FAMILY OF KENDRICK JOHNSON DISCOVER DEAD TEEN'S ORGANS REPLACED WITH NEWSPAPER

A funeral home used newspaper to stuff the body of 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson found dead in a rolled up wrestling mat.

Johnson's family complained after the high school student's corpse was exhumed in June 2013 and investigators discovered newsprint in place of several vital organs.

The alarming embalming procedure wasn't the "best practice," but it's not illegal, the Georgia Board of Funeral Service found.

Students at Lowdnes High School discovered Johnson's lifeless body in a rolled up mat in January 2012.

Relatives of the student athlete remain convinced he was the victim of foul play, despite the conclusion of local law enforcement authorities that Johnson must have crawled into the mat to retrieve a shoe and got stuck.

An examiner for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation found the teen was suffocated while he was trapped upside down.

Johnson's skeptical family wants the criminal investigation to continue, winning a court order in June to have the body exhumed for a second autopsy.

The newspaper was discovered during that examination.

The state funeral board released a report to the family on Thursday, clearing the Harrington Funeral Home of wrongdoing but added there are materials "more acceptable than newspaper," the Valdosta Daily Times reported.

It's still not clear what happened to the missing organs. 

The Georgia Bureau of Investigations has said the organs were returned to the body following the first autopsy. 

The funeral home claimed they were missing when the body arrived.

The home used the newspaper to prepare the teen's body for public viewing before burial.

Shredded paper, cotton and sawdust are all commonly used throughout the industry, the home's director, Antonio Harrington told the Georgia newspaper.

"Personally, I have no ill will towards the family," Harrington told the Valdosta Daily Times. "I pray for them. We've done nothing wrong. It was just a hurtful thing. It hurt my family and we are glad our name has been cleared."

Johnson's death is still under investigation. Local authorities have concluded the teen was the victim of a freak accident, but Georgia-based federal prosecutors announced in October they would launch their own investigation.