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Sheriff Paulk stated he had examined 17 packing containers of proof offered by prosecutors and investigators, together with grand jury testimony. The proof “doesn’t produce something to show any felony act by anybody that will have resulted within the dying of Kendrick Johnson,” Sheriff Paulk’s report stated.
Kendrick’s father, Kenneth Johnson, stated he nonetheless believed that somebody had killed his son, a well-liked athlete at Lowndes Excessive and the youngest of 5 siblings.
Mr. Johnson, 53, stated {that a} forensic pathologist employed by the household, William R. Anderson, had discovered that the reason for dying was blunt-force trauma to the best facet of the boy’s neck, close to the jaw.
“The reality is the reality,” Mr. Johnson stated. “You possibly can’t make an accident out of a homicide.”
The findings of Mr. Anderson’s post-mortem, carried out 5 months after Kendrick’s dying, contradicted the conclusions of the health worker on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who in 2013 issued an post-mortem report that decided the reason for dying was “positional asphyxia,” suggesting that Kendrick had turn out to be trapped upside-down within the rolled-up mat and had suffocated.
Sheriff Paulk stated the conflicting post-mortem reviews have been sophisticated by a 3rd post-mortem carried out by the Workplace of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner in 2014. That report additionally dominated the dying unintended and brought on by asphyxiation however was later amended to say the reason for dying was “undetermined.”
Even after the federal investigation, questions on Kendrick’s dying continued in Valdosta.
In 2016, Sheriff Paulk, who had retired the yr earlier than Kendrick died, determined to run once more for his outdated seat. He stated that on the marketing campaign path, he had been approached a number of occasions by Black voters who needed him to have a look at the case once more.
“I felt that I ought to have a look at this,” he stated. “Plus, I needed to know myself.”
However Sheriff Paulk, 76, stated that as he had reviewed the federal authorities’s paperwork, it appeared that prosecutors had turn out to be decided to cost the 2 college students. He described their investigation as a “witch hunt” and stated electronic mail correspondence between prosecutors confirmed they’d been feeling stress to get outcomes.
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