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Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1 888 [Music] [Applause]
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freedom [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:45
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that puts the [ __ ] in Joe Cocker he is the captain say
00:01:54
what I know my parents are going to be so disappointed when they hear I'm already not allowed to use my l last
00:02:00
name on the show I I think they're going to make me move out of state well it's good to be seen and it's good to see you
00:02:07
thanks for listening thanks for T of [Music] friend tonight tonight we are drinking
00:02:16
rye by the hardworking men and women at the terapin beer company garage grade 3 and 3/4 bottle caps out of five this
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malts Rye Pale Ale offers a complex flavor an aroma that is both aggressive and well balanced and Ry was brought to
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us by these great supporters of the garage first up a cheers goes out to Amy and oan New Zealand cheers mate I big we
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Roll Tide you better put a $20 bill in there all right gather around grab a chair grab a beer and let's talk some
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true [Music] crime all right Captain where we left off yesterday was with the second
00:03:53
autopsy that was performed on Kendrick Johnson's body his body had been sent to pathologist Dr will William Anderson for
00:04:01
this second autopsy that was paid for by the family and supporters of the family
00:04:06
and their cause Dr Anderson's autopsy report directly contradicted the original autopsy findings of an
00:04:14
accidental death Anderson's report stated that there was physical evidence of blunt force trauma to the right neck
00:04:22
and soft tissues consistent with inflicted injury Anderson went on to state that the injury was likely
00:04:29
inflicted by someone else and that the death should be investigated as a homicide so the Johnson submitted the
00:04:37
report to the loun County coroner's office the gbi and the United States Department of Justice the family began
00:04:45
calling for a Coroner's inquest a process similar to an investigative grand jury whereby the jury listens to
00:04:54
all the evidence and then rules on the cause of death now in October of 2013 one thing that we're the the main
00:05:03
focus of today's show Captain the main reason why you and I got together tonight in the garage is to drink beer
00:05:10
over cies MH is to discuss the questionable items that surround this mysterious death of this young man yeah
00:05:19
we we have this is this is a highly debated case this is a very controversial case and as you will see
00:05:27
today we're going to try to go through these things line by line maybe clear the air a little bit on some of them and
00:05:33
see what we can find yeah just so we're clear so we're all on the same page the first investigation the first autopsy
00:05:39
they claimed that this is accidental death that he was going into this mat after shoes he got stuck in there he
00:05:47
then suffocated and then we found Kendrick the second autopsy and the second investigation is kind of saying
00:05:54
hey that's not what happened we think that somebody hit him and then rolled him up in one of these mats to cover
00:06:01
that up and not only did the person that attacked Kendrick try to cover this up but law enforcement and the sheriff and
00:06:09
the school and the coroner and everybody was trying to cover this up well and probably the strangest thing for me was
00:06:19
this report that came out in October of 2013 this is a report that stems from the second autopsy that they discovered
00:06:26
that Kendrick's body that had been stuffed with newspapers before it was closed up and
00:06:33
prepared for burial yeah so Kendrick's internal organs this this included his brain heart lungs and liver these items
00:06:42
were nowhere to be found and protocol is that the organs are sealed up in a in plastic placed inside the body cavity
00:06:52
and disposed of with the body right now a gbi spokesperson told CNN that after kend 's initial autopsy the organs were
00:07:02
placed in the body the body was closed up and then it was sent off to the Herington funeral home now Harrington's
00:07:09
owner says that the the funeral home never received the organs at all uh Harrington states that he was told that
00:07:18
the organs had been destroyed by the quote natural processes end quote right so decomposition and that the the organs
00:07:28
had been discarded by the person who had opened up the body at the pathologist's
00:07:34
office so this is this is I do want to point out something here so this is one this is a very strange thing to hear
00:07:40
that the this young man's body you know the the organs have gone missing sometime between the first
00:07:48
autopsy and the second autopsy right right it starts smelling like a cover up so we have we have a couple of issues
00:07:55
here Captain this is the second time that we are presented with evidence that something has gone missing
00:08:04
between the transportation of the body from gbi right to the funeral home so I think we I think we need to really go
00:08:13
through this one because there's there's some interesting stuff within this whole
00:08:18
statement so first of all for those of you panicking and freaking out out there I guess it's you know it's not uncommon
00:08:26
that they do in fact stuff the body with something right and from my understanding I've never witnessed this
00:08:33
hope never to witness it or really hope that I never knew anything about it to begin with was that typically they use
00:08:41
sawdust or cotton do I have that right right and I guess that it might have been kind of an old practice for funeral
00:08:51
homes to stuff a body with newspaper it's something that has gone fallen out of practice since I don't
00:08:57
know sometime in the 70s maybe the' 60s but it but we're not talking about something it sounds something that's
00:09:04
like something that's so incredibly unbelievable and then we learn that this is actually somewhat of a common thing
00:09:11
the problem here though which is pointed out to us by the man that conducted the
00:09:17
second autopsy is that when we do not have these organs that prevents them from further
00:09:24
testing those those items now they did have slides uh they did they created different slides and they
00:09:32
would x-ray the different organs so they did have those to make their opinions or
00:09:37
their findings of the second autopsy the other thing though too is isn't it strange that we've now we've
00:09:45
we've had clothing that magically disappeared between the transportation of this young man's body from the gbi to
00:09:53
the funeral home and now we have these organs because we have gbi stating no we we followed protocol we put these organs
00:10:02
in plastic we sealed them up we put them back in the body we transported the body
00:10:06
to the funeral home now a little background on the funeral home because people you know it's it's looking like
00:10:11
these people are very bad people the funeral home it's my understanding that they provided the Johnson family with a
00:10:19
service with funeral services for Kendrick at no cost right just the cost of the organs right yeah well uh that
00:10:28
they were they were trying to do a good thing for the family that had suffered a
00:10:32
terrible tragedy right and they wanted to do something good for these people now they may here's Here's my
00:10:39
thought you know I I I just got done seeing how good and how nice they probably were is there a chance that
00:10:45
they may have cut some Corners cost right because they're giving you a free service it's very
00:10:52
possible I mean first of all the clothes let's not put any blame on the uh gbi because the clothes were with Kendrick
00:11:01
and whoever transported Kendrick messed that up so no fault of the gbi no sense of cover up there there's conflicting
00:11:11
stories the there's one story that the funeral home said well we never got the organs they were not there they said
00:11:18
they never got the clothing as well right but again it it's it's on the report so then you start wondering where
00:11:26
the if the clothes were misplaced in the transportation where the organs misplaced or was there something where
00:11:33
they go again I also heard reports that the funeral hom said well we actually received those but we discarded them now
00:11:41
I've heard both reports so is it possible you know I heard some crazy conspiracy from some Pastor saying well
00:11:50
uh these young black people are being killed to sell their organs because that black market is so hot so you're going
00:11:58
to tell me that this high school kid was killed in school when there's hundreds of people in the school so you can sell
00:12:07
harvest the organs well well well let me here's the question I would like to pose
00:12:11
to that that Pastor look I went to school for computer I don't know anything about you know pathology here's
00:12:20
my guess the poor young man whether he was murdered or tragic accident he laid in in a mat upside down
00:12:31
for close to 24 hours right you can't use those you can't Harvest those organs and use them for anything can you I I I
00:12:40
would they're not working at this point don't don't they try to like like me I'm
00:12:45
a donor so if something were to happen to me aren't they trying to harvest those organs as fast as possible so that
00:12:53
they they are usable for lack of better term I don't know the answer uh to that but I would assume that some organs
00:13:02
would be salvageable more so than the other ones like depending on temperature and some
00:13:10
some probably have to be transferred right away and other ones maybe not so much well I'm only pointing out Captain
00:13:16
the conflicting stories between the gbi and the funeral home for one simple reason we're looking at each of these
00:13:23
items today because there is questions around did they get this investigation right was he murdered right was there a
00:13:31
cover up okay so a couple couple items with the missing clothing and with the missing missing
00:13:38
organs we have gbi saying we sent those items to the funeral home we have the funeral home saying we never received
00:13:44
them so what I'm getting at here is if if gbi is right if gbi is right in saying that we sent these items to the
00:13:53
funeral home there's no cover up as far as the missing clothing or organs go right
00:14:00
because then that means they got to the funeral home and the funeral home chose to dispose of these items in a different
00:14:05
manner than what was expected and instead they might be passing the buck and saying I don't think we ever
00:14:11
received them however so one key thing here when we talk about coverups the funeral home's not going to cover up for
00:14:18
gbi the funeral home's not going to cover up for the sheriff's department or for the people that actually murdered
00:14:24
this young man they don't they don't have a stake in the in in the in the claim they don't have a they don't have
00:14:29
a dog in the fight they're just people that are trying to do something nice for the Johnson family something nice for
00:14:35
Kendrick and give him proper services and I understand that but the the other thing with the gbi is if they claim that
00:14:44
they sent the clothes and they claimed that they sent the organs were with him and the organs weren't found on him when
00:14:51
they when they dug him back up right mhm well then they have reason to cover their own ass and again we got another
00:14:58
another step so if gbi is telling the truth and the funeral hes telling the truth the person you need to look at is
00:15:04
who was transporting his body agreed and here's where I have an issue with it because the organs might be the organs
00:15:11
might be a bigger deal you know who knows what evidential value the organs could have or the clothing one could
00:15:17
argue one over the other right right the the the issue I have is that in one instance regarding the clothing we have
00:15:26
the Transport company saying that we signed for clothing when we picked up this young man's body we signed for
00:15:32
clothing right you can't sign for organs because according to the gbi they were inside the body itself right okay so now
00:15:41
we have the funeral director or the funeral home owner stating we never received the clothing right right what
00:15:49
what how does that work why is there why is there a sign why is there a list of what we are picking up and it's signed
00:15:57
for when we pick it up but when we do the drop off to the funeral home there's no list that that we go over with
00:16:03
someone at the funeral home that signs off on that I'm sure there is but again this but then why are we this is what I
00:16:10
get mad about with some of these um with some of these potential coverup stories
00:16:16
right you almost feel like you don't get to hear the entire story because it would only make sense if there's this if
00:16:22
I'm signing for a list of items that I'm picking up you when I'm delivering to you you should be signing for the items
00:16:28
that I'm dropping off to you right that would that would straighten out the whole Jazz with the with the clothing
00:16:34
again I I'm I'm guessing that there is some kind of protocol and we don't know we don't have that evidence that's why
00:16:42
it's as simple as gbi says one thing and the funeral H says a different thing and
00:16:48
we don't know what the truth is the other issue though too Captain is if in fact gbi disposed of the clothing or the
00:16:55
organs or both mhm then fishy then there could be a cover up but at the very least again we see protocol not being
00:17:06
followed right definitely so we talked about the missing organs we talked about the missing clothing well there's some
00:17:13
others there's some other missing things as well so let's talk about the video footage that was from the loun high
00:17:21
school this is the video surveillance system that they have there yeah so just a little bit of this background so all
00:17:27
these cameras are most these cameras are motion uh sensored so they only turn on
00:17:33
when somebody actually enters the room and they stay on as long as there's motion there what's interesting is if
00:17:39
you start diving into the video footage right away is that most of the cameras themselves are not synced up so for
00:17:46
example you might have Kendrick going down a hall and it says Tim stamp you know let's say 120 but they know that
00:17:55
that period would have been like 115 or whatever right then he walks into the gym Gym's camera turns on but now all of
00:18:02
a sudden it's uh you know 1:30 right right and you go he just walked through a doorway did he hang out
00:18:10
in that doorway for 15 minutes my point is that their time codes are not synced at all yeah not only are they not synced
00:18:21
with each other but they're not sync with the actual time now again if this is true
00:18:29
it's why would you have this system set up like this uh and why would you have the time codes off either way because of
00:18:38
that there becomes a lot of issues which lean more towards the conspiracy side well and yeah so there's there's several
00:18:48
issues that I have with this somebody that's very as someone that's very familiar with these types of systems
00:18:54
right what I can tell you is that they do they're they're set up they installed professionally they are set up
00:19:01
professionally everything is usually tight as a drum tiptop shape ready to rock and roll when these cameras are set
00:19:09
up over time there will start to be glitches in the system things will get off sync like you had just said things
00:19:17
will start to not work properly M the problem with that is you have school administrators that are not they're not
00:19:27
trained in these are they're not trained to fix these things they're not trained
00:19:30
to fix to to realign everything so it's working and functioning properly so again that it's tight as a drum ready to
00:19:38
rock and roll that's when a phone call has to be made to those installers to those software Engineers to people that
00:19:46
know how to do this stuff right I have witnessed and we've talked about it here on the show as well you know hotels uh
00:19:54
street corners bars we've talked about glitches and questions within their surveillance systems that what tends to
00:20:04
happen I think in these situations is you have a little glitch that either goes unnoticed or it's noticed and it's
00:20:12
always thought of I'll make that call tomorrow right and then tomorrow turns into next week and the next week turns
00:20:17
into next month and before you know it you've gone through four months and the time stamps wrong or the time stamps are
00:20:24
off now the problem with that though is these are in a sense they're government officials
00:20:30
aren't they School administrators they're paid for by the local taxes and with the with the expectation that our
00:20:39
children are going to be safe that that during these hours they are at the school and the school is supposed to be
00:20:46
a safe place run by people that that are looking out for our children's best interest right so the first problem is
00:20:53
gbi goes to the school administrators and they say that we need all video evidence related to Kendrick's to this
00:21:02
incident yeah that's the first problem I see because I think you should just say
00:21:06
hey give me all the the video footage you have for the last 48 hours or the last 3 days yeah so just to jump in here
00:21:14
real quick Captain it's estimated that there was approximately 1,00 hours of footage that would have been taken from
00:21:24
the 36 cameras that should have been recording on January 10th and 11th so the day that Kendrick Johnson died and
00:21:33
then the day after which would have shown portions of the investigation right the problem I have with this is
00:21:40
that people claim or they're suspect to claim that there's missing footage and if gbi would have went in and said give
00:21:48
us all the footage and there was missing footage well then the problem lies with
00:21:53
the school administrators right mhm but you didn't do that so now all these people suspect that there are gaps in
00:22:01
time that nobody can account for so it makes it look very suspicious of a conspiracy and you have no way to defend
00:22:10
yourself other than saying well we we looked at all the footage they gave us well okay then why is this part missing
00:22:19
is it coming from your end or is it the ministrators end there's several several
00:22:24
problems that people bring up regarding this camera footage the first being that
00:22:29
the Sheriff's Office had released some still images that were taken from the videos themselves this is portions of
00:22:35
the video that showed Kendrick walking into the gym and heading toward the mats right okay so the issue being there is
00:22:45
there's there's some concern like we talked about with the timestamps later what's going to happen and this was made
00:22:53
possible I believe through CNN who started making open records requests to the school for them to release the
00:23:00
actual footage and then later a judge ordered that some small portions of the surveillance footage be released well
00:23:07
when they release that the the videos that were released they do not appear to be timestamped so now people are
00:23:14
wondering why does why did the images coming from the Sheriff's Office have a timestamp on them that are still images
00:23:20
and now the actual video footage comes out and there's no timestamp on it right and it could be as simple as the fact
00:23:26
that we know that that time stamp was not reality that that time stamp was off you know actual time by 15 minutes or
00:23:34
whatever and and that would be a reasonable explanation or just have the wrong Tim stamp on there another fishy
00:23:43
thing that starts making you think that there's some kind of conspiracy here here's the other thing with these
00:23:48
security systems so if you are the sheriff and you're reviewing the security footage with me the Security
00:23:56
administrator let's say in my off office and we're looking at the monitors together you can take a camera and you
00:24:02
can take a picture of that monitor and that monitor may have the Tim stamp on it right but if somebody gives me a
00:24:09
court order and says hey we need you to give us this information well what I'm going to have to do is actually go in to
00:24:17
the database and I'm going to have to transfer that information transfer that surveillance footage to something else
00:24:24
you know Zip drive or something and and hand it off to them by the time that I do that that time stamp may not
00:24:32
accompany that actual footage right because it it's only going to be transferred in the manner that I tell it
00:24:38
to unless there's certain default settings set up for that that method of transer of of transferring it now the
00:24:47
other thing that people called into question is that we have images that seem to jump around we also it seems
00:24:56
like the cameras that were focused on the mat area in the old gym that they only captured blurry images and they
00:25:03
don't appear to have videoed anything around the time of Kendrick's death people speculate stuff like okay we see
00:25:11
uh somebody walk into frame and then all of a sudden the next frame somebody disappears out of nowhere yeah they
00:25:17
appear and disappear out of nowhere which again could just be glitches in the system because they're motion
00:25:23
censored systems and so it might not have picked up the first motion of of that individual and then all of a sudden
00:25:29
they pop up like they're you know teleporting well CNN took it the extra mile they they had filed suit to access
00:25:36
the video footage and then they hired a forensic video analysis uh analyst I'm sorry to analyze the 290 hours of
00:25:45
material that were received from all of the cameras the video footage analysis was this there was jumpiness present on
00:25:53
the video there was blurriness present uh there were timestamp issues this is all confirmed by a a third party that
00:26:01
doesn't have a dog in the fight right well but they are being paid by CNN to do the investigation so well yeah paid
00:26:08
by CNN to do the investigation but what I mean by that is their loyalty lies with CNN it doesn't lie with the gbi or
00:26:16
with the Johnson family you know that's they they're only beholden to CNN now the analyst states that there was
00:26:24
jumpiness there's blurriness there's timestamp issues however he says that this is all pretty
00:26:30
easily explainable um you can explain it by erratic motion sensors unfocused or outdated lenses on the cameras right or
00:26:40
dirty lenses the analyst also said that the nonsequential footage this is the footage where it will appear that people
00:26:47
are appearing or disappearing out of nowhere is the result of lost information and or corrupted files now
00:26:54
whether the data was corrupted just via system malfunction or processing error or whether it was the result of
00:27:03
deliberate tampering could not be determined so the analyst is saying this is occurring on the video footage right
00:27:12
however I cannot in my expert opinion tell you why it occurred it could have just been some kind of glitch or error
00:27:19
or it could have been a person going in there and manipulating the file correct which again either way it starts making
00:27:27
you think well hey this is somebody covering their tracks now where it gets weird though is you have to remember
00:27:34
people could be covering their tracks just because they did a shitty job of the initial investigation so if you're
00:27:41
covering up the shitty initial investigation that doesn't mean you're covering up a murder yeah well of more
00:27:47
concern was this the the analyst said he determined that at least an hour was missing there was there was missing
00:27:55
footage that that would make up about an hour this is coming from a long time well it seems like a long time but it is
00:28:03
a long time well I don't think I don't necessarily think we're actually talking about a real hour as you and I know an
00:28:10
hour okay they're not talking about a consecutive time right they they're not clear on this statement what they're
00:28:16
stating is that there is at least an hour missing from the video footage from all four cameras around the gym so
00:28:24
meaning that what I believe this to mean and I could be wrong they're not outwardly stating one way or the other I
00:28:31
believe this to mean that collectively when we take all four of these cameras when we collected all that information
00:28:39
together that adds up to about an hour of missing footage well but that could also be like the one camera where you
00:28:45
see Kendrick walk in mhm the camera doesn't start back up for another 15 minutes because there's nobody in frame
00:28:54
so could they be talking about 15 minute if you times that by four that gives you
00:28:59
your hour oh good job so furthermore the analyst told investigators that they needed to subpoena the actual
00:29:06
surveillance servers in order to determine where the missing footage went as opposed to just relying on what was
00:29:14
given to them by the school and quote those files are not original files they're not something investigators
00:29:22
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2023 Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I thought it was an Eco move few worse
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less paper no it was so you could say it faster no it's to be more iconic must be
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and even get your project handled from start to finish sounds easy it is and it makes us so much more than just a list
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get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app [Music] today all right we're back cheers
00:31:45
welcome back and cheers Captain you had a few items on your laundry list that you wanted to speak about well if we
00:31:52
don't talk about them I think people will bring them up so let's talk about the blood that was found it wasn't found
00:31:58
that far from where Kendrick was found it was in about six droplets of blood that was on a wall it's very dark it
00:32:06
looks almost like Black smudge right mhm now they did collect this and they did test it and it wasn't Kendrick's blood
00:32:15
now that's fine and it probably was left there I believe it probably was a lot of
00:32:20
people on the side that say it's such a conspiracy say hey blood is not just left on walls and High School like we
00:32:27
talked about before high schools are just not that clean and if this is in the area that they would have put the
00:32:33
mats up in it's possibility that when they put the mats up a janitor couldn't get to this and clean it so you have
00:32:43
that evidence you have that sample so you can at least find out who that that belongs to and that might take a lot of
00:32:51
work and time but you could do that to rule that out and cover your own ass the other piece of item is this hoodie that
00:33:00
people bring up all the time it's I think it's a structure hoodie well before we move on to the hoodie I think
00:33:05
you know what the biggest part of the argument for the blood evidence that's found approximately 50 feet from the mat
00:33:13
that that Kendrick was later found in is that you know just because you rule out
00:33:20
that it's Kendrick's blood does not mean that it doesn't have anything to do with
00:33:23
this situation I mean it could be the offender's blood how many times have we talked about an
00:33:29
ATT that go down and the offender injures themselves or the person that they are attacking defends themselves
00:33:36
and injures the offender so I think that's the big concern there that it's not just okay well thanks for letting us
00:33:43
know that it's not Kendrick's blood however we would like to know who it belongs to right
00:33:49
especially I think where you run into the trouble here with a lot of this investigation and I think specifically
00:33:57
with the blood evidence is that most of the people at this school they're minors
00:34:03
they're not they're not adults and that makes it a little trickier when you're talking about the privacy of these
00:34:11
children they children you know and I think that's that's where they ran into some issues regarding the surveillance
00:34:18
footage too because the school's like well look we can't just willy-nilly release all this surveillance footage
00:34:24
it's camera it's camera footage of children walking around right you know whose identities need to remain
00:34:30
anonymous that that we can't they need to be it's their job to protect them right and so they're in fact I think
00:34:37
with the the blood we we're looking at pretty much the same problem so that's why they're like you know what well
00:34:43
let's at least rule out Kendrick right uh to put this in the right direction where I take where I have a problem with
00:34:51
this is that there were some people some some people that were named as suspects now in their defense they
00:35:00
were only named by Kendrick's parents they were never named by by law enforcement officials but these persons
00:35:08
I would have loved to have seen the opportunity for somebody to say look we're going to test this Blood we'd like
00:35:15
to compare it to yours right you have the opportunity here to come forward and say and and prove to us that this is not
00:35:22
your blood I one potential problem though captain is the way that you've described
00:35:29
the the blood that was found there m it sounds like this is a a poor sample um possibly contaminated but I
00:35:39
guess it was strong enough to to determine that it was not Kendrick's right so so yeah I think that's all an
00:35:45
issue and and you wanted to move on to the sweatshirt we mentioned that one of the amongst the other items that were
00:35:51
found at the scene we already explained away the textbook and the folder that was located those were Kendrick's there
00:35:59
was a sweatshirt a hooded um a hooded Hollister brand sweatshirt that was found at the scene again again I think
00:36:09
they should have tagged and bagged they didn't but they did give back this hoodie supposedly to Kendrick's family
00:36:18
so they're the ones that are saying or they're the ones that came out and said hey we don't think this was accidental
00:36:24
death we think somebody um hit him or murdered him and then put him in the the mat and then and then put the mat back
00:36:32
up they're the ones saying that so you do have that piece of evidence so if you want anything done to that shirt I'm
00:36:39
going to then put that on you again like I said they should tagged and bagged it
00:36:43
and kept it in evidence they didn't but they did give it back to the family that's my thoughts on that piece of
00:36:50
evidence well and I think before we move too far away from the surveillance footage that we that we
00:36:57
discussed it sounds to me like that there was an opportunity for the Johnson's to view this surveillance
00:37:06
footage at the school within days of the death and they didn't do that for whatever reason and actually I believe
00:37:14
that they were encouraged through I don't know if it was their attorneys but there we had already mentioned the
00:37:22
NAACP the uh SCC those group at the very least were encouraging them to go and view that footage and for
00:37:31
whatever reason they did not at that time but I I think we should push on forward Captain because in
00:37:38
2014 things are going to start to heat up a bit this is when the Johnson's and their attorneys are becoming
00:37:44
increasingly aggressive in their pursuit of Justice they had even gone so far as
00:37:49
to mention by name the two boys who they declared had a reason to hurt Kendrick right this is Brian and Brandon Bell so
00:37:59
it's not only these are brothers Brian and Brandon Bell the Johnson's alleged that the Bell Brothers had used an
00:38:06
unnamed female to lure Kendrick into the old gym where they had killed him and stuffed his body into the mat they
00:38:15
further claimed that the crime had been a cover up with the aid of the Bell brother brother's father right because
00:38:23
he was a FBI agent yes that's like when you start reading about this case and you hear that you go what what
00:38:31
FBI agent all of these allegations were laid out in a lawsuit filed by the Johnson's against more than 30
00:38:37
defendants that claim were complicit MH separately in July 2014 they sued the school system and the superintendent for
00:38:48
the wrongful death of their son the lawsuit alleged that a white student had a history of provoking and attack in
00:38:57
Kendrick at school now yeah I believe that they got into some kind of fight and I don't know what that fight was one
00:39:03
of the B brothers and Kendrick supposedly they were somewhat friends now this is what the Bell family says uh
00:39:11
but the Johnson family says we we don't know him never heard of him they weren't
00:39:18
friends the first issue I have with this is led him lured Kendrick in the old gym
00:39:24
by using a female decoy boy right mhm my first problem with that is we do know that he had weight training class and
00:39:33
that's the reason why he was in the gym right yeah and they don't back that up with saying hey we see a young female
00:39:42
going into the gym before he does right so that's just my first problem with this yeah well okay so let's talk about
00:39:49
that incident that that you had mentioned between one of the Bell Brothers and Kendrick Okay so when this
00:39:56
first comes out Captain it's Kenneth and Jackie they're claiming you know Kendrick's parents are claiming that the
00:40:04
bell boys th this whole thing stemmed from an incident that had took place between
00:40:10
Kendrick and Brian Bell that this had occurred this incident occurred just before Kendrick had died mhm there are
00:40:18
people that looked into this and what the the result of their investigations are this that that incident there was an
00:40:26
incident but but in fact it actually took place 18 months earlier this would be in 2011
00:40:32
when the two boys were freshman members of the Vikings football team okay so picture this they it's after a football
00:40:40
game they're riding home on the bus okay and what the report States is that Brian
00:40:47
and Kendrick were in some kind of they're trading mama jokes you know your mama's so fat like that kind of thing
00:40:55
don't give your mama so F when she sits around the house she really sits around the house yeah so they're trading these
00:41:01
mama jokes and for whatever reason it gets out of hand and the two ended up getting in a fight yeah one was better
00:41:09
than the other at mama jokes is what it comes down to yeah well but we've we've been in school we've seen where these
00:41:15
things start off as some kind of friendly tug ofwar let's say and it does turn into a fight yeah and they just had
00:41:21
a football game so you got adrenaline going and they're probably just coming down from that adrenaline High they're
00:41:29
actually on the bus with with an older team from the same school from the Vikings football team uh I think it's
00:41:36
the varsity team maybe the JV I don't know so we have two teams on this on this bus they're heading home this fight
00:41:43
breaks out between Brian and Kendrick regarding these mother jokes so what ends up happening is the boys are
00:41:51
separated very quickly once this fight breaks out when the school bus arrived back at the school Brian is then with
00:41:59
his brother because his brother played football as well he he was a junior he was on the older Team all right so the
00:42:06
two Bell Brothers they go home they're picked up by their parents the complaint is regarding Kendrick is this that
00:42:15
Kendrick was sent home in the school resource officer's car so what what you have here and this
00:42:24
is according to Kendrick's Father Kenneth that the white kids get to go home with their parents but the black
00:42:31
kid was put in a police cruiser yeah which is bull around [ __ ] you know well is they should be treated
00:42:41
the same exactly right if if if putting if putting Kendrick in a police cruiser and taking him home is a form of
00:42:48
punishment then Brian Bell should have been escorted home by the police officer as well and told what had happened what
00:42:55
had occurred on the bus correct but if your son is taken back to your house and a quote unquote pretty much a police
00:43:05
cruiser then you should probably remember when this happened and you should probably not say that it happened
00:43:12
just before um you know your son was found dead and that it happened 18 months beforehand well there in lies a
00:43:20
big problem with this story so when you initially hear the story and the way that k Johnson tells the story it sounds
00:43:29
like there's a fight shortly before his son is killed right and his son Not only
00:43:35
was in a fight with the one of the people we think killed him but the result was my son was punished and the
00:43:42
white kid was not punished right the truth of the matter that we end up learning once you once you dig through
00:43:49
once you dig nothing that that that Johnson says is completely wrong Kendrick absolutely was driven home by
00:43:57
the the school's resource officer but let's keep in mind that's that's a police officer that's working at the
00:44:03
school it's not like they called the police right and a cruiser came in and picked up Kendrick and took him home mhm
00:44:10
the way that this story works is it's exactly like I started off with this is an old fight this was not a fight that
00:44:17
started right before Kendrick ended up dead in the match MH this was almost 18 months beforehand and then what we do
00:44:24
learn is that yeah yes the the Bell Brothers did go home with their parents Kendrick didn't go home with his parents
00:44:31
because his parents were not at the school to pick him up right when he arrived back at the school he has no
00:44:37
ride home the school resource officer that was already there who would later tell the media I considered myself to be
00:44:46
a family friend of the of the Johnson family right so I took him home right I knew Kendrick I knew Kendrick outside of
00:44:54
my job of being a resour ource officer at the actual High School just offered him a ride home it was not a form of
00:45:01
punishment I was just trying to help them out right yeah but again sometimes people only see what they want to see M
00:45:08
and it seems like that happens a lot with u Mr Johnson well I I don't even think it's see what you want to see I
00:45:15
mean it might be see what you want to see but could it also be tell what you want to tell right I mean because
00:45:22
control your narrative right when we hear the story from him it's a it it sounds very damning mhm and then when
00:45:29
you really start digging through it you're like well it's not a complete lie but there's things in here that just
00:45:36
that they have different meaning than the way that he describes them and it's not as simple as the white kid was not
00:45:44
punished and the black kid was right so these B Brothers I mean I think the thing initially that jumped out me when
00:45:51
they say hey we got these kids that we think might be responsible for Poss possibly hitting Kendrick and then
00:45:57
rolling them up in a mat and you go okay well these mats are mainly used for wrestling and one of the B Brothers is a
00:46:04
wrestler so that seems a little fishy but that doesn't mean anything okay so let's go through these these Bell boys
00:46:12
together here okay well and they're Brothers but they're also Bros well but the so the sheriff investigated them and
00:46:20
he determined that Brandon Bell was not even on school grounds at the time that Kendrick had died right so he's on a
00:46:29
school athletic outing with the wrestling team um this is 25 people on the wrestling team he's one of them and
00:46:39
that he he couldn't have been involved because they were out of town for some kind of wrestling tournament right that
00:46:48
day okay so he's not even at the school the other Belle brother was in a fourth period
00:46:56
class and had like 20 some eyewitnesses placing him in the class I believe the whole time right they're both accounted
00:47:02
for in different locations making it seemingly impossible that either of them let alone both of them could be involved
00:47:09
this is where the sheriff points out that the boys were never considered suspects because of these reasons now
00:47:16
they were pretty much cleared right away yeah but the Johnson would continue to maintain that the bells were involved in
00:47:23
in Kendrick's murder right they even produced a and made a public video raising questions about both of the bell
00:47:31
boys and they also pointed out that the bells had refused to cooperate with police and they pointed out what
00:47:40
appeared to be a School record showing that the wrestling bus had not left the campus until 400 p.m. on January 10th
00:47:49
this giving Brandon plenty of time to Kill Kendrick and still make it to the bus right so then we have the school's
00:47:56
attorney comes out and counters that statement stating that he points to the school bus travel
00:48:05
log okay that J Johnson's legal team was referring to this is just a trip request that was
00:48:13
filled out weeks before the tournament to reserve the bus so they've not they may not actually know exactly what time
00:48:22
they need the bus yet it's so many weeks in advance right so actually on January
00:48:28
10th this is what they could prove that the wrestling team had uh School's First
00:48:35
lunch session which lasted from 11:32 a.m. to 12:02 p.m. then the team and the coaches boarded a school bus and left
00:48:46
for a 150 mile drive to the tournament the wrestling coach's cell phone records indicate the team was in Cordell Georgia
00:48:57
at 13 p.m. Cordell is approximately 85 M north of the school indicating that the
00:49:04
bus would have already have left and been on the road at the time that Kendrick was last seen alive on that
00:49:12
video footage right so again Mr Johnson doesn't want to listen to the actual evidence I mean look is it wrong for you
00:49:22
to suspect that something happened for to your son no and was there definitely some shotty police work yes but these
00:49:29
two individuals that you think have something to do with your son and possibly from rumors because if you look
00:49:36
at a lot of the police investiga um the police reports and when they're talking to students now they're talking to some
00:49:43
of these students s months later there was some rumors about this well when the parents of a dead child is saying hey we
00:49:51
think these kids had something to do with it you better believe in that High School there's going to be rumors
00:49:57
started so we have these rumors started but then they come back to you law enforcement comes back to you and says
00:50:03
hey we have their whereabouts we have their aliis that's where it gets really fishy to me though or or fishy from the
00:50:11
Johnson side to me is they go well okay so these guys have aliis so now not only
00:50:16
are the Bell Brothers responsible but the superintendent's responsible and the and the the whole school's responsible
00:50:23
and the sheriff's responsible and they're all covering that up because the Belle Brothers their father is a FBI
00:50:29
agent mhm it just seems really really far-fetched well it's stretching it so I I think I think with that Captain we can
00:50:37
kind of lead into that leads us into what are our thoughts what are our conclusions after reviewing the evidence
00:50:44
I'll let you go first my main oh man I don't even know where to start because there is a lot of this stuff that it
00:50:51
does bother me uh do I think the investigation would have been handled a little different if it was one of the
00:50:57
Bell Brothers that was found in the mat I do believe that I believe that 100% I don't think they would have been walking
00:51:05
around just in their shoes I think they would have collected all pieces of evidence I think they would have crossed
00:51:11
their teas and dotted their eyes and uh I think they went and acted like a bunch
00:51:15
of pieces of [ __ ] but I think what happened here was they had to see their son and because the way
00:51:26
he died and I lean more towards accidental that the way he died and the way he his face looked
00:51:38
afterwards I think that was all the proof that Johnson needed to think that something you know bad happened and it
00:51:49
wasn't just an accident that somebody made his face look that way that his face had to be beaten up and it wasn't
00:51:58
just because he was basically upside down and also dead for probably what 12 hours before he's
00:52:07
found and I think him looking at his son was enough for him to go down this wild
00:52:14
goose chase now where it makes it weirder is that because the investigation didn't cross their te's
00:52:22
didn't dot their eyes didn't bag and tag everything that they were supposed to didn't wear coverings for their shoes
00:52:29
didn't talk to students beforehand and I think assumed right when they found him
00:52:36
right when they found Kendrick Johnson that this was an accident and they didn't do all the things that they
00:52:42
should have done and then when the Johnson's are calling them out and saying hey we think there's Foul Play
00:52:49
here that everybody that was involved in the investigation is covering their ass
00:52:54
not because it was a murder but because they did such a shitty job and so you know if you would have done your job
00:53:04
correctly at the beginning we wouldn't have all these problems and we wouldn't have all this conspiracy and wasting a
00:53:10
bunch of people's time well or would we that's what that's what I question because here's here's
00:53:17
where I stand on this on the surface and you know I I'm going to say that I I go
00:53:24
into every one of our cases right down the middle and I'm going to look at it I'm going to let the evidence lead me
00:53:31
where it should lead me into into the right direction with this one I did not because i' had already had some previous
00:53:38
knowledge well I thought I had previous knowledge about this case right because on the surface it does look very wrong
00:53:46
it looks like there's a lot of wrongdoing by a lot of people and that there was in fact a cover up it's very
00:53:52
fishy yeah when you start to get a better understanding of the layout of the old gym and the the setup of the
00:54:02
mats MH and things like that it starts to look to you or to me anyway like it was there's a chance that this was an
00:54:11
accident right once you hear how this this was described that this is was set up that that the children would often
00:54:18
place things inside of these mats for safekeeping it becomes it becomes apparent to me that we might have just
00:54:28
an accidental strange bizarre death and you talked about it you nailed it it's it's when when the parents saw their son
00:54:37
they couldn't come to the same conclusion that was already decided for them and I get that I get that it had to
00:54:44
been the worst thing for them to see their son in that manner now where the public becomes involved is that a the
00:54:51
picture is released of Kendrick after death that was taken by his father we don't know the exact point that he took
00:55:00
this picture and but what we do know is it was either taken on that Sunday when he went to identify the body or it was
00:55:07
taken after the autopsy right okay regardless the reason why he his appearance why he appeared that way was
00:55:16
because the amount of time that had gone by by by the injuries by the state of the body by being upside down and
00:55:23
potentially the autopsy having been conducted so where the public had a had an outcry for let's open up this case
00:55:32
again it's because we're reacting to that photo yeah and that photo is not fair to the public to Simply release it
00:55:40
and let the public believe the public believed when they saw this this was a picture this is what he looked like
00:55:45
right when they found him that's not the case man well but that's when you see his face and then you see his actual
00:55:52
picture you go this is a face of a man that was you know vicious viciously beaten right that's what that's what it
00:56:01
looks like that's what your eyes tell you it is and and for some people it's as simple as seeing is believing and
00:56:07
that's just it but but there's enough science to explain the reason that he appeared that way right okay now I so
00:56:17
we're kind of taking unpopular uh an unpopular stance on this I believe I I think that most people
00:56:24
look at this case and I think that there's still possibly a huge public outcry that this is an injustice that
00:56:31
occurred um I here's the thing it's not without question though I can't look at this and go 100% this was an this was an
00:56:39
accident and why because of things that you pointed out because of it being a shoty investigation because protocol was
00:56:46
not followed because there is some surveillance footage missing yes you know those questions are not answered
00:56:54
but if I had to pick a side I think this is just a tragic accidental death and I
00:56:59
think the Tipping Point for me what really kind of pushed me towards that conclusion was there was an outstanding
00:57:07
um woman and her name is Lee touchon okay so in 2015 she was an investigator with the N
00:57:15
NAACP MH she gave an interview to Media publication regarding Kendrick's case touchon investigated Kendrick's death
00:57:24
for two Years first in her role with the NAACP and then as an independent investigator working for the southern
00:57:31
Christian leadership conference touchon was a seasoned civil rights activist whose role required her to investigate
00:57:40
claims of racially motivated civil rights violations she had lobbied the doj to investigate the case and she
00:57:49
repeatedly contacted the US attorney's office with the same request touch conducted a thorough probe into
00:57:57
Kendrick's death after the Sheriff's Office had closed their investigation She interviewed numerous local public
00:58:04
officials including the county school superintendent the attorney for the sheriff the sheriff and one of his
00:58:10
deputies she talked to school board members and obtained Kendrick's case File she even toured the crime lab
00:58:18
several times interviewed the director visited the body cooler refrigeration unit and looked at the alarms and record
00:58:26
books she noted that contrary to Kendrick's father's statement and claims that the crime lab cooler was not
00:58:34
working that it was warm air she saw the alarm that would go off if electricity was shut off or if temperatures got too
00:58:42
high or too low and confirmed that there were backup generators in such a case as
00:58:48
a blackout right she noted that the chief forensic investigator is black he's an African-American right she spoke
00:58:57
with the school's attorney and gained an understanding of the lapses in the surveillance footage she tour the old
00:59:03
gym and was given a reenactment of how Kendrick was found touch's conclusions was that there was no
00:59:11
credible evidence to even claim a murder had been committed Kendrick's death had
00:59:16
been a tragic accident she said I think the murder theory is not only false but also ridiculous and based only on wild
00:59:25
speculation and outright Fabrications based on the preponderance of medical evidence the diagnosis of
00:59:33
propositional asfixia is the only diagnosis that fits all of the facts there is no way that the accused boys
00:59:41
could have been involved in Kendrick's death in fact she resigned in protest from the nwacp
00:59:49
because she noted that the organization continued to provide assistance and funding to the Johnson parents who were
00:59:56
making allegations against the bells that she said were lies well good for her after her resignation from the
01:00:05
NAACP she teamed up with Reverend Floyd Rose of the SCC he had been requested by the family
01:00:12
to look into Kendrick's death and was one of the biggest supporters early on in the quest to find Justice for
01:00:18
Kendrick touchon and Rose investigated the case together and came again came to the same conclusion that Kendrick's
01:00:26
death was an accident Reverend Rose who is an African-American man told the USA Today
01:00:34
you won't find a person of any reputation in this town who says that boy was murdered are there other
01:00:42
injustices around here you bet there are but this is not one of them and I'm not
01:00:47
going to be bossed around by whites or blacks he told Grant land which is a sports blog owned by ESPN that he simply
01:00:57
could not believe that the sheriff the detectives the forensic scientist the criminal investigators the investigators
01:01:04
from the gbi and the medical examiner had all colluded and risk their careers to cover
01:01:13
something up he went on to State maybe in 1951 but not in 2013 so I got a couple words for some
01:01:23
people and this case if if you don't mind mhm so first of all this Sheriff there's this video footage of some news
01:01:31
reporter that go in and they want to talk to him about the Kendrick Johnson case and he says I'm not talking about
01:01:40
that case and they say why aren't you talking about this case he says cuz I don't want to well first of all this
01:01:49
individual which did a pretty shoddy job I believe you you should be thankful that you worked on this case
01:01:59
that you made errors and blunders and that possibly that you could learn from this and learn that these blunders and
01:02:08
these missteps that you took and instead of following the letter of the land you
01:02:13
followed your own protocol and then look how much hurt that caused the Johnson family and then the Johnson family
01:02:20
bringing up that possibly there's a conspiracy and then how much that brought everybody else and so you should
01:02:27
be one just take it in and say yes I made a bunch of mistakes I wish I didn't make but I'm going to be a better
01:02:35
sheriff and a better better individual because I worked on this Kendrick Johnson case well and I pointed out that
01:02:44
the my Tipping Point for me was the final conclusion by Lee touchon and then by Reverend Floyd r R and the reason why
01:02:56
that was the Tipping Point for me was because just like me they went into this case thinking that there was an
01:03:04
injustice here thinking that there was a murder and that there was a cover up these two intelligent individuals spent
01:03:12
a lot of time they spent two years investigating this only to end up at the other end of this right that there was
01:03:20
not an injustice that this was in fact an accident so where I can't say 100% that I believe this was an accident
01:03:28
because of protocol being broken because of things that are missing because things that have not been explained
01:03:34
fully I'm going to rely on these two smart individuals that spent two years on this investigation and they didn't
01:03:42
work for anybody that was involved in the coverup and they went into this expecting to find a cover up mhm and it
01:03:50
only turned out that they ended up at the other end of it yeah and when I went into to this I mean I love a good
01:03:55
conspiracy as much as anybody else right I think they're fascinating cases mhm I
01:04:01
just don't see the evidence of that and I'd be willing to hear the evidence I think there's enough Reasonable Doubt to
01:04:08
go hey if you can give me some solid piece of evidence to show me that this was actually a murder and not an
01:04:15
accident I'd be willing to listen I just don't see that evidence out there and make sure you go to the iTunes Store
01:04:29
it's been requested a bunch of times I took 20 of the themes I'm going to be taking all the themes theme music theme
01:04:35
music of the shows and putting them together in these compilations and you can get the first volume uh of the
01:04:42
themes on iTunes for pre-order right now and before we wrap up Captain something
01:04:47
I haven't done in a few weeks a little recommended reading yeah I thought I just figured you were so into computer
01:04:53
that you didn't don't like books anymore well I actually had a few people email me saying hey there's been no
01:04:58
recommended reading for the last few weeks and that in fact has been true but if you've noticed we've recommended
01:05:03
movies podcast um a bunch of other things and what I por I typically don't like to recommend too many things in one
01:05:11
show so uh we're back at it this week and this week we are recommending a book called the undercover Edge this is by
01:05:18
Derek lavasier he's a former detective and TV personality uh if you could his face you would know he's on the I
01:05:26
believe the ID channel he has some kind of uh new new case that he's covering with another Gentleman on there he was
01:05:34
also uh on some OJ documentary he was at crime con last year I recommending this
01:05:40
book because he will be at crime conon along with us again this year which is in May of this year in Nashville yeah
01:05:47
he'll be the second sexiest man at crime Con well the uh so this is called the undercover Edge and it's one of these
01:05:55
motivational uh inspirational books it's it's teachings that you can use in your
01:06:00
life um so you can find your hidden stren so you can find your hidden strengths learn to adapt and build the
01:06:09
confidence to win life's game you can check that out by going to our website truecrime garage.com click on the
01:06:16
recommended page we have a bunch of books there for you all right we'll see you guys next week uh be good be kind
01:06:24
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