Skip to playerSkip to main content
This video dives into the mysterious and controversial case of Kendrick Johnson—a story full of twists, school drama, missing footage, and wild theories. Was it a tragic accident or something more sinister? You won't believe the details! Hit that subscribe button for more jaw-dropping cases and let us know in the comments what part shocked you the most! #truecrime #mystery #documentary #unsolved #crime

👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@paul_lando

0:06 - Introduction to the Case
1:05 - Discovery of Kendrick Johnson's Body
4:14 - Initial Police Investigation and Background
6:17 - Eyewitness Accounts and Early Theories
10:16 - Conflicts, Rumors, and Case Closure
17:15 - Family Doubts and Independent Investigations
25:18 - Official Documents and Explanations
25:18 - Lawsuits, Aftermath, and Conclusion

We're now available on Spotify! Listen now https://open.spotify.com/show/033MgMUOXQEOYvZBJxmxir

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:06this case is shocking I don't know why I never covered it before I've been making videos for
00:12almost 10 years and I don't know why I haven't talked about this case until now which is crazy
00:19at 17 years old this boy had died in a strange situation that happened in his school's gym
00:28Kendrick Johnson was his name but even though this case might seem like a terrible accident
00:35the family would later discover that something else may have happened to their son
00:52let's go back to January 11th 2013 in Londes County in the state of Georgia with one of the
01:00most famous cases in the United States and now you'll understand why on that date which was a
01:06Friday the school called loans high school was opening its doors so the kids could start to
01:13the last day of classes for the week at one point in the morning a group of students had gone
01:20to the
01:20school's gym to start a class called life sport with a gym teacher and they were about to start
01:26playing basketball the students sat on the bleachers and next to these bleachers in the right corner
01:35there were giant mats that were rolled up and standing upright these are large mats because
01:42they are used when practicing contact sports like wrestling for example we're not talking about the
01:50ones used for yoga or the kind you'd find in a regular gym in fact you'll see on the screen
01:56the size of
01:57these mats two of students who were initially in the stands decided to climb onto the mats and that's
02:06when they saw something strange inside one of the blue ones which was at the back near the corner one
02:14of
02:15them said she saw two feet with socks on and thought someone was playing a prank then they called a
02:23classmate to
02:23see what was inside and that's when they confirmed it was a body although they didn't specify it seems
02:31that at first they thought someone had put something there a mannequin or something that made what was
02:39there look like real feet but then they realized it wasn't a joke it was actually a body the three
02:47students started shouting the teacher's name which was when the coach also climbed onto the mats and he
02:53tried to pull the body out with the help of the student who was there since they couldn't get the
02:59body
02:59out they decided to remove all the other mats that were blocking the way to the mat where the body
03:07was
03:08and when they were able to reach that one they laid it horizontally on the floor and by doing this
03:14according to the official case document the upper half of the victim's body was exposed
03:20that's how they saw that this young man was already lifeless and he would later be identified as
03:27kendrick lamar johnson aged 17. at that moment the coach took all the students out of the gym class
03:35and had to follow the normal protocol when this kind of situation happens at a school he notified the
03:42school administrators about the incident and from there they proceeded to call 911 because there was a
03:48dead body the firefighters went to that place the police and also paramedics in an ambulance when
03:57all of them arrived at the scene and took the body out of the mat they officially confirmed the death
04:03of
04:03kendrick lamar johnson at that point since a boy had died the police had to start investigating
04:12what really happened to kendrick johnson i'll tell you up front although we're going to talk about all the
04:17details what the police said was that this had been accidental kendrick supposedly fell into the hole in
04:26the mat while trying to get his sneakers that were inside and died of asphyxiation and the question i
04:34just asked what really happened to kendrick johnson it's a question that still stands to this day
04:40because we're talking about an athletic guy who is on the london's high school football team
04:47and who in the past also played basketball and did track and field as a hurdler the guy was about
04:551.78
04:56meters tall and weighed around 73 kilos plus his muscles were well defined from all the training he did
05:04with this information many people wonder how could the accident have happened obviously it's possible
05:11but less likely with someone with these characteristics kendrick johnson lived in the city of valdosta in
05:18georgia the same city where the school was located he was born on october 10 1995 and was the youngest
05:25son of kenneth and jackie johnson he had two older sisters and an older brother apart from the sports in
05:33which he excelled kendrick was neither a bad student nor a particularly good one his grades were average
05:40and his behavior was good the parents never received a call about anything that he had done at the school
05:49a little later we will talk about certain incidents that happened to him at the school but they were not
05:56serious enough to notify his parents his family said that kendrick was a pretty quiet and calm boy but
06:04when he felt comfortable he was the biggest joker of all even his father said that they called him the
06:10comedian of the family because he was always playing jokes on his older siblings
06:17now when the police found kendrick's lifeless body apart from doing all the normal procedures like
06:26collecting evidence and taking the body for an autopsy they started interviewing the students who
06:35in the gym that morning as well as other people
06:52no student was identified by full name because we're talking about minors but out of everyone who spoke
06:59one stood out the most according to the official report one of them mentioned seeing a bruise or mark
07:06on kendrick's jaw and this will be important later on at the same time the students who were in the
07:14gym
07:14started saying that they had seen kendrick's head covered by a bag
07:21something the authority said they did not find at the crime scene
07:26this student who tried to help the coach take out the body confirmed that he realized kendrick was
07:32dead because the smell was very strong and because kendrick was no longer moving
07:40the autopsy determined that the death had occurred 19 hours earlier that is around noon the previous day
07:48thursday january 10th and that it was due to asphyxiation and something they discovered
07:54was that many of the students who took sports classes in that gym used to throw their belongings or sports
08:02shoes inside the mats and it was normal to see kids climbing these mats to get their things out
08:10it's also worth mentioning that this also happened on the school's outdoor courts
08:16the difference was that out there in the schoolyard they could retrieve their belongings
08:21by turning the mats over something that couldn't be done in the indoor gym
08:27because the mats were placed vertically in a corner and they were heavy and large so the theory that it
08:34had been an accident was consistent with that information the authorities later found that hours
08:41earlier at 7 45 in the morning a missing person report had been filed kendrick's mother had reported that
08:48her son was nowhere to be found in the house and this was at midnight the previous day but the
08:55report was
08:56filed in the morning so an officer that morning went to the school to see if kendrick was there
09:03that's when they confirmed that he hadn't arrived at class that morning they also asked to speak with his
09:09best friend who confirmed that the last time he had seen him was the day before at school and that
09:15after
09:15that he hadn't had any contact with him at 10 and 10 30 in the morning that's when 911 received
09:21the call
09:21about what had happened in the school's gym when they found the body and when the officers arrived at the
09:28scene a group of kids was screaming and crying saying that someone had been found dead in one of the
09:35mats
09:36the first police officer to arrive he stated that when he entered the gym
09:42he already smelled the strong odor of the decomposing body
09:56let's talk about the multiple witnesses who came forward in this case at one point in the afternoon
10:02when the body had already been taken to the morgue for the autopsy and the news had gone viral
10:09a girl called the sheriff in charge of the case to report an alleged message posted on facebook
10:16by a student from the school a little after the news of kendrick's death became known
10:22the facebook profile of this student was deleted shortly after but according to the defense and
10:27according to the statement from the person who called the police the post said the following
10:33when you start messing with the wrong people bodies start showing up
10:39she also confirmed that the day before there was a basketball game at the school and that many of
10:45the school's athletes were present she didn't remember if kendrick had gone
10:51but she said kendrick was part of a group called the cbc the cbc
10:57which would be the acronym for the clydeville click and that there was a dispute with the student
11:03that he had posted this on facebook because one of the members was messing with his girlfriend she
11:09didn't clarify if it was kendrick or if it was one of the friends from that group other witnesses
11:16claimed to have seen kendrick lamar johnson while the basketball games were being played one day before
11:23the body was found and in schools in the united states there are security cameras everywhere and
11:29something strange happened here according to one of the officers they were able to see it on the camera
11:35aimed at that school's gym door that kendrick johnson entered the place exactly at 109 in the afternoon
11:44the day before but he was never seen leaving that place again in any other footage according to this
11:51officer he saw the footage but due to issues with the central unit of the security camera system
11:58he couldn't produce a copy to keep as evidence this detective also said that apparently the time
12:06when kendrick appeared in that security camera footage entering the gym wasn't correct and how did
12:12he know that because apparently he had interviewed a student who said that the last time he saw kendrick
12:20was at 125 in the e-wing of the school which was a different area far from the gym only
12:27three days
12:27after the incident were they able to make copies of the security camera footage from the hallway leading
12:33to the gym from the door that leads to the courtyard and the footage inside the indoor gym and this
12:41detail is super important but we'll talk about it a bit later especially since they were only able to
12:46get it three days later there were several pieces of evidence kept from the crime scene but the most
12:52important ones were kendrick's phone it was an lg phone and it needed to be analyzed nike sports shoes
13:01size 40 and another pair of adidas sports shoes size 42 another piece of information that also came from a
13:11witness a student at the school was that on thursday the 10th one day before the body was found at
13:17three
13:17in the afternoon this student claimed to have had a 15-minute conversation with kendrick in reading class
13:23and here two things happened first again it didn't match the time shown on the gym's security camera
13:30footage because what had been seen was that kendrick had entered at one in the afternoon or a little
13:36later than that and was never seen leaving but as we mentioned apparently the recorded video's
13:43timestamp could have been wrong the second thing is that the police reviewed the footage from the reading
13:49class and they never saw kendrick there talking with this classmate which was strange when they spoke
13:56with kendrick's family they confirmed that the white and orange nike shoe belonged to the victim
14:03but they weren't sure if the black and white adidas were his they said it could be but i have
14:09to say that another witness another classmate stated that those adidas shoes did belong to kendrick
14:16the officer told the family that kendrick didn't have any signs of violence on his body and that the
14:21autopsy was underway when exactly would that have been would they have more information about what happened
14:28i mean once the autopsy is complete and we're going to keep talking about witnesses because this case
14:34was initially put together thanks to what other students and teachers said had happened the day
14:39before and on the morning when the body was found the officers had spoken with someone who told them
14:45that the day before they had seen kendrick with a friend in the gym when they interviewed the friend
14:51he said he wasn't with kendrick that day but he actually had been in the gym and that he saw
14:58a bunch
14:58of black kids surrounding the mats in the corner but he also said that this didn't catch his attention
15:06because there were always people in that area even on top of the mats and this detail is important
15:12because supposedly kendrick had been dead for 19 hours his body was already in the process of decomposition
15:18because of the heat even though we're talking about the middle of winter at that time it was unusually
15:25hot in that city in georgia with lows of 19 degrees in highs of up to 29 degrees so the
15:33heat during the
15:34day was enough in a narrow space also there was a lot of humidity to begin with the decomposition of
15:41the
15:41body which could also be noticed by the smell and was later confirmed by the autopsy and if 19 hours
15:48went
15:48by and according to several testimonies there were people in the mat area the whole time how come no
15:54one saw it before also what was known was that the last gym class in that place had been on
16:01thursday
16:01the 10th the day before from 7 to 7 45 pm when kendrick's body should have already been inside the
16:10blue mat
16:11now let's go back to the facebook profile that had posted this strange message and then apparently
16:18this guy deleted his profile in the afternoon of january 11th there was a report about a group of
16:25students at the school they had attacked a boy this boy was taken to the hospital and then questioned
16:31by the authorities he was apparently the one who wrote the message on facebook and although it is not
16:38clarified in the official document it is understood that perhaps kendrick lamar's group those who if
16:45you remember called themselves the cbc were the ones who attacked him and here another part of the story
16:53begins the case was closed all the witnesses and all the evidence we mentioned it was closed as an
17:00accident but a lot was left unresolved knowing that there were problems with at least two kids in this
17:15school this boy was questioned and was identified as brian bell as far as we know both were on the
17:24same
17:24football team he told the authorities that his classmates were blaming him for kendrick's death
17:32and that he didn't know why he only mentioned that he had been attacked for this reason because they
17:40were blaming him and then they asked him the authorities asked this boy about the facebook post but he claimed
17:47that he didn't have a profile on that social network and that he didn't have a profile on that social
18:01network
18:01and according to this account on that date the high school football team and we're including brian and
18:08kentrick on that team
18:12the team had taken a trip to grayson high school to play a game the students from london's high school
18:18kendrick and brian school had taken a bus to get there
18:23on that trip brian sat in one spot on the bus and kendrick was behind him
18:30according to witnesses brian wanted to urinate but they couldn't stop the bus so the coach told him to urinate
18:38in a plastic bottle when brian tried to do this kendrick apparently pushed him from behind
18:46causing him to spill urine on himself at that moment brian got up from his seat hit kendrick
18:54and then kendrick hit him back in that situation when this was happening the coaches who were present
19:01intervened so that the fight wouldn't get worse and separated both boys many of their classmates said
19:09that brian was angry with kendrick because kendrick was supposedly having a relationship with his ex
19:15a girl named taylor eakins and several witnesses confirmed this many said that there was a rivalry between
19:24them additionally some students said they saw brian in the school gym moments before kendrick must have died
19:33besides this kendrick's family started hearing these rumors their son's body had already been buried
19:39and they didn't believe the results of the first autopsy which determined it was asphyxiation because of
19:46the position of the body which led to his accidental death they requested the exhumation of the body
19:53and two more autopsies were performed the second autopsy which was paid for by the family was
19:59performed in june 2013 five months after kendrick's death it determined that the cause of death was
20:07trauma to the right side of the nape which also affected the right side of the jaw if you remember
20:15at
20:16least one student who saw the body the day kendrick was found he had stated that he saw a wound
20:23or a
20:24bruise on kendrick's jaw with this result the authorities conducted a third autopsy and again concluded that
20:32the cause of death was accidental positional asphyxia so the family had done the second autopsy and the result
20:39was that it wasn't accidental so the authorities upon seeing this conducted that third autopsy which
20:46determined once again that it was accidental but this inconsistency made the family doubt the results
20:52of the investigation even more another detail that came to light was that in the security camera footage
20:59from the gym there was an hour missing that no one knew where it went and many speculated that someone
21:07could have been seen entering here after kendrick johnson and let's move on to more chilling details
21:15in the second autopsy the one paid for by kendrick's family they realized something that didn't make
21:22sense the body didn't have any internal organs inside in the first autopsy it shows that the internal organs
21:29were there but in the second they weren't and we're talking about after exhuming the body and this isn't
21:36normal here the family had a new theory maybe the most serious injuries or damage were in these organs
21:44and they were discarded now why would there be a cover-up if brian bell was supposedly the culprit
21:53why would they protect him it didn't seem like the school was protecting him but at the same time the
21:59security camera footage that supposedly was missing an hour must have been deleted from within the school
22:08it could be that the school was protecting itself a murder could lead to a civil lawsuit and losing
22:16millions of dollars there was also the question was the bell family a powerful family maybe with strong
22:28connections inside the institution
22:39here things get murkier and we're going to talk entirely in terms of assumptions
22:45yes conjectures because afterwards there was a resolution regarding everything i'm about to mention
22:52but these are the reported facts the bell family was accused by the public of having direct contacts
23:00in certain areas including the school brian bell the main suspect in the eyes of the public this needs
23:07to be clarified because he was never the main suspect in the investigation we're talking about what people
23:13were saying and also his brother named brandon bell they were incredibly talented athletes at launders high
23:22school they were on track to get college scholarships thanks to their performance in sports but the same was
23:29true for kendrick lamar he wanted to get a scholarship in florida for example it was well known that these
23:36guys
23:37were part of the school sports elite and protecting their reputation was important here you have to keep
23:45in mind that long does high school the school these guys attended was known in the region for its sports
23:51program having guys with this kind of talent or these abilities brought publicity that attracted
23:58prospective students hoping to earn college scholarships for those who don't know it's an extremely important
24:05issue in the united states even so this didn't seem enough to cover up such an atrocious crime
24:13as far as we know brian and brandon's father rick bell in 2013 when this happened was working for the
24:20fbi at the regional office according to the johnson family this was clearly a crime whose investigation
24:28was being manipulated to protect the bell brothers a magazine called ebony whose website
24:35is www.ebony published a series of articles talking about this case they in these articles had
24:44changed the real names of the bell brothers but even so people knew they were talking about them
24:52and in these texts they mentioned that the brothers were suspects and that all of this was a cover-up
25:00including the fbi thanks to the father's ties to the institution and even though we're talking about
25:07assumptions the information is clear three autopsies were performed with the second one paid for by the
25:13johnson family in that one it was determined that the cause of death was trauma and that the organs of
25:20the body were no longer present a student claimed that there was a blow to kendrick's jaw
25:27supposedly an hour was missing from the school's gym security camera footage which if you remember
25:32they were only able to obtain three days after the incident supposedly because there was a problem
25:38with the cctv system students claimed to have seen kendrick's face covered by a bag that was never
25:43found several students claimed there was a rivalry between brian and kendrick because of an alleged
25:50relationship between kendrick and a girl named taylor apparently she was brian's ex-girlfriend the time
25:56when the family reported the disappearance and the time when the official report was filed they also drew
26:04attention the family made the official report at 12 30 after midnight on january 11 2013 but it wasn't until
26:137 45 in the morning the police started searching for the minor something that doesn't make any sense at all
26:22and this is in the official investigation reports and as the cherry on top the father of the bell
26:28brothers worked for the fbi throughout the region including georgia with all this i think it's reasonable
26:36to conclude at least that kendrick's family believed that there was a cover-up and they didn't stay silent
26:43they filed a civil lawsuit for 100 million dollars for the murder of kendrick lamar johnson against the
26:52bell family i mean the lawsuit was against the bell family i've already explained it in other videos a civil
26:59lawsuit is usually filed when a case ends with an official resolution that does nothing for the victim
27:04for example when a suspect is found not guilty or when it's determined that the case was accidental
27:10like in this story there are no prison sentences but it is determined that if the suspect is found
27:18guilty he must pay an amount to the attacker in the trial before moving on to the resolution of this
27:26civil trial let's get to something really interesting all the explanations given by the authorities along with
27:33the doubts that exist about the case and for this let's look at a document called the synopsis of
27:40kendrick johnson's death this is an official document it comes from the office of the sheriff of lounges county
27:48and also it's a document signed by sheriff ashley polk we're talking about 16 pages explaining all the
27:59details about the doubts that exist regarding the case the doubts that people have about the case
28:05and as i said it's super interesting interesting
28:15this document starts with the first item which says cover-up conspiracy this is a paragraph that has four
28:26lines but the sheriff assures that looking at this case objectively it's impossible to think of a cover-up
28:34because many investigative agencies were involved in the processes so it would be very difficult to cover
28:43up a case like this because there were so many people involved
28:49after this paragraph i mentioned they start to explain each question people had about the case
28:57about the security cameras and the missing hour that was claimed to exist they mentioned that the
29:04fbi analyzed a total of 62 cameras there was a rumor that the camera pointing at the mats had been
29:11moved
29:13and that's why there was no footage of the accident according to the fbi this did happen
29:19but not in the days before the death instead they were able to observe that on february 13 2012 more
29:27than a year before the accident this camera was moved from its place instead of pointing at the mat as
29:34it
29:34did before it was pointing somewhere else they also claimed that they saw all the footage where the bell
29:41brothers had been recorded by the cameras and at no point did they see kendrick johnson and the brothers
29:47cross paths and when they talked about the missing hour when they wrote about this in this document
29:55which many people took to mean that this had really happened they said it's not real it's just that
30:02because the cameras were on different servers there were errors in the times shown in the footage
30:08besides all the footage was very pixelated that was the explanation another detail specified was that
30:17on january 10 2013 when kendrick was last seen entering the gym it was a day before the body was
30:24found
30:24between 1 and 1 30 in the afternoon the bell brothers were no longer at school that thursday the 10th
30:31according according to records brandon bell one of the brothers had left school at 12 30 pm almost an hour
30:40before kendrick had last entered the gym this was recorded because brandon had to go to the city of macon
30:47in georgia for a match at another school and the bus they took had left at that time
30:57now for the kids to be able to go compete somewhere else a request to use the school bus has
31:03to be made
31:03in advance what was found was that the request form had been filed two months before that date
31:12it confirmed that the bus was scheduled to leave at 4 pm on that thursday january 10 2013 but according
31:20to the sheriff they were able to confirm that the departure had actually been at 12 30 pm thanks to
31:28witnesses cell phone towers and the check-in the kids did at the hostel where they stayed
31:35and that this check-in had taken place after four in the afternoon what isn't mentioned in this section
31:42is about brian bell who might be the most important person in this story about the fight on the bus
31:48that
31:49happened at the end of november 2011 between brian and kendrick they confirmed that this fight did
31:55happen but the rumors about kendrick and taylor eakin this girl who was supposedly brian's ex these rumors
32:03had no basis they confirmed that they looked for interactions and communications between the two of
32:09them on kendrick's phone and they didn't find anything they also mentioned that according to witnesses brian
32:16and kendrick and kendrick had made up after this fight they even did a school project together
32:23regarding the autopsies they maintained that the ones they performed were the correct ones and that
32:30the doctor who performed the second autopsy who determined that the cause of death was trauma
32:36had changed the results months later and had stated that the trauma was not to the back of the neck
32:42but that it had been to the chest and that's why they performed a third autopsy which reconfirmed that
32:49the death was accidental something strange happened here too on april 18 2016 those who performed the
32:57third autopsy had changed the document from accidental death to undetermined death and according to this
33:05document the man who performed the autopsy and made the change in the final document
33:11he was having a romantic relationship with a woman who worked in the united states department of justice
33:18according to this document according to what the sheriff describes they had found intimate
33:24communications between these two people and supposedly some of these communications were related to this
33:32part of the story that is they made reference to the kendrick lamar johnson case
33:38but there is no more information or other details that would indicate if they were arrested or sanctioned
33:45and they also don't give names of these two people this is simply in this document from the sheriff
33:53which was used to defend the position that this was indeed an accident
33:59when they talked about the missing organs in the body they confirmed that this was real but that it
34:06must have been discarded by the gbi who are the people from the gbi it's the georgia bureau of
34:12investigation if you think about it the fbi is the federal bureau of investigation so it would be the
34:18same but in the state of georgia and they said this because those organs they were at a very advanced
34:24state of decomposition and here i want to say that they don't confirm that this was the reason
34:30they just say it's the explanation
34:33a more coherent explanation of why the body didn't have its internal organs
34:39about the supposed bag that many kids said they saw on kendrick's head when the body was found
34:44they mentioned that the bag was searched for everywhere and they didn't find it that's why
34:50they determined that this had been a rumor that was spreading in the school and that it wasn't real
34:56this document also talks about people who were paid an intercepted message where someone was asked
35:02to lie when testifying among other things apparently there were mistakes on both sides
35:09but they confirm again and again that the incident was a terrible accident and that nothing was covered
35:17up what they never mentioned is rick bell who supposedly worked for the fbi
35:23because everything i just mentioned is all they claim in this official document
35:46as you know the johnson family filed a civil lawsuit against the bell family in the end
35:53this lawsuit was dismissed due to the evidence in the case and the bell family filed a countersuit for
35:59damages against the johnson family for the amount of one million dollars in the end the johnsons they were
36:07forced to pay a little less than 300 000 i think the total amount was 292 000 and this was
36:16for
36:16administrative and legal expenses the bell family also filed a lawsuit against ebony magazine the magazine
36:24published articles that damaged the brother's image according to the bells brian one of the sons had earned a
36:32sports scholarship at florida state university and because of all the controversy that scholarship
36:39ended up being revoked this lawsuit was for five million dollars and although it didn't go to trial the
36:46company negotiated with the bell family paying a total of five hundred thousand dollars precisely to avoid
36:53going to trial after this the parent company that managed the magazine went bankrupt and the magazine
37:00ended up being sold to another company that kept the name and future publications but they deleted
37:06all the articles related to the case the johnson family to this day insists that their son was murdered
37:14they filed a new lawsuit which is ongoing for 10 million dollars against the u.s district court for the
37:21northern district of georgia in addition they demanded that the supreme court of the united states
37:26officially investigate the case they continue to hold demonstrations speak with the media and try to
37:33keep the story from disappearing it's an incredibly confusing case on one hand you can understand why
37:43kendrick's family insists that it was a murder the official documents in my opinion don't answer all the
37:52questions about the questions about the case that that's what ended up happening with this story it was
37:58confirmed that it was an accident and that kendrick lamar johnson fell inside one of the mats while trying to
38:06get his
38:06sneakers out and that remained as the the official version according to the authorities at least that's how the case
38:16was closed
38:16i want to read to you i want to know what you think about this case do you think there
38:22was a cover-up
38:23or was this really an accident to me it's a fascinating story and one of those that leaves you with
38:31a lot of
38:32questions with that i'll see you with a lot of questions with that i'll see you in the next story
Comments

Recommended