14 DAY TRIAL // The parents of a Georgia teen suffering a suspicious death have enlisted the help of the Trayvon Martin family lawyer to make sure that the case is prosecuted.
The death of Kendrick Johnson, of Valdosta, was ruled an accident. The varsity athlete's body was found inside a rolled up gym mat last January. According to WCTV, authorities concluded that he suffocated to death.
NBC News adds that the examiners claimed that he got inside the mat while trying to retrieve a sneaker, on January 11.
"We know how Kendrick is. [...] We know he would have never crawled up in no mat," mother, Jacquelyn Johnson explains.
The family of the 17-year-old boy ordered an independent autopsy, which pinpointed blunt force trauma as the cause of death.
After a June court hearing, they had the body exhumed, and noticed that his internal organs had been pulled out and replaced with newspaper. His heart, brain, lungs, and intestines are missing.
Ben Crump, the attorney asking for criminal prosecution on part of Trayvon Martin's family, is accusing the examiner's officer of a cover up.
"There were no organs in there. [...] He [also] concluded that it was a homicide, and that he died from blunt force trauma.
"These parents sent their son to school with a book bag and he was returned to them in a body bag. [...] They're outraged. They've been outraged for the last nine months," Crump says.
The teenager's clothes were also missing, the family learned when they exhumed the body. Kendrick's parents are now seeking that officials involved in the cover up be brought to justice.
"There is indication by the funeral home director that they were destroyed. We have to accept that as being a statement, and perhaps a statement of fact, but the question is by whom, and for what reason," family attorney Cheven King adds.