“The Court again expresses its concern about the inconsistencies between the various official reports on KJ’s death and Plaintiffs’ allegations,” Geraghty said, though she eventually concluded that technical barriers would prevent the lawsuit from succeeding at trial.
A federal judge has dismissed a $1 billion lawsuit filed by the parents of a Georgia teenager who was found dead inside of a high school gym mat.
According to CBS News, on January 11, 2013, 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson’s classmates found his body upside-down inside of a rolled-up wrestling mat in the Lowndes High School gymnasium. Investigators determined that Johnson had died in a “freak accident,” finding that he had likely tried to retrieve a shoe from inside the mat before becoming trapped.
CBS News notes that the unusual circumstances surrounding the teen’s death attracted attention, both in Georgia and in the national media. Johnson’s parents have long maintained that Kendrick was most likely murdered and that school officials, along with the state Bureau of Investigation, intentionally covered up the crime. To support their position, the family has pointed to the results of an autopsy, which reported that Johnson appears to have sustained “unexplained non-accidental blunt force trauma.”
The case was reopened by the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office in 2021.
Shortly after the case was reopened, Sheriff Ashley Paulk said that the totality of physical evidence, interviews, and eyewitness testimony “does not produce anything to prove any criminal act to anyone that would have resulted in the death of Kendrick Johnson.”
Paulk was not involved in the initial investigation into Johnson’s death.
“Any person who looks at this case objectively would know that it would be impossible to conceal any evidence due to the involvement of so many agencies and investigators,” he wrote.
The Johnson family filed its lawsuit shortly after Paulk’s office released the findings of its investigation. However, in a recent development, U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Geraghty conceded that there do appear to be some discrepancies in the way that the initial investigation was handled. For example, Kendrick’s shoulders were about five inches wider than the gap in the mat.
“The coroner later reported that ‘the investigative climate was very poor to worse when I arrived on scene,'” Geraghty wrote. “He reported that law enforcement did not cooperate with him, KJ’s body had been moved, and the sealed body bag had been opened.”
Though Geraghty acknowledged these discrepancies, among others, she dismissed several defendants from the claim, finding that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was immune to the claim under the Eleventh Amendment and that Lowndes County cannot be sued because the Johnson family failed to serve county officials within 90 days of the complaint being filed.
“The Court again expresses its concern about the inconsistencies between the various official reports on KJ’s death and Plaintiffs’ allegations,” Geraghty said, though she eventually concluded that technical barriers would prevent the lawsuit from succeeding at trial.
The family has since attempted to remove Geraghty from the case, alleging bias; that motion was also denied.
Sources
Federal judge dismisses $1 billion lawsuit by parents of Georgia teen found dead in gym mat
Kendrick Johnson family files $10B lawsuit against federal judges
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