Johnson's death was officially ruled a suicide by the Department of Defense. However, her father became suspicious when he saw her body in the funeral home and decided to investigate. Initially the Army refused to release information, but did so under the
Freedom of Information Act after Representative
William Lacy Clay, Jr. raised questions about it at the
congressional hearings over
Pat Tillman's death. The autopsy report and photographs revealed Johnson had a broken nose, black eye, loose teeth, burns from a
corrosive chemical on her genitals, and a gunshot wound to her mouth that seemed inconsistent with suicide. Several reporters have suspected that the chemical burns were the result of attempts to destroy DNA evidence of a rape. Additionally, bloody footprints were discovered outside of her living quarters. A
spokesman from the
House Armed Services Committee said that the committee was looking into Johnson's death, but they were not yet committing to a formal investigation in June 2008.
Christopher Grey, chief of public affairs for the U.S. Criminal Investigative Command for the Army, has said that the case remains closed as far as they are concerned. Following a February 2007
KMOV news report on Johnson's death, an online
petition addressed to the
House Armed Services Committee and the
Senate Armed Services Committee was launched, closing with 37,319 supporters. This was followed by the creation of an official LaVena Johnson website dedicated to developments in prompting a new Army investigation of her death. The petition closed on May 24, 2008, with nearly 12,000 signatures; preparations are being made for delivery to the two committees. In July 2008, the online black activist group
Color of Change launched another online petition calling on
Henry Waxman, chair of the
House Oversight Committee, to conduct a hearing into LaVena Johnson's death and the Army's handling of her case and others like it. A documentary film about LaVena Johnson's family's struggle for justice was made in 2010, directed by
Joan Brooker and titled
LaVena Johnson: The Silent Truth. On July 19, 2011, the criminal justice students in the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute (CCIRI) run as a student club by three universities, selected Johnson's case as their case for investigation. The CCIRI's crime scene reconstruction aimed to help shed light on this case that has attracted worldwide attention. The CCIRI investigation did not agree with nor dispute the Army's findings.
Sheryl McCollum of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute calls the case "gut-wrenching." McCollum says the institute normally spends one year on a case, but spent three years on the LaVena Johnson case. In a phone interview with St. Louis Public Radio, McCollum said that she faults the Army for poor communication, but she does not disagree with its conclusion. "The problem is – number one – the way the notification happened. And the lack of information given to that family fast enough," McCollum said. "There was nothing about this case that we could go back to the Army to say you need to re-look at it," she said. "We didn't have anything new. We didn't have anything that suggested wrongdoing." ==See also==