Hello and welcome back to Over My Dead Pod.
I'm your host for the day, Holly Speer.
This is Kate Carter.
And I'm Kylie Colwell.
All right.
So as I start every episode, this is my case today.
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So with that being said, let's get on to the unexplained death of Kendrick Johnson.
Oh, oh, oh, this is this is different.
Do you know it?
No.
Kylie, is this, is this the gym mat?
Oh my God, this is the gym mat.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
I cannot believe you're doing this one.
Wow.
I just got goosebumps.
Yeah.
I this is one of the first cases that I remember listening to on crime junkie and it just got
me hooked on crime junkie because I was like, this is freaking bonkers.
So yeah, gotta do this one.
Wow.
Okay.
This is going to be good.
You guys, this is going to be good.
I have, I already have so many theories.
Yeah.
I already have.
Okay.
Yeah.
So usually I would be like, okay, we'll talk about our theories at the end, but I just
want you all to tell me throughout the episode what you're thinking because so much changes
as evidence gets revealed.
Yeah.
And as I talk about it, you're going to have like multiple different feelings of like,
oh my gosh, I think it's this.
No, never mind.
Forget it.
Throw it out the window.
I think it's this.
It's just how I was.
That's how everyone is.
I think so.
Yeah.
Just, and it's okay if your opinion changes because a lot of people's has, has, has changed,
but we will just hop right into it.
So this is a really hard case because it's a case of a mysterious death.
There are many that believe that this was a tragic, crazy freak accident, an accident
where someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But there are many believe that this case is something much more sinister.
And there are about 50 different opinions and 50 different theories of what's happened.
And there'll be at least two theories in every turn of this case.
And you can go down the left road or the right road and there's four paths down each road
connecting it.
And it's just freaking frustrating.
But I want to get y'all's theories, y'all's thoughts.
It's important that we talk about this case and let you decide what you think happened
to Kendrick Johnson.
Kendrick Johnson was a 17 year old.
His friends and family called him KJ.
So I might refer to him as KJ sometimes in this story.
But Kendrick was born and raised in Val, Valdosa, Georgia.
And Kendrick was an athlete.
He played three different sports at his high school and he wanted to play college football
and he had dreams of playing professionally one day.
So I will also say Kendrick is black and I say that because it's important to the story.
People think that what happened in this case may have been based off the fact that Kendrick
was black.
And this is because there are still some undertones of racism in the city of Valdosa, Georgia.
That to say I'm not calling the town racist.
If you're from there, I'm not saying you're racist or anything like that.
But there are credible news reports and news stories that claim that there are still racist
events happening in that town.
So we know that there's reports of it.
So.
So it's driven through Valdosa, it is in southern Georgia and it's your typical southern
Georgian town.
Just say that.
Yeah, keep that vibe in mind, maybe.
That's good to know.
I've never driven through there, heard of it before this case.
So, today is Thursday, January 10th, 2013.
And Kendrick's mother is expecting him to be home.
He'll be home any minute and Kendrick's plan of the day was to go to school and then afterwards
he was going to go to the basketball game and then just come straight home.
But as evening turned to night, Kendrick's mom began to worry.
She expected Kendrick would be home no later than seven.
But then eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock rolls around and
she knows that something is not right.
By this time, she's called Kendrick multiple times on his cell phone over and over, but
he doesn't pick up.
So then she just gets in her car and drives to the school.
She's thinking he's still probably like hanging out with friends or pulling like some kind
of pulling something, hanging out at a friend's house, didn't tell her something.
But she pulls up to Laundice High School where Kendrick went to school and the school is
completely dead.
It's dark inside, no cars in the parking lot, all the doors are locked up.
It's obvious that Kendrick was not there.
It's now after midnight and Kendrick's mother cannot wait any longer.
She files a missing persons report.
In the morning, Kendrick's mother doesn't know what else to do, but to go down to the
school to see if maybe Kendrick might show up for class.
So she's thinking if he did stay out all night with his friends, the only place that
he would have to go other than her house in the morning is school.
So she shows up there.
She goes to the counselor's office and the counselor is like, let's start asking people,
let's start printing missing persons posters.
So the counselor's being very helpful.
And this is when the counselor finds out from Kendrick's teachers that he did not show up
for the last two periods of school the day before.
They do know that at 1.30 PM that day before Kendrick had been spotted walking into the
gym of the school.
They would all soon learn that Kendrick had never left the building and that he was definitely
no longer alive.
The counselor would learn that that morning a group of students were hanging out in the
gym before class.
And this was the older gym where the school kept their gym equipment.
Part of this gym equipment was a cluster of mats in the corner of the room.
There were those thick foam mats that you would see used for cheerleading, wrestling,
like tumbling activities.
There's probably like 10 to 15 mats and they're six feet tall.
They're rolled up and they're stacked side by side.
So like up and down stacked vertically.
Yes, up and down.
It was in these mats that the students noticed something sticking out of the mats.
It was something white and it looked kind of like a foot.
So these students climbed up the bleachers that were beside the mats so that they could
see, so they could look down over them.
And it was from up here that they could tell there was definitely a person in the mat.
There was someone in the middle of the roll, someone in the middle of the mats, in the
middle of the cluster of the mats, and they start calling out to this kid, do you need
help?
How did you get down there?
And the students quickly realized that the kid was not moving a muscle at all.
Something was terribly wrong.
So they run to go get a teacher and the teacher at the same time runs over there and calls
police.
The teacher thinks that this kid is stuck in the mats.
So they put the mat like over on its side, like they topple it over so that it's laying
parallel to the ground, you know, it's like the mats on the ground.
And the mats not even unrolled yet, but immediately they smell something terrible coming from the
mat.
She knows at that point, he or she knows at that point that the person inside the mat
is dead and not to touch it.
So they don't even unroll the mat.
The police quickly arrive and they were quick to realize that this was the body of 17 year
old Kendrick Johnson.
Just breaking the scene down a little, the body was found in the old gym of the school.
There is two gyms, the old gym and the new gym.
Like I said, in the old gym, this is where the school kept a lot of their gym equipment,
kind of along the walls.
And students would hang out in this gym, play like little pickup games of basketball before
or after class, and obviously part of these, part of this equipment was these mats and
these mats were that were normally there were always stacked in this corner.
On this day, the day Kendrick's body was found, the students had been back from winter break
for three days and Kendrick would go missing on that second day.
It was said that before winter break, half the mats have been standing up vertically
and the other half were parallel to the ground laying down horizontally.
But now they were all upright on the day that Kendrick was found.
Remember this because it's kind of important for later, but I think the school said that
they might have cleaned the gym and therefore all the mats that were stacked the wrong way
had now been stood up straight.
This would have been before Kendrick's body was found.
This would have been like winter break.
This happened.
Then the kids came back.
They'd been back for two days.
That's when Kendrick would have gone missing was that second day.
So does that make sense?
Yeah.
Okay.
So that very afternoon, right after Kendrick's body was removed from the school, the sheriff
would get up and make a public statement about the death of Kendrick Johnson.
The sheriff said that on January 10th, Kendrick had an athletic class.
For this athletic class, students had to like bring their athletic clothes or store them
at the school.
So you know, like your shorts, tennis shoes, whatever they assigned you to like wear, you
had to change into your gym clothes before gym class.
Knowing high school kids, I'm sure they're always forgetting their gym clothes.
It was the same for me when I was in junior high.
We had an athletic period and we had like these designated shirt like Russaville shirt
that we had to wear with like the shorts and you had to bring them or store them at the
school and I was always forgetting them.
So I'd always have to like go to the office, call my parents, tell them to come bring my
gym clothes because I had gym that day.
And it was like alternating days, you know, like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I had gym
or Tuesday, Thursday or whatever.
So I think it's kind of the same way in Kendrick's school.
The school also had the option to let kids pay for lockers to store their clothes if
they didn't want to bring them every day.
But Kendrick and his friend had a better idea.
What Kendrick did was he and a friend shared a pair of tennis shoes and I guess that they
had gym on different days.
So they were able to like put them, like share them on different days, you know?
Okay.
Like hey, he wears them, the next day.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So they would keep this pair of tennis shoes at the school and just hide them in these
old gym mats that were rolled up.
I think the ones that were laid on the ground, they would just stick their shoes inside of
the rolled up gym mat that was on the ground so that they could change in them before gym
class, put them back the next day, the next kid gets to wear them.
But as we know, now all of the mats are stacked vertically.
So the sheriff's theory is that Kendrick climbed up on the bleachers so that he could see
over the mats looking for his shoes.
And I'll also say about these bleachers, they're not really bleachers.
They're actually just like two bleachers high.
They're not like what you would think a bleacher would be like from floor to the ceiling of
the gym.
There's all these bleachers.
It's two.
It's literally two.
Like two rows?
Yeah.
Like two bleachers high.
You know what I mean?
Like one step, two step and you can sit.
So the sheriff's theory is that Kendrick climbs up on these bleachers so that he could see
over these mats and Kendrick apparently sees his shoes at the bottom of the mat.
So Kendrick jumps off the bleachers into the rolled up mat, squeezes himself inside of
the rolled up mat, reaching for his shoes and ends up wiggling his way towards the bottom
of the mat.
Cause these mats, these, these are rolled up tight.
It's not like you jump and you fall to the bottom.
You would, you'd have to wiggle.
I mean, I'm, I'm just like, I'm calling bullshit.
Yeah.
Already.
Yeah.
Kylie looks like you want to say something.
I mean, he's in high school.
This isn't like a five year old that would think, oh, the most efficient way for me to
get something that's in the bottom of these mats.
Through the top.
Climb through the top.
Yeah.
I'm going to jump in it.
Yeah.
I'm just going to dive headfirst into the mats.
I would just.
And the mat's for what?
Six foot tall.
Like he's.
He's tall.
He's probably five foot something.
Yeah.
They're not, we all know these mats.
They're not that heavy.
No.
Your first thought would not be jump through the top.
How do you get out?
You don't like, so that's not.
Yeah.
Red flags all over the place.
Yeah.
So I'm going to, I'm going to send you guys the picture of the rolled up mats.
I mean, I know these mats.
We've had to roll them up and jump us.
They can be heavy.
Yeah.
I will say they can be heavy, but like you wouldn't.
Jump in them.
No.
And also two bleachers, one step, two steps.
You're not going to be able to do a dive into a mat.
Yeah.
What, I mean, I guess I had in my head that they were even bigger than this.
And then when I saw this picture, I was like, okay, that looks like it's not that much taller
than me.
There's no way that I would think that it would be the best way to get something that's
like inside the mat to jump inside.
Like I also can't imagine there's that much room inside.
Like I don't even think a body would, his shoulders would not be able to go in.
Yeah.
So we'll talk about on its own.
Yeah.
I guess the only plausible thing is if he, I mean, I don't know where the mat was, like
the location of the mat he was in, like in relation to the other mats, but if he climbed
up on the bleachers to the top of the mats to see which one the shoes were in, I don't
know.
Red flags, red flags.
Yeah.
It doesn't really make sense, but.
And at the beginning, there was people who were saying he fell into the mat.
I don't think that that, I think if you fall, you're not, you're not falling off two sets
of like a small set of bleachers.
You're not falling head first into these mats.
Not head first.
You might get a leg stuck, but no.
You might trip on the bleacher and like fall and then you like knock them all over and
you're not like falling straight into the hole.
I mean, that's like a cartoon, you know, it doesn't happen.
When his body was found, he had one arm at his side and then one arm reaching up in front
of him.
Kendrick gets stuck in the middle, in the middle of the mat Kendrick is unable to move
and he is eventually unable to breathe.
He lays there stuck until he dies from positional asphyxiation.
So positional asphyxiation, if you're like me and you had no idea what that is, it is
when an individual's body position interferes with their ability to breathe because of the
position your body's in, you can't breathe, it leads to your death.
It can happen when a person is like restrained in an odd position with like your neck too
far back or your neck too far forward.
This can also happen in like law enforcement situations.
So they have to be trained to know what positional asphyxiation is.
In Kendrick's case, the police's theory is that when he wiggled his way into the mat,
his body was blocking any oxygen from getting to his face because he was head burst and
so that made it difficult to breathe.
He was being squeezed, his body's constricted, but he also is not getting fresh oxygen.
Ultimately, he suffocated after a matter of time.
When Kendrick's family is told of the police's theory, they are told before their son's body
has even moved from the school.
So this may be one of the biggest issues that I have with this case is how do you make this
decision so quickly?
You're not getting to see camera footage, you're not interviewing people.
I mean, I don't know if they interviewed people before they told them that, but you're not,
I mean, I'd be interviewing the entire school.
You're not autopsying his body.
You're making this rash decision.
And I think when you form an opinion so early, everything else is kind of tainted.
It's confirmation bias, everything that you do then is going to be to solidify your opinion
that this is what happened.
I agree.
So Kendrick's family thinks this is crazy.
Also they don't think that that's something that he would do.
Like most people don't, dives head first into bleachers.
If he saw his shoe, his parents think that he would just go tip over the mat.
He's a strong athletic kid.
He's just going to go tip over the mat probably with one hand and grab his freaking shoe.
It doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
If you wouldn't do it, like I don't know why the police didn't think like, oh, if we wouldn't
do something like that, this kid's not going to do it either.
I mean, he's not a kid.
I mean, he's a kid, but he's in high school.
You know, he's not like, like Kate said, he's not five.
Then I thought, what if the shoe was stuck in the middle of the mat?
Oh, it's just about to say that.
Yeah.
I mean, he thought that he could reach down into the mat and then he like kept slipping,
kept slipping, kept slipping.
But the problem with that is that the mat is 14 inches across.
So if he did like stuff his shoe into the mat, I can't see it.
I can't see that it's still being in there if it was turned up right.
What did they say?
One of his arms was in front of him.
Like what makes it for him to be reaching into the mat?
Yeah.
One of his arms was found above him and one by his side.
I can see that.
Were there no people around?
Also, if you get stuck in a mat, are you not screaming?
Are you not saying something?
Like it's not.
Yeah.
I mean, if you're in an old gym with like gym doors that are built to block out noise
from, you know, like basketball games and stuff, no one's in there.
It's a very, I'll get to that.
I'm going to talk more about the gym, but yeah, it's a valid point.
So I don't know.
I mean, the thing that I thought about was like, what if it was in the middle of the
mat and he thought, okay, I'm going to reach my hand down in here and grab this.
I think it'd be really hard to like balance yourself on all those mats to reach down
there.
But I guess I could see that possibly, but it just seems highly unlikely to me since
the opening of the mat is 14 inches.
I don't think I think if she would just fall to the bottom, but anyways, and also there'll
be more that kind of makes you think that that's not possible later too.
So maybe I'll bring that back up.
But so yeah, what Kate said, why would he not cry out for help?
I'll tell you also that this is a very, very small gym.
The gym is frequently used and at the time that Kendrick went into the mat would have
gone into the mat.
But that's what happened, there were kids playing basketball in the gym.
During?
I decided during that makes sense.
Does not make sense.
Yeah, somebody would see this.
This is in the middle of the day.
And there's like kids on the basketball court playing like a little pickup game of basketball
at this time.
I Googled it.
It takes five to six minutes to lose consciousness when you're with asphyxiation.
There's people playing basketball.
They would have heard him scream me.
And his foot was sticking out, right?
Yeah, I mean, it was sticking out because that's how they found him.
I don't know if it was like immediately you're like, oh, that's a foot, but I mean, you're
going to see someone take a dive into a mat.
Yeah.
You know, yeah.
Also, let's just say even let's use Holly's body as an example.
You're a small petite gal.
If you're going into a mat to grab something that's in the middle and you see that you're
stuck, you could just wiggle a little bit and the mat would fall over.
Yeah.
Good point.
You know, like that's, it doesn't make sense that the thing didn't even fall.
It doesn't make sense that it didn't fall when he went into it.
Yeah.
You know, I would assume that it would just topple right over.
Yeah.
I agree.
Just to add to this point, police did not treat the scene as a homicide.
They treated the scene like an accident.
So in the crime scene pictures, none of the investigators are wearing shoe coverings and
there are many people walking through the crime scene.
They actually found other clothing and shoes around the mat, but they were just never collected
as evidence.
So it would probably be nice to know who stuff that was.
I think other kids did the same thing as Kendrick and his friend.
I think that they would hide their clothes in the mats because they didn't want to buy
the lockers, but it's still be nice to know like, oh, at this time I was in gym class,
you know, and just like know that maybe there was not somebody in the mat.
I don't know.
Just a thought.
But police did not think that.
So they did not collect the clothes.
They didn't really collect basically anything from the scene.
And then for six hours, there was no corner called to the scene.
How does that even make like that doesn't make sense?
That's such a violation of like law right there.
That makes no sense.
Kendrick's body laid there for six hours and critical evidence was just completely lost.
I'm no investigator, no cop, but I do know that legally you're supposed to call a corner
immediately because that's the whole damn point of a corner.
They come immediately because they record vital information like the temperature of the body,
the cause of death, time of death, etc.
When that corner was asked, how does someone waiting six hours to call a corner affect
your investigation?
And the corner says it compromises my investigation 100%.
That's awful.
Yeah.
And so positional explication could have just been what the corner had to rule it because
he was like, what else am I supposed to do with this?
I have no no evidence to base my opinion off of.
Two reports would later be released by two paramedics that were actually on the scene.
And the report said that when the paramedics arrived on the scene, they were basically
like, what the hell?
Why is this scene not being treated as a homicide?
So even to them as paramedics, this looked like foul play.
These are not even investigators, they're paramedics and they're like, what the, you
know?
Yeah, that should, I mean, that obviously should tell you something.
Yeah.
And then there's a maker report that Kendrick has bruising on the right side of his jaw.
And Kendrick's parents say that they were initially told nothing about bruising.
In fact, they were told no bruising.
So there's another issue.
Yeah.
It's not even typical for paramedics to make reports like this.
And the paramedics that arrived to the scene were obviously so dumbfounded with how it
was being treated that they felt the need to document something about it.
So I think that says a lot.
And with all those things in mind, I'm going to tell you the five main categories of evidence
that make people believe that this was not an accident.
Number one, and these are probably the most famous to this case are the pictures of Kendrick.
I'm sure you've seen them.
I was going to send them to you to get your raw reaction, but I know that Kylie has seen
them.
Here she goes.
They are disturbing and grotesque.
Yeah, they are.
They're actually terrible.
So take that into consideration if you decide that you do want to go look at them.
I'm sorry.
I haven't seen them.
Before you give your reaction, let me talk a little bit about it.
You look at it, but I would say when you look at it, you won't know it's his face.
Yeah.
It does not look like a human.
The family is finally able to see Kendrick's body for the first time and the family freaks
out.
Like we're all doing looking at the pictures right now.
And rightfully so.
They take pictures of Kendrick's body and begin posting them everywhere, demanding that
people see that this was not an accident and asking, does this look like asphyxia to you?
And they're pretty horrible and just know that the family did post them.
So I don't want people to feel like it's violating their privacy or anything because
the family were the ones kind of pushing these pictures out.
They look like somebody who was savagely beaten.
It doesn't even look like somebody.
It looks, it's unhuman like there's bruising all over his face.
His upper lip is swollen so big.
His eyes are swollen, shut, completely shut.
It's so graphic.
But we have to talk a little bit about this picture because this photo was not taken right
after Kendrick was found.
It was actually taken after his autopsy.
So I had to look this up and most people wouldn't know this.
But in an autopsy, the autopsy, er, autopsyist, I don't know, they have to examine the person's
brain and all their organs.
When they examine the brain, they have to peel back the skin on the face.
And this is what's making Kendrick's face look so much worse than it actually is.
The skin is no longer tight to the face because it's been moved and then laid back over.
Also, I mean, when anyone dies, natural or not, your body does swell up.
Yeah.
But this is like an insane amount.
Yeah, this is a, it is a very insane amount.
And I think that it might be because of the autopsy, also the fact that he was hanging
upside down for 21 hours, over 21 hours.
Most sure all the blood would pull in his face.
All of his blood is in his, all the blood he has left in his body is going to be in his
head.
So there's that as well.
Kate, are you okay?
Dude, I've seen so many pictures and I don't think I was, I don't think I was ready for
that.
I'm still staring at it right now.
There's a few of them that I'm just going back and forth through, but I did not see
that coming.
I thought it was just going to be like, I expected swelling because the blood rushing
to the head.
Yeah.
I don't, what I don't understand and dear God, you guys, whoever's listening to this
podcast trigger warning for if you go and look at the pictures.
Biggest trigger warning ever.
There is so much blood.
Yeah.
And that makes zero sense.
There should not be any blood if he fell into a mat and died because he couldn't breathe.
There are cuts and bruises and I mean, his body is horribly looks like there's just
cuts and bruises and beating marks.
It looks like everywhere.
So to be fair, we know that the paramedics made the report that he had bruising and there
was actually a photo taken before the autopsy and they're still in my, in my opinion, and
I'm no expert on anything.
It looks like his lips are swollen.
It looks like his eyes are swollen.
It looks like there's bruising.
That's just my opinion.
I know that the autopsy would have altered how he looked, but I do think that there is
reason to believe that he encountered being beat in the face or hidden in the face before
he died is just my opinion completely.
But Kendrick's family, they did get backlash from posting this photo and it's because people
felt like they were being tricked a little bit into thinking that this is how Kendrick
was found and it's not how he was found.
And I don't think that the family did this to cause controversy.
They probably didn't have access to photos of Kendrick before the autopsy.
This is just the first time that they're able to see their son and they're shocked and they
should be.
They also had to wait six hours for the coroner to even show up.
Yeah.
And then how many days for the autopsy after that?
Yeah.
Exactly.
So I don't think that anything was malicious on the family's part.
They were posting this like, what the hell?
This is not okay.
And it's not.
Either way, this photo is what got people upset and this is the photo that made people
start demanding more answers from police.
And the more information that the public got, the more questions they had.
Number two, the second piece, the mat.
The mat had been rolled up and the opening was about 14 inches as we talked about.
But let me tell you that Kendrick's shoulders were five inches larger than the opening of
the mat.
They were 19 inches wide.
Doesn't make sense.
It doesn't.
It makes it.
So people claim it's physically impossible for Kendrick to get himself inside of this
mat.
Kendrick's dad tried to climb into the same mat and he couldn't get past his shoulders.
He could get like his neck in and that's it.
Others say that Kendrick could have entered the mat with his hand above his head and squeezed
his shoulders in to make himself as slim as possible.
And the foam, I guess, probably would have given a little bit because it's like a squishy
foam and this may have allowed him to get his shoulders in because Kendrick was found
with one arm above his head and one by his waist.
So that would make your shoulders a little bit smaller, possibly.
That kind of adds to the point of him reaching for something to squeeze his shoulders.
Then there's the issue of like momentum.
If Kendrick is found in the middle of the mat with his feet only slightly sticking out
of the other side, how would he be able to force his body down further?
Like wouldn't you just if you fall into the mat, wouldn't you just stop at your shoulders?
The only thing I can think of is if the opening was wider or he kind of widened it by kind
of scurrying into it, but his body being in the middle of it kind of constricted the mat
and made it tighter after he was already inside.
Yeah.
And the problem that I have with that is if he did wiggle himself around enough to make
the whole wider, the mat would have been found stretched out, but the mat was found tightly
rolled around him like squeezing him.
So that's hard too.
But I get that.
I get where there is a world that that could happen.
I don't know.
We'll go to the third issue, which is the shoes.
So we know that Kendrick was reaching for those gym shoes or allegedly he was reaching
for those gym shoes.
There also should be shoes that he was wearing.
So that's two pairs of shoes.
So let's talk about the shoes that Kendrick was supposedly reaching for.
One of those shoes is inside of the mat under his body, and then one of them is outside
of the mat.
So he's not reaching for a pair of shoes.
He's reaching for one shoe.
Which I guess makes sense if he reached in with one hand, got one of the shoes, tossed
it out, reached in further for the other one.
I don't get how you toss it out though.
If your body can barely fit in it, you don't reach your hand back up and toss it out.
That's a lot of shoe.
It can be really awkward and hard to get through the mat.
Well, I guess if the first shoe wasn't that far deep, like arm's length, he was just
reaching down with his arm, was able to pull it out.
I guess in the process, the other one fell deeper.
Yeah.
That's the only thing that I can think of too.
I'm just playing devil's advocate here.
Sorry.
No.
I just thought of that as well.
Maybe the shoe fell further and he's like, I can reach it.
I can see it.
I can almost get to it and he keeps going.
I do see a world where that could happen.
Also there is a pool of blood under Kendrick.
And this is because all of Kendrick's blood has pulled in his head and he's deceased
now and it is now coming out of his face.
And I know it's terrible to hear, but it's really important to the story and this is
not uncommon for this to happen in this positional asphyxiation or if he was beat up.
Either way, this would have happened and this is what happens when people die.
Your blood's no longer circulating.
It's pooling in one area of your body.
If it can come out, it will.
So this is where we get the pooling of the blood at the bottom of the mat.
But here's what's odd and this is what makes it not an accident to me is that the shoe
that Kendrick is supposedly reaching for is on top of the pool of blood.
And Kendrick is hanging over the shoe and there's no blood on the shoe, not a speck
of blood on the shoe.
It doubles out the shoe.
I know.
Yeah, Kylie.
Play doubles advocate now, man.
It doesn't make sense.
I just went while you were talking, I was looking at some of the crime scene photos and again,
trigger warning for anybody who wants to look at them, but it doesn't.
One of the shoes was on top of the pile of blood, which makes no sense.
But then the other shoe was still in the mat, but it was on the other end, wasn't it?
So like that makes sense.
I'll talk about that.
So Kendrick's shoes that he had on his feet that he was supposed to have on his feet,
those are what you see at the top of the mat.
The white ones.
The white ones that are kind of.
He's reaching for the black pair.
Yes.
Okay.
He's reaching for the black pair.
The white pair is on his is in the mat, like kind of tucked under him.
So he doesn't have shoes on when he's found.
His shoes are taken off and they're tucked under his leg.
It makes no sense, but they're in the mat with him.
In the mat with him.
It doesn't make sense that he was off, but in the mat with him.
No, I don't think they would have fallen off of his feet.
When going into the mat, it looks like they were stuffed there.
It does.
It looks like they were stuffed.
They're like behind his butt.
Yeah.
The back of his leg.
Like, yes, behind his butt.
I sent you guys the picture of the shoe.
I think you've probably already seen it because it's all over, but the shoe is completely
clean.
Y'all, I mean, there's not a speck of blood on it.
If you are, if you are dripping blood over it, there's no way it doesn't get on the
shoe.
The shoe is sitting on the pile of sitting on the pool of blood.
The family thinks that this is a staged accident, but my thing too is like for this to be a
stage accident, they kind of would have had to know that Kendrick would be reaching for
a shoe, which would be like a weird thing to know.
Maybe, you know, that he left his shoes in the gym mat.
I mean, I guess it's possible, but I don't know, you know, like how would they know to
put the shoe?
Kendrick would have to be dead in the mat, be leaking the blood, and then someone go back
and put the shoe on top of the blood.
Yeah, I don't know if high schoolers would have that wherewithal to think about that.
I know, I know, and this is where it's so frustrating is it's like I can get with the
staged thing, but it's like, I don't, I can't get behind the reasoning of it, you know,
like they have to know he keeps the shoe there, they have to know he was reaching for it,
they'd have to think about, we're going to make it look like he just jumped in the mat,
and then I don't know, you know?
I mean, I don't know.
Did you guys know about positional asphyxiation when you were in high school?
Because I surely did not.
I did not.
Did Kendrick reach for the shoe and then drop it after he was dead?
Like did he actually get the shoe from the ground that he was reaching for?
And then when he died, like let go?
I don't know, I don't know, I can't think of anything.
This is the part that's so confusing to me.
I mean, I feel like the blood, I mean, so gross coming out of his face, it would be
a slow process.
Yeah.
The shoe falling out of his grasp would be fairly quickly.
Yeah.
There would be blood on the shoe.
I have to agree either way.
People who believe Kendrick was murdered believe that when Kendrick's body was rolled up in
the mat, his shoes were taken off and rolled up with him to allow them to roll the mat
tighter.
Like if he didn't have his shoes on, it's like the bulkiest part of his body is like
his shoes.
And so they took them off, threw them in the mat, rolled them up is what the people who
think he was killed.
That's their theory on the shoes that should have been on his feet.
I don't know if you're going to get to this probably.
I mean, he's a teenage boy who plays sports.
I don't know if you said how big he is, but to roll up a body in a gym at this, assuming
me by another high school student, so take more than one person.
Yeah.
I agree.
It's hard to think of any other circumstance.
However, the other side is that the people that believe that this was a tragic accident
theorized that Kendrick could have taken them off to get inside of the mat.
They fell behind him.
And then as he wiggled his way through the mat, they became lodged under him.
So that's kind of the other side of the theory.
I could see that.
Perfect circumstances.
Yeah.
It would have to be a very perfect circumstance or that in all of the struggling to get in
or out of the mat, his shoes just came off as he was wiggling around to try to get in
or out and they became lodged around his legs.
The next issue we can talk about is the blood.
There was blood found elsewhere in the gym.
There was blood found in the girl's bathroom on some paper towels.
And then there was a blood streak on the gym wall near the mats.
We know if it's his blood.
So the blood was tested and it did not match Kendrick.
And they said that they thought the blood had been there for a long time.
I mean, I don't know how you know that because if you thought the blood had been there for
a long time, why would you not clean it up with the hell?
Like, oh, that blood's been there forever.
Like clean it up with the heck.
Right.
It's not happening.
That's all that happened, though.
It was only tested.
It doesn't match Kendrick.
It wasn't tested against anyone else.
And the blood was not stored.
So we don't know.
I mean, I guess if there was wrestling going on in the gym or I mean any sport, I don't
know.
Yeah.
I don't know how to totally get with that, but keep the sample.
Yeah.
I have to show you guys the picture of the blood really quick.
Okay.
The blood in the girl's bathroom might be normal.
Blood in bathrooms, not that shocking.
Girls bathrooms, not that shocking.
That's a lot of blood.
The streak on the wall is what's abnormal to me.
That's what I just sent you guys.
They're pretty long streaks of blood.
And like Kylie was saying, it might be normal for there to be blood in a gym where people
are playing sports, but this is two long streaks of blood.
And it's the length of like two cinder blocks at least on the wall.
And they look like they would be noticeable to me.
So why would you not clean them up?
That's so great.
Yeah.
Like that's not normal for that to just be there.
Also, they were, they cleaned up the gym during winter break.
Right.
Yeah.
That's definitely noticeable.
So noticeable.
I just don't get why it wasn't cleaned up, whatever.
Maybe this was random blood in a gym where kids play contact sports and it just didn't
get cleaned up.
Or maybe Kendrick got into a fight.
Maybe there was an altercation.
Maybe something went too far or maybe something terrible was planned to happen to Kendrick.
But the investigators ditched this evidence when it didn't match Kendrick and we'll never
know whose blood it is.
I'm sure they definitely did not do this because it doesn't sound like they're really
investigating this.
But if he got into a fight and it wasn't his blood, surely there would be someone else
at the school who looked like they got into a fight.
That's true.
That is true.
And I wish I knew.
I wish I knew, but we know literally nothing.
You have one, the pictures that the families release, two, the diameter of the mat, three,
the shoes with no blood, and then four, the blood in the gym.
And finally, there's number five and this is the video.
And yes, the school has video cameras.
And this becomes one of the most talked about issues of the case.
To start, the very first problem with this is that we know police did not collect anything
from the day Kendrick was found.
And that includes the footage.
The police just asked the school for the footage that they have.
Again, I'm no cop, no investigator, but they don't come in and they don't take the surveillance
footage.
They asked for it from the school a while later.
So the school has all of this time to sit with the footage, possibly alter it or subject
it to being contaminated by someone not at the school, at the school, we don't know.
The police basically just trusted the school to give them what they thought was important.
So essentially the school is getting to cherry pick the evidence to turn over what they want.
And guess what?
There is over an hour's worth of film completely missing from the film.
Of course.
That make any sense.
Yeah.
A forensic video surveillance specialist looked at the file and said that based on what he
analyzed, the school did not give the original copy of the film.
And something had been altered.
The image quality had been tampered with.
It was much grainier than it should have been.
And a number of files had been completely corrupted from the processing.
And there's a hole in time where no cameras provide any record.
So there are four cameras in the gym total.
Camera one records until 12.04 p.m. stops and then starts again at 109 p.m.
Camera two records until 11.05 stops and then picks back up at 115 p.m.
Camera three records until 105 p.m. stops picks back up 116 p.m.
Camera four records until 12.04 stops and then picks back up at 109 p.m.
Are these like, are they supposed to be all continuously recording or they are like one
at a time or motion activated?
So yeah, I'm about to get to that.
So the camera that should have been facing the mat was completely blurry.
So that was completely useless.
I read reports that the school tried to explain this gap in time of this over an hour.
All the cameras were motion activated and hooked up to different servers.
So if there was no one moving in front of the camera at the time, it would be dormant
and not recording.
So hence the gaps in the footage time a little bit, a little bit, like from here and there.
But this is an hour and 20 minutes or so.
So I don't know about this.
All four cameras stop at almost not exactly the same time, but around about the same time.
And I mean, maybe no one's walking in front of them at the time, but we know Kendrick
is.
We know that there's a pickup basketball game playing at the time.
So they're working all the other times, but not this whole hour.
There's no one walking in front of the camera a whole hour, which we know is not even the
case.
It could explain some gaps, maybe a minute that no one's in front of that camera, but
I don't think it explains over an hour's worth of film just completely gone.
No.
The family is rightfully outraged and they take to social media to share Kendrick's story.
Let's talk about some possible motives.
Kendrick's family 14 months before Kendrick's death had said that Kendrick had an altercation
with another student.
Kendrick and the student were teammates on the football team and had gotten to a fight
on the bus ride back from a football game.
Kendrick's family claims that Kendrick and the student had ongoing problems for a long
time that continued until he died.
Kendrick's family thinks that Kendrick's death is a result of another altercation between
Kendrick and the student.
His family claims that the student and his brother have connections to law enforcement,
a connection that would prevent eyes from being on them.
So these two boys have a father who is an FBI agent.
So with that being said, one of the brothers is picked up by security cameras at the school
on the completely other end of the side of the school at the same time that Kendrick
would have died.
And another brother is at a wrestling match at that time.
And there's a lot of controversy in the beginning by people like trying to figure out what time
his bus left because he had this game at four and someone released a record that said that
they actually left at four.
So there was all this like stuff going on about that.
But they realized that he did actually leave at 1230 and Kendrick is spotted at 130.
So I don't know if that theory really checks out.
But the family says, well, his dad's an FBI agent.
They can alter whatever they want.
I don't know.
I don't know any FBI agents.
So I don't know what I don't know what the FBI can do.
I don't know nothing about nothing.
But that's what they say.
So you'll know any FBI agents.
I mean, we've worked with some, but I don't know just one lone FBI agent could go in and
change evidence.
And then that's what I was thinking too.
Yeah, it would have to be a lot of people.
A lot of people.
A big secret conspiracy.
Yeah.
The family hires a private autopsy to be done on Kendrick.
They exhumed Kendrick's body and they conduct the autopsy.
Now the autopsy is done by William Anderson.
And William Anderson is a famous autopsy or autopsy or if that's how you say that.
But anyways, he's well known and he's done some high profile autopsy's and he has worked
with Michael Baden, which Kylie is a fan of.
I love him.
Last episode.
So much.
The OG.
So yeah, he's a good autopsy.
He's not just like they didn't just find him on the road, you know.
Dr. Anderson opens Kendrick's body and finds that all of his organs have been removed and
not replaced.
We know he's had one autopsy done.
So yeah, removed but not replaced.
But they had been replaced with newspaper.
I'm sorry.
What?
That does not seem up to code.
Yeah, it's not.
Kylie, have you ever seen them do this on the autopsy show that you watch?
No, because usually they do remove the organs and they'll take, especially if it's, I don't
know, like homicide or unexplained deaths, they'll remove them and they'll test like
they'll take little samples from each organ and do tests on them.
But what they'll do is they'll put them all in a bag and put them back in your abdomen.
Right.
So as Kylie said, it's routine for the organs of the body to be removed in an autopsy.
They're tested and in some controversial cases, they may even be stored as evidence or replaced
back in the body, like Kylie said.
But you have to, if you're not going to put them back in the body, you have to replace
them with something.
And sometimes in some places, I guess that they use newspaper as like low budget situations.
It's not the best practice, but it's not unheard of.
It would be more ideal to use like cotton or big pads.
It's not like wrong to do in their profession.
I think that the situation that we're in is the funeral home had offered to do the funeral
of Kendrick Johnson for free for the family and they were trying to be as inexpensive as
possible.
People that don't know how this works are like outraged to hear his organs were gone
and replaced with newspapers.
And some people were obviously going crazy over this, but the Georgia state officials
get involved and they investigate the funeral home and they say that this was not wrong
doing on their part.
But what is more concerning is that the organs were not stored.
And they're not in his body.
Where the hell are they?
They're lost.
How do you lose?
Sorry, they got thrown away.
They got thrown away.
Yeah.
You can even throw away organs without paperwork.
You have to have someone come, a licensed person come pick up organs or dispose of them
properly.
There's a lot that goes into that.
And just what a violation of the family's like any consideration for the family because
they thought they were in there.
I mean, some people may feel very strongly about their loved one being buried whole as
a, if they can be, you know, if they're not going to keep the organs for evidence, then
they, I mean, they might want them back in his body when he's buried.
So the family's pretty shocked to see that their child has no organ in their body when
they're dug back up.
It's just another outrageous thing that happens.
In my opinion, it's like the police's fault.
I think that they should know where they're at at all times.
They're lost.
They're gone.
It's their fault.
The hospital home did actually end up signing off, stipulating that they received Kendrick's
body with all of his organs and all the clothes he was wearing, but they obviously didn't because
we don't have his clothes or the organ.
That sucks too.
Without the organs, the medical examiner goes on to declare a new cause of death for Kendrick
Johnson.
Dr. Anderson says that Kendrick Johnson died of blunt force trauma to the neck.
The examiner found that there was a two to three centimeter bruise around Kendrick's
neck, which was not listed in the original autopsy.
The second official autopsy states, right neck involving right mandible and soft tissue,
including the area of the carotid artery consistent with inflicted injury.
And then it says at the bottom, note unexplained apparent non accidental blunt force trauma,
further investigation is needed to determine the autology of the injuries.
March 17, 2014, an email was sent to the sheriff's department.
The email was sent by a teenage girl.
He wanted to remain anonymous and the email stated that someone had confessed to killing
Kendrick.
The confession stated that four students had gotten together and killed Kendrick.
The email states, and the names are redacted and it's talking about four different people.
So it's kind of annoying to read, but I'll read it for you.
It's the email says, my best friend was at a party Saturday night with blank and blank
was upset about something that blank said to her.
So her and my best friend started talking.
And by the end of the night, blank had told my friend everything that the whole nation
has been wondering for the past year.
She told my friend what really happened to Kendrick Johnson blank said that a little
over a year ago, she had sexual intercourse with Kendrick Johnson while she was dating
blank.
blank found out and threatened KJ.
KJ told him to get to meet him in the old gym after third block.
He would have his knife ready.
blank blank blank and blank met KJ and killed him.
blank also had been heard admitting to killing KJ more than once over the phone.
His brother blank had also gotten drunk at a party on the 4th of July and told many people
that he killed KJ and that he was tired of keeping it a secret.
So just calling out the fact that it talks about brothers in there.
I don't know.
We talked about the first brothers from the FBI thing.
So I don't know if that is where that is coming from, but just calling that out.
They had an alibi.
Or did they?
No, just they probably did.
Police investigated the four people and we don't know their names obviously.
They were ruled out and they even stood in front of a grand jury and were not indicted.
There's really no evidence to support that these four people I guess had anything to
do with it.
Apparently some or all of the four students had alibis.
It's kind of a he said she said kind of situation.
I do think it's plausible because of the fact that just because I think that more than one
person would have had to do this.
And I mean the motive kind of makes sense for like high school kids, but I don't I don't
know.
Nothing ever comes of this because the grand jury did not find enough evidence to indict
anyone named in the email.
The Johnson family ended up filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the county board of education,
its superintendents and principal of the high school in 2014.
The suit alleged that Johnson was violently assaulted, severely injured and greatly suffered
physical pain and mental anguish and was subjected to insults and loss of life.
On January 10th, 2013, the suit alleged that defendant ignored reports that previously that
Johnson had been repeatedly attacked and harassed by a white student.
It stated that the student had quote a history of provoking and attacking Johnson at school.
And the school officials failed to properly monitor the activities of students throughout
all areas of the campus and maintain properly functioning video surveillance systems.
The lawsuit also claimed that a student named Brandon Bell attacked Kendrick before and was
bullying him.
Kendrick's mother allegedly had filed reports of the student attacking Kendrick before.
Brandon Bell has a brother named Brian Bell and their father Rick Bell is an FBI agent.
So this is the first time we hear them named.
Brandon and Brian actually come out and say that they were friends with Kendrick and that
they had nothing to do with this.
But the Kendricks would not agree that they were friends.
Brandon and Brian would maintain that they had nothing to do with Kendrick's death throughout
the investigation.
January 2015, the Johnsons filed another lawsuit for $100 million claiming that the father
of the brothers, Rick Bell, ordered his sons Brandon and Brian to kill Kendrick Johnson.
So, nothing really comes of this because there's not really much to back this up.
I think their family is just so mad and rightfully so and they just desperately are doing anything
to find any scrap of answers that they can.
It's really sad.
I think this is kind of just like a far, a far thing to say.
But I think they're just searching for, if an answer or two comes out of this lawsuit
then it would be a win for them, you know?
In November 2015, the family dropped the lawsuit when they suspected that the Department of
Justice was going to seek their own investigation.
The Johnsons were then sued for $850,000 from the people that they publicly accused of killing
Kendrick.
So, these people that they have been accusing of killing Kendrick get together and they sue
the Johnsons for attorney fees and defamation.
Ebony Magazine published articles naming the two students in Johnsons case as possible
suspects even though the boys were not named possible suspects by investigators.
The magazine used pseudonyms but used accurate descriptions of the boys and so the Bell family
filed a $5 million lawsuit against Ebony Magazine.
The parents of the accused boys claimed their sons were not involved in the death and they
were not considered suspects and they had been harassed as a result, which I'm sure
they were.
This was a very popular case and in the end of all these cases, the Johnsons did have
to pay $200,000 of the $850,000 for attorney fees in 2017.
June 2016, the Department of Justice announced that there was insufficient evidence to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that someone or some group of people willfully violated Kendrick
Johnson's civil rights or committed any other prosecutable federal crimes.
So the investigation into the incident will be closed without the filing of federal criminal
charges.
The department said lawyers and investigators from the Department of Justice, the United
States Marshall Service and the Metropolitan Police Department for the District of Columbia
conducted a thorough and comprehensive investigation of the events surrounding Kendrick's death.
The investigation included, among other things, interviewing nearly 100 people, reviewing
tens of thousands of emails and text messages, reviewing surveillance videos from the high
school and analyzing other available information regarding the events of January 10th through
11th, 2013.
The investigative team also consulted with the independent Department of Defense Medical
Examiner and hired another independent medical examiner, forensic pathologist, who reviewed
relevant medical records and both autopsy records.
In order to establish a federal criminal rights violation in this case, the government would
have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that not only did someone kill Kendrick Johnson
but that the killing was motivated by racial motive.
This legal standard, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the act was committed, identifying
who committed the specific act and proving why they committed that act, is a high threshold
to meet.
The Department of Justice, in particular, the lawyers and investigators who have worked
tirelessly on the investigation, expressed their most sincere condolences to Kendrick
Johnson's parents, family, and friends.
We cannot imagine the pain of their loss or the depths of their sorrows, and we regret
that we were unable to provide them with more definite answers about Kendrick's tragic
death.
This is obviously very disappointing to the family.
They get zero answers out of what was kind of their last shot, but this is not all.
In 2016, Anonymous gets involved.
Do you guys know who it is?
Well, you'll know what Anonymous is.
Yes.
Okay.
So, for those of you who don't know, it's this famous group of hackers that no one knows.
They're pretty legit.
No one knows who they are because they wear the mask off that movie, V for Vendetta.
I don't know if that's where it originally came from, but that's what they do.
They change their voice and they put out these videos calling out corruption and crime.
They've done some pretty, like, very high-profile stuff, exposing Bank of America for unfair
mortgage practices.
They've linked internal emails from employees of the government.
They actually took down Visa and MasterCards, like, entire site because they refused to
do business with WikiLinks when all that WikiLinks stuff was going on.
They made cyberattacks against several governments, institutions, agencies, and actually the Church
of Scientology.
Kylie, shout out.
Shout out.
So, this was very shocking to me that Anonymous did this.
Maybe it's not shocking to other people, but I kind of thought it was different of them.
They released a video about Kendrick Johnson.
It's 10 minutes long and it lays out the evidence and information.
At the end, they said, and I quote, what really happened to Kendrick Johnson that day?
Who killed that boy before he could begin exploring life after high school?
Why did the authorities not do a complete and thorough investigation into the death of
this team?
With every piece of new evidence that is released, there are more questions raised and answers
given.
Some black students were told that they were not allowed to be interviewed by law enforcement.
Administration at the high school told students if they talked, their graduation would be
threatened.
The people of Val does know that a cover-up has taken place and that local law enforcement
will arrest and harass them for providing statements.
People are afraid of the backlash if they come forward.
The time has come for those people to join the fight for justice, expose the corrupt
for who they are, expose the racism that is alive and well.
The time has come to stand against the oppressors and fight for the truth.
We are anonymous.
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Lones County, Georgia, you should have expected us.
That was their little plug for that.
I don't know if anything has come out of this video, but they did shine a spotlight on his
case and it got talked about a lot again.
So that was positive.
They didn't leak anything, right?
No.
Yeah.
Not that I know of.
So I wish they did.
But I didn't see anything come out of this, other than the case getting talked about more.
This is really sad, but the Johnsons hire another private autopsy or autopsyist?
Medical Examiner?
Medical Examiner, question mark, to do a third autopsy.
And this has to be really hard because they have to obviously dig Kendrick back up, go
through all of this again, wait the anticipation to hear all of these terrible things.
So they do that and they open up Kendrick's body again.
And the autopsy medical examiner makes the determination that the cause of death of Kendrick
Johnson is non-accidental, blunt force trauma.
Same as the second one, the right neck area.
Same as the second.
So we have two out of three autopsies saying that this was not an accident.
And these are not just random examiners.
These are good medical exam, not that just regular ones are not, not that not famous
examiners are not good, but these are high profile examiners.
And it's kind of all that comes out of that.
They just get clarification and that's all.
The parents of Kendrick then file an affidavit that stated that someone confessed that their
friend confessed to murdering Kendrick.
Surprise, surprise, all the names are redacted, so it makes it super confusing.
But what I will say is that part of it said, quote, the person struck Kendrick Johnson
in the neck with a 45 pound weight or dumbbell and facilitated the editing of the high school
surveillance video by corrupting or deleting some hour and 25 minutes worth of the recording.
I don't know.
I mean, I think that I do think the surveillance video was corrupted on purpose or on accident.
I don't know.
I lean more towards purposeful, but I think that this is unfortunately another like he
said, she said kind of like we heard from someone who heard from someone type of deal.
But they're kind of grasping at straws at this point.
And the latest update that I have for you is January 2022.
The second investigation was closed with no charges being filed with the investigator
saying there was no homicide, no cover up, no conspiracy in the January 2013 death of
the teen.
It was simply a tragic and bizarre accident.
And that's the latest that we have from the death of Kendrick Johnson.
I don't see how the average high school student would have access to the security footage
and know how to corrupt the footage without any trace.
I know, I kind of agree.
It's just so what what I think is I can't pinpoint what I think happened.
But I know when I see a situation that's just so not right that I just think something's
wrong.
I mean, and it could be that they are shitty investigators and shitty cops and they didn't
do their job and therefore it makes it look fake because they did such a terrible job.
But I don't know if it's an accident, then prove it's an accident.
You know, I'm like, I have a different opinion than you guys and I'm kind of scared.
But I do feel like, you know, I do feel like it was an accident.
And because it wasn't investigated as a homicide and there's all these holes and lack of investigation,
we're kind of leaning towards like malintention.
I see you.
I see you, Kylie.
That's what I was trying.
I said that in like 50,000 words of what you said a minute ago, but I do think that I do
think that if it was an accident, the reason it looks like it's not is because the police
did such a terrible job.
Yes.
Like there's no answers for anything.
Nothing.
You know, and the fact that they didn't investigate any of it, we don't understand why there was
pools of blood where they were.
Why there was no evidence on shoes.
Why his body was the way that it was.
Like the whole like coroner's reports as well just doesn't make any sense, you know?
Like it's just this whole story is a mess and it's so sad because I truly cannot imagine
like having that being someone's son or friend, you know?
Like that's just a tough hole.
I also feel like even if it was properly and fully investigated as like a homicide from
a drunk, there is no person or group of people that they can even point to.
Right.
The missing footage is a no-bleno situation.
Yeah.
Like I feel like that would answer a lot of questions.
Yeah.
And I mean, you don't just ask for the footage from the school.
You take over the investigation and you go and get it yourself.
You don't just like, like, oh yeah, by the way, can you like shoot that in an email when
you get the chance, you know, and let people sit?
This is evidence.
It's as good as blood or DNA.
It's video.
And you don't just let other people have their hands on critical information.
I mean, we might have been able to see with our own eyes what happened in this case if
police would have done their job.
And it's sad for the family.
And I have a major problem with police going in and like making a determination right off
the bat.
Like someone lost their life, treat it like it's an act of terrorism instead of treating
like it's an accident.
Like you should go to the highest standard that you can and then try to prove your way
out of it, you know?
No, I fully believe that unless there, it's a person who's like 100 years old with like
a significant medical history that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's found deceased in their bed.
Everything should be treated as a homicide until proven otherwise.
Yeah, yeah, agree.
Yeah.
It's a very frustrating case.
And I like am okay with saying like, I don't know, you know, like I don't know if it was
a homicide.
I don't know if it was an accident.
There are things that make me think both things.
So I just don't know.
And that's really, I know that sucks for the family because they obviously believe it
wasn't, but I mean, the police are not doing their job to help them feel any sort of way.
So anyway, I see where they're coming from.
But I mean, they're also like a grieving family.
Like this, if it was an accident, it would be a complete freak accident under the like
perfect circumstances.
It's hard to like comprehend.
Obviously your mind would go to foul play.
Yeah.
And I don't know, there's a lot of unexplained things that obviously weren't investigated.
Yeah.
I mean, accidents happen every day and it's probably like, I don't know, I can't think
of like a normal accident that happens.
Like someone getting electrocuted or like a car accident.
Yeah, okay.
A car accident.
Yeah.
Like, okay, but you don't see this very often.
So why would you immediately treat it like an accident?
You don't, I mean, you don't see this very often.
You don't see this at all.
So why treat it like an accident?
And then you get it.
It's crazy.
No, I just feel like people and probably the family are latching on to the lack of investigation,
which kind of like leads to conspiracy theories.
Yeah.
And rightfully so.
I mean, I would be doing the same thing.
I'd be wanting, prove to me that it wasn't an accident.
Yes.
So that was the very frustrating death of Kendrick Johnson.
And with that, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Over My Dead Pod.
If you want even more information, including photos of the case, you can check out our
blog on overminedeadpod.com.
Be sure to leave a review wherever you're listening to this and check us out on social
media at Over My Dead Pod and leave us a five star review and we will see you next week
with another case.
Bye.
But not by because we will do overtime very quickly.
I have important news.
According to TMZ and several TikToks, I have seen Gypsy Rose Blanchard might be pregnant.
I saw that.
I didn't know if it was true.
We don't know.
It's just gossip, but she was seen at a hospital in Louisiana at the like
OBGYN little clinic and her husband posted a photo with his hand like over her belly
and was like cuddling with my family.
What?
He posted that on Instagram.
I feel like that's legit.
Oh, that's legit.
Legit.
It's kind of being right.
Cause otherwise he would just be like cuddling with my wife.
Yeah.
My family.
I mean, I guess they are.
Kylie, send us that picture.
In other news, I'll make this very brief because I don't think we need to talk about it that much.
I did listen to the Nicki Minaj track against Megan Thee Stallion, um, Bakefoot as it's called.
And, uh, was I disappointed?
Absolutely.
Yes.
It was, I don't know who decided to let her drop that as a diss track, but I will say.
I went through the second time and actually read the lyrics and went along with it.
And some of the stuff's pretty good, but the overall track itself was like me on SoundCloud
in middle school.
If I was on SoundCloud in middle school.
No, I'm just saying it was like, if someone was on, if she had on math, like it sounded so
like there was a point in the song that I was like, is she on something right now?
The outro is so weird.
So weird.
But I don't know.
It's like she's on something.
I mean, we think she is, right?
Yeah.
I don't know how if you listened to last week's episode because I edited it.
I did it.
I put Nicki's outro for that song as the outro of last week's episode.
Oh my gosh.
I didn't even hear that.
Yeah.
It's like the last five seconds.
Dang, I'm so terrible.
I haven't.
I didn't know it either because I don't, you know, she told me and I went and listened to it and I was like, great.
So we're going to get sued.
But then I thought about it.
No one's going to come after us for that song because it's not a song.
No.
It's literally like, I don't, I don't even know how to describe it.
So anyways, Nicki Minaj used to be the queen bee for me.
Now I feel otherwise.
I felt otherwise for a few years now, but the OG Nicki is dead.
It's not good.
It's not a good look.
She might have come back, but she ain't doing it right now.
I think since...
It ain't good stuff.
We talked about it last episode.
I sent you guys the screenshot because she's going on tour.
Yeah.
The venues or wherever you buy the tickets from have a disclaimer on them that people
under the age of 18 cannot attend unaccompanied because her husband is a level three sex off
and she is a level three sex offender.
And if...
Did you guys read it that if you're under the age of 18 and attending with someone older,
you have to wear a colored wristband to like be identified as someone who's underage?
Great.
This is going too far.
She needs to dump that man.
What the heck?
They're married with a child.
She does not care.
She knew that before her baby.
So I looked into it.
She knew Kenneth.
She knew Kenneth since elementary school.
They've known each other their whole lives.
Yeah.
She was dating that one guy, Safari, for 18 years.
Yeah.
And then dumped him and married this sex offender.
Don't know what happened.
Yeah.
Ugh.
Not a good look.
So anyways, we don't need to spend any more time on it.
Right now we are all Team Megan and I retract everything I said the last episode.
Thank you.
Nice.
All right.
Great success, Kelly.
Great success.
I understand she's like a big artist, but you still have to release music under a label
who has to approve everything you release.
Yeah.
You let that go.
It doesn't make sense.
They were probably like, oh yeah, people are going to think this is so ridiculous that
I'll at least get like one listen out of everybody in the world.
I mean, don't get me wrong.
They make money every time someone lists to the song and I listened to it three times.
So here we go.
Yeah.
Any publicity is good publicity.
Apparently.
That's all I got to say about that.
Even if she sues us, we will be.
We'll be doing good.
Somebody will be talking about us.
Yeah.
Nicki Minaj will be talking about us.
Like, what?
It's fine with me.
Yeah.
Sue is Nicki.
Oh.
We're lawyers, but please stop.
Yeah.
I'm not.
Please don't sue us.
I have no money.
I pay you on blocks.
Geez.
Oh my gosh.
I'm going to New Orleans on Friday.
You guys.
Okay.
Surprise.
Hello.
Surprise.
I'm going to New Orleans.
Shocker.
What are you doing?
Have a couple of concerts to go to.
Maybe look at some houses.
I knew you were going to say that.
But I found out on Friday night at the house of blues in New Orleans is a Shrek rave.
Oh, hi.
The front door.
If you don't go, I'm going to be so mad at you.
Yeah.
Yep.
You have to go.
Should I bring my dad to the Shrek rave?
Yes.
Okay.
And I want videos and I want to report back next week.
You know what?
FaceTime is too.
No.
Yeah.
I will record the whole thing.
FaceTime, you guys, I'll report back.
You need to go.
This is a once in a lifetime.
For the listeners that don't know, this odd woman that we have on this podcast, Kylie,
is obsessed with Shrek.
And I've known that since the first day I met her.
This bitch is crazy for Shrek.
I don't get it.
It is the best.
Says the girl who likes frogs.
Kylie and I both like frogs now.
We both love frogs.
Weird.
Frogs are the best animal God ever invented.
Okay.
No, they scare the shit out of me.
I don't understand.
They've never, frogs have never bitten anybody.
Doesn't matter.
They just stick to things and they're fat and squishy.
And they're squishy.
Yeah.
What?
I just don't understand how you can.
Okay.
I'm going to fight you.
All right.
Go to the Shrek rave.
If you don't, if you don't go to the Shrek rave, I swear, Kylie, you're ruining the
whole trip.
She is.
We're going to fight a few more times.
We should double back.
You and the一起 and the people who are with the baby.
Right, but this is a little bit of a discussion right now.
This bigify.
Because I studied a lot of phones that had a different backgroundumble about
birds.
Birds in a Mis to思 beyond the kind of
we're going to think about.
Because I basically don't understand what he's telling us.
Gr Sudden.
He's married with child. We're obviously the weird ones. Yeah true true