It's been over a year since Kendrick Johnson was found dead in a rolled-up gym mat at Lowndes County High School in Valdosta, Georgia. According to sheriff's investigators and the county medical examiner, Kendrick fell into the mat and suffocated. However, his family paid for an independent autopsy which suggested he died from a blow to the neck. It turned out that the EMTs had actually seen signs of blunt-force trauma to the neck when they responded to the scene--but it wasn't mentioned in the medical examiner's report. To add insult to injury, the pathologist that the Johnsons hired to conduct the second autopsy found several of Kendrick's organs had been removed, and the cavities stuffed with newspaper. Now the Johnsons are suing the Valdosta funeral home that handled Kendrick's remains, accusing him of willfully hindering the investigation into Kendrick's death.
Roy Copeland, a lawyer for Harrington Funeral Home and its owner, Antonio Harrington, said his client had not been served as of Wednesday and could not comment on something he has not seen.In the lawsuit, filed January 31 and amended Wednesday, the family alleges that not only did the funeral home mishandle the organs, it disposed of them to thwart an investigation into Johnson's cause of death.
"This lawsuit challenges the morally despicable, fraudulent, unlawful and unfair business practices" of Harrington Funeral Home, the court document states.
The suit effectively challenges the findings of a state investigation that found Harrington did nothing illegal. According to the Johnsons, Harrington willfully disposed of Kendrick's organs in an effort to thwart the investigation. If this is true, this guy deserves to be driven out of business by all legal means possible.While CNN has been in the driver's seat for this story from the beginning, CBS has also picked up the story and has more details on the suit. Apparently Harrington had some doubts about the official finding that Kendrick's death was an accident.
Johnson’s remains were delivered to the Harrington Funeral Home on Jan. 14, 2013, four days after the teen’s death. Upon receiving the remains, Antonio Harrington expressed concerns to Johnson’s parents about the explanation for their child’s death, according to court documents obtained by Crimesider.Harrington “recommended that [Johnson’s parents] should get a ‘second opinion’ as to the cause of death notwithstanding the then-unknown-findings of official autopsy,” the court documents say.
Harrington also told the Johnsons that Kendrick's clothes weren't delivered with his body. The Johnsons had hoped to obtain his clothes in order to dispute the results of the original investigation. In truth, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, all of Kendrick's personal effects, including his clothes, were sent to the funeral home in a body bag along with Kendrick's remains. No one knows what happened to Kendrick's clothes. The Johnsons also say that Kendrick's face was so badly decomposed that he recommended a closed casket--but the Johnsons refused.After the second autopsy suggested Kendrick had been murdered, Kendrick's dad asked Harrington whether the organs had been missing at the time the body arrived at the funeral home. Harrington reportedly told the Johnsons that only a couple were missing--but in an earlier letter, Harrington said that his organs had been destroyed by "natural process" and had been discarded by the GBI before the body was sent to the funeral home. One thing is beyond dispute--Harrington has a lot of explaining to do. And in all likelihood, he'll have to do so under oath.
The missing organs are one of many things in this case that strongly indicate a massive cover-up. When deputies arrived, they found a bloodbath--so much of one that when a former FBI agent reviewed crime scene photos, he concluded Kendrick had been murdered. According to a well-respected forensic video analyst, at least an hour of surveillance video from the gym is missing.
Federal prosecutors have been investigating this case since October. When all is said and done, hopefully everyone responsible for this cover-up--and I mean everyone, including Harrington if he was in on it--ends up going to jail.