An alleged audio confession has surfaced regarding the mysterious death of Kendrick Johnson, a teen who was found dead in a rolled-up gym mat at his high school back in 2013.

According to the New York Daily News, Johnson’s mother and father obtained the alleged confession tape from someone and turned it over to the local police. “They had a recording that they actually purchased from someone who said that it would be valuable as far as saying who possibly had committed the crime and change their situation,” Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk told Fox 5.

Paulk said his office is working to determine whether or not the audio is legitimate. “If it’s a hoax, it’s a very, very cruel hoax to do to Mrs. Johnson,” he said.

Back in 2013, Johnson was found dead in a rolled-up mat in his high school gym. His death was ruled an accident by law enforcement, but his family believes he was killed. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) determined that Johnson’s death was the result of “positional asphyxia.” They claimed he fell into the mat while looking for his shoes and died after he couldn’t get out.

The Johnson family had an independent autopsy conducted and found that the teen died of “unexplained, apparent non-accidental, blunt force trauma” — contradicting the results of the GBI.

Earlier this month, REVOLT reported that Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office reopened Johnson’s case. Sheriff Paulk said that he decided to revive the case after federal investigators gave him requested documents from two years ago. He originally asked for the papers back in 2019, but was told that he could not have them.

With help from the Johnson family, a federal judge finally released the documents and additional evidence in the case, including 17 boxes of records, two computer towers and computer drives.