(eerie music)
- I'm Nev from "Catfish",
the series that investigates
social media mysteries.
Tonight the new series
"True Life Crime"
investigates the most
harrowing true crime mysteries
rocking headlines
and social feeds.
These victims were young.
The crimes against
them were shocking.
And haunting questions remain.
"True Life Crime" is
here to expose the truth.
In tonight's case, shots ring
out in a quiet Iowa town.
Minutes later, the
body of gender-fluid
teen Kedarie Johnson
is discovered in an
alley, gagged, shot,
and doused with bleach.
Was Kedarie targeted because
of their gender identity?
Was someone Kedarie met
online following them?
Or did the teen have a secret
connection to the killer?
MTV News Reporter Dometi
Pongo's hunt for answers
leads to a shocking discovery.
(dramatic music)
(phone ringing)
- [Operator] Des
Moines County 911.
- [Concerned Citizen] I was
just awakened by shots fired.
(screeching)
- [Dometi] A gender-fluid teen
moves to a small Iowa town
to escape the
violence in Chicago.
(camera clicking)
And ends up tortured and
shot to death in an alley.
- Who would do something
like this and why?
- [Dometi] Was it an
act of retaliation?
- On the garbage bag
that was over his head,
you could see tear marks.
While this is happening
to him, he's alive.
- They broke his jaw.
I remember all the blood
coming out his mouth.
- [Dometi] Or was there a
secret between the victim
and the killer?
- It was fake.
A catfish babe, I
guess you could say.
If we can figure out
who was behind the page,
maybe that's who did
what they did to him.
- I never thought anybody I
knew would kill my brother.
- [Dometi] This
kid was gunned down
in the prime of their
life for a reason.
I wanna know why.
(dramatic music)
- [Public Safety
Operator] Public Safety.
- [Caller] I was awakened by
three shots fired in the alley.
- [Public Safety Operator]
We've already got officers
in the area, okay?
- [Caller] Okay, it scared me.
- When patrol gets here,
they see this grass.
This growth wasn't as high.
- How much of his
body was visible?
He was lying right here?
- He was actually on the grass.
His face was covered.
There was a garbage
bag over his head.
(typing)
Once that was taken off,
we could tell something
was in his mouth.
(typing)
At autopsy, we found
that object to be
a folded up black garbage bag.
- Oh, man.
- Yeah.
We could see at lease one,
what we thought was a
gunshot wound, to his chest.
- Jeez.
What'd you think was
the reason behind this?
- No clue.
- Shortly before midnight
on March 2nd, 2016,
police respond to the 911
calls to find the body
of 16-year-old Kedarie
Johnson shot to death
in the side alley here
in Burlington, Iowa.
This is a safe midwestern
town of about 25,000 people.
Kedarie Johnson's
family migrated
to this predominantly
white conservative town
in search of a better life.
This story really hits
me personally, man,
because like me,
Kedarie's from Chicago,
and we see a lot
of violence in Chi.
Kedarie's younger brother
Cedric moved with the family
specifically for the
safety of the small town.
- That picture looks
so funny to me, man.
The one we have the white
shirts, back to back.
- One of the things that
drew me to Kedarie's story
was the fact that your
family moved from Chicago
where we see a lot of violence
and then you have
something like this
happen to your brother
in Iowa of all places.
- When we first got here,
it was nothing but
just smiles everywhere.
First places I went,
just smiles everywhere.
I felt like I was home already.
- [Dometi] What's one of your
favorite memories about Kedarie?
- One of my favorite memories
was when the new Twix came out
and I had bought one,
and it tasted so good
so we had went back
a few days later
and I was trying to steal one
and I got caught,
but somehow I got out the store
and I ran all the way home.
It was a policewoman
behind me chasing me
and when I get to the house,
my mom's like, "What's
goin on, what's goin' on?"
So I lied and I was like,
"They tried to say
I stole some Twix,
"but it was Kedarie."
(Dometi laughs)
So when he came home,
he got a whoopin'.
He ain't even know why,
but he ain't never
say it wasn't him,
and he had to
stand in the corner
and he was eating his
chips in the corner
and I asked for some
and he still gave me some
even after I just lied on him.
He took the fall for me
and he didn't even say a word.
I love him for that.
- It's beautiful to
hear that Kedarie
had strong bonds
with family who loved
and accepted him.
Kedarie's sister Nijah
shares her experience
witnessing Kedarie's
evolving gender identity.
How did Kedarie identify?
- He had two ways of
identifying himself.
First it was Kedarie.
That was the name my
mom birthed him with.
Then you came upon Candace.
- Candace is the name
Kedarie chose to go by
when dressed in
their female persona.
When Kedarie started
to dress more
and more like a girl,
how did you feel?
- I say I was pretty happy.
It was like the
sister I never had,
but still have my brother.
He'd play with my dolls.
My dolls would come up missing
and I instantly,
"Where is my dolls at?
"Oh, Kedarie took them."
(Dometi laughs)
It was just,
I called him she
when he wanted me to,
but I still referred to
him as he and brother.
Like I tell him, no
disrespect to you,
but true remain my brother,
but if you wanted me to
refer to you as Candace
or she or sister, then I will.
- [Dometi] I'm curious to
know what local kids here
thought of Kedarie being
a queer kid from the city.
- When I first met Kedarie,
he just had a loud personality.
- Keisha, I'm gonna bring
ya down! (clicks tongue)
- He liked to dance and sing.
He was very caring, funny,
outgoing, enthusiastic.
- Everyone knew who Kedarie was
and whether that meant
he was dancing around
in the hallways
(laughing)
- [Camerman] Go, Kedarie.
- Or just cutting
up with his friends.
- We were mostly in
detention together.
Talking too much in class.
And they kept trying
to separate us
from across the classroom.
- He was a friend to everybody.
Male, female, adults.
And everybody accepted him.
- Kedarie was just the kinda kid
that other kids
wanted to be around
because he was always happy.
- Maze, ma vey, wow.
- Kedarie was the first
person I told I was gay.
He'd tell me how to go about it
and don't worry about what
nobody else have to say
and stuff like that.
And we was just real
close from that point on.
- [Dometi] Kedarie lived
as a gender-fluid teen
who used both he/him
and she/her pronouns.
He's referred to with both.
As a straight man investigating
the murder of a queer teen,
I wanna continue
to educate myself.
I'm checking in with trans
rights activist Raquel Willis.
- This year we've seen trans
folks attacked on all levels.
There's been at least
20 reported murders,
and that number is
rising every day.
I think it's important for us
to look at all of the cases
of anti-trans violence as
singular, unique instances
because these people
were singular and unique.
Kedarie's story is important.
So it's important for us
to not reduce trans
people to a number.
- [Dometi] Was Kedarie
actually targeted
because of their gender fluidity
or is there more to the
story beneath the surface?
To understand what happened,
I have to go back to the
night Kedarie was murdered.
- [Public Safety
Operator] Public safety.
- [Public Safety Caller]
I was just awakened
by what sounded like
shots fired in the alley.
- [Male Caller] I heard
about six or seven shots.
- [Female Caller] Boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
- [Dometi] Melissa Smith
was one of the detectives
called in that night.
- Never a good call in
the middle of the night.
- Right.
- I was told that
we had some shorts fired
and when patrol gets there,
they find,
unfortunately, a body,
and at that point it's
time for me to go to work.
- [Dometi] It was a
typical night for Kedarie
who was at the
local grocery store.
Kedarie heads out,
supposedly, to go home,
but never makes it.
90 minutes later, when Detective
Smith arrives at the scene,
she was not prepared
for what she saw.
(camera clicking)
- It appeared to me that
he'd been drug by his feet
up onto this hill.
His shirt was rolled up as
a result of that dragging.
He wasn't wearing
shoes, shoes were gone.
You could see the bra
that he was wearing
and the white shirt that he
had on over those, as well,
and there was a very
strong smell of bleach
and you could tell it
had been poured on him.
- Wow.
- And the bleach bottle
was up between his knees.
They poured it one him
and just threw it at him.
With that bleach, you can
still, three years later,
see the stain of it.
- Jeez.
(camera clicking)
- What they did to him, you
just wonder did he fight?
What was going through this head
when this was happening to him?
How did he feel?
So...
- At what point did
you identify the body?
- Patrol officers were
familiar with Kedarie.
We knew Kedarie
due to what he wore
and how he identified.
As far as that being a
reason for the crime,
it was definitely potential.
- [Dometi] The way the
body was brutalized.
It sounds like a
personal attack.
Did Kedarie know his killer
or was it a random murder?
- I was thinking who would do
something like this and why?
- I never thought anybody
I knew would kill my.
