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Kendrick Johnson Case Gets Trayvon Martin’s Lawyer
Kendrick Johnson Case Gets Trayvon Martin’s Lawyer
The attorney who helped Trayvon Martin’s family seek justice after George Zimmerman shot their teenage son is also now working to reopen the case regarding Kendrick Johnson, a Georgia teenager found slain and rolled up in a school wrestling mat last January.
Benjamin Crump, an attorney based out of Tallahassee, Florida, is hoping to pressure police authorities to reopen their investigation. Originally, police said that 17-year old Kendrick Johnson’s death was a result of an accident rather than murder and that he fell and became trapped in the mat rather than rolled up there after being killed.
Because Crump was successful in having George Zimmerman brought to trial after the death of Trayvon Martin, Johnson’s parents hired him to find out the true facts surrounding their child’s unusual death.
Second try: The Johnson family asked for and received permission to exhume their son’s body for another autopsy in June
According to reports, investigators left some potential evidence at the gym, including one hoe and a hooded sweatshirt.
Harold Copus, an Atlanta private investigator and a former FBI agent, says he’s not sure how the crime scene was handled.
“If you’re running a crime scene, then you’re going to say ‘That’s potential evidence. Obviously, we’re going to check this out and find out who does it belong to,’ ” he said.
“I don’t believe this was an accident. I think this young man met with foul play.”
Sickening: ‘We have been let down again,’ his father, pictured center with Kendrick’s mother, right, told CNN. ‘When we buried Kendrick, we thought we were burying Kendrick, not half of Kendrick’
When Johnson did not return home from school, his parents filed a missing person’s report with the police and his body was ultimately found in the school gym, stuck upside down inside a rolled up wresting mat that was positioned against the bleachers.
The medical examiner said he died from asphyxia, but Johnson’s parents along with Crump are suspicious that foul play was involved. A second autopsy has been performed, but the boy’s organs were missing from his body.
On The Web:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57606960-504083/kendrick-johnson-death-trayvon-martin-family-lawyer-takes-on-case-of-ga-teen-found-dead-in-rolled-up-wrestling-mat/