VALDOSTA – Friends and supporters joined the family of Kendrick Johnson downtown Saturday, waving signs and saying, once again, they want “justice.” 

Though local, state and federal investigations have all determined KJ’s death in 2013 was a tragic accident and did not result from foul play, the family has never been satisfied with those findings. 

The group gathered on the corners of East Valley Street and North Ashley Street in response to the release last week of Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk’s review of Kendrick “K.J.” Johnson’s case.

Though Paulk wasn’t sheriff at the time when Johnson was found upside down in a vertically stored gym mat at Lowndes High School in January 2013, the sheriff spent 15 months reviewing 17 boxes of investigative material from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, as well as autopsy results and federal grand jury testimony by 58 individuals.

A state autopsy ruled the 17-year-old’s death accidental in 2013 at Lowndes High School. A federal review of the case ended in 2016 when the Department of Justice announced it had not found “sufficient evidence to support federal criminal charges.”

The Johnson family has maintained their son died of foul play and has filed multiple unsuccessful lawsuits against dozens of defendants through the years. Johnson’s body was exhumed more than once for follow-up autopsies.

The Johnson family was involved with Paulk’s review toward the beginning, but Kendrick’s mother, Jacquelyne, said she doesn’t agree with the outcome. Paulk’s review concluded Johnson’s death was an accident.

She said too many people know his death doesn’t make any sense. But most of all she found discrepancies with some of Paulk’s findings, case in point the third autopsy.

Jacquelyne Johnson said the third autopsy wasn’t performed by the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, but rather by Dr. William R. Anderson, who performed the second autopsy, alongside another pathologist.

“You can’t turn a murder to an accident,” Jacquelyne Johnson said.

At the end of the day, the Johnson family wants justice for their fallen son, but true justice to them would be having Kendrick still standing beside them and living his life. At the end of the day, the Johnson family said they still hurt and still fight for answers. 

The Johnson family said they plan to continue the fight for answers whether it be on a Downtown Valdosta street corner or in other venues.