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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
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puts the [ __ ] in Joe Cocker he is the captain say what I know my parents are going to be so disappointed when they
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there all right gather around grab a chair grab a beer and let's talk some true crime
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[Music] all right Captain where we left off yesterday was with the second autopsy
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that was performed on Kendrick Johnson's body his body had been sent to pathologist Dr William Anderson for this
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second autopsy that was paid for by the family and supporters of the family and their cause Dr Anderson's autopsy report
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directly contradicted the original autopsy findings of an accidental death Anderson's report stated that there was
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physical evidence of blunt force trauma to the right neck and soft tissues consistent with inflicted injury
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Anderson went on to state that the injury was likely inflicted by someone else and that the death should be
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investigated as a homicide so the Johnson submitted the report to the Lowndes County coroner's office the gbi
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and the United States Department of Justice the family began calling for a Coroner's inquest a process similar to
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to an investigative grand jury whereby the jury listens to all the evidence and then rules on the cause of death
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now in October of 2013 one thing that we're the the main focus of today's show Captain the main reason why you and I
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got together tonight in the garage is to drink beer over coldies is to discuss the questionable items that surround
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this mysterious death of this young man we have this is this is a highly debated
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case this is a very controversial case and as you will see today we're going to try to go through these things line by
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line maybe clear the air a little bit on some of them and see what we can find yeah and just so we're clear so we're
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all on the same page the first investigation the first autopsy they claim that this is accidental death that
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he was going into this mat after shoes he got stuck in there he then suffocated and then we found Kendrick the second
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autopsy in the second investigation is kind of saying hey that's not what happened we think that somebody hit M
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and then rolled him up in one of these mats to cover that up and not only did the person that attacked Kendrick tried
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to cover the sub but law enforcement and the sheriff and the school and the coroner and everybody was trying to
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cover this up well in probably the strangest thing for me was this report that came out in
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October of 2013. this is a report that stems from the second autopsy that they discovered that
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Kendrick's body that it had been stuffed with newspapers before it was closed up and prepared for
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burial yeah yeah so Kendrick's internal organs this this included his brain heart lungs and liver these items were
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nowhere to be found and protocol is that the organs are sealed up in in plastic placed inside
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the body cavity and disposed of with the body right now a gbi spokesperson told CNN that after Kendrick's initial
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autopsy the organs were placed in the body the body was closed up and then it was sent off to the Harrington funeral
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home now Harrington's owner says that the the funeral home never received the organs at all Harrington states that he
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was told that the organs had been destroyed by the quote natural processes end quote right so decomposition and
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that the the organs had been discarded by the person who had opened up the body at the pathologist's office so this is
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this is I do want to point out something here so this one this is a very strange
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thing to hear that the this young man's body you know the the organs have gone missing
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sometime between the first autopsy and the second autopsy right right it starts smelling like a cover-up so we have we
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have a couple of issues here captain this is the second time that we are presented with evidence that
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something has gone missing between the transportation of the body from gbi right to the funeral home so I think we
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I think we need to really go through this one because there's there's some interesting stuff within this whole
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statement so first of all for those of you panicking and freaking out out there I guess it's you know it's
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not uncommon that they do in fact stuff the body with something right and from my understanding I've never witnessed
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this hope never to witness it or really hope that I never knew anything about it
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to begin with was that typically they use sawdust or cotton do I have that right right and I
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guess that it might have been kind of an old practice for funeral homes to stuff
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a body with newspaper it's something that has gone fallen out of practice since I don't know sometime
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in the 70s maybe the 60s but it but we're not talking about something it sounds something that's like something
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that's so incredibly unbelievable and then we learned that this is actually somewhat of a common thing the problem
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here though which is pointed out to us by the man that conducted the second autopsy is that when we do not have
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these organs that prevents them from further testing those those items now they did have
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slides they did they created different slides and they would x-ray the different organs so they did have those
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to make their opinions or their findings of the second autopsy the other thing though too is isn't it
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strange that we've now we've we've had clothing that magically disappeared between the transportation of this young
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man's body from the gbi to the funeral home and now we have these organs because we have gbi stating no we we
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followed protocol we put these organs in plastic we sealed them up we put them back in the body we transported the body
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to the funeral home now a little background on the funeral home because people you know it's it's looking like
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these people are very bad people the funeral home it's my understanding that they provided the Johnson family
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with a service with funeral services for Kendrick at no cost right just the cost
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of the organs right yeah well uh that they were they were trying to do a good thing for the family that had suffered a
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terrible tragedy right and they wanted to do something good for these people now they may here's Here's my thought
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you know I I just got done saying how good and how nice they probably were is there a chance that they may have cut
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some corners right because they're giving you a free service it's very possible I mean first
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of all the clothes let's not put any blame on the uh gbi because the clothes were with Kendrick and whoever
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transported Kendrick messed that up so no fault of the gbii no sense of cover-up there
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was conflicting stories the there's one story that the funeral home said well we
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never got the organs they were not there they said they never got the clothing as
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well right but again it it's it's on the report so then you start wondering where the if the clothes
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were misplaced in the transportation where the origins is placed or was there something where they go again I also
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heard reports that the funeral home said well we actually received those but we discarded them now I've heard both
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reports so is it possible you know I heard some crazy conspiracy from some Pastor saying well these young black
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people are being killed to sell their organs because that black market is so hot so you're going to tell me that this
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high school kid was killed and school when there's hundreds of people in the school
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so you can harvest the organs right well well let me here's the question I would
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like to post to that that Pastor look I went to school for computer I don't know anything about you know
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pathology here's my guess the poor young man whether he was murdered or a tragic accident
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he laid in the in a mat upside down for close to 24 hours right you can't use those you can't
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Harvest those organs and use them for anything can you I I wouldn't they're not working at this point don't don't
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they try to like like me I'm a donor so if something were to happen to me aren't
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they trying to harvest those organs as fast as possible so that they're they are usable for lack of better term I
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don't know the answer uh to that but I would assume that some organs would be salvageable more so than the other
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ones depending on temperature and some some probably have to be transferred right away and other ones maybe not so
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much well I'm only pointing out Captain the conflicting stories between the gbi and the funeral home for one simple
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reason we're looking at each of these items today because there is questions around did they get this investigation
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right was he murdered right was there a cover-up okay so a couple couple items with the
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missing clothing and with the missing missing organs we have gbi saying we sent those items
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to the funeral home we have the funeral home saying we never received them so what I'm getting at here is if if gbi is
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right if gbi is right in saying that we sent these items to the funeral home there's no cover-up as far as the
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missing clothing or organs go right because then that means they got to the funeral home and the funeral home chose
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to dispose of these items in a different manner than what was expected and instead they might be passing the buck
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and saying I don't think we ever received them however so one key thing here when we talk about cover-ups the
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funeral home's not going to cover up for gbi the funeral home's not going to cover up for the sheriff's department or
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for the people that actually murdered this young man they don't they don't have a stake in the in in the in the
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claim here they don't have a they don't have a dog in the fight they're just people that are trying to do something
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nice for the Johnson family something nice for Kendrick and give him proper services and I understand that but but
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the the other thing with the gbi is if they claim that they sent the clothes and they claim that they sent the organs
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were with him and the organs weren't found on him when they when they dug him back up right well then they have reason
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to cover their own ass and again we got another step so if gbi is telling the truth and the funeral home's telling the
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truth the person you need to look at is who was transporting his body agreed and
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here's where I have an issue with it because the organs might be the organs might be a bigger deal you know who
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knows what evidentiary or value the organs could have or the clothing one could argue one over the other right
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right the the issue I have is that in one instance regarding the clothing we have the Transport company saying that
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we signed for clothing when we picked up this young man's body we signed for clothing right
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you can't sign for organs because according to the gbi they were inside the body itself right okay so now we
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have the funeral director or the funeral home owner stating we never received the
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clothing right right how does that work why is there why is there a sign why is there a list of what
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we are picking up and it's signed for when we pick it up but when we do the drop off to the
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funeral home there's no list that that we go over with someone at the funeral home that signs off on that I'm sure
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there is but again but then why are we this is what I get mad about with some of these
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um with some of these potential cover-up stories right you almost feel like you don't get to hear the entire story
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because it would only make sense if there's a if I'm signing for a list of items that I'm picking up
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you when I'm delivering to you you should be signing for the items that I'm dropping off to you right that would
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agree that would straighten out the whole Jazz with the with the clothing again I I'm I'm guessing that there is
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some kind of protocol and we don't know we don't have that evidence that's why it's as simple as gbi says one thing and
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the funeral home says a different thing and we don't know what the truth is the other issue though too Captain is if in
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fact gbi disposed of the clothing or the organs or both then it's pretty fishy then
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there could be a cover-up but at the very least again we see protocol not being followed right
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definitely so we talked about the missing organs we talked about the missing clothing
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well there's some others there's some other missing things as well so let's talk about the video footage that was
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from the lounge High School this is the video surveillance system that they have
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there yeah so just a little bit of this background so all these cameras or most these cameras are motion uh censored so
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they only turn on when somebody actually enters the room and they stay on as long
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as there's motion there what's interesting is if you start diving into the video footage right away is that
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most of the cameras themselves are not synced up so for example you might have Kendrick going down a hall and it says
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time stamp you know let's say 120 but they know that that period would have been like 115 or whatever right then he
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walks into the gym James camera turns on but now all of a sudden it's uh you know
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1 30. right right and you go he just walked through a doorway did he hang out in that doorway for 15 minutes
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my point is that their time codes are not synced at all yeah not only are they not synced with each other but they're
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not synced with the actual time now again if this is true it's it's why would you have this system set up
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like this uh and why would you have the time codes off either way because of that
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there becomes a lot of issues which lean more towards the conspiracy side well in yeah so there's there's several
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issues that I have with this somebody that's very from as someone that's very familiar with these types of systems
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right right what I can tell you is that they do they're they're set up they're installed
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professionally they are set up professionally everything is usually tight as a drum tip top shape ready to
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rock and roll when these cameras are set up over time there will start to be glitches in the system things will get
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off sync like you had just said things will start to not work properly the problem with that is you have school
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administrators that are not they're not trained in these areas they're not trained to fix these things they're not
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trained to fix to to realign everything so it's working and functioning properly
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so again that it's tight as a drum ready to rock and roll that's when a phone call has to be made
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to those installers to those software Engineers to people that know how to do this stuff right I have witnessed and
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we've talked about it here on the show as well you know hotels uh street corners bars we've talked about glitches
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and questions within their surveillance systems that what tends to happen I think in these situations is you have a
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little glitch that either goes unnoticed or it's noticed and it's always thought
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of I'll make that call tomorrow right and then tomorrow turns into next week and the next week turns into next month
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and before you know it you've gone through four months and the time stamps wrong or the time stamps are off now the
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problem with that though is these are in a sense their government officials aren't they School administrators
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they're paid for by the local taxes right and with the with the expectation that our children are going to be safe
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that during these hours they are at the school and the school is supposed to be a safe place run by people that
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that are looking out for our children's best interests right so the first problem is gbi Goes to School
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administrators and they say that we need all video evidence related to Kendricks
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to this incident yeah that's the first problem I see because I think you should just say hey give me all the the video
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footage you have for the last 48 hours or the last three days yeah so just to jump in here real quick Captain it's
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estimated that there was approximately 1900 hours of footage that would have been taken from the 36 cameras that
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should have been recording on January 10th and 11th so the day that Kendrick Johnson died and then the day after
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which would have shown portions of the investigation right the problem I have with this is that people claim or
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they're suspect to claim that there's missing footage and if gbi would have went in and said give us all the footage
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age and there was missing footage well then the problem lies with the school administrators right but you didn't do
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that so now all these people suspect that there are gaps in time that nobody can account for so it makes it look very
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suspicious of a conspiracy and you have no way to defend yourself other than saying well we we looked at all the
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footage they gave us well okay then why is this part missing is it coming from your end or is it the
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administrator's end there's several several problems that people bring up regarding this camera footage the first
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being that the Sheriff's Office had released some still images that were taken from the videos themselves this is
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portions of the video that showed Kendrick walking into the gym and heading toward the mats right okay so
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the issue being there is there's there's some concern like we talked about with the time stamps later
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what's going to happen and this was made possible I believe through CNN who started making open records requests to
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the school for them to release the actual footage and then later a judge ordered that some small portions of the
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surveillance footage be released well when they released that the the videos that were released they do not appear to
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be time stamped so now people are wondering why does why did the images coming from the Sheriff's Office have a
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time stamp on them that are still images and now the actual video footage comes out and there's no time stamp on it
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right and it could be as simple as the fact that we know that that time stamp was not reality that that time stamp was
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off you know actual time by 15 minutes or whatever and and that would be a reasonable explanation just have the
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wrong time stamp on there another fishy thing that starts making you think that there's some kind of
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conspiracy here here's the other thing with these security systems so if you are the sheriff and you're reviewing the
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security footage with me the Security administrator let's say in my office and we're looking at the monitors together
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you can take a camera and you can take a picture of that monitor and that monitor
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may have the time stamp on it right but if somebody gives me a court order and says hey we need you to give us this
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information well what I'm going to have to do is actually go in to the database and I'm going to have to transfer that
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information transfer that surveillance footage to something else you know a zip drive or something and hand it off to
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them by the time that I do that that time stamp may not accompany that actual footage right because it's only going to
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be transferred in the manner that I tell it to unless there's certain default settings set up for that that method of
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transfer of of transferring it now the other thing that people called into question is is that we have images that
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seem to jump around we also it seems like the cameras that were focused on the mat area and the old gym that they
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only captured blurry images and they don't appear to have videoed anything around the time of Kendrick's death
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people speculate stuff like okay we see uh somebody walk into frame and then all
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of a sudden the next frame somebody disappears out of nowhere yeah they appear and disappear out of nowhere
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which again could just be glitches in the system because they're motion sensored systems and so it might not
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have picked up the first motion of of that individual and then all of a sudden they pop up like they're you know
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teleporting well CNN took it the extra mile they they had filed suit to access the video footage and then they hired a
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forensic video analysis uh analyst I'm sorry to analyze the 290 hours of material that were received from all of
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the cameras the video footage analysis was this there was jumpiness present on the video there was blurriness present
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there were time stamp issues this is all confirmed by a a third party that doesn't have a dog in the fight right
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well but they are being paid by CNN to do the investigation so well yeah paid by CNN to do the investigation but what
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I mean by that is their loyalty lies with CNN it doesn't lie with the gbi or with the Johnson family right you know
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that's they're only beholden to CNN now the analyst states that there was jumpiness there's blurriness there's
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time stamp issues however he says that this is all pretty easily explainable um you can explain it by erratic motion
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sensors unfocused or outdated lenses on the cameras right or dirty lenses the analyst also said that the
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non-sequential footage this is the footage where it will appear that people were appearing or disappearing out of
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nowhere here is the result of lost information and or corrupted files now whether the data was corrupted just via
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system malfunction or processing error or whether it was the result of deliberate tampering could not be
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determined so the analyst is saying this is occurring on the video footage right
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however I cannot in my expert opinion tell you why it occurred it could have just been some kind of glitch or error
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or it could have been a person going in there and manipulating the file correct which again either way it starts making
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you think well hey this is somebody covering their tracks now where it gets weird though is you have to remember
00:26:31
people could be covering their tracks just because they did a shitty job of the initial investigation so if you're
00:26:39
covering up the shitty initial investigation that doesn't mean you're covering up a murder yeah well of more
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concern was this the the analysts he determined that at least an hour was missing
00:26:52
there was there was missing footage that that would make up about an hour this is
00:26:57
coming from a long time well it seems like a long time but it is a long time well
00:27:02
I don't think I don't necessarily think we're actually talking about a real hour
00:27:07
as you and I know an hour okay they're not talking about a consecutive time right they're not clear on this
00:27:14
statement what they're stating is that there is at least an hour missing from the video footage from all four cameras
00:27:20
around the gym so meaning that what I believe this to mean and I could be wrong they're not outwardly stating one
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way or the other I believe this to mean that collectively when we take all four of these cameras when we collected all
00:27:35
that information together that adds up to about an hour of missing footage well but that could also be like the one
00:27:42
camera where you see Kendrick walk in the camera doesn't start back up for another 15 minutes because there's
00:27:50
nobody in frame so could they be talking about 15 minutes in a few times if you times that by four that gives you your
00:27:57
hour oh good job so furthermore the analysts told investigators that they needed to Pina the actual surveillance
00:28:04
servers in order to determine where the missing footage went as opposed to just relying on what was given to them by the
00:28:13
school and quote those files are not original files they're not something investigators should rely on for the
00:28:22
truth of the video [Music] [Music] all right we're back cheers welcome back in cheers Captain you had a few items on
00:28:47
your laundry list that you wanted to speak about well if we don't talk about them I think people will bring them up
00:28:53
so let's talk about the blood that was found it wasn't found that far from where Kendrick was found it was in about
00:29:00
six droplets of blood that was on a wall it's very dark it looks almost like Black smudge right now they did collect
00:29:09
this and they did test it and it wasn't Kendrick's blood now that's fine and it probably was left
00:29:16
there I believe it probably was a lot of people on the side that say it's such a
00:29:21
conspiracy say hey blood is not just left on walls in high school like we talked about before high schools are
00:29:28
just not that clean and if this is in the area that they would have put the mats up in it's possibility that when
00:29:35
they put the mats up a janitor couldn't get to this and clean it so you have that evidence
00:29:43
you have that sample so you could at least find out who that that belongs to and that might take a lot of work and
00:29:50
time but you could do that to rule that out and cover your own ass the other piece of item is this hoodie that people
00:29:59
bring up all the time it's I think it's a structure hoodie well before we move on to the hoodie I think you know what
00:30:05
the biggest part of the argument for the blood evidence that's found approximately 50 feet from the map that
00:30:12
the Kendrick was later found in is that you know just because you rule out that it's Kendrick's blood does not
00:30:20
mean that it doesn't have anything to do with this situation I mean it could be the offender's blood how many times have
00:30:26
we talked about an attack that goes down in the offender injures themselves or the person there that they are attacking
00:30:33
defends themselves and injures the offender so I think that's the big concern there that it's not just okay
00:30:41
well thanks for letting us know that it's not Kendrick's blood however we would like to know who it belongs to
00:30:46
right especially I think where you run into the trouble here with a lot of this investigation
00:30:53
and I think specifically with the blood evidence is that most of the people at this school
00:31:00
they're minors they're not they're not adults and that makes it a little trickier when you're talking about the
00:31:07
privacy of these children their children you know and I think that's that's where
00:31:13
they ran into some issues regarding the surveillance footage too because the school's like well look we can't just
00:31:19
willy-nilly release all this surveillance footage it's camera it's camera footage of children walking
00:31:25
around right you know whose identities need to remain anonymous it's their job to protect them right and
00:31:34
so there in fact I think with the the blood we're looking at pretty much the same problem so that's why they're like
00:31:41
you know what well let's at least rule out Kendrick right uh to put this in the right direction where I take where I
00:31:48
have a problem with this is that there were some people some some people that were named
00:31:55
as suspects now in their defense they were only named by Kendrick's parents they were never named by by law
00:32:03
enforcement officials but these persons I would have loved to have seen the opportunity
00:32:10
for somebody to say look we're going to test this Blood we'd like to compare it to yours right you have the opportunity
00:32:16
here to come forward and say and and prove to us that this is not your blood I one potential problem though Captain
00:32:25
is the way that you've described the the blood that was found there it sounds like this is a a poor sample
00:32:35
um possibly contaminated but I guess it was strong enough to to determine that it was not Kendricks right so so yeah I
00:32:43
think that's all an issue and and you wanted to move on to the sweatshirt we mentioned that one of the amongst the
00:32:48
other items that were found at the scene we already explained away the textbook and the folder that was
00:32:55
located those were Kendricks there was a sweatshirt a hooded um a hooded Hollister brand sweatshirt
00:33:03
that was found at the scene again again I think they should have tagged and bagged they didn't but they did give
00:33:12
back this hoodie supposedly to Kendrick's family so they're the ones that are saying or they're the ones that
00:33:20
came out and said hey we don't think this was accidental death we think somebody
00:33:25
um hit him or murdered him and then put him in the the mat and then and then put
00:33:29
the mat back up they're the ones saying that so you do have that piece of evidence so if you
00:33:35
want anything done to that shirt I'm going to then put that on you again like I said they should have tagged and
00:33:41
bagged it and kept it in evidence they didn't but they did give it back to the family that's my thoughts on that piece
00:33:48
of evidence well and I think before we move too far away from the surveillance footage that we that we discussed
00:33:56
it sounds to me like that there was an opportunity for the Johnsons to view this surveillance footage right at the
00:34:05
school within days of the death and they didn't do that for whatever reason and actually I believe that they were
00:34:13
encouraged through I don't know if it was their attorneys but there we had already mentioned the
00:34:20
NAACP the uh SCLC right those groups at the very least were encouraging them to go and view that footage and for
00:34:29
whatever reason they did not at that time but I I think we should push on forward Captain because in 2014
00:34:37
things are going to start to heat up a bit this is when the Johnsons and their attorneys are becoming increasingly
00:34:43
aggressive in their pursuit of Justice they had even gone so far as to mention by name the two boys who they declared
00:34:51
had a reason to hurt Kendrick right this is Brian and Brandon Bell so it's not only these are brothers Brian and
00:35:00
Brandon Bell the Johnsons alleged that the Bell Brothers had used an unnamed female to lore Kendrick into the old gym
00:35:08
where they had killed him and stuffed his body into the mat they further claimed that the crime had been a
00:35:16
cover-up with the aid of the Bell brother brothers father right because he was a FBI agent yes that's like when you
00:35:26
start reading about this case and you hear that you go what what FBI agent all of these allegations were laid out in a
00:35:33
lawsuit filed by the Johnsons against more than 30 defendants that claim game were complicit separately in July 2014
00:35:43
they sued the school system and the superintendent for the wrongful death of their son the lawsuit alleged that a
00:35:51
white student had a history of provoking and attacking Kendrick at school now yeah I believe that they got into some
00:35:59
kind of fight and I don't know what that fight was one of the Bell Brothers and Kendrick supposedly they were somewhat
00:36:06
friends now this is what the Bell family says but the Johnson family says we we don't know him never heard of him they
00:36:15
weren't friends the first issue I have with this is Lord him Lord Kendrick in the old gym by
00:36:23
using a female decoy right my first problem with that is we do know that he had weight training class
00:36:31
and 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
00:36:40
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
00:36:47
that incident that you had mentioned between one of the Bell Brothers and Kendrick okay so when this first comes
00:36:56
out Captain it's Kenneth and Jackie they're claiming you know Kendrick's parents are claiming that the bell boys
00:37:04
that this whole thing stemmed from an incident that had took place between Kendrick and Brian Bell that this had
00:37:11
occurred this incident occurred just before Kendrick had died there are people that looked into this
00:37:18
and what the the result of their investigations are this that that incident there was an incident but but
00:37:25
in fact it actually took place 18 months earlier this would be in 2011 when the two boys were freshmen members of the
00:37:33
Vikings football team okay so picture this they it's after a football game they're riding home on the bus okay and
00:37:43
what the report States is that Brian and Kendrick were in some kind of they're trading mama jokes you know your
00:37:51
mama's so fat that kind of thing don't get your mama's so fat when she sits around the house she really sits around
00:37:57
the house yeah so they're trading these mama jokes and for whatever reason it gets out of
00:38:03
hand and the two ended up getting in a fight yeah one was better than the other uh at mama jokes yeah it comes down to
00:38:10
yeah well but we've we've been in school we've seen where these things start off
00:38:15
as some kind of friendly tug of war let's say and when they just turn into a fight yeah and they just had a football
00:38:20
game so you got adrenaline going and they're probably just coming down from that adrenaline High they're actually on
00:38:28
the bus with with an older team from the same school from the Vikings football team right uh I think it's the varsity
00:38:35
team maybe the JV I don't know so we have two teams on this on this bus they're heading home this fight breaks
00:38:42
out between Brian and Kendrick regarding these mother jokes so what ends up happening is the boys are separated very
00:38:50
quickly once this fight breaks out when the school bus arrived back at the school Brian is then with his brother
00:38:58
because his brother played football as well he he was a junior he was on the older team right all right so
00:39:05
the two Bell Brothers they go home they're picked up by their parents the complaint is regarding Kendrick as
00:39:13
this that Kendrick was sent home in the school resource officer's car um so what what you have here and this is
00:39:23
according to Kendrick's Father Kenneth that the white kids get to go home with their parents but the black kid was put
00:39:30
in a police cruiser yeah which is bowling around [ __ ] you know well they should be treated the
00:39:40
same exactly right if if putting if putting Kendrick in a police cruiser and taking him home is a form of punishment
00:39:47
then Brian Bell should have been escorted home by the police officer as well and told what had happened what had
00:39:54
occurred on the bus correct but if your son is take him back to your house and a quote
00:40:02
unquote pretty much a police cruiser then you should probably remember when this happened
00:40:08
and you should probably not say that it happened just before um you know your son was found dead and
00:40:15
that it happened 18 months beforehand well therein lies a big problem with this story so when you initially hear
00:40:22
the story and the way that Kenneth Johnson tells the story it sounds like there's a fight shortly before his son
00:40:30
is killed right and his son Not only was in a fight with the one of the people we
00:40:35
think killed him but the result was my son was punished and the white kid was not punished right
00:40:42
the truth of the matter that we end up learning once you once you dig through once you dig nothing that that that
00:40:49
Johnson says is completely wrong Kendrick absolutely was driven home by the the school's resource officer but
00:40:59
let's keep in mind that's that's a police officer that's working at the school it's not like they called the
00:41:03
police right and a cruiser came in and picked up Kendrick and took him home the way that this story works is it's
00:41:11
exactly like I started off with this is an old fight this was not a fight that started right before Kendrick ended up
00:41:18
dead in the match this was almost 18 months beforehand and then what we do learn is that yes the the Bell Brothers
00:41:25
did go home with their parents Kendrick didn't go home with his parents because his parents were not at the school to
00:41:31
pick him up right when he arrived back at the school he has no ride home the school resource officer that was already
00:41:39
there who would later tell the media I considered myself to be a family friend of the of the Johnson family right so I
00:41:49
took him home right I knew Kendrick I knew Kendrick outside of my job of being a resource officer at the actual High
00:41:56
School just offered him a ride home it was not a form of punishment I was just trying to help them out right yeah but
00:42:03
again sometimes people only see what they want to see it seems like that happens a lot with uh Mr Johnson well I
00:42:11
I don't even think you'd see what you want to see I mean it might be see what you want to see but could it also be
00:42:16
tell what you want to tell right I mean because control your narrative right when we hear the story from him it's a
00:42:24
it it sounds very damning and then when you really start digging through it you're like well it's not a complete lie
00:42:31
but there's things in here that just that they have different meaning than the way
00:42:37
that he describes them and it's not as simple as the white kid was not punished and the black kid was right
00:42:45
so these Braille Brothers I mean I think the thing initially that jumped out of me when they say hey we got these kids
00:42:51
that we think might be responsible for possibly hitting Kendrick and then rolling them up in the mat and you go
00:42:58
okay well these mats are mainly used for wrestling and one of the Bell Brothers is a wrestler so that seems a little
00:43:04
fishy but that doesn't mean anything okay so let's go through these these Bell boys together here well and they're
00:43:12
Brothers but they're also Bros well but the so the sheriff investigated them and
00:43:18
he determined that Brandon Bell was not even on school grounds at the time that Kendrick had died right so he's on a
00:43:28
school athletic outing with the wrestling team um this is 25 people on the wrestling
00:43:35
team he's one of them and that he he couldn't have been involved because they were out of town for some kind of
00:43:44
wrestling tournament right that day Okay so he's not even at the school the other
00:43:51
Bell brother was in a fourth period class and had like 20 some eyewitnesses placing them in the class I believe the
00:43:58
whole time right they're both accounted for in different locations making it seemingly impossible that either of them
00:44:05
let alone both of them could be involved this is where the sheriff points out that the boys were never considered
00:44:11
suspects because of these reasons now they're pretty much cleared right away yeah but the Johnsons would continue to
00:44:19
maintain that the bells were involved in in Kendrick's murder they even produced
00:44:24
a and made a public video raising questions about both of the bell boys and they also pointed out that the bells had
00:44:35
refused to cooperate with police and they pointed out what appeared to be a School record showing that the wrestling
00:44:41
bus had not left the campus until 4 pm on January 10th this giving Brandon plenty
00:44:49
of time to Kill Kendrick and still make it to the bus right so then we have the school's attorney comes out and counters
00:44:57
that statement stating that he points to the school bus travel log okay that Johnson's legal team was
00:45:07
referring to this is just a trip request that was filled out weeks before the tournament
00:45:14
to reserve the bus so they've not they may not actually know exactly what time they need the bus
00:45:21
yet it's so many weeks in advance right so actually on January 10th this is what
00:45:28
they could prove that the wrestling team had uh the school's first lunch session
00:45:34
which lasted from 11 32 a.m to 1202 p.m then the team and the coaches boarded a school bus and left for a 150 mile drive
00:45:47
to the tournament the wrestling coach's cell phone records indicate the team was
00:45:53
in Cordell Georgia at 1 53 p.m Cordell is approximately 85 miles north of the school indicating that the bus would
00:46:03
have already have left and been on the road at the time that Kendrick was last seen alive on that video footage right
00:46:12
so again Mr Johnson doesn't want to listen to the actual evidence I mean look is it wrong for you to suspect that
00:46:21
something happened for to your son no and was there definitely some shoddy police work yes but these two
00:46:28
individuals that you think have something to do with your son and possibly from rumors because if you look
00:46:34
at a lot of the police investigated the police reports and when they're talking to students now they're talking to some
00:46:41
of these students seven months later there was some rumors about this well when the parents of a dead child is
00:46:49
saying hey we think these kids had something to do with it you better believe in that high school there's
00:46:54
going to be rumors started so we have these rumors started but then they come back to you law enforcement
00:47:01
comes back to you and says hey we have their whereabouts we have their Alibis that's where it gets really fishy to me
00:47:07
though or fishy from the Johnson side to me is they go well okay so these guys have Alibis so now not only are the Bell
00:47:15
Brothers responsible but the superintendent's responsible in the and the the whole school's responsible and
00:47:22
the sheriff's responsible and they're all covering that up because the Bell Brothers their father is a FBI agent
00:47:28
that seems really really far-fetched well it's stretching it so I I think I think with that Captain we can kind of
00:47:36
lead into that leads us into what are our thoughts what are our conclusions after reviewing the evidence I'll let
00:47:43
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 does bother me
00:47:50
uh do I think the investigation would have been handled a little different if it was one of the Bell Brothers that
00:47:57
were found in the mat I do believe that I believe that 100 percent I don't think
00:48:03
they would have been walking around just in their shoes I think they would have collected all pieces of evidence I think
00:48:09
they would cross their T's and dotted their eyes and uh I think they want to acted like a bunch of pieces of [ __ ] but
00:48:18
I think what happened here was they had to see their son and because the way he died
00:48:26
and I lean more towards accidental that the way he died and the way he his face looked afterwards
00:48:37
I think that was all the proof that Johnson needed to think that something you know bad happen and it wasn't just
00:48:48
an accident that somebody made his face look that way that his face had to be beaten up and it wasn't just
00:48:58
because he was basically upside down and also dead for probably what 12 hours before he's
00:49:04
found and I think him looking at his son was enough for him to go down this wild
00:49:13
goose chase now where it makes it weirder is that because the investigation didn't
00:49:20
cross her teeth didn't dot their eyes didn't bag and tag everything that they were supposed to
00:49:25
didn't wear coverings for their shoes didn't talk to students beforehand and I think
00:49:32
assumed right when they found him right when they found Kendrick Johnson that this was an accident
00:49:39
and they didn't do all the things that they should have done and then when the Johnsons are calling
00:49:44
them out and saying hey we think there's Foul Play here that everybody that was involved in the
00:49:51
investigation is covering their ass not because it was a murder but because they
00:49:57
did such a shitty job and so you know if you would have done your job correctly at the beginning we wouldn't have all
00:50:05
these problems and we want to have all this conspiracy and wasting a bunch of people's time
00:50:11
well or would we that's what that's what I question because here's here's where I
00:50:16
stand on this on the surface and you know I'm going to say that I I go into every one of our cases right
00:50:24
down the middle and I'm going to look at it and I'm going to let the evidence lead me where it should lead me into
00:50:31
into the right direction with this one I did not because I'd already had some previous knowledge
00:50:38
well I thought I had previous knowledge about this case right because on the surface it does look very wrong it looks
00:50:45
like there's a lot of wrongdoing by a lot of people and that there was in fact a cover-up that's very fishy yeah when
00:50:52
you start to get a better understanding of the layout of the old gym and the the
00:50:59
setup of the mats and things like that it starts to look to you or to me anyway like it was
00:51:07
there's a chance that this was an accident right once you hear how this this was described that this is was set
00:51:14
up that that the children would often place things inside of these mats for safekeeping
00:51:22
it becomes it becomes apparent to me that we might have just an accidental strange bizarre death and you talked
00:51:30
about it you nailed it it's it's when when the parents saw their son they couldn't come to the same
00:51:37
conclusion that was already decided for them and I get that I get that it had to
00:51:42
been the worst thing for them to see their son in that manner now where the public becomes involved is that the
00:51:50
picture is released of Kendrick after death that was taken by his father we don't know the exact point that he took
00:51:58
this picture and but what we do know is it was either taken on that Sunday when he went to
00:52:04
identify the body or was taken after the autopsy right okay regardless the reason why he his appearance why he
00:52:13
appeared that way was because the amount of time that had gone by by the injuries
00:52:18
by the state of the body by being upside down and potentially the autopsy having
00:52:23
been conducted so where the public had a had an outcry for let's open up this case again it's because we're reacting
00:52:32
to that photo yeah and that photo is not fair to the public to Simply release it and let the public
00:52:39
believe the public believed when they saw this this was a picture this is what he looked like right when they found him
00:52:45
that's not the case man well but that's when you see his face and then you see his actual picture you go this is a face
00:52:53
of a man that was you know vicious viciously beaten right that's what that's what it looks like that's what
00:53:00
your eyes tell you it is and and for some people it's as simple as seeing is believing and that's just it but but
00:53:07
there's enough science to explain the reason that he appeared that way right okay now I so we're kind of taking
00:53:16
unpopular uh and unpopular stance on this I believe I I think that most people look at this case and I think
00:53:24
that they're still possibly a huge public outcry that this is an injustice that occurred
00:53:30
um I here's the thing it's not without question though I can't look at this and go 100 this wasn't this was an accident
00:53:38
and why because of things that you pointed out because of it being a shoddy investigation because protocol was not
00:53:45
followed because there is some surveillance footage missing yes you know those questions are not answered
00:53:52
but if I had to pick a side I think this is just a tragic accidental death and I
00:53:58
think the Tipping Point for me what really kind of pushed me towards that conclusion was there was an outstanding
00:54:05
um woman and her name is Lee Touchton okay so in 2015 she was an investigator with the NAACP she gave an interview to
00:54:17
Media publication regarding Kendrick's case touched an investigated Kendrick's death for two years first in her role
00:54:25
with the NAACP and then as an independent investigator working for the southern Christian leadership conference
00:54:32
Touchton was a seasoned civil rights activist whose role required her to investigate claims of racially motivated
00:54:40
civil rights violations she had lobbied the doj to investigate the case and she repeatedly contacted
00:54:49
the U.S attorney's office with the same request touched and conducted a thorough
00:54:54
probe into Kendrick's death after the Sheriff's Office had closed their investigation She interviewed numerous
00:55:01
local public officials including the county school superintendent the attorney for the sheriff the sheriff and
00:55:08
one of his deputies she talked to school board members and obtained Kendrick's case File she even toured the crime lab
00:55:16
several times interviewed the director visited the body cooler refrigeration unit and looked at the alarms and record
00:55:24
books she noted that contrary to Kendrick's father's statement and claims that the crime lab cooler was not
00:55:32
working that it was warm air she saw the alarm that would go off if electricity was shut off or if temperatures got too
00:55:41
high or too low and confirmed that there were backup generators in such a case as
00:55:47
a blackout right she noted that the chief forensic investigator is black he's an African-American right she spoke
00:55:55
with the school's attorney and gained an understanding of the lapses in the surveillance footage she toured the old
00:56:01
gym and was given a reenactment of how Kendrick was found touchton's conclusions
00:56:08
was that there was no credible evidence to even claim a murder had been committed Kendrick's death had been a
00:56:15
tragic accident she said I think the murder theory is not only false but also ridiculous and based only on wild
00:56:23
speculation and outright Fabrications based on the preponderance of medical evidence the diagnosis of positional
00:56:32
asphyxia is the only diagnosis that fits all of the facts there is no way that the accused boys could have been
00:56:40
involved in Kendrick's death in fact she resigned in protest from the NAACP because she
00:56:48
noted that the organization continued to provide assistance and funding to the Johnson parents who were making
00:56:55
allegations against the Bells that she said were lies well good for her after her resignation from the NAACP
00:57:04
she teamed up with Reverend Floyd Rose of the SCLC he had been requested by the family to look into Kendrick's death and
00:57:12
was one of the biggest supporters early on in the quest to find Justice for Kendrick touched in and Rose
00:57:19
investigated the case together and came again came to the same conclusion that Kendrick's death was an accident
00:57:27
Reverend Rose who is an African-American man told the USA Today you won't find a
00:57:34
person of any reputation in this town who says that boy was murdered are there other injustices around here you bet
00:57:42
there are but this is not one of them and I'm not going to be bossed around by whites or blacks he told Grant land
00:57:51
which is a sports blog owned by ESPN that he simply could not believe that the sheriff the detectives the forensic
00:57:59
scientists the criminal investigators the investigators from the gbi and the medical examiner had all colluded
00:58:09
and risked their careers to cover something up he went on to State maybe in 1951.
00:58:17
but not in 2013. so I got a couple words for some people in this case if if you don't mind
00:58:26
so first of all this Sheriff there's this video footage of some news reporter that go in and they want to talk to him
00:58:33
about the Kendrick Johnson case and he says I'm not talking about that case and they
00:58:40
say why aren't you talking about this case he says because I don't want to well first of all this individual which
00:58:48
did a pretty shoddy job I believe you should be thankful that you worked on this case that you
00:58:58
made heirs and blunders and that possibly that you could learn from this and learn that these blunders and these
00:59:07
missteps that you took and instead of following the letter of the land you followed your own protocol and then look
00:59:14
how much hurt that caused the Johnson family and then the Johnson family bringing up that possibly there's a
00:59:21
conspiracy and then how much hurt that brought everybody else and so you should be one just take it in
00:59:28
and say yes I made a bunch of mistakes I wish I didn't make but I'm going to be a
00:59:33
better sheriff and a better better individual because I worked on this Kendrick Johnson case
00:59:40
well and I pointed out that the my Tipping Point for me was the final conclusion by Lee Touchton and then by
00:59:51
Reverend Floyd Rose and the reason why that was the Tipping Point for me was because just like me they went into this
01:00:00
case thinking that there was an injustice here thinking that there was a murder and that there was a cover-up these two
01:00:08
intelligent individuals spent a lot of time they spent two years investigating this only to end up at the other end of
01:00:17
this right that there was not an injustice that this was in fact an accident so where I can't say 100
01:00:24
percent that I believe this was an accident because of protocol being broken because of things that are
01:00:30
missing because things that have not been explained fully I'm going to rely on these two smart
01:00:36
individuals that spent two years on this investigation and they didn't work for anybody that was involved in the
01:00:43
cover-up and they went into this expecting to find a cover-up and it only turned out that they ended up at the
01:00:50
other end of it yeah and when I went into this I mean I love a good conspiracy as much as anybody else right
01:00:56
I think they're fascinating cases I just don't see the evidence of that and I'd be willing to hear the evidence I think
01:01:04
there's enough Reasonable Doubt to go hey if you can give me some solid piece of evidence to show me that this was
01:01:11
actually a murder and not an accident I'd be willing to listen I just don't see that evidence out there
01:01:19
[Music] and make sure you go to the iTunes Store it's been requested a bunch of times I
01:01:29
took 20 of the themes I'm going to be taking all the themes theme music theme music of the shows and putting them
01:01:36
together in these compilations and you can get the first volume of the themes on iTunes for pre-order
01:01:43
right now and before we wrap up Captain something I haven't done in a few weeks a little recommended reading yeah I
01:01:49
thought I just figured you were so into computer that you didn't like books anymore I actually had a few people
01:01:54
email me saying hey there's been no recommended reading for the last few weeks and that in fact has been true but
01:02:00
if you've noticed we've recommended movies podcasts a bunch of other things and what I pornos I typically don't like to
01:02:07
recommend too many things in one show so uh we're back at it this week and this week we are recommending a book called
01:02:14
the undercover Edge this is by Derek levasseer he's a former detective and TV personality uh if you could see his face
01:02:23
you would know he's on the ability leave the ID channel he has some kind of new new case that he's covering with another
01:02:31
Gentleman on there he's also uh on some OJ documentary he was at crime con last year I'm recommending this book because
01:02:39
he will be at crime con along with us again this year which is in May of this year in Nashville yeah he'll be the
01:02:46
second sexiest man at crimecon well the uh so this is called the undercover Edge
01:02:51
and it's one of these motivational uh inspirational books it's it's teachings that you can use in your life
01:03:00
um so you can find your hidden strength so you can find your hidden strengths learn to adapt and build the confidence
01:03:07
to win life's game you can check that out by going to our website truecrime garage.com click on the recommended page
01:03:15
we have a bunch of books there for you all right we'll see you guys next week uh be good be kind and don't let her
01:03:38
[Applause] thank you [Music]