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Our media outlet was among the first in the nation to report on the sad saga unfolding on Saint Simons Island, Georgia involving teen torture victim, Trent Lehrkamp. We were also the first to call what happened to the 19-year-old what it was: Torture.
Not “bullying.” Not “hazing.” Torture.
Since then, we have been doing our best to hold local law enforcement accountable for their actions (or lack thereof) while at the same time delving into some uncomfortable narratives regarding Lehrkamp’s troubled family history – including allegations of neglect, abandonment and, more recently, alleged exploitation.
To recap: On March 21, 2023, Lehrkamp’s attackers recorded videos and posted photos to social media as they allegedly lured him to a home, bound him with duct tape, spray painted him, (including his face and eyes) urinated on him, defecated on him, waterboarded him, poured liquor down his throat and forced him to ingest drugs.
When he was dumped off at the emergency room at Southeast Georgia medical center at approximately 8:30 p.m. EST that evening, Lehrkamp was drawing only six breaths per minute and his blood alcohol level was a stratospheric .464 – nearly six times Georgia’s legal limit of .08. He was placed on a ventilator and was in the hospital’s intensive care unit for over a week.
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The alleged perpetrators of this torture – and previous incidents of abuse involving Lehrkamp – are purportedly students at Glynn Academy, a public school in Brunswick. School officials acknowledged some of them were “current students,” according to local radio station WGIG 98.7.
As previously reported, several of these individuals hail from prominent local families. One of the families whose teenager was reportedly involved in at least one of the assaults is affiliated with the local newspaper which first reported on the latest incident – classifying it as “hazing.”
Our director of research, Jenn Wood, has been doing a deep dive on the Lehrkamp story. In fact, she published our most recent report on it this week (calling out the Glynn County police department for its lack of progress).
As part of her research, Wood has submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in the hopes of getting more information on previous incidents involving Lehrkamp.
This week, Wood submitted a request seeking incident reports from the home at 255 Tennessee Avenue in Saint Simons Island – where Lehrkamp was residing alone at the time of the most recent torture incident.
As we previously reported, Lehrkamp’s mother, Jaymie Lehrkamp, passed away in March of 2021 at the age of 43. Meanwhile his father, Mark Lehrkamp, left the home several months later to move in with his current girlfriend, Jamie Lee Linna (a.k.a. Jamie Burriss).
The Tennessee Avenue home was owned by Frankie Lynn Ross, Jaymie’s mother. Ross died in September of 2021 – seven months after her daughter passed away. At the time of Ross’ death, she was reportedly investigating the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s death – which she deemed to be suspicious.
More on that in a moment …
(Click to View)
Wood’s search for records from the Tennessee Avenue address initially came back empty.
“There are no releasable records responsive to your request,” the Glynn County police department noted in a reply posted to its open records portal.
Wood pressed the agency to cite a FOIA exemption, at which point it indicated the presence of “juvenile records” as the reason for withholding the information.
While Wood was unable to obtain any incident reports, she did receive a “call detail report” from the county’s 9-1-1 service which was quite revealing.
This document outlined numerous incidents at the Tennessee Avenue address – starting with one that took place at approximately 8:31 p.m. ET on the evening of November 8, 2019. At that time, dispatchers recorded a female caller who claimed she had been “sick all week” and had “all her prescriptions” – including her medication for “depression (and) anxiety” – stolen from her.
According to the report, the female caller claimed “the people who took them believe they are helping her” and that she was “unsure who took them but thinks it may be a family member.”
(Click to View)
Eight minutes after the original call came in deputies arrived on the scene. The dispatch log referenced “the husband Mark” stating that Jaymie Lehrkamp’s “doctor told him to secure (her) meds.” Lehrkamp further claimed her doctor “believes she was probably being over-medicated,” according to the report.
The report noted Mark Lehrkamp “gave back the items because his wife was accusing people of stealing.”
Approximately fifteen months later – on March 3, 2021 – police were called to the Tennessee Avenue address at 3:22 a.m. ET by Mark Lehrkamp.
“Caller thinks that (his) wife has had a stroke,” the dispatch log noted.
Four minutes later, the log recorded that Jaymie Lehrkamp was “shaking and twitching,” with her husband telling police she couldn’t “form words” despite being “fine three hours ago.”
Jaymie Lehrkamp died that day …
The next two entries in the log detailed allegations by Mark Lehrkamp regarding his teenager daughter being extorted by an unknown male who “took pictures of (her) through her bedroom window” and was “threatening to expose the pictures” if his daughter did not respond within fifteen minutes.
The first incident involving this alleged blackmail took place on June 15, 2021. The second took place last November. In that case, the unknown male allegedly contacted the daughter’s boyfriend “asking for more pictures (and) promising to pay $300 to $1,000.”
The final entry in the log was reported at 5:32 p.m. ET on March 11, 2023 – just ten day before Trent Lehrkamp was nearly killed in the latest torture incident. According to that dispatch log, one of his co-workers called in a wellness check after “Trenton passed out at work.”
Of interest? A separate call record from another address – 119 Stewart Street in Saint Simons Island – documented a “suicide attempt” by Trent Lehrkamp on January 20, 2023. The Stewart Street address is the home of Jaime Lee Linna. According to this log (.pdf), the caller – presumed to be Linna – stated her boyfriend’s son was posting “videos that he’s suicidal and homicidal.”
Shortly after the 9-1-1 call was placed, dispatchers were told Lehrkamp was “pushing his dad into (a) trailer” while threatening to kill himself.
This incident took place two months before the images and videos of Lehrkamp’s torture were first published.
This news outlet has reached out to Lehrkamp’s family – and will continue reaching out to them – as we report on this ongoing investigation and any criminal cases that follow from it.
Stay tuned …
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THE REPORT …
(Via: Glynn County)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.
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