Original subtitles

What made me think that everything was, um,

a coverup was, for me,

as an experienced homicide detective,

was just that first meeting with the medical examiner.

Um, for you to relate to me

the way you ruled it and why you ruled it,

a red flag goes up, something is wrong.

Body parts are missing.

Evidence is missing.

That's another red flag.

In homicide cases,

even though everything is not perfect,

but stuff just ain't missing like that, that's evidence.

This is the first case I can recall

where as we were, um,

on the task force to work with the federal government

in a case that far away from D.C.

Why do you think that they did that?

Well, to my understanding, um,

they recused all of the federal agencies

from being involved in the cases,

therefore, an outside agency like ourselves,

with homicide experience,

was perfect for investigating the case.

Why would they recuse themselves?

Because, in this particular case,

the two persons who were listed as persons of interest,

their father was an FBI agent.

It was just something about that case

that just made me feel as though,

because of who was involved,

you have a star athlete,

he was one of the Vale boys,

star athlete,

and the father's a decorated FBI agent.

Um, something just wasn't right.

Snotty-nosed smiling.

Just busy.

He was smilin', always doing something.

I rememember this one right here,

when he lost his teeth that time.

Didn't have no hair.

There goes those ears.

There's him doing what he do best.

There's him running the ball.

- Here. - Long time.

Time to take it in the goal line.

Well, the body of a Lowndes County High School student

still has investigators putting together the pieces

of what took place.

The body was found in the gym

at Lowndes County High School early Friday morning.

Now, Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine

officially released the name

of the deceased individual today

as 17-year-old sophomore Kendrick L. Johnson.

Johnson was reportedly found in the gym

next to several rolled-up mats,

and suffered no gunshots or trauma to his body.

Sheriff Prine says the incident is slightly puzzling

but one the department is working hard

to find answers for.

KJ is all...

My husband and all my children,

all their initials start with K and a J.

I have three Kenneths for now.

That's my husband, my oldest son,

and my grandson is K... We call him K3.

And my daughter, she's Kenyetta.

So that's Kenneth Senior, Kenneth Junior, um,

Kenyetta, Kendrick, and Kenya,

and my other granddaughter, Kennedy.

All of them start with... All of them are KJs.

And we use his initials,

we say that that means King Jesus.

We are here at the school.

This is the story of Kendrick Johnson.

After a four-year undercover investigation

into the facts of this case,

our team has still not found the evidence

to point the finger at a killer.

So at this time, we don't know who killed KJ.

However, we have collected

a lot of facts and pieces of evidence,

and we wanted to show the public what we found

and let them make up their own minds.

This is Kendrick's dad, Kenneth,

and his mom, Jackie Johnson.

They got married and have lived

in Valdosta, Georgia, their entire lives.

Kenneth is a truck driver.

Together, he and Jackie have raised a family

and an extended family of many loved ones.

This is their oldest daughter, Kenyetta Johnson.

This is Jackie's mother and Kendrick's grandma.

And these are Kendrick's aunts, Lydia and Stephanie.

They are the people closest to Kendrick.

So to try to put a human face on this situation,

we wanted to give them a chance

to finally tell their story.

Yeah, I'm a truck driver,

and I was coming out of New York at the time.

And he called me the day before that.

He said, uh, "Dad," uh,

he knew I was going to get a truck.

He said, "Daddy, uh, you got a truck?"

I said, "I'm on my way to get it now."

I said, "I'll be home on Saturday morning."

Then that was the last conversation

that I talked to him, it was about a truck.

Then, the next day,

that's when everything started to happen, you know,

we can't get in touch with Kendrick.

And after school was out,

I asked his bus driver where was Kendrick.

And she was like, "Um, he didn't ride home with me."

Once I got home, um, I asked, um, my daughter.

They was asking, like, did he call me or something.

They'd say, like, "Was he stayin'?"

For a basketball game or somethin' at the school.

And I was just like, "No."

So I called my husband.

You know, she said, "Have you heard from Kendrick?"

And I said, "Not heard from him today,"

which I normally do, you know,

by the end of the school day he'll call me.

By then, we're worried.

So she came and got me and we rode back to the school

and, like, rode back around looking for him again.

And it got dark.

"Have you heard from Kendrick yet?"

"No, I still ain't heard from him."

And he said, "Yeah, go on and call the police

because something ain't right."

So the sheriff's department came and he...

The first thing he said, um,

"He's probably just somewhere laid up

with some fast-tailed girl."

And I was like, "No, my children know better.

On a school night, you be in this house by 10:00.

Not 10:01, not 10:02, at 10:00."

And so he just took the report and said,

"Well, I'll ride around to the school

and around the blocks to see if I see him anywhere."

So then I get in my truck

and I ride out to the school house

and circle through the school parking lot.

Still no Kendrick.

But by then, I know something is terribly wrong

because it's, like, almost 12:00.

12:00, I knew he was dead.

I got where I couldn't drive

because it started to bother me so much.

So I pulled over and I laid in my bed.

I said, "My son dead."

- I knew it. - Down deep in my heart,

I knew Kendrick was dead somewhere,

but I never would have thought in a million years

at the school house and in the manner that he was.

I didn't sleep at all.

That morning, she said, "What do you want me to do?"

I said, "You go to that school house."

I was at the school house at 8:00 seeing what happened,

had anybody seen Kendrick.

It was a lot of people that were in and out of the gym.

So I went to the front door,

whatever, but they wouldn't let me in.

One of the other resource officers,

she comes up to me.

And I asked her, I said,

"Is that my son that they just found in the gym?"

And she was like, "Yes."

And I just lost it.

Then, all of a sudden, she start hollerin'

and screamin' and cryin'.

And it just went downhill from there.

They pulled down the mat and his legs and feet

were hanging out of the mat.

He wasn't moving.

And the smell, it was... It smelled bad.

You could smell it.

The shock had, you know, left us all,

and we'd realized that one of our classmates

had died in our school right beneath us.

I'm in the middle of traffic driving, um, across town.

So, she say, "They found a body at the school

and it's Kendrick, you need to get to Jackie."

So I said, "Where's my sister?"

What I didn't... oh, uh-uh.

I can't do this.

I can't... I cannot do this.

After they told us that, I was just empty.

I didn't really feel nothing at the time.

I stopped in the middle of the road

and I just screamed.

And I... I talked to this detective

and I said, "What happened?"

She said, "Something is on Kendrick's head."

That's all she told me.

And then she hung the phone up.

Police told us that it was him.

And all the kids was steady changing classes.

And I guess, by then, it hit the news or Facebook.

All these kids were just mulling around the building.

It was basically a crime scene.

- Oh yeah. - And they hadn't treated it

like that, and they were telling you that he was dead.

And everyone was still at the school walking around.

Mm-hm, they were switching classes and everything

as my mom was out there, like, screaming and crying.

And one sheriff even came in there,

resource officer from the sheriff's department,

and he was like, "What are you screaming for?

We don't even know if that's KJ."

And I was like, "Has anybody else reported their child dead?

Do he have dreads?" And he was like, "Yes."

I said, "So you know that's my child."

Did they take you to him?

No, they never let us see him at all.

I saw my sister sitting in a wheelchair.

My sister looked like she was out of it.

My sister looked like somebody had drugged her.

Looked like somebody...

Looked like life was just taken out of her.

They tried to show my daughter a picture of a tennis shoe

of a way of identifying him.

Well, they let me identify him by a shoe.

They didn't let my mama identify him.

It was like the orange... Yeah, it was his orange shoe

and one of the black shoes, they both was clean.

Not long after that, the sheriff came in.

"Well, we don't... we don't find any foul play."

Well, that was real quick for me.

- The day of. - The day of.

Just within the last 15 minutes,

we saw several vehicles with investigators inside

coming on and leaving the campus.

The information surrounding their classmate's death

stopped the school in its tracks.

Everybody was quiet.

We went to lunch and there was not a word said.

You could walk outside and hear a pin drop.

I'm not sure if it's hit me yet.

We're all going through this and we'll get through it.

I'm very thankful.

I'm thankful it wasn't my son.

Not knowing what happened,

you just wonder, you know,

how people might retaliate or...

It's just scary.

The sheriff's office and Lowndes County Schools

had this to say:

"Nothing has been discovered

to indicate foul play was involved."

When I tell ya, I remember this like it...

Just, like, vivid, like it happened just yesterday.

My sister let out a cry.

She said, "Y'all killed my son.

Y'all killed my son."

I was up on...

Up there on 81.

I think it was in their master plans

not to have me here.

Because if I was here,

it wouldn't have went down like that.

I would have viewed my son's body.

There wasn't nothing they could have done

that they could've kept me out of that gym.

Investigators say on Thursday

Johnson didn't show up to his fourth period class.

Friday morning, he was found dead

inside a rolled-up gym mat.

These mats, to describe 'em just a little bit,

they're actually very large floormats,

but when you roll 'em up,

of course, it creates a circle

and leaves an opening in the middle

that's approximately two foot wide.

Investigators say it appears Johnson was on top of mats

that were standing upright when he possibly fell

or reached inside the hole of the mat

to get a shoe and got stuck.

From the evidence that we found,

this is not a murder.

It appears just to be a terrible, terrible tragedy

that resulted in a young man losing his life.

All I can say is that until an autopsy is done

we cannot determine the cause of death.

There does not appear to be, uh,

any trauma to the body.

How can you fall over in a wrapped-up mat?

Still overcome with grief and anger,

these distraught family members

are now asking the community for prayers and support.

Everything was different.

In what way?

We had... we usually would post up,

like, right in front of, uh,

in front of E Wing,

where all the kids would be there

in between classes.

We all post up there normally.

Okay, so after KJ passed away,

we started having two officers post up.

So KJ dies and then they send officers

- to your spots. - Yeah, they start...

Start doing a lot of crazy stuff, man.

Let's do a quick breakdown of the early key facts.

Kendrick was found upside down,

rolled in a gym mat around 10:30 AM on January 11th.

He went missing the day before

at approximately 1:20 PM on video cameras in this gym.

Kendrick is 5'10",

and the gym mat he supposedly went into head first

is six feet tall.

Kendrick's shoulders measured 19 inches,

and according to the police's own incident report,

the opening of the mat measured 14 inches.

But the sheriff's office is somehow saying

he fit his body into the mat and got stuck

while trying to retrieve a shoe

at the bottom of the mat.

There was a pool of blood under Kendrick's head

when they moved the mat,

but somehow the shoe they claimed he was going for

is perfectly clean and doesn't have a thing on it.

I knew it was, you know, something shady was going on

from the very beginning.

From the very beginning.

And so that's when it came down to the rally.

We had a rally downtown at the courthouse.

A lot of people showed up.

News media showed up.

And we demanded that Kendrick's body

do not leave Lowndes County

till me or his mother identified his body.

Hour and a half later, um, I get a phone call.

He said, "Well, come down to the crime lab."

We walked in, first thing I said on my mind,

"Damn, it's kind of hot in here."

Then I thought to myself, I said,

"Well, maybe I'm a little nervous

about what I'm finna see."

When they pulled the drawer out,

instead of a gush of cool air come out,

a gush of hot air come out.

And I'm like, "Damn, what the hell going on here?"

I didn't say nothin'.

They took the bag, unzipped the bag.

All the way... All the way down to his foot.

And I looked at my son.

I looked at the detective, I said, "Clearly," I said,

"You can see clearly that he was in a fight."

I said, "Man, look at his face."

I said, "Look at one side of his face swole up."

How they had Kendrick arm,

is he was like this.

In the bag?

Yeah, in the bag.

They wouldn't even put his arms down?

No, no, he was... He had his arm like this.

When they opened the bag up?

When they opened the bag up,

he was lying just like this,

and he had one arm here.

When I seen Kendrick in the crime lab,

I thought they picked Kendrick up off the floor

like that, right?

Until I... till later on,

we started getting the crime scene...

We got the crime scene photo.

We were called over to the house to see, um,

a picture of Kendrick.

When the lady went to put it,

we seen that picture of KJ on the end there.

That was the worst day of my life, like, oh my Lord.

It felt like I was losing my mind

when I seen KJ disfigured like that,

but I had to think

that was just something they put out there

and it just made me push a little bit harder

for Kendrick.

Yeah, you gave me this, and this is what I'm gonna do,

I'm gonna give it back to y'all.

And every chance I get,

I share that photo of what they did.

I'll never let them forget that's my child right there.

When the images of KJ were released to the public

and his mother shared them over and over,

many people connected what was happening

to the story of Emmett Till.

It was August 1955

when the 14-year-old was sent to the South for the summer.

One day on the street,

a white woman created a terrible rumor about Emmett

that he had touched her and tried to rape her.

That night, the woman's husband and his friend

went to Emmett's house in the middle of the night,

dragged him out of bed, and then murdered him

and left him for dead.

Emmett's mother bravely decided to have an open casket

and show the world what these two men did to her son.

The two men were put on a very public trial

and found not guilty by an all-white jury.

The clear injustice and grotesque images

of Emmett seen around the world

became a tipping point for civil rights.

White America could no longer ignore

the ongoing terror of Black America.

The release of Emmett's photos even today

is seen as one of the most important moments

in American history.

And here's the sad kicker.

Sixty years later, the lady finally admitted

that Emmett didn't touch her and did nothing wrong.

We've all heard the gory details,

that he whistled at her,

that he made a sexual advance towards her.

And all these years later, she says what to you?

She said, uh, with respect to the, um,

it had been a physical assault on her

or anything menacing or sexual,

that that part isn't true.

Lynchings in the South were such a regular

and accepted part of the culture

that they became public entertainment.

Crowds would gather as if it were a parade

or social gathering.

They would bring their blankets and picnic lunches.

As the gruesome event played out in front of them,

the lynchers would make sure they put on a good show

so the public wouldn't leave.

They would drag out the torture

to the crowd's delight.

Once dead, the body would normally be burned,

swinging over the children and dogs

as they played below.

And to capture the moment,

souvenirs and postcards were created and sold.

And these postcards can still be found

in the homes of Southerners today.

Some of the postcards tell you where to write

and the discount you'll get

if you buy one, 10, or a hundred.

That man made 50,000 prints of that photo

and sold them for 50 cents apiece

before the governor of the state, uh,

got him to stop printing.

To illustrate how common and widely accepted

youth lynching was in America before Emmett Till,

all we need to do is look at the murder

of Ernest Green and Charlie Lang.

In 1942, the lynching of these two Black youths

made big news because of the image of their bodies

with the noose still around their necks.

Just like Emmett,

these two teens were also falsely accused

of interactions with a white girl.

They were thrown in jail,

then taken from their cells by a white mob,

then brought to a bridge nearby

that was used so often for lynchings

the town called it The Hanging Bridge.

The New York Times was sent the images and the report,

and they buried the story,

refused to run the photo,

and put it on page 24.

This is a part of American history

that most Americans still haven't dealt with.

Its legacy lives on today

with the nearly daily documentation

of Black people killed for seemingly minor events,

like selling cigarettes, walking in the street,

playing with a toy gun, or wearing a hoodie.

So when a 17-year-old is found dead,

rolled up in a gym mat,

with his death going unanswered by law enforcement,

we have to remember that this incident

didn't just happen in a bubble.

It is connected to a long and ongoing history

of devaluing Black lives in this country.

They said, "We heading down to the corner."

I said, "Well, what corner we going down to?"

"Down to the corner, downtown."

And from that day,

my sister stayed down there on that corner.

Sun up, sun down.

Rain, hail, sleet, and snow.

- No justice! - Supporters of Johnson's family

have held rallies, alleging a coverup.

They've demanded a federal investigation.

Our family would get together every day

and we went down to Lowndes County Courthouse

and stood there and we asked, "What if this was your child?

Who killed Kendrick?"

- We're fired up! - Ready to go!

Supporters for Kendrick's family

are calling for a Department of Justice investigation.

- What do you want? - Justice!

The Johnsons and their supporters

now hope the FBI will get an answer to their question.

What happened to Kendrick Johnson?

There was a major coverup going on

and we want to expose that coverup.

For four days, Malika Mahogany

and a dozen members of the community

walked 17 miles a day from Atlanta to Valdosta

to symbolize the 17 years of Kendrick Johnson's life.

I actually wanted to come here

and present them with demands.

They won't allow us to.

When protestors got to Lowndes High School,

they were greeted by the Lowndes County Sherriff's Department,

- including the sheriff. - If they want to address

anything to do with Kendrick Johnson,

in this case, they can address it by U.S. mail.

According to the sheriff,

the school did not want any letters from the protestors

and asked that they be kept off school property.

How would you feel if your son went to school

and never came home, never returned home?

And then the next day you found out

he was rolled up in a gym mat.

My thing is to let people know that they have a voice.

They don't have to be silent.

They don't have to be scared to fight no more.

They can speak out.

One lady said, "You guys need to get a job."

I said, "I got two!"

Yeah, we got a job,

but this is also our job too,

so don't get it twisted.

On Facebook, Johnson's father posted this picture of himself,

wondering how anyone could squeeze into a gym mat.

Supporters from around the world writing,

"I smell a cover up,"

and, "This case makes no sense."

I've never met anybody as strong as she is in my life.

I have never met someone like her.

It's just unbelievable.

I mean...

They killed the wrong child this time.

We ain't goin' nowhere.

Nowhere.

My baby's life matter.

- We want justice! - Hundreds have rallied

for a federal investigation and the Department of Justice

is reviewing the case.

No matter who you are,

how much money your parents have,

the color of your skin,

everyone deserves justice. Everyone.

Seven of us even took it upon ourselves

to get... bring more awareness, and we went to jail,

we stood and blocked the courthouse doors

and would not let anybody in.

This is the mother and the father

of Kendrick Johnson.

They are marching to...

Lowndes County Judicial Building.

This is not a game, this is serious business.

I was thinking, I was like, "I could lose my job.

Um, people will be upset with me about this."

But then I thought about it.

This is my sister, this is my nephew.

So we had to make some noise.

So, civil disobedience.

We went there with a sole purpose

of bringing some attention to what was really going on,

some national attention.

Went right up to the front of the courthouse door

with locked arms.

Wouldn't let nobody in.

And, uh, they're trying to get out,

you know, and try to break us apart.

Then you see people trying to go in,

trying to go in the building,

and they couldn't go in because Jackie wouldn't move.

Nobody would move.

And that thing just did something to me,

and I was like, "Okay."

So then I saw the police officers,

the sheriffs, the deputies come out.

They was pullin' and tuggin'

and just bein' real rough.

Okay, you understand you can let go

or you're gonna be arrested, Jackie.

Is that what you're wanting to do?

Cameras are watchin', cameras are watchin'.

You can't drag his mother.

You cannot drag his mother and father, sir.

Let him off, let him off, let him off.

Go willingly, go willingly,

- go willingly. - Let him off, let him off.

- Thank you. - Come on in, please.

They got Keisha, then they got me.

And they told me,

"You want everybody to go to jail out there?"

They are taking them into custody,

they are taking 'em away from my sight.

They have not put 'em in handcuffs,

but they're taking them to the back.

I said, "Man, y'all gotta do what y'all gotta do today

because we ain't goin' nowhere."

But my sister was standing up there by herself

and I was standing right down on the steps watching her.

'Cause I was saying, "If anything pop off,

then, yep, I'm going to jail for that."

But then I thought about it.

Somebody fought for us back in the days,

back in the '50s, '60s, you know,

so somebody fought for us.

Somebody stood up.

If we don't stand up for ourselves

then nobody else will.

I said, "I don't know what..."

I said, "I don't know what I'm doin'," I said,

"but I'm finna go, I'm gonna go up there."

I said, "I gotta stand up there with her.

I can't leave her hanging by herself."

And I went up there and I stood with her.

So, um, they moved us from the outside to the inside

and we blocked the scanners.

I want everybody to see you taking his mother.

Yes, the mother of the man that was slain

at Lowndes County High School.

And waiting for answers.

A mother!

A mother!

This is serious.

- A grandmother! - This is not a game.

And we took, I think, about three steps.

And when we took that last step,

that one deputy,

he pulled my sister and twisted her arm.

And it was like chaos.

They took us and they rushed us to the back.

Don't... no resist, no resist!

Drop! Drop! Drop! Drop!

Drop to the floor!

No justice! No peace!

This is Lowndes County, Georgia,

Valdosta,

Title Town, USA.

Home of Moody Air Force Base,

Cypress Lake.

This is where we live.

Yesterday, the family and friends of Kendrick Johnson

protested in front of the Lowndes County Courthouse,

and they were protesting because there was no information

about Kendrick Johnson.

Now, the protesters were arrested,

and the protesters who were arrested

were Kendrick's father and mother,

Jacqueline and Kenneth Johnson.

Now they have all been charged with misdemeanor interference

with government property.

And tonight, Jackie Johnson is out on bail.

The white man is running everything here.

As long as it's not a white person

getting killed or shot up,

they do not care in this city.

Well, the history of Valdosta,

it's always been this racist town.

Two people, Black and the white person do the same thing.

White person goes, gets sent home.

Black person in jail.

Every time you want to say something,

they snatch that chain.

That means be quiet.

And what do a lot of them do

here in this town that I know of?

A lot of them be quiet.

People can't say what they want to say.

Customers not wanting, you know, Black people to wait on 'em.

I've experienced that several times over the years

and still experience it today.

And it's just sad,

but that's just the way it is here in Valdosta.

When the news broke of this death from Atlanta,

like many in America, we thought it was near Atlanta.

But after doing some research,

we quickly realized that Valdosta and Atlanta

are two separate worlds.

Valdosta is the Deep South,

very close to the Florida Panhandle,

a place where Confederate flags still fly high and proud

alongside statues of Confederate leaders.

The roots of racism run deep here.

Lowndes County, where Valdosta is,

became famous in the early 1900s

for one of the most heinous acts of lynching

in the history of our country.

Mary Turner's baby was cut out her stomach,

the white man cut it out her stomach,

and the baby fell to the ground while she was hanging

and he stomped her.

In 1918, Mary Turner and her baby

were brutally killed here in Lowndes County,

and their story became worldwide news.

Mary's husband had been lynched

and she had spoken out against it.

For speaking her truth,

an angry, racist mob tracked her down.

They tied her up, cut her stomach out,

ripped her baby out, and stomped on the baby's head.

Then they lynched Mary.

These are the stories of this region,

and when you look closely

you find the history of Valdosta

and the history of racism in this country go hand-in-hand.

Valdosta was originally created because the railroad company

was building across Southern Georgia.

There was no city where the stop would be,

so they put one there and named it

after the governor's plantation where he kept all his slaves.

Due to the railroad stop,

Valdosta became a central hub of commerce

to trading food, goods, services,

and, of course, slaves.

Shortly after the Civil War,

an event called The Clift Affair made big news.

A republican politician by the name of Clift

was garnering support of freed slaves

by speaking out against white supremacy.

This angered the whites of Valdosta.

So on the day of the event,

the local KKK chapter set five bombs

to go off in the crowd,

but one went off.

No one was hurt,

but the news of the attempted bombing

reached far and wide,

and Valdosta was at the center of it.

Valdosta made worldwide news once again

because of their horrible killing in 1918 of Mary Turner.

In 1922, this now famous group shot

of the Valdosta KKK chapter was released.

And in 2018, workers at the local Jimmy John's

made news when a video surfaced online

of them playing with a KKK outfit inside the store.

And on the anniversary of Mary Turner's death,

her memorial was shot up with bullets.

Although Black Americans are the majority of the town,

making up more than 50% of the population,

political power is still concentrated

in the hands of the whites.

This minority wills its control with a vice-like grip

that keeps the Black majority

under a constant state of terror.

They did what we wanted them to do,

arrested us.

That was gonna bring a lot of attention

to what was going on, and it did.

We got what we wanted.

We got the attention that we wanted.

Part of the problem the family had

with the sheriff's department

was the way they actually investigated the crime,

or rather the way they didn't investigate.

The coroner even said that,

"If y'all unrolled him,

why did you all re-roll him up again in the mat?"

Trying to position him in the way

they wanted him to be positioned.

- For the photograph. - For the photograph.

But always... you're gonna always miss something.

Coroner Bill Watson was called to the scene

five hours after detectives had arrived,

although Georgia law requires investigators

to call the coroner as soon as a body is found.

The body had been moved.

The scene, in my opinion, had been compromised.

It's a very time-consuming process

to basically work your way from the outside in.

Once our investigators got to the deceased,

the coroner was contacted immediately.

We also received an email from him

a few days after our interview on camera

in which he told us that.

I want to put up part of the email, Anderson.

And he writes in that email:

Several key pieces of evidence at the scene

have a number of strange inconsistencies.

The first pieces of evidence that don't make sense

are all the sneakers in the gym,

specifically three pairs catch our attention.

The first pair,

black sneakers with orange laces that were found,

were not even KJ's.

However, they appeared to have blood on them.

They found another pair of tennis shoes

at the crime scene, they didn't take 'em.

They found blood on the wall in the gym,

- they didn't test it. - Orange and black gym shoes

investigators found just yards from Kendrick's body.

But investigators say tests show the stains

are something other than blood,

so the shoes were not collected as potential evidence.

If you were on this scene,

would this have been something you would have left?

No, bag and tag.

The second two pairs of sneakers in the gym were KJ's,

but their placement and condition

tell a story that is very different

than the official cause of death given.

The shoes that were under his head

was the shoes that he always changed in.

But the shoes that were threw in behind him

were the tennis shoes that he had on,

the Griffin tennis shoes that were his,

what he wore in the gym.

Kendrick had vomited and everything.

They got pictures and everything

of the vomit and the blood.

But where's the blood on the tennis shoe?

And where's the vomit on the tennis shoe?

- Why didn't he have shoes on? - It was like Kendrick

was lying down flat somewhere, the mat was...

As they rolled him up, they threw those shoes

and then they rolled the mat on up,

because Kendrick's legs are twisted.

You go down in a mat trying to get something,

you're not gonna twist your legs up in a mat going down.

If he was reaching for the shoe,

why is it on top of him if he's reaching for it?

In statements released

by Lowndes County Sherriff's Office,

students wrote, "We always leave our shoes

inside the mats during class,

but to retrieve the shoes we tilt the mats over

and get the shoes from the bottom."

The shoes are never actually inside the mat.

When you put your shoes in there,

you toss 'em over the mats, because there's like,

probably, like, I wanna say six or seven other mats.

And there's a whole area behind it where there's no mat.

You don't climb over the mats.

All you do is move this mat out of the way,

you go and get your shoes, and you come back around.

That's how everybody does it.

When they said he climbed inside the mat to get the shoes,

I already knew that was a lie.

You can't get inside the mat

because it's wrapped tight and the hole is but so big.

The medical examiner explained that more than likely

he threw the shoe... The shoes down in the mat,

more than likely he tried to retrieve his shoes

in the mat and got stuck.

The mat is... is most definitely deeper than... than my height,

so how am I gonna get back out?

Why I just can't knock the mat over to get my shoes?

And what did she say?

She said, "Well, based on... ".

Based on what was told to her on what kids would normally do,

that they would throw their shoes in the mat

and they would go down in the mat while the mats are up

to get... to retrieve the shoes.

Well, I'm like, "Well, how many other kids

have died doing that?"

And I told her, I said, "You have not given me

one fact yet about how he died."

Because once... once you make a ruling accidental,

then all investigative purposes basically stop

because you done made your ruling this was an accident,

so therefore nothing else is gonna be done.

Based on my experience and all the doctors I've worked with,

they made their decisions based on facts, no theories.

Had you ever experienced that before in your career?

No, never, and I've been...

I've investigated homicides for 23 years.

I've never had a doctor tell me

based on their theory they gonna make a ruling.

Just for me to hear her say "theory"

sort of got to me

because I've been to a lot of autopsies,

and, um, if they were not facts, a ruling was not made.

Because if doctors are not sure,

they normally leave it undetermined.

Cases can be left undetermined for years.

They also found a hoodie that was not KJ's

but appeared to maybe have blood on it as well.

Look real close,

there's something on this particular cuff.

And then the question is: Was it blood? Did you test it?

According to the crime lab report: No.

The last piece of evidence that is glaring

is all the blood found on the wall.

Here's what Lowndes County Lieutenant Stryde Jones

told CNN about that wall in May.

And we tested it and it was blood.

And then we did DNA testing and it was not the blood

of Kendrick Johnson.

If it wasn't Kendrick's blood, whose blood was it?

Did you ever find out who it was or any involved...

No, as of now, we haven't, no,

but it doesn't appear to be related to our crime

- in any way. - There's one, two,

three, four, five six.

Six impacts.

But beyond all this evidence,

the shoes, the blood, the position of the body,

there's still one bit of evidence

that was unquestionable.

The closed-circuit TV cameras.

At least they should have been unquestionable,

but as with most evidence in this case,

there seems to be issues.

FBI agents will be at Lowndes High School, likely today,

to seize the hard drives from the surveillance system

- at Lowndes High School. - I saw...

Kendrick walking in the gym.

Then, all of a sudden, he's gone.

There is hole of time where none of the cameras

provide any record that... that I've been provided.

But there was, like, seconds missing from the tape.

And that really sort of...

Sort of got me thinking like,

"Hold on for a minute.

Am I the only one that noticed this?"

And I was just disturbed on

why is there seconds missing?

There are four cameras in the gym that records motion

from when the lights turn on in the morning

until when the lights are turned off at night,

except for the area of interest.

The moments before Kendrick Johnson enters the gym.

Look at what happens to the recordings

from these four cameras in the gym.

The time is recorded with the video.

The first camera captures images

from the start of the day until 12:04 PM.

Then, nothing.

And picks up again at 1:09 PM.

There's consistent surveillance

from the second camera until 11:05 AM,

then it stops and picks up again

more than two hours later at 1:15 PM.

The third camera also drops at 11:05 AM.

It picks up again at 1:16 PM.

And from the final camera,

there's surveillance until 12:04 PM,

no recording for more than an hour,

then it picks up again at 1:09 PM.

Here's why Fredericks would have expected

the motion-activated system to record during that time.

During that hour and five minutes,

several students are seen

walking into and out of the old gym,

from the surveillance camera just outside the gym door.

We count seven male students,

and three of them walk into the gym

within three minutes prior to Kendrick Johnson walking in.

When surveillance in the gym resumes at 1:09,

we see just these few frames

of Kendrick Johnson running in the gym.

Here's that moment from all of the cameras

in the gym, although there's a record from only two,

and the camera just outside the door.

Notice the hall camera timestamp

appears to be 10 minutes behind

and there's no confirmation

either time matches the exact time of day.

It is the last time his image is captured on video.

We got people in the gym playing basketball

on one of the cameras,

but over there where the mats were,

when that part appeared on the camera,

no one is over there.

And I'm like, "Where did Kendrick go?"

So people were trying to explain to us that it's their system,

it's the old system, it's just how it works.

To go there and to find out that they have

all of these different cameras working,

and everything is not working,

but there are a lot of cameras that are working,

but the parts that we need to work are not working.

For the next hour, there are multiple gaps

in the video surveillance in the gym,

and there's no videos showing the initial discovery

of a body in the gym.

The next time we see Kendrick Johnson

is the following day when he's being wheeled out

of the gym in a body bag.

I used to work at that high school.

I used to be a substitute teacher.

And I did that for about 12 years.

There's a camera everywhere you go

from every angle.

They caught me one day, you know,

roaming the halls during planning period.

Yes, I was.

Uh, so I know it could have caught...

It could have caught something.

But when we see the tapes,

it's kids playing basketball,

it's kids horseplaying.

Can you tell me why

nobody there see Kendrick go get in the mat

when there's a gym full of kids?

Can you tell me why?

It's just so obvious.

It's the second time Jacqueline Johnson cried

next to her son Kendrick's grave.

The first time, he was being lowered into the ground.

In June, Kendrick's body was sent to Florida.

The Johnsons hired Dr. Bill Anderson

to conduct an independent second autopsy.

I'm a forensic pathologist.

I've been actually practicing over 40 years

in the field of forensic pathology

and pathology in general.

And one of the things that immediately stuck out was, uh,

the findings in the lungs.

Now, in a positional asphyxia,

where someone is trapped

in something where they can't breathe,

they fight for breath, so forth,

and over a period of time,

their muscles begin to wear out, essentially,

so they're not breathing as well.

And this causes, basically, the heart to start failing

and fluid to build up in the lungs,

and get more and more fluid,

and this basically suffocates them.

Well, in Kendrick Johnson's case,

the lungs not only had no fluid in them

but they were basically normal.

The diagnosis of positional asphyxia,

if you're gonna make that diagnosis,

when you look at the lungs under the microscope,

you can see the fluid in the lungs.

When you look at the weights of the lungs,

which are normally around 250 grams and 280 grams,

they will be much heavier, three to four times that weight.

Well, Kendrick's were actually normal weight.

So, according to the state's own documents,

- which you have, right? - Correct.

His lungs weighed the normal weight.

Absolutely, that was... in fact,

that was the first red flag

that was there that caught my attention.

So if you find this dichotomy, basically,

then you have to figure out, well, what was it?

Was it something else that was going on?

But in the absence of the lungs being heavy,

you cannot make the diagnosis of positional asphyxia.

So, because of that, then we decided,

"Well, all right, we don't have any information."

So we decided we would go ahead

and exhume the body and do a second autopsy.

Digging him up...

It's just unexplainable to stand there and watch,

you know, your child coming back out of the ground again.

Well, we opened the body, in this particular case,

and the organs were not there.

Uh, the body had... basically, paper had been stuffed

into the cavity to fill it up,

and so the organs actually were not in the body at all.

Every organ from the top of Kendrick's head

- to his pelvis, gone. - When I found out

the organs were missing, um,

I was like, "How is that possible?"

Because I've sat through many autopsies

and the organs are taken out, examined,

and they're placed in a bag.

Everything... everything you take out

you put inside of a bag.

Then once it's back inside of the bag,

the body is sewed up.

So everything is put back inside the victim.

Have you ever opened a body in 40 years

and had that happen to you?

It was unexpected for a medical examiner case.

President of the National Association of Medical Examiners

who told CNN he's, "Never heard of this practice."

You see cuts there by his nails.

Yeah, I see those cuts right.

You see these cuts.

This goes in line with the family's theory

that there was a fight.

This is indicative of something that is fresh.

These are not healing insults or injuries that he has.

These little areas right here are...

So that'd be close to time of death?

Yeah, absolutely, and I'm finding it very interesting

that these are what we refer to as curvilinear.

These could be consistent with fingernail marks.

The attorney for the funeral home who says, yes,

those clothes did make it to the funeral home,

a couple of days later I got an email saying,

"No, we never received the clothes."

A spokeswoman for the state tells CNN after its autopsy,

"The organs were placed in Johnson's body,

the body was closed,

then the body was released to the funeral home."

State investigators say

it's their normal practice.

It's a Black Friday ad,

JC Penny ad.

Yes.

Stuffin' that newspaper in like he was a garbage can.

From what was left,

what could you derive?

So, what we did, we still had the rest of the body,

so we looked for other injuries

that might have been overlooked

or not dissected

during the first autopsy,

something that might conceivably result in

an explanation for why this child,

who has supposedly died of positional asphyxia

had normal lungs.

So, what we did, we continued,

basically, to look up near the angle of the jaw,

underneath the jaw.

At that point, we found an area of bleeding,

hemorrhage,

which had not been described.

This particular area happens to be very close,

in fact, involving,

a nerve structure

called the carotid sinus.

And the carotid sinus, basically,

controls blood pressure.

And the idea is if blood pressure goes too high,

the carotid sinus will, basically, sense that

and slow the heart rate.

Well, one of the other ways you can slow the heart rate is

severe compression of the area around the carotid sinus,

and that has even resulted in people dying suddenly.

And this was distinctly different

from all the other tissue around it,

so it appeared to be

due to blunt force trauma to the area.

So, we basically had absolute proof that this was

a hemorrhage in that area,

in an area that if pressure is applied,

could result in sudden death.

Well, this would make things a little more reasonable

as far as explaining why

you have the lungs

having no fluid

because, obviously, it would mean he was dead

when he was put in the gym mat.

According to the paramedics' report,

there was bruising noted to right side jaw.

The parents hired their own medical examiner,

who said this was a killing,

blunt force trauma to the neck.

A major victory for a mother and father

desperate for answers about their son.

For ten months,

those parents have searched for answers.

And tonight, two major developments.

Federal prosecutors now saying they will investigate.

A federal prosecutor in Georgia said today

he will conduct a formal review into the death of a teenager

whose body was found in his high school gym.

First, what was the cause

of Mr. Johnson's death?

Second, was Mr. Johnson's death the result of a crime?

Third, if Mr. Johnson's death was the result of a crime,

who committed that crime?

I will follow the facts wherever,

wherever they lead.

Huddled around a portable television

on the South Georgia street corner,

where they've staged an eight-month sit-in,

the family of Kendrick Johnson watched the announcement

- they've been waiting for. - Hallelujah!

- Thank you, Jesus! - Thank you, Jesus!

Justice for KJ is coming!

Kendrick's family is grateful for the investigation,

but they call it a stepping stone.

They say their push for answers will continue.

Got to continue to fight on

'till justice is done for KJ.

As the investigation heated up

and students began to be subpoenaed,

the story of KJ and the Bell brothers

started circulating the community.

There had definitely been some problems.

A brief fight between Brian and Kendrick on a team bus.

A year before, I mean,

- we were still friends. - What was it about, anyway?

I can't even remember.

I mean, it was so, it was so small to us.

I remember the fight.

He called me at the school.

We was on a bus trip

for a playoff game,

and Brian, you know, the kind of person he is,

he jokin' around, he playin'.

But when he's playin', he's playin' rough.

You know what I'm saying?

Kinda almost like a bully.

So, him and KJ are sittin' together in the back seat,

and he grabbed his dreads,

and he hold his head down with his dreads,

and he's laughin',

and he's pickin' at him.

So, when KJ get up,

and he get his hands off of his dreads,

they start fightin'.

I was in the seat right in front of them.

Seen the whole thing.

Anybody, anybody in that situation is gonna fight.

So, they got to fightin'.

He got the best of him.

- KJ? - Brian, yeah, Brian.

Brian ain't like that too much.

After that fight,

they made KJ go and ride in the,

in the deputy's car.

But they let Brian sit in the stand with his parents

and watch the game.

Kendrick came home one day, he said, "Dad."

I said, "Yeah?"

He said, "You know how you can be standin' up,

you know, you can be standin' up doin' somethin',

and you just feel somebody lookin' at you?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Well, I turned around"

and seen Brandon starin' at me.

Just standin' there starin' at me.

And I been hearin' he's tellin' people at school

"that it's not over."

He said, "But I ain't worried about it."

He said, "I wish he would say somethin' to me!"

So, one other day,

Kendrick came home, he said, "You know Rick Bell",

Brian's daddy,

came up to me at school?

He said, he told me that the fight was on the bus

wasn't a fair fight.

That I should come over to their house

"and re-fight Brian."

So, I said, "Kendrick, what'd you say?"

He said, "I looked at him like he was crazy,

and I turned around and walked off."

But you're an FBI agent,

you're supposed to make sure stuff goin' right every day,

but you want kids to come fight again.

And he, of course, denies

- this conversation? - Of course, you know,

of course, of course.

And then, we come back to school,

and Brian is actin' funny.

Usually, he'd stop by and he'd speak to us

when he walked past,

walked past the wall that we sittin' on

in-between classes.

But after this happened,

he takes a different route.

He don't come through there no more.

And this before anybody even thinkin' it's him.

He just took it upon hisself

to go a different route to his classes.

Why, after this happened,

do you start takin' different routes around the school?

That was like, you know, that's like a no-brainer.

You're movin' different.

- Why? - When all this happened,

Kendrick didn't have no beef with nobody else.

Kendrick wasn't into it with nobody else.

They were the only ones.

And then, we come to find out,

they were the only ones

didn't get interviewed,

didn't wanna get questioned.

They were the only ones at the time lawyered up.

When it was clear to us

that if we couldn't make the case,

as far as what happened to Kendrick,

'cause of all this missin' evidence,

missin' body parts, all that, witnesses,

I mean, just all of that, when we realized

it was gonna be difficult to make the case,

we started concentrating on

obstruction.

So, we started lookin' at

the Bells' father,

who's an FBI agent,

for some of the things that

he was doin'.

Every time we would talk to someone,

a witness,

they would tell us how.

Bell father met with them.

And we were like,

"You can't interfere with a grand jury investigation."

You have to leave it alone, but for somehow,

he kept meetin' with the witnesses

who we were tryin' to talk to.

And we finally talked to the witness,

we find out that they done talked to,

to the Bell, the Bell father.

They said they were not threatened directly.

They just felt that way.

They were always, they felt as though...

Some said they always felt as though they were being followed.

I remember interviewing a young lady

who told us how Rick Bell would visit

her job,

or she would see him outside

of her job,

and that used to make her nervous.

And I felt as though

we were very close

to gettin' enough information,

whereas we can say he committed obstruction,

an FBI agent committed obstruction of justice.

The mornin' we did the raids,

plenty of agencies were involved,

and we went to a lot of different locations.

An FBI agent's home was raided last month

in connection with the investigation

into the death of a Valdosta teenager.

Karen Bell says her husband, Rick Bell,

is an agent in good standing with the FBI,

an arm of the US Justice Department,

but that the swarm of heavily-armed men and a woman,

most in full tactical gear, that rushed toward her house

about 5:16 AM, July 21st

came from an arm of the US Justice Department too,

- the US Marshall Service. - This is

where they knocked the morning of

around 5:00 AM.

I was layin' in bed,

I got a bang on my door.

- Tactical gear? - Yes, sir, to the nth degree.

They were just like, "It's about the Kendrick Johnson case,

the ongoing Kendrick Johnson investigation."

In order for a judge

to sign

search warrants,

meaning several, for several locations,

therefore, evidence

was submitted that he believed we were onto somethin'.

So these search warrants, several, were signed.

Deputy US Marshal serving search warrants

in connection with the mysterious death

of Kendrick Johnson

at Lowndes High School in 2013.

- I was just really shocked. - I broke down and cried.

I really had no reason in my head why they would be here.

It just keeps on gettin' worse.

Documents provided by the Bells' legal team

indicate property seized with the search warrant included

smart phones, thumb drives, laptops,

discs, and the like.

Deals with obstructing investigations,

destroying evidence, witness tampering.

I'm gonna ask my photographer to

push in tight on your face.

Okay.

Our viewers can read your expression.

Did you have anything to do

with the death of Kendrick Johnson?

No.

He was like one of my good friends.

Even at the time of his death?

- Even at the time of his death. - And I want everybody to

know the truth, and, I mean,

they can ridicule me, and they can,

they can say whatever they want,

but in the end, the truth will prevail,

and everybody will find that me and my brother

have been innocent, and always will be innocent.

But both Bells maintain the have rock-solid alibies.

Did you see Kendrick Johnson?

No, sir, not at any point during that day.

Where were you?

I was in class.

I was in class first block, second block, third block,

and fourth block.

Close to the gym?

- No. - Did you see Kendrick that day?

No.

I did not.

Have you prayed for the Johnsons?

Yes, sir, I have.

I hope that they found justice,

and I hope they do find out the truth about their son.

And now, WJCL News,

working for you.

New developments in the Kendrick Johnson death investigation.

We have uncovered an email whose sender claims

to know who killed Johnson.

And tonight, I have been lookin' through these 22 pages

that we requested

that could possibly answer the question,

what happened to Kendrick Johnson?

Some of the kids that know scared,

but they should never be scared.

This week, WJCL learned US Attorney, Michael Moore,

subpoenaed more than 120 students and parents at Valdosta

to testify in front of a grand jury.

What happened to Kendrick last January

is a question the family has been asking

for more than a year now,

and this week, that question may have an answer.

WJCL learned deputies in Lowndes county

received an anonymous email.

Because those mentioned in the email are minors,

their names have been changed to Jane and Joe.

Here's what the email says,

My best friend was at a party Saturday night with Jane,

and she was upset about something

that Joe had said to her.

She said that about a little over a year ago,

she had sexual intercourse with Kendrick Johnson

while she was dating Joe.

Joe found out and threatened KJ.

KJ told Joe to meet him in the old gym after third block

and he would have his knife ready.

Joe and Joe's friend met KJ

and killed him.

Joe has also been heard admitting to killing KJ

more than once over the phone.

His brother also got drunk at a party on the 4th of July

and told many people that Joe killed KJ,

and that Joe's brother was tired of keeping it a secret.

And my sources told me one of the boys in the email

is the son of an FBI agent.

His father originally told him not to talk to investigators,

but is now forced to talk because of the subpoena.

There's been several people that has come forth

with the truth.

But then, you got them goin' to jail,

bein' locked up, bein' silenced

if you say anything, bein' threatened.

A supposed lead in the Kendrick Johnson investigation

has fizzled.

We identified the source of the email yesterday.

We went and interviewed that person last night,

and what we found was

they admitted they had sent the email,

but they did it out of a genuine interest in the case.

That this is information they had heard,

nothing first-hand,

all rumors and speculation.

And the other little guy, he was tellin' people about

what happened to Kendrick,

and they found out, and they got him

and then kept him for so many months.

Nobody could get him out.

And then when he got out,

he recanted his whole story,

he said he wasn't tellin' the truth.

When it comes to justice in this county,

it's more about who you know.

In this case,

you have Lowndes County High School,

the superintendent's office,

the GBI, the FBI, and the DOJ.

The cover-up started with

one of their own.

GBI agents

and his children.

When they found out it was him, the cover-up started there,

and then it trickled on down to the medical examiner,

then on over to the funeral home.

All that just, it was just,

all this just goin' on and on, and I'm like,

"But y'all will go through all this

just to cover

for these children?"

I think lots of people know

just coverin' it up

'cause they work together.

But Stroud was the main one that we were talkin' to,

and so he would just keep comin' and give us

different little lies.

And every time he would come back with a story,

we would come back and tell him, "You know, that's not so."

Then, in November 2015,

the US attorney in charge of this case,

Michael Moore, suddenly resigned.

This was astonishing because this was the attorney

who put the Bell boys as the target

of the investigation.

Michael Moore, I don't know,

I know he ran scared.

These people here scared him out of his job,

I know that

because how do you come out and say you're gonna

take this case and look at it at every angle,

but soon as it gets hot, soon as you're gettin' threats,

you go run and take cover?

When Michael Moore resigned,

his cases went to his successor, except Kendrick.

For some reason, KJ's case was moved

from Georgia to Ohio.

Goin' to Ohio with this case was mind-boggling to me.

There had to have been discussions in Washington

as to how you're gonna have a change in venue

from one state to another state?

You know, I think that your prosecutors are really

the gatekeeper for the court system

and for the justice system.

And if you're not willin' to keep the gate,

then that means nothing.

How the US attorney for the middle district of Georgia

all of a sudden just abruptly quit his position

and joined a law firm in Atlanta?

At Pope McGlamry,

we represent people who find and report

the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money.

We handle these cases, sometimes called whistleblower

or false claims cases

for all kinds of individuals.

- I mean, why? - Why?

- Yeah, why, the question is why? - But why?

You have to ask the question, why all of these whys?

We got to the point where we really thought

either we were gonna make an arrest of him,

of he may have been getting indicted.

But for us to get a notification

that we were no longer goin' back to Georgia,

I was like,

"Huh?"

That's impossible.

"No, you're not goin' back, you have work to do in D.C."

I'm like, "What work?"

A very disappointing day for the parents of Kendrick Johnson,

three and a half years after the 17 year old was found dead

in his high school gym.

Kendrick Johnson's parents say they're not giving up

on either civil or criminal charges in his 2013 death.

They say federal prosecutors told them

there was not enough evidence to pursue a criminal case,

but they still believe he was murdered by schoolmates.

And Monday, the Johnsons said federal prosecutors

didn't entirely rule out that possibility.

They simply concluded there was not enough evidence to prove it.

And they all but came out and said

they know he was murdered,

but nothin' to be done about it.

The jury has just come back and has returned a verdict of

not guilty,

thus the defendants, Milam and Bryant,

are free men in this community

of Sumner, Mississippi.

How do you folks feel now that it's all over?

Roy, how 'bout you?

I'm just glad it's over with.

- J.W.? - I am too.

- And Mrs. Bryant, uh... - Yes, sir.

We, law enforcement,

justice department,

we let them down.

We let them down, man.

And that's just not... We're not supposed to,

we're not supposed to let families down.

We sat in a room, it's probably about

seven or eight of them.

It was all DOJ representatives?

Yeah, so they basically said,

they said they didn't have enough evidence

to prove a reasonable doubt.

They didn't say they didn't have no evidence.

They said they didn't have enough to prove it.

You know what they said?

The shoe was planted there.

- So, what's that tell you? - The DOJ said that?

They said right there in the meeting

that the shoe was planted there.

"Mr. Johnson, you're right, the shoe was planted there."

You would sit in the room with us and tell us

you know that somebody planted that shoe under Kendrick's head,

but, yet, y'all still can't call this a murder?

She said, "We know, Mr. Johnson,

we know something happened,

but we just don't know who did it."

She said, "Dr. Anderson's report

is the most accurate report."

I just felt like we still wasn't gonna stop.

Regardless of them droppin' it, whatever,

we still gotta keep goin'.

They can drop it, but we're not gonna drop it.

This town feels like they really run the world.

Seven judges recused themselves, how?

Seven.

How? When this is your job,

I don't care 'cause that's your friend.

If it wasn't an FBI agent's kids,

would seven judges

- have recused themselves? - Right.

Would Michael Moore have gave up his position?

To fully understand

the FBI's actions towards KJ,

we first need to go back to the roots of the organization.

A man named J. Edgar Hoover

first created the FBI.

The FBI will continue to be objective

in its investigations

and will stay within the bounds of its authorized jurisdiction.

He ran it with unparalleled control

for nearly 50 years.

He served through eight presidents.

He collected counter intelligence

on every presidential candidate

before they were elected

so he could control them while they were in office.

He was literally the most famous man in Washington,

and one of the most powerful men in the world for half a century.

Once you realize this,

it's impossible to ignore the impacts

of his tyrannical work still lingering

throughout our system today.

During his reign, Hoover would say

he was protecting America from Communists

and domestic hate groups.

But a closer look at his actions

reveals a very different story.

What Hoover actually did

was create a clandestine domestic terrorism unit

named Cointelpro

and ran it with no Congressional oversight

or even knowledge that it existed.

It was designed specifically to destruct and destroy.

Black America's Civil Rights Movement.

It was not until 1971

that the nation heard

the name of this program.

It took eight brave activists

to break into the FBI building

and steal documents proving

their illegal operations.

In the stolen documents released to the press,

was a detailed program

of hate, intimidation,

and harassment.

Cointelpro was so far-reaching

that there were 50,000 pages

finally released about Hoover's dirty work

and a Congressional hearing on the matter in 1975.

What came out were horror stories

of the FBI's racism and bullying tactics.

I've been told for years

by, among others,

some of my own family

that this is exactly what the bureau was doing

all the time.

And in my great wisdom,

and high office,

I assured them they were

on pot,

that this just wasn't true.

What you've described is a series of illegal actions

intended squarely to deny first amendment rights

to some Americans.

That's what my children have told me is going on.

Documents also revealed

a bonus payment of $175

to an undercover FBI agent

inside the KKK for beating up a Black man.

Hoover would later tell the agent,

"You're one of the greatest Americans

this country has ever had."

Another shocking page

was an anonymous letter to Martin Luther King,

which the bureau wrote and sent to him

one month before he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

The letter berated King,

and in the last paragraph suggested

he commit suicide.

The bureau went so far as to mail

anonymous letters to Dr. King and his wife

and finishes with this

suggestion,

"King, there is only one thing left for you to do,

you know what it is.

You have just 34 days in which to do it.

You are done."

If I can interrupt you.

That was taken by Dr. King

to mean a suggestion for suicide,

- was it not? - That's our understanding,

senator.

Decades after Hoover's death,

the FBI's actions show they haven't changed.

The assault on Black America's political movements

continues to this day.

We saw it first-hand when many of the peaceful protestors

in Ferguson were investigated, tracked,

and labeled by the FBI as.

Black identity extremists.

Black identity extremists

now considered a domestic terror threat by the FBI.

The bureau releasing an explosive new report.

And has the FBI and the American public denounced Hoover?

Far from it?

Even today, you can go and visit the FBI building in D.C.,

which still carries his name proudly.

And has the FBI been fighting real terrorist hate groups too?

Or, have they just been focused on the civil rights activists?

Well, a 2018 study show that

US hate groups

have reached an all-time high.

So, who is the FBI against

and who are they for?

For us to

not make an arrest,

for me to find out later

the case was dismissed,

just my personal feelin',

I felt as though somethin' had to have occurred,

and I really thought that they must have

struck a deal with Rick Bell.

He lost his job

because the DOJ

had evidence of corruption.

I said, "They actually told me that"

on the phone, we were on a phone conference.

They said, "Mr. Johnson, we're gonna tell you.

They are not gonna lock him up, and they are not gonna fire him,

but they're gonna make him resign."

They said, "We got evidence

of corruption of Rick Bell.

And what we're gonna do,

we're gonna turn it over to the FBI."

And shortly after that, he resigned.

I felt as though if we would have

continued our investigation,

not only would we have made

an arrest with Bell for obstruction,

I really believe we would have got to the bottom

of what happened to Kendrick

if Bell would have been charged with obstruction of justice.

I'm lookin' at Kendrick's father.

I'm lookin' at myself.

And I'm sayin' to myself, as I look at Kendrick's father,

is that

I'd probably be in jail for murder.

Well, the sounds of those screeching chains

echoed through the Sunset Cemetery in Valdosta today

as Kendrick Johnson's grave

was exhumed for the second time.

The Johnson family is hoping a third autopsy

will help them figure out what happened

- to their son. - We're looking at the pictures.

There was an area on the right side of the chest

that looked like hemorrhage,

so we did a third autopsy.

It turns out, we used the same techniques we did before.

It did show that there had been blunt force trauma

to the right side of the chest.

So we had two areas of trauma for sure.

So I'm fairly confident that

we pretty much have the mechanism

of how this kid died.

So, when you went and you presented your evidence,

what happened?

We contacted the medical examiner in Georgia,

and the state attorney,

and I told them that we had the,

we had the photos, we had the microscopic slides,

and so forth, and the response we got was,

"We're not interested in looking at them."

Nobody has basically requested to look at the slides

except the US Attorney's office.

Clearly, there's something on these slides

that Dr. Anderson made

the state of Georgia doesn't want you to see.

So for the first time ever,

here they are.

You can see here, this is all dried out,

embalmed tissue.

Now, when we opened this area, we see this distinct area,

which I'm gonna use the cursor to show,

of hemorrhage.

That red coloration,

distinctly different than the other area.

Now this is the area under the microscope,

and we can see all these red

areas here.

Now the question then becomes,

"Well, are these really red blood cells?"

So that's when we do the immunohistochemistry,

and that's a picture of the immunostaining, we call it.

And the areas in brown,

that's the antibody picking up

the antigen, which is the hemoglobin.

So that's basically how we prove that this is actually

hemorrhaged not artifact,

and that made our diagnosis pretty firm

that this was an area of blunt force trauma to the neck.

I sent it to two other pathologists to look at myself

before we even came up with our decision.

And everyone agreed?

Yeah.

I mean, you just can't make a murder an accident

when it's a murder.

How can you?

Whatever's left of him's tellin' a story

that they're still tryin' to cover.

Kendrick is still speakin' from the grave.

So let me get this straight,

a 5 foot 10 kid decided to go head first

into a six-foot mat,

then realized after he was stuck

that he was gonna die down there,

and then he died down there, stuck,

somehow silently, with a gym full of kids

playing basketball and changing classes around him.

Then his shoes magically appeared

on the top of his body

inside the mat, shoved into the hole.

His legs became twisted in the mat.

And all of this happened in the middle of the school day

in a gym full of kids.

Then, somehow, the video tape

from only those moments is missing.

Then, Kendrick's organs go missing.

Seven judges recuse themselves.

The US attorney working on the case resigns,

and then your case moves to Ohio.

Then, it's officially closed by the justice department,

who tells you in a meeting

the crime scene has planted objects,

your autopsy report is correct,

your child was murdered,

and there's nothing else we can do about it.

One thing we kept hearing over and over again

was about this missing FBI report

regarding the security tape hard drive

and the blacked out footage.

So, we looked into finding that report

to see if we could locate it,

and we did.

However, the report was heavily redacted.

But then, we were able to find the un-redacted FBI report,

and what we discovered blew us away.

You see, in the redacted report,

you can barely see any of the video frames.

Most of the frames are blacked out,

and the ones with KJ are barely recognizable.

In the un-redacted report,

we were able to see all the video frames in full color.

The report follows KJ, Brian, and Brandon's movement

throughout the school for the entire day

and records where they were.

Not only is this further video evidence

that the Bell boys were on campus

when KJ went missing,

we found something that the FBI clearly didn't want us to see.

Let us put them side by side

so you can see what we found.

Here they are.

Can you see something a little odd?

Look closely.

There appears to be a frame on both pages

that matches.

How could this be?

What tipped us off is KJ's yellow folder.

We were going through Brian's movements, and all of a sudden,

KJ's folder appeared on screen.

That's right, there's a frame on KJ's side

and Brian's side

that is identical.

The boys are standing seemingly right next to each other

in the hallway.

Did you see Kendrick that day?

No.

I did not.

Seeing the alleged killer of KJ

standing next to him in the hallway

the day he died in school

has sent chills down our spines.

How did no one see this frame?

How did the FBI let this go?

Why did it take six years and an independent filmmaker

to find this?

These are all questions that may never go answered.

But what we do know for sure

is that we have more facts now than we ever had,

and this case needs to be re-opened

and re-examined

with a fine-tooth comb.

After finding this game-changing evidence,

our crew flew to Georgia to show Kendrick's parents

as soon as possible.

Had you seen that frame?

Mm-mm.

Can you believe that?

Mm-mm.

- Hm. - They are next to each other.

That's the morning of.

And that's in their own report.

And we have their paperwork.

And they saw that.

All the adults

authorities and school personnel,

show you to the extent that

how much they covered up.

How are you feeling right now?

It's just crazy, just to let you know

we were right all along.

What do you think's gonna happen when we release this photograph?

They gonna try to come out with some more lies.

What do you think they're gonna say about it?

Somebody photo-cropped it.

In their own report?

In their own report.

All along, we know it was bullshit.

We know it was bullshit.

They pushed a real large

social media campaign against us,

about Kendrick and Brian didn't never see each other

none that day.

And it goes to show you, we was right,

they was lyin' the whole damn while.

Go grab myself a tissue.

Yeah, that's what they done.

After KJ's mom told our crew

she thought they were gonna say

that we faked this photo,

we decided to go back into the FBI's report

to see if there was anything else

we can show to prove it.

Lo and behold!

The page after the photo was a grid

that the FBI wrote describing each picture.

In their own words,

they wrote,

"KJ observed in covered walkway

moving towards camera.

Bell observed in same location at this time."

So there you have it.

The FBI not only included the photo

of Brian and Kendrick in their report,

they included a spreadsheet explaining the photos

that back up exactly what we are seeing,

KJ and Brian standing next to each other

the morning this all happened.

After showing our new evidence to the Johnson family,

we flew to D.C. to get a third-party perspective

on this FBI report from Mitch.

KJ and Brian

standing next to each other

the morning this all happened.

Hold up.

I'm stuck.

I'm... No, really, I'm stuck because

if the footage was there,

and if the footage was there,

I don't recall seeing this footage.

And I clearly remember

goin' to the FBI office in Atlanta

when I first got involved in the case.

I don't, I don't,

I've never seen this.

Ugh, hold, hold, wait.

I don't ever recall seein'

KJ standin' near Brian Bell

with a yellow folder

in his hand.

And just based on the footage,

obviously, that's here, they're near each other.

It may be ten feet or closer.

I can see the public not seein' certain things.

I can see the family not seein' certain things.

But, as an investigator,

it bothers me

because it's somethin' that I should have seen.

And why wasn't I given the opportunity to see this?

I recall being told

that Brian Bell didn't see KJ that day.

And it's obvious just by lookin' at this footage,

that came from wherever it came from,

that they had to have seen each other that day.

And...

Oh, wow, it...

Hm.

Oh, man, I mean...

Y'all got to excuse me, I'm a little messed up right now.

To know that I'm seein' something now

that I could not have seen back in 2015,

when I was involved in the investigation,

sort of kinda makes me think that...

I wonder about some other things

I did not see,

or some other things that

maybe I wasn't supposed to see.

And when you're following the evidence,

and you're steered off in another direction,

and you miss evidence,

then that's most definitely is gonna

interfere with investigations.

If I'm one of the investigators on the case,

I should have seen this particular clip,

and it shouldn't be because what a filmmaker found

that I saw this.

How was this filmmaker able to see this particular evidence,

and I'm part of the investigation

and I never saw it before?

And I think that's what's troublesome to me,

to see something new.

I'm investigatin' the case, but I don't see it,

but someone, a filmmaker... I mean no disrespect...

But the filmmaker, he finds a piece of evidence

that I couldn't find.

It's troublesome to me,

and that's, and that's, and that's real.

Yeah, that's it, there ain't nothin' else

I can say about that.

What do you think really happened?

I think,

honestly,

I think it was a fight in the gym.

I wouldn't say Brian by hisself.

I don't think he can beat him one on one.

You know what I'm sayin'?

I don't think he went right in the mat.

I think the mat was some shit that was done

after school hours, honestly.

I think they jumped him.

They jumped him, and they took it too far.

When you look at the investigation,

and you flip the script, you ask yourself if

one of the Bell boys

had died

and Kendrick was the suspect,

would the body parts be missing?

Would the case have been ruled an accident?

Would evidence have been missing?

Would the video... would timeline on the video tape

minutes, or whatever, would that have been missing?

Would an arrest not have been made?

They'd have found him that night

if he'd have been a white boy missin',

and then they would have done somethin' about it.

Everybody in the United States

should have the protection of their rights under the law,

and this includes police officers.

There are situations where,

because of certain circumstances,

police officers who are doing their duty,

become the victims of wrongful lawsuits

or wrongful prosecutions.

Ed Meese, the US attorney general

during Regan's presidency,

is one of the leaders of a group who works behind the scenes,

paying legal costs,

and providing other forms of assistance

to law enforcement officials

accused of heinous crimes.

Even after Rick Bell lost his job,

they were helping him and his family

in their legal battles concerning KJ.

What this means is that while KJ's body

is busy being exhumed again,

Brian Bell is able to play division I football.

But this inequality suffered by KJ and his family

is nothing new to Black Americans.

It's only now with cell phone cameras

and police body cams

that we are actually able to see how this inequity plays out.

Hands on the car, I'm gonna shoot you in your... head.

You understand me?

Don't you... move, I'm a shoot you in your... head,

you hear me?

Don't you... move!

When Black men are choked for selling cigarettes,

or walking in the street,

white mass murderers

are gingerly arrested

and fed hamburgers by the police.

If KJ had been white,

we wouldn't have had to make this film.

Imagine it had been Brian Bell

wrapped up in a gym mat.

Would his organs have been replaced

by newspaper in his body?

Would security footage have gone missing?

Everyone in Valdosta knows

there's much more to this story

than what is in that official report,

but no one seems to care because to them,

kids like Kendrick

don't matter.

Their lives and stories don't matter.

And certainly, their deaths don't matter

except they do matter.

- Ugh. - What do you want?

I can't breathe!

Please, the knee in my neck.

I can't breathe, shit.

Well, get up, get in the car, man.

- I will! - Get up, get in the car!

- I can't move! - I've been watching

- the whole thing, man. - Ah!

- Get up and get in the car! - Mama!

In the summer of 2020,

a man named George Floyd

died on camera screaming,

"I can't breathe"

while a police officer kept his knee on his neck

for nine straight minutes,

an eerie throwback

to Eric Garner's last moments.

This video of George went super viral.

Around the same time, a woman named Breonna Taylor

was killed in her home

by police during a botched raid in the middle of the night.

A public already angry about the coronavirus

responded en masse to support these victims.

A wave of protests filled the streets worldwide

to support George and Breonna's justice.

Waves of peaceful protestors marched on

bigger than ever before.

No more silence!

- No justice! - No peace!

From Washington's newly named Black Lives Matter Plaza...

Justice for George Floyd!

To San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge,

to Philadelphia...

This renewed interest

into heinous cover-ups

of Black death in this country,

led to the public once again

pushing KJ's name out into the conversation.

Jacquelyn Johnson says justice was never served

in the death of her son, Kendrick.

Now, with the help of a petitions

and big-name celebrities, she has hope.

People just don't understand how hard it is to

lose a child, but to lose one to murder,

senseless murder.

Everyone started posting about KJ,

and his story became headline news again

in the wake of this new movement happening.

A petition starting the year before

in support of KJ's justice

began to go viral.

During the summer of 2020,

over 1.7 million people signed KJ's petition.

But because we were a Black people,

a Black family,

and they thought we was this Black poor family

that wasn't gonna do nothin', they done already said,

"Yeah, we gonna get 'em a couple of dollars

and they just gonna go away."

Your dollars don't mean nothin' compared to that body.

That was mine, that's mine.

Baby boy, we're doin' it for ya.

We ain't lettin' nothin' stop us!

I had to come check on ya.

I ain't been out here in a while,

since your birthday.

We gonna keep raisin' Hell

'till we get justice for ya, baby.

He used to be the happiest child

about goin' to Lowndes High School.

That child loved goin' to school.

I could call his name one time, he would get up,

even though he wasn't a morning person.

We was always close, everybody really.

But me and him was the closest 'cause we was the youngest,

and we always had to be home.

Kendrick would just go in there and dive on her back

and just make her so mad,

and she'd get up and chase him through the house,

and just... He was just the joy of our life.

You know, when I tell you we was a crazy family,

we used to wrestle through the house,

we used to have water fights.

Laughing, cuttin' jokes,

that's all we really did.

It was never a dull moment at all with Kendrick.

Respectful, loved his family, loved his daddy.

Loved his daddy, oh, my God, them two.

I said, "Boy, wake me up at such and such time."

And he'll wake me up.

That time come, he wake me up.

I miss it, I miss that little boy.

For people that don't understand

what it's like to lose a sibling,

what do you say to them?

Oh, tell your sibling that you love 'em every day,

every single day.

It don't matter if y'all mad,

y'all disagreein'.

Make sure you tell your whole family

that you love 'em

'cause anything can happen.

You can wake up the next day

and they gone.

You can be livin' with 'em your whole life,

and the next day,

you can't even tell 'em that you love 'em.

You can't even tell 'em that you miss 'em.

To be without Kendrick on Christmas Day

and his birthdays.

I see people every day

take their family

for granted,

and I be tryin' to tell 'em

you can't do that.

'Cause you end up in my situation,

you ain't gonna know how to walk in my shoes.

You ain't gonna be able to be as strong as me and my people is.

Everybody ain't built to handle what we goin' through.

My husband said that one day he was in the bed

after Kendrick died,

and he could literally feel

Kendrick gettin' in the bed behind him and layin' down

with him because that's the stuff they use to

sit in the bed and watch football together.

I never thought that I'd have to live without my,

neither one of my brothers, so

it bein' my brother,

the one that I'm

the closest to,

that's very devastating.

Always gotta

love your people.

Can't never let nothing simple tear y'all apart.

Son, I love you,

and I know you know that.

And you left us because you knew

that you had two parents that was gonna

always fight for you,

and you knew we wasn't goin' nowhere

until we get it right,

'till you make sure somebody's held accountable.

Well, brother,

I just wanna let you know

that I love you whole lot.

That'll never change.

I miss you.

Kendrick, we miss you,

and we know that justice is gonna be done,

and we know that your spirit

is stirred up and you're not restin'.

I give my life before I let this case go.

You know, me and you was like two peas in a pod.

Nothin' can break us apart.

I hear your voice,

and I thank you for the many nights

that I would of had overslept in my truck.

Even today,

when I used to have you sittin' in the front seat,

while I was takin' a nap and you used to wake me up,

you used to always be pokin' on me, "Dad, Dad,

it's time to go, it's time to go."

I can still hear that same voice.

Thank you.

Even through goin' through all of this,

God is just still so good.

He gives us strength, He gives power to endure,

knowin' the truth gonna come for you, Kendrick.

It's comin'.

It is comin'!

Until we meet again,

I always love you, son.

And we okay down here.

You ain't gotta worry about us.

We strong

'cause we got the most

beautiful angel watchin' over us.

I love ya.

That'll never change.

Your name's gonna be known all over this world.

We love you, and you rest.

We'll see you one day.