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You know, he was just a good kid trying to make his way.ĬHANG: Well, as you say, you learned about this story several years ago, and you eventually went back to Mississippi to investigate Billey Joe Johnson's case. You know, some of his coaches said that he could be moody at times, you know, especially if they lost. You know, he had ups and downs, just like everybody. LETSON: But beyond that, you know, he was a son. SHIRLEY: When you put the film in slow motion, everybody looks like they're running in slow motion except one guy.
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LETSON: Larry Shirley was the play-by-play announcer for the local radio station. LARRY SHIRLEY: Tailback Billey Joe Johnson has rushed for nearly 3,000 yards in his first two years on the varsity squad. (SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "MISSISSIPPI GODDAM") LETSON: Yeah, I would say that, like, you know, Billey Joe was just - as an athlete, he was tremendously gifted. And I think that that's part of the reason why the case stuck with me.ĬHANG: And tell us more about who Billey Joe Johnson was. And so when I saw all these Black people talking about Billey Joe and the fact that nobody was listening to them, I understood exactly what they were saying. The producer I was with, Tina, is white, and I'm Black, and a lot of times we would interview people, and they wouldn't look at me or talk to me they would just talk to Tina, specifically if we were interviewing white people. I had a really strange experience when I was reporting in Mississippi. So many years ago, me and my producer Tina Antolini, we were in Mississippi reporting on the Gulf Coast oil spill, and pretty much everybody that we talked to brought up this case about Billey Joe Johnson, who had passed away at that point, like, two or three years prior. So can you just start us off by telling us the story of how you came to learn about Billey Joe Johnson's case? That reporting forms the basis for the new seven-part podcast "Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad Of Billey Joe." Host Al Letson joins us now to talk about the series. But a new investigation from the Center for Investigative Reporting sheds light on that ruling that many in this Mississippi town never really believed anyway. They said somehow Billey Joe Johnson shot himself accidentally with his own shotgun. First, authorities decided his death was a suicide. On a cold December morning in 2008, a young Black man by the name of Billey Joe Johnson died during a traffic stop with a white sheriff's deputy in Lucedale, Miss.