"To say no trauma (died} of natural causes, nah! We're still waiting on stuff to come in!" says Forrest County Coroner Butch Benedict in new exclusive one on one interview.
In one of the biggest high profile missing person cases in Mississippi, longtime respected Forrest County Coroner Butch Benedict speaks out in an exclusive interview, after the community was shocked and outraged when the media begin reporting a statement released from his office that Johnnie Bennett, 50, the reported missing father of 8, who was found dead on the banks of the Bouie River on Sunday, December 4, 2022, died of natural causes and ruled NO foul play involved.
Here's what we know based on investigation reports, family members, and witnesses familiar with the case:
A few days before Thanksgiving, Tuesday, November 22, 2022, Johnnie Bennett was reported missing to the Hattiesburg Police Department by his wife, Allison Pugh, who claimed in her report, no one had last seen Johnnie in over 2 weeks since Friday, November 4, 2022, since leaving the hospital.
She claimed she was immediately court ordered to mandatory rehab in Jackson, MS after she and her new born baby tested positive for drugs and hadn't seen her husband since leaving the hospital for rehab.
Allison stated she tried reaching Johnnie several times, but he didn't answer her calls or respond to her text messages once in rehab. When she couldn't reach Johnnie, she claimed she reached out to a friend name Ronnie Martin, whom they had been living with, in which he told her that he hadn't seen Johnnie since they had an argument. It was later discovered the argument was over how Johnnie was treating Allision, according to Ronnie.
Allison claimed she was kicked out of rehab and left Jackson, MS from rehab on Friday, November 18, 2022 and instead of going back home to Ronnie's house were she had been previously living, she instead went back to her parents home in Petal, MS.
According to family, Allison told a family member on Saturday, November 19, 2022 during a facetime call that Johnnie had just left and went to work and everybody was doing fine when the family member called to speak to Johnnie so that Johnnie's one year old daughter could wish him a happy birthday, which would have been the following day, Sunday, November 20.
The next day, Sunday, November 20, 2022 on Johnnie's Birthday, Allison "hacked" his Facebook account and posted a "Happy Birthday" post to Johnnie, shockingly, never mentioning Johnnie was missing or that she hadn't heard from him since Friday, November 4.
A month later after he was reported missing, Johnnie's body was found on Sunday, December 4, 2022 on the outskirts of Hattiesburg, Mississippi by local residents in a community known as Glendale, while they were out fishing in the Bouie River. The residents discovered what they thought was a manakin from a distance, then thought perhaps it was a white person as they got closer, only to discover it was the missing dad of 8, Johnnie Bennett.
Forrest County Deputy Coroner Lisa Klem issued a statement a few days later that sent shockwaves through the community; there was "no foul play" involved in Johnnie's death and he died of "natural causes." The coroner also noted that Johnnie's body had been in the river for weeks as the body began to decompose, but shockingly, said he didn't drown.
By the 1,000's, the community was outraged. How did Johnnie end up in the Bouie River? If he didn't drown, how then did Johnnie actually die?
With so much confusion in the community, Forrest County Coroner Butch Benedict speaks out during an exclusive one on one interview with Johnnie's oldest son, Derrian Moye, the University of Southern Mississippi's 'Hometown Hero' Lifetime Achievement Honoree, in which the longtime coroner explains he can't rule out foul play or professionally say Johnnie died of natural causes and pleads with the public for help.
We begin our special investigative report with this exclusive interview with the coroner and the victim's eldest son as both search for answers of what really happen to Johnnie Bennett.
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