Kendrick Johnson Suit - The parents of a 17-year-old Georgia boy found dead inside a rolled up wrestling mat have filled a $100 million wrongful death suit against 38 people - including three classmates and local, state and law enforcement officials.
Kendrick Johnson's body was found on Jan. 11, 2013 upside down in a rolled mat at the Lowndes High School gym. Kendrick was a member of the school's wrestling team.
Kenneth and Jacquelyn Johnson filled the civil suit on Monday in the Superior Court in Dekalb County after the second anniversary of Kendrick's death.
Lowndes County sheriff's detectives have since ruled Kendrick's death as resulting from a freak accident substantiated with an autopsy report revealing that he died of asphyxiation.
Investigators say Kendrick met his death while trying to recover a gym shoe that had fallen into the upright mat, a claim his parents dismiss out rightly.
The Kendrick Johnson suit accuses specific classmates of killing him and law enforcement officials of conspiring and manipulating evidence to ensure that nobody is prosecuted for the teenagers death.
The officials accused of conspiracy in the Kendrick Johnson suit include the local school superintendent, the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigators, deputies, the Valdosta police chief, 17 sheriff's investigators and the state medical examiner, who conducted the autopsy on the late teenager.
"Defendants from various law enforcement agencies deliberately and maliciously mishandled the subject investigation in such a way that anyone who might ever be charged with Kendrick's death would never be convicted," the Johnson's suit read.
The Johnsons' attorney Chevene King says Kendrick was attacked by the sons of an FBI agent who were "seeking revenge" after one of them had a fight with the deceased a year before the tragic incident. King also said the brothers attacked Kendrick because they were on a "parental command" to do so.
However, Brice Ladson, attorney for the brothers and their father, says the Kendrick Johnson suit is frivolous."Mr. King and his clients, the Johnson's, know the allegations against my clients are completely baseless," he said.
James Elliot, Lowndes County Attorney says the claims in the Kendrick Johnson suit "are unfounded and lack any basis in law or in fact. We will respond further to these baseless accusations through the Courts."
The suit is the second the Johnsons have filed since the death of the teen. The family has received permission to exhume Kendrick's body for a second autopsy. Federal authorities have not released any findings after launching an investigation into the complicated case since Oct.31, 2013.
