Disclaimer: I have decided that on this blog I am going to start covering different criminal cases, miscarriage of justice cases, and other cases that spark my interest. As someone with a background in Forensic science, I am going to try and give different cases perspectives from a Forensic science stand point as well as giving as many facts about the cases.  This is going to be done out of the want to bring more light to cases that may not even been know, or to provide insight into where bad Police and Forensic work has occurred. 

Back on the 11th of January 2013 the body of teenager Kendrick Johnson was found inside a rolled up mat in the gymnasium of Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S.A. The initial cause of death stated that Johnson's death was accidental suffocation, with the specific autopsy results stating Johnson died of positional asphyxia, after Johnson fell into the mat to retrieve a shoe that fell in first. This conclusion led the Lowndes County Sheriff's department to label the death accidental, this resulting in the inquest into Johnson's death to conclude.

Police during the initial investigation, have claimed that they had spoken to students at the high school. The three students who were spoken to claimed that it was common for students to store shoes behind or under the gym mats where Johnson was found. One student claimed to share a pair of shoes with Johnson and that Johnson was known to jump onto the mats and threw the shoes into the holes of the gym mats. From this information provided, Officers hypothesised that Johnson's death could only be accidental. This conclusion contradicted with Johnson's family who hypothesised that the victim was murdered. 

On the 15th of June 2013 an independent autopsy was undertaken. The family of Johnson funded this autopsy. This second autopsy concluded that blunt force trauma occurred to the right of Johnson's neck and various soft tissues. The official autopsy report stated that the findings were not consistent with positional asphyxia*. This suggested that the victim's death was not accidental. This new information allowed the family to proceed with legal proceedings. On the 31st of October 2013 the U.S attorney announced that there would be a formal review into the death of Johnson. This review was delayed due to further legal proceedings filed by the family that demanded that the governor of Georgia authorise an inquest instead. The Governor's office stated that no inquest would be made until the U.S Attorney's review had been completed.   

A third autopsy was carried out and concluded that the cause of death was non-accidental blunt force trauma. 

When the independent autopsy was carried out it was found that there were no internal organs present when Johnson's body was received, and the body was in fact stuffed with newspaper. This may seem strange to people who do not know any proceedings with funeral homes. The funeral home had placed newspaper in Johnson's body when dressing the body for the funeral. This practice is an old one that is not often used to fill empty cavities where organs should be, but most commonly cotton and sawdust are used. These empty cavities had to be filled as the funeral home never received Johnson's organs from the coroner's. The prosecutor had claimed that the organs had been removed and discarded before Johnson was sent to the funeral home. 

The high school had 35 surveillance cameras that overlooked the gym in which Johnson's body was found. The November of 2013 saw 290 hours of footage being submitted to CNN for investigation after the court awarded this to happen. A Forensic analyst was enlisted to investigate footage from two cameras that were missing a total of 65 minutes of footage from one camera and 130 minutes from the other camera. The analyst found that where lapses were seen was the result of unsynchronised camera systems. It was also determined that where the mats were situated was actually out of range of camera view. Originally it was believed a cover up had occurred, but through this investigation it was determined that the position of cameras and unsychronised systems gave the appearance of doctored footage.

This cases, like most unsolved cases, has many theories and misinformation surrounding it. Various sources state that Johnson's body was found headfirst in the mat. This information is true, Johnson's body was found this way. Where the credibility falls short is that some sources state that the gym mat opening diameter was smaller than Johnson's shoulder width, suggesting that in order for the victim to be found within the mat, he would have had to been, for a lack of better term, stuffed into the mat. In conjunction with the second and third autopsy reports stating blunt forced trauma was the cause of death, the most likely way for Johnson to be found in the gym mat would be for an assailant to put the victim there after death. 

One source stated that dried blood was found on the wall of the gymnasium, shoes and a hoodie not belonging to Johnson were found at the scene. This particular source claimed that Police did not test these items. Due to this source only speculating this, I cannot say if this is in fact the truth. If however this is the truth, then this is bad Police and Forensic work. The blood on the wall should have been tested to link it to either the victim or anyone that may have been present at the time of the incident. The hoodie may or may not be linked to the crime. This at a forensic stand point would not be on a high enough relevance to warrant the spending to test it, however the shoes were speculated to be found on the mat above Johnson's body. These should have been tested in relevance to the crime. This source also stated that the Police did not cordon off the scene, the CCTV footage is missing from the time of Police investigation of the scene, and that the Coroner was not called until six hours after the Police entered the scene. I cannot find sources that support that claim, yet I cannot find any that refute it either, so it remains in question.  

The exceptionally hard part of this particular crime is that it occurred in a school where thousands of students frequent. This makes DNA evidence really hard, not to obtain DNA, but to distinguish if the DNA is transferred or it came from the incident. The cost alone to DNA test the gym and then having to find suspects for the crime, as you must have a reasonable amount of evidence to have someone give DNA evidence, would be astronomical. So for people who are going to say, "let's just DNA test everyone in the high school and then DNA test every article related to the crime scene to find out who the majority of the DNA came from and hopefully find a match," this is a very unreasonable idea. The cost is just too high that the items that are of most relevance are the only items that will be tested, and finding a match is harder as unless the assailant is, or a close family member is on a criminal database, there will be no matches available to even go forward with investigation resulting usually in a cold case.       

In my personal opinion, I believe that the police investigation was a product of conformational bias. This is a form of bias that forms when an individual/s (the Police in this case) already has a preconceived idea about what happened. This often leads to ignoring crucial evidence and the development of patterns that are often not there. In this case the Police believed that the death was accidental very early on into the investigation. This transitioned to the coroner and resulted in the wrongful conclusion from the autopsy. 

Many theories surrounding who may have killed Kendrick Johnson have arisen. I personally do not want to comment on these theories as the theories themselves are quite complex and some cannot have even occurred due to proof via alibis and CCTV footage. So far there is no true suspect, just various theories. So far this case remains unsolved, and it is unclear if any further criminal investigation is likely to occur.  

My final thoughts on this case is that it was wrongfully handled from the beginning. Police had preconceived ideas about the event and how it occurred, resulting in an incorrect conclusion. This makes this case a miscarriage of justice case. The family deserve to know what happened to Johnson and the assailant deserves to be identified and charged. Due to the early ruling of this being an accident no murder weapon was investigated, so I personally would like to see a weapon type try to be matched to the injuries. I would like to see if there was fingernail scrapings taken from the victim during initial forensic examination, and if swabs were taken from the clothing of the victim.      

*link to official autopsy report by Dr. William R. Anderson

Author Note 1: the organs may have been destroyed prior to the second and third autopsies, but microscope slides from the first autopsy were given to the independent examiner. 

Author Note 2: the image that comes up of Johnson's body from a Google search that shows a bludgeoned and bruised body is that from after the autopsy occurred.