Details Of The Gregory Johnson Case
- loudandeverproud
- Jul 15, 2020
- 3 min read
If you do not already know the details of the case, or you would like a simplified version, check out our earlier post about Gregory Johnson.
This article consists of further details of the case, ones that highlight exactly why we would like the case to be re-opened. These details are from the sources below and since most of them were written many years ago, I have no way of fact-checking them. If any Sigma Chi fraternity member from 2008 or anyone else involved in this case would like to be quoted, message me on Instagram (@loudandeverproud).
Gregory Johnson was allegedly found dead on November 22nd in 2008, in the basement of the Sigma Chi fraternity house.
On November 23rd, when his family entered the crime scene, it had already been cleaned up with Pine Sol. Members of the fraternity lied to the evidence collector and tampered with Johnson's belongings. A phone on the scene was said not to be his, but Johnson's sister-in-law recognized it and was able to take it home with her. Later that night, she looked through it and found that all the photos on the phone had been deleted, and somebody had tried to call his phone several hours after he had allegedly been found dead.
The cremator did not allow Johnson's family to view the body or to ID it, stating that a fraternity member had already IDed the body. The coroner's office also said that if his family could not get the money to send his body to Clearlake, they would simply cremate it in a few hours.
After two weeks, his body arrived at the funeral home. His mother found a crack in the back of his head that was oozing brain matter, an injury not mentioned in the autopsy report which stated death by ligature hanging (suicide). Johnson's neck was broken as well.
Furthermore, in 2015, the Johnson family filed a lawsuit trying to get the documents from the investigation released, but the lawsuit wasn't recognized on terms of "the statute of limitation."
According to the family, Johnson was friends with another fraternity member, whose dad is the influential CEO of Monster Energy drinks. After Johnson's death, all pictures of him were deleted, including the ones of a vacation they had gone on before his death. The family believes that this is why SJSU covered up his death—because of the ties to wealthy fraternity members.
Pictures of the body from the Johnson family do not indicate any scars from hanging as the autopsy report suggested. Another point of interest is that while Johnson stood 6'2, and the height from the water pipe to the floor where he was allegedly found hanging was 5'10, elevating interest on how he could have hung himself.
Let's not forget that his family and girlfriend at the time all believed that he was doing fine mentally. There was no indication of suicidal thoughts. His performance in class, which is thought to be one of the factors that decline when someone is suicidal, was fine and one of his teachers, Ann Nolasco, even ventured to say that it was "difficult for anyone that knew Greg to believe he committed suicide."
When the FBI took over this case, they investigated it as a possible hate crime. However, when the case reached the desk of Attorney General Eric Holder, investigations stopped. A 405 page report was written by "Mike" D. Moye and never released to the public, and only the first few pages to the family due to "confidentiality."
Remember, we are not accusing anyone right now. Our main goal is to have this case re-opened and investigated fairly. If San Jose State University did not cover anything up, this will be a minor headache to them. But if it is indeed something darker, then we have to call them out now, despite the fact that it has take over twelve years to get to this point.
At the time, I have reached out to Sandre Swanson, the lawyer who was working with the family at the time for a statement. I have also reached out to Eric Holder, mentioned above, who was an attorney general, and Ladoris Cordell, who was at the scene of the crime, and Michael Laris, who found Johnson's body and provided a conflicting account of what the crime scene looked like. None have responded, though I have contacted them only recently. I would like to have all sides of the story, possibly details that would explain the ones above.
Sources:
—Evie
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