Billy Joe Johnson

Lawyer: Still waiting on report
Johnson was out of truck when shot
By MARGARET BAKER - mbbaker@sunherald.com

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tool goes here LUCEDALE — George County High School football star Billey Joe Johnson Jr. was outside his truck with the driver’s door open when he died of a gunshot wound to the head, an independent pathologist has concluded.

Johnson’s attorney, Jerome Carter of the Cochran Law Firm in Mobile, said Monday night that the independent pathologist was able to make those conclusions after examining the truck the 17-year-old was stopped in minutes before his death the morning of Dec. 8.

Carter, however, said there were portions of Johnson’s head and face that the pathologist was unable to examine to determine the manner of death because it is in the hands of the state medical examiner’s office.


Billy Joe Johnson.
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“What we hired our pathologist to do, we couldn’t do because what was to be analyzed and examined was not there,” Carter said. “We’re still conducting our investigation relative to the manner of death on the forensic side of it, but we must wait for the state to release their information. The manner of death is what is still to be determined.”

Carter and his team are awaiting the results of the state pathologist’s report. Jackson County District Attorney Tony Lawrence said Monday night that he’s not been presented the final report.

“Forensic scientists know better than I do when their testing is complete and they can release their report,” Lawrence said. “I did not get any calls from them today.”

Johnson’s family called on the NAACP to investigate when their son died of what authorities said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head the morning he was stopped at Benndale Carpet off Mississippi 26.

Johnson had just been identified as a suspect in a burglary in progress at a former girlfriend’s Lucedale home minutes before a George County sheriff’s deputy pulled him over for running a stop sign and a red light.

In the incident report, the sheriff’s deputy said that he was at his patrol car checking Johnson’s driver’s license when he heard a gunshot and breaking glass and then saw Johnson dead outside his truck with a shotgun on top of him.

Johnson’s family, along with representatives of the NAACP, say Johnson would not have committed suicide because he had too much to live for. An all-star running back, Johnson had been offered numerous college scholarships.

As part of their findings so far, they’ve said that the wounds on Johnson’s body were not consistent with what was included in the report of the incident.

The attorney said Monday that his investigators also found no evidence of Johnson’s truck being fully examined, such as sticker marks that authorities would use to mark things like where a bullet might have struck and other evidence.

“With three hours invested into it (the medical examination) with our pathologist, we were simply hopeful that there would be something there that would be able to make a determination on the manner of the death,” Carter said. “But everything that could conclusively tell us was just not there.”

Carter said their investigation is continuing.

“There are a number of people contacting us to give us information,” he said.