into the death of Kendrick Johnson, the South Georgia teenager found dead inside a rolled-up gym mat at the Lowndes County High School gym in January 2013.
In May 2013, Johnson's death was ruled an accident, and at the time, the Lowndes County Sheriff's department hypothesized that Johnson suffocated after climbing in the gym mat to retrieve a pair of shoes and was unable to get out. Johnson's family was unsatisfied with the results of the investigation and they hired an independent autopsy conducted by William R. Anderson with Forensic Dimensions in Heathrow, Florida. Anderson stated that his findings indicated traces of blunt force trauma to the right neck and soft tissues, and he suggested Kendrick's death was not accidental.
Johnson's family also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Lowndes County Board of Education, its superintendent, and the high school principal. The lawsuit claimed that Johnson "was violently assaulted, severely injured, suffered great physical pain and mental anguish, and subjected to insult and loss of life" on January 10, 2013. Johnson's parents later dismissed the lawsuit, stating that they hoped to refile it after the conclusion of the DOJ's investigation.
In addition, they also filed a $100 million civil lawsuit in the Superior Court of DeKalb County against 38 individuals. The respondents include three of Johnson's classmates and local, state, and federal officials: the school superintendent of Lowndes County, the Valdosta-Lowndes crime lab, the police chief of Valdosta, many sheriff's deputies, the city of Valdosta, the state medical examiner, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and its five agents, and an FBI agent. The lawsuit claims that an FBI agent ordered two of his sons and another classmate to attack Johnson, and the other respondents were accused of covering up Johnson's murder.
Sheriff Ashley Paulk stated that he requested documents from the federal investigation into Kendrick’s death in April 2019, but was previously denied. This week, he was granted access to the documents and evidence in the case after a federal judge released them. Included are approximately 17 boxes of documents, including computer towers and computer drives. Paulk added that they are looking for any discrepancies from previous investigations in the case, and he didn't give a timeline as to when the findings would be revealed.
Source: WSB-TV
