The parents of Kendrick Johnson, the 17-year-old Lowndes High School student who was found dead inside a rolled up gym mat in January 2013, are making another plea for fellow students and families to come forward with answers now that new evidence has emerged about their son’s mysterious death.

The Johnson family has never stopped the pursuit of answers and justice for their son.

For nearly two years, the family insisted that Johnson’s death was no accident and an independent autopsy report backed those beliefs.

The series of events leading up to the discovery of the dead teen made media headlines after key security footage was nowhere to be found and the official explanation for the teen’s death just didn’t add up.

A series of documents that the Johnson family obtained under Georgia’s Open Records Act revealed that there is yet another discrepancy in the explanation of their son’s death.

Initially, it was believed that Johnson was left behind by his wrestling teammates who took off for the state tournament 90 minutes before Johnson was spotted still alive on school surveillance video.

That seemed to eliminate any possibility of any of his teammates being involved in his death.

According to the bus log, however, the team was actually still on the high school’s campus for quite some time and could have still been there when Johnson somehow ended up inside the gym mat.

Instead of leaving at 11 a.m. like initial reports claimed, the bus didn’t leave until 4 p.m., nearly three hours after Johnson was last seen on the surveillance footage.

The Johnson family pointed out that they won’t have Kendrick at the table with them this Thanksgiving and they will never have that privilege again. The least anyone could do for them, the family says, is to offer some truth about why their son won’t be joining them at the table.

“We appeal to families becase we, too, are supposed to have Kendrick at our dinner table for Thanksgiving, and we know that a lot of students know a lot of information that haven’t came forward,” said Kenneth Johnson, Kendrick’s father. “We just wish they’d come forward.”

The FBI and the Justice Department have launched their own investigations into the case.

As the months go by, more evidence surfaces that seems to suggest Johnson’s death may be part of a complex cover-up.

When the family requested an autopsy by an independent pathologist, they expected that they would discover a cause of death other than “positional asphyxia” but they didn’t expect to discover newspaper in the place of Johnson’s organs.

According to Dr. William R. Anderson, who conducted the second autopsy, most of Johnson’s internal organs were missing and the body cavity had been filled with newspaper instead.

A spokeswoman for the GBI said that it is the agency’s policy to return all organs to the body after autopsies and that’s what they did with Johnson.

Despite their claims, nobody has been able to offer an explanation as to where Johnson’s organs are and why his body had been stuffed with newspaper.

Suspicions that the funeral home had something to do with it were dispelled after it was revealed that newspapers weren’t even the standard materials for filling body cavities for funerals.

Most funeral homes use sawdust or cotton or other more absorbent materials.

For now, the Johnson family is left with more crucial pieces of evidence and still very few answers, if any at all, about what really happened to their son on that tragic day.

There are new developments in the case of Kendrick Johnson, a 17-year-old Black student found dead in a school gym in Lowndes County, Ga. in 2013.

CNN reported that federal marshals, warrant in hand, seized emails from the Lowndes County sheriff’s office on July 21 and 22 related to the federal grand jury investigation into the teen’s death. Government agents early Tuesday morning searched and seized property, including cell phones, computers, and other electronics, from the Jacksonville, Fla. area home of FBI agent Rick Bell, whose two sons went to school with Johnson. Similar searches were conducted on the two brothers, who live elsewhere and a girlfriend of one of the brothers, according to the Associated Press.

County investigators ruled Johnson’s death accidental, a case of “positional asphyxia,” claiming he got stuck while reaching for a shoe at the center of the gym mat. Meanwhile, a forensic pathologist hired by the Johnson family concluded the death was a homicide, with evidence of “unexplained, nonaccidental blunt force trauma.”

In October 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice began a federal investigation. Earlier this year, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Johnson’s parents, Jacquelyn and Kenneth Johnson, filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit. The suit, which names local law enforcement and the city of Valdosta as defendants, alleges a female lured their son into the gym, where two brothers—former classmates of Johnson—beat the Black teen to death at the behest of their father Rick Bell, a local FBI agent. The suit accuses school officials, law enforcement and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation of conspiring to protect the brothers.

The Bell family countersued, accusing the Johnsons of using “others as their authorized agents to post messages on various social media, including Facebook, Twitter, blogs, instant messaging, and the like, that were defamatory of the Bells.”  The Bells also sued Ebony magazine in a $5 million slander and libel suit, based on articles accusing their sons—through the use of aliases—of being involved in Kendrick Johnson’s death.

Benjamin Crump, co-counsel for the Johnsons, who also has represented the family of Trayvon Martin in the George Zimmerman case, of Michael Brown, who was killed by police in Ferguson, Mo., and Tamir Rice, who was shot to death by Cleveland police for holding a toy gun, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that federal prosecutors are convinced Kendrick Johnson’s death was not accidental.

Brian Bell, one of the agent’s sons named in the Johnson wrongful death lawsuit, posted his reactions to the federal on social media, as was reported in First Coast News:

Johnson’s parents, who also filed a lawsuit against the Lowndes County Board of Education and the board members, have been fighting for over two years to establish the truth and seek justice for their son.

Kendrick Johnson, not unlike other young Black people, ended up dead and the authorities claim there was no foul play. When Black people die, often it is ruled a suicide or an accident, and the victim is blamed for his or her own death. One has to wonder how a young man is found dead, rolled up in a gym mat, and no one is responsible.  The feds seem to agree.

Given the mysterious deaths of Sandra Bland in Waller County, Texas, 18-year-old Kindra Chapman in Ala., and Kendrick Johnson in Lowndes County, Ga., we are reminded that #BlackLivesMatter and justice must be done.

When a young Black person is found dead in the South, the circumstances surrounding that death seem to remain a mystery, shrouded in controversy and uncertainty. This was the case with Emmett Till, Sandra Bland and Kendrick Johnson.

Johnson’s parents have dropped their $100 million wrongful death lawsuits, with a plan to revisit the litigation, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.   On January 11, 2013, Johnson, 17, was found dead, rolled up in a gym mat in Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia.  While county investigators ruled the death was accidental, a pathologist hired by Johnson’s parents concluded the teen died from  a homicide through blunt force trauma. On October 31, 2013, Michael Moore, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, announced an inquiry into Johnson’s death.

Jacquelyn and Kenneth Johnson filed two lawsuits — one against Brian and Brandon Bell, the sons of an FBI agent they believe was involved in their son’s death, and another alleging a massive cover-up and conspiracy by state and local officials, the police, and the medical examiner’s office to protect those who were involved in the killing.  The Johnsons claimed that a female lured their son into the school gym, where the two sons of FBI agent Rick Bell beat their former classmate to death at their father’s behest.

According to Chevene King, lawyer for the Johnson family, the motion for a dismissal of the case is a procedural move.

“We will be refiling in the coming months,” he told CNN. “We understand the federal investigation is ongoing and this gives us an opportunity to strengthen our case.”

“We certainly want to take advantage of the additional time,” King added.

“I do believe the Johnsons will revisit the matter,” Marcus Coleman, spokesman for Kendrick’s parents, told The AJC, noting the move was a strategic one. “We did not want the civil matter to be the primary focus.”

Coleman added that he believes the investigation is almost complete, after which time he expects the Johnsons to refile their wrongful death suits, as the law requires they do within six months.

Meanwhile, the Bell family counter-sued the Johnsons, in a case that still remains.

“I’ll see them in court,” Karen Bell, mother of Brian Bell, told The AJC on Tuesday.

Valdosta has been noted for its long history of racism that has continued to the present day. As USA Today reported, on Monday evening, 30 to 40 Black students were ejected from a Trump rally at Valdosta State University, which had remained a whites-only campus until 1963.

“Protestors” escorted out of Trump Valdosta event before it begins pic.twitter.com/x9aoA0l5wb

— Noah Gray CNN (@NoahGrayCNN) March 1, 2016

With a federal investigation ongoing, the case of Kendrick Johnson is a curious one.  In early 2015, all seven judges in Georgia’s Southern Judicial Circuit recused themselves from the Johnson lawsuit on the grounds that they could not be fair.  U.S. Attorney Michael Moore resigned, and the federal case was transferred to the Northern District of Ohio.  Steven Dettelbach, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, resigned in February, according to CNN.  The federal probe continues to be led from Northern Ohio.

In the meantime, when Black people are found dead, it is always an accident, or a suicide, but never foul play.  Perhaps we will get closer to the truth in this troubling and baffling case.

While continuing the search for answers into their son’s death, the parents of Kendrick Johnson were dealt another heavy blow.

On Thursday, a judge ordered Kenneth and Jackie Johnson to pay the legal fees of Brian and Brandon Bell, the brothers they accused of killing their son in a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit filed last year.

The decision was handed down by Lowndes County Superior Court Judge Richard Porter, who said he spent “considerable time” reviewing the motions for reimbursement, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports.

Johnson’s body was discovered in a rolled-up gym mat at Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia on Jan. 11, 2013. While his parents suspected foul play from the beginning, a state medical examiner ruled that the 17-year-old died from positional asphyxia after he became stuck in the mat. It’s presumed he was reaching for a gym shoe at the time. However, a second autopsy performed by a private pathologist determined the teen’s death was caused by blunt force trauma.

Johnson’s parents have been searching for answers ever since. According to Atlanta Black Star, the Johnsons hired Florida-based attorney Benjamin Crump in October 2013 to investigate their son’s mysterious death. Crump rose to fame after representing the family of Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Soon after, the grieving parents filed a lawsuit against the Harrington Funeral Home after discovering their son had been buried without his internal organs and his body stuffed with newspaper.

A break in Johnson’s death investigation came when authorities finally subpoenaed Brian and Brandon Bell, the brothers alleged to have murdered the Valdosta teen. The Bells’ parents were subpoenaed as well because their father worked for the FBI. However, the boys were cleared of any wrongdoing on account of a solid alibi and school surveillance footage.

That’s when the Johnsons filed their $10 million lawsuit, accusing 39 defendants — including law enforcement officials and three former classmates — of conspiring to cover up their son’s death. The suit was ultimately dropped in March 2016.

The Johnsons’ ultimate blow came when the Department of Justice announced that there would be no criminal charges filed in their son’s death.

“After extensive investigation into this tragic event, federal investigators determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone or some group of people willfully violated Kendrick Johnson’s civil rights or committed any other prosecutable federal crime,” a statement from the Justice Department read. “Accordingly, the investigation into this incident has been closed without the filing of federal criminal charges.”

The Johnsons’ fight for justice has been an uphill battle, to say the least.

“There’s no stopping because of what they keep throwing at us,” Jackie Johnson told Valdosta’s WTXL. “That’s all it is. It’s something that they keep trying to throw us to silence us, but we — my husband and I — will not be silenced — not when it comes to our son.

“We know he was killed at Lowndes High School,” she continued. “It’s time for somebody to be held responsible and take accountability to what has been done at that schoolhouse.”

Karen Bell, the mother of Brian and Brandon Bell, expressed joy over Judge Porter’s recent decision.

“I’m satisfied with the ruling and looking forward to our counterclaim against the Johnsons,” she told the AJC Thursday.

According to the AJC, the Bells’ countersuit, alleging slander and libel, seeks up to $1 million in damages.

A court hearing determining how much the Johnsons will be required to pay is set for Thursday. The Bells, the Lowndes County sheriff and Lowndes County school system all filed motions for reimbursement, which total a whopping $900,000, the AJC reports.

The school system also issued this statement regarding the compensation of legal fees:

“The Lowndes County School System defendants are pleased with today’s ruling in the Superior Court of Lowndes County granting their motion for attorneys’ fees in the three cases filed by the Johnsons against them. Any further comment will be reserved pending the outcome of the hearings to determine the specific amount of attorneys’ fees awarded.”

A federal judge has dismissed the wrongful death suit filed by the parents of a South Georgia teen found dead in a rolled-up gym mat in 2013.

U.S. District Court Judge Louis W. Sands Sr. dismissed the case on Wednesday, June 14, citing Kenneth and Jacquelyn Johnson’s negligence in failing to serve the defendants with their amended lawsuit in a timely manner, CNN reported. In a federal court order, Sands also pointed to the Johnsons’ tardiness in filing for an extension and their legal counsel’s ignorance of a recent law change.

“The Court has already recognized that Plaintiffs did not complete service within the first ninety days because of counsel’s ignorance of a 2015 change to Rule 4(m), which reduced the number of days to complete service from 120 to 90,” he wrote. “The record is replete with evidence that Plaintiffs attempted to complete service in this action, but because of alleged non-compliance with the federal rules and other problems, they were unable to ever adequately do so.”

The judge’s decision comes nearly four years after multiple court filings by the Johnsons after their son, 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson, was discovered inside a rolled gym mat at Lowndes County High School in Valdosta, Ga. Suspecting foul play and a massive coverup in their son’s death, the teen’s parents filed a $100-million wrongful death suit in January 2015. In it, they named their son’s former schoolmates Branden Bell, Brian Bell and their father, FBI Special Agent Rick Bell, as defendants.

The Bells have denied any role in the teen’s death.

“We’re pleased to see the case dismissed once again,” said lawyer Patrick T. O’Connor, who represents the Bell family. “The case was meritless from the beginning and has now been dismissed twice.”

A state autopsy determined that Johnson’s death was an accident, but his parents still questioned the nature of his demise. In 2016, the U.S. Justice Department ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to prove foul play in the teen’s death.

While Sands’ decision is yet another setback in the Johnsons’ quest for justice, Atlanta’s 11 Alive reported that because the court order was filed without prejudice, the parents can try the case again.