Kendrick Johnson’s death investigation will be reopened, the Georgia sheriff said

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Johnson, 17, was found upside down in the mat at Lowndes County High School in January 2013. Local investigators ruled his death was an accident.

“It’s been eight long years,” Johnson’s mother, Jacquelyn Johnson, told CNN on Tuesday. “I feel hopeful.”

The initial investigation concluded that Johnson accidentally slipped in the center of the mat while reaching for a shoe and got stuck. An autopsy conducted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined that Johnson’s cause of death was accidental positional asphyxiation.

But an autopsy conducted by a pathologist hired by Johnson’s family determined that the cause of death was “unexplained, seemingly non-accidental blunt force trauma” to the neck.
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Paulk, who was a retired former sheriff at the time of Johnson’s death, said on Tuesday that he “wasn’t sure when this situation occurred” that it was an accident.

“If there are questions – and they are legitimate – I have to know the answers myself. The only way I’ll know is to look at the evidence myself,” said Paulk.

After a two-and-a-half-year federal investigation, “ Investigators have determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that anyone or group of people deliberately violated Kendrick Johnson’s civil rights or committed any other prosecutable federal crime ”. Justice said in a statement in 2016.
Paulk retired in 2017, and in April 2019, he requested that information collected during the federal investigation be released to his department.

“It is vital that we have access to all information about the KJ Johnson case that no federal agency has previously released,” Paulk wrote in a letter to the US Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia.

Federal investigators denied the request in July 2019.

Paulk credited a visit by the Johnsons to federal investigators in November 2020 for the final grant of the request.

“We’re not asking for favors. We’re not asking anyone to lie for us. We just want the truth to come out,” Johnson’s father, Kenneth Johnson, told CNN.

Paulk said his office had received 17 boxes of written and electronic evidence from the federal investigation.

The survey included interviewing nearly 100 people; viewing tens of thousands of emails and text messages; watching surveillance videos of Lowndes High School; and analyzing other available information about the events of January 10-11, 2013. Justice Department officials said in their 2016 statement.

Paulk said some of the original investigators will be used on the reopened case along with some new investigators. According to Paulk, the first interview was conducted on Monday.

The investigation can take up to six months.

“My plan is to see if there are any discrepancies between the reports,” said Paulk, who is leading the study.

He added that he has no aptitude for the case.

“I hope he’s doing the right thing,” Kenneth Johnson said of Paulk. “I just hope the truth gets out.”

Lowndes County High School is located in Valdosta, about 15 miles from the Florida border. According to the US Census Bureau, the county has an estimated population of 117,000.

CNN’s Steve Almasy contributed to this report.

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