Sheriff's review finds no foul play in teen's gym mat death

[Sherman A1]

VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) -- A Georgia sheriff who last year reopened an investigation into the 2013 death of a teenager found inside a rolled-up gym mat at school concluded there was no evidence of foul play after reviewing voluminous evidence collected by federal investigators.

Classmates at Lowndes High School in Valdosta found 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson's body on Jan. 11, 2013. Sheriff's investigators decided soon after that Johnson died in a freak accident, stuck upside down and unable to breathe while trying to retrieve a shoe that fell inside the upright mat.

Johnson's parents have long insisted that someone killed him, and that school officials and law enforcement covered up the crime.

Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk, who wasn't in office when Johnson's death was first investigated, agreed to take a new look last March after the teenager's parents helped him obtain the Department of Justice's case file on the death. Evidence in the file filled 17 boxes

https://krcgtv.com/news/nation-world/sheriffs-review-finds-no-foul-play-in-teens-gym-mat-death

[Jilly_in_VA]

1. This is just wrong

They needed to have an OUTSIDE investigation.

[madville]

3. They did

The FBI and DOJ (under Holder and Lynch) spent a couple of years investigating.

I get that the parents want some kind of closure other than it being most likely an accident but if there’s no evidence of foul play then there’s no evidence.

[Hoyt]

2. As tradgic as it is, think that is what happened. Photos look like he fell in a well upside down.

The photos make me gasp for air thinking about him upside down with no way to get out.

[madville]

4. Yeah, the reporting on this always says he was "rolled up"

In my mind that makes me think the mat was on the ground and someone rolled him up in it, like you roll up a rug or a yoga mat, which wasn’t the case. He (most likely) fell into the void of a rolled or folded up mat that was by the bleachers and the wall.

I lived near Valdosta when this happened, there were all kinds of false stories floating around at the time it happened.