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Police in Glynn County, Georgia are investigating a horrific instance of alleged torture which left a 19-year-old fighting for his life in a local hospital.
Astoundingly, local media in Brunswick, Georgia – the seat of coastal Glynn County – are using terms like “hazing” and “bullying” to describe what happened to 19-year-old Trent Lehrkamp at the hands of his abusers.
Based on the photos and videos circulating online, this is far worse than “hazing” or “bullying.”
As is the case in so many cases like this, perpetrators recorded videos and posted photos to social media as they allegedly lured their victim 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 hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Others watched the torture – and did nothing to intervene on Lehrkamp’s behalf.
UPDATE | INCIDENT REPORT DETAILS HORRIFIC ABUSE
It is not immediately clear when the photos or videos circulating online were recorded. Police have said some of the videos were filmed during a previous incident – not the incident on Tuesday evening (March 21, 2023) which left Lehrkamp hospitalized.
Which begs the question: How many times was this young man tortured?
All we know for sure is the latest incident ended with Lehrkamp being deposited at the emergency room at Southeast Georgia medical center – unconscious and barely breathing. He remains hospitalized, but has recovered sufficiently to provide police with a statement about what happened to him.
The alleged perpetrators – several of whom mugged for social media posts as they participated in atrocities against the victim – are said to be students at Glynn Academy, a public school in Brunswick. Lehrkamp graduated from this school in May of 2022.
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“School officials have confirmed that some of the students are current students, but that the incident appears to have taken place at the home of a former student who dropped out,” local radio station WGIG 98.7 reported on Sunday.
“The Glynn County police department is currently conducting a criminal investigation regarding an incident that took place involving minors,” a statement issued Sunday morning by the county’s board of commissioners noted. “The story of this incident has been posted on social media channels within the community over the weekend.”
According to the statement, the agency’s criminal investigation division “is gathering facts, interviews, evidence, and other relevant information on this incident.”
Anyone with information related to this incident is encouraged to call 912-264-1333 or email tips to Glynn County’s silent witness email address.
The county’s statement was issued nearly five full days after police initially responded to the hospital in response to reports of an individual with a “high level of intoxication.” That hardly seems an encouraging response considering significant portions of this crime appear to have transpired on social media.
“To not compromise the current investigation, GCPD will keep the public up to date with information as allowed,” the statement continued.
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As of Sunday, no arrests had been made in the case according to reporter Michael Hall of The Brunswick News.
Several of the individuals alleged to have participated in the abduction and torture of Lehrkamp hail from prominent local families, sources familiar with the situation told this news outlet. That has prompted many in the community to question the investigation – and the belated local coverage of it.
“This is why (it) took so long to come out,” one local parent told this news outlet. “They were going to try and sweep this under the rug.”
Shortly before 10:00 p.m. EST on Sunday evening, Glynn County police issued a second statement indicating they were continuing to investigate the incident – and that a search warrant had been issued on March 22 on a “residence on St. Simons Island, where the incident had occurred.”
“Numerous items of evidence where collected and recorded related to this investigation,” the release noted. “Supplemental search warrants were also served on Wednesday, March 22, to gather further evidence.”
The release further noted detectives had interviewed “several juveniles associated with the incident and are continuing to conduct additional interviews.” Police claimed the videos which “surfaced on social media are of a prior incident involving the victim and are not pertaining to this current incident.”
Lehrkamp was interviewed on Sunday at the hospital – “alert and conscious” – at which time police say he “gave a statement about what transpired on the evening of Tuesday, March 21.”
Stay tuned … this news outlet has submitted open records requests in connection with this story and plans to continue gathering information from our network of sources.
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THE STATEMENT …
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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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28 comments
“Several of the individuals alleged to have participated in the abduction and torture of Lehrkamp hail from prominent local families, sources familiar with the situation told this news outlet.”
So, I guess the Murderaughs are not the only family of their kind out there? Not that I believed they were, anyway.
Being “prominent” in Brunswick ga probably means you have a household income of 75k lol. These guys are losers. Will always live in that shitty town
Good for Fitsnews to cover this heinous attack. Heartbreaking for the victim. Such a wreck less act by those heathens.
One of the little bastard’s moms works for the local press, so it was kept out of the local papers for longer than it should have.
Since these boys posted photos of their crimes and bragged about them on social media for all of the world to see, I hope someone will name them and their “prominent families.”
NAME THEM!
Students responsible for Trent’s bullying and shaming are:
Jep Wray
Kip Agnew
Jaxon Strother
Rooker Hobby
Students responsible for Trent’s bullying and shaming are:
Jep Wray
Kip Agnew
Jaxon Strother
Rooker Hobby
lmao shocker
The names of the creeps and their parents names are on Facebook. The families have connections but the cat is now out of the bag!!!
Thank you so much for reporting on this story. I live in the area and many in the community are very concerned that this will not be investigated fully and truthfully.
Future useless members of society. Seriously, imagine any of these psychopaths contributing anything of value to their fellow man.
Another Murduagh situation these people think they’re above the law, and their kids do too.
Thank you for pointing out that this was not ‘hazing’, this was absolutely torture and the fact that other kids watched this happen and did/said nothing is so disturbing. I hope the fact some of these kids that come from prominent families does not keep them from being charged. This is so disgusting.
We must have “Justice for Trent”
Spoiled white rich punks. Lock em up!
Maybe take a closer looks at the picture before you vomit out your racist slurs.
inevitable someone has to put a racial lens on anything at all, pat yourself on the back now
If that was my son my family member and these teens think they are above the law, they would discover that they are not above the law and each and every one of them will pay by spending a great deal of time in prison where they belong. No family name will stop the justice system if so, then there is another system that will be considered. Let’s just hope and pray that the system does right by this young man. If he doesn’t survive god forbid, then murder one for each of these useless animals.
???????
Thank God you are on this story!
What an absolutely horrific crime against a helpless person. I cannot wrap my mind around how mentally disturbed and cruel these godless and evil predators are! And those that watched and stood by are just as culpable and cowardly. This cannot be allowed to stand. They need to spend a long time in prison, regardless of who their parents are.
Fitsnews thank you for continuing to expose the under belly of our society.
I was bullied for many many years in the SC public education system. My nerves was so bad from it that I would get physically ill every morning going to school dealing with the trauma of going through the public education system or what I called being in prison. Sadly, some of the teachers knew IMO and did nothing to stop it.
James Gandy, that seems to be the case all over the USA, unfortunately. Principals and other administrators are quick to tell us that there is “zero tolerance” for bullying at their school or district, but nothing could be further from the truth. They let it go on and nothing gets done about it. It is as though they fear the bully and/or the bully’s parents as much or more than the student victims do.
Instead of making the situation better, the SRO’s seemingly make it worse. Before, if the victimized student had enough and physically fought back against the bully, the principal and teachers who conveniently saw no evil when the bullying was in progress, were now Johnny-on-the-spot to see the victim suspended or expelled for violent behavior. Now, in addition to that, Mr or Ms SRO can see to it that the bullying victim also gets criminal charges, further complicating or ruining the victim’s life. Additionally, at one time, parents of a bullied student could get in the face of a cowardly do-nothing principal and give them pause as to whether they feared the bully and bully’s family more, or the victim’s family. Nowadays, the principal has a hired gun in the form of the SRO to ensure that that unpleasant choice is never a concern for themselves.
This breaks my heart. Thank you for covering this so that this young man and his family can get Justice.
the smallest frickers heave the biggest havanas. what was the 19 yo baw doin around a bunch of high schoolers.
so he passed the hazing initiation ?stories like swiss cheese
All the kids who were at the party and these 4 guys shouldn’t be allowed to graduate..this yr ..also all the times together with this young man and was assaulted over and over several nights ..should add up all together and charge all these kids… try them as adults since they want to act grown and be drinking ..they need to be in jail right now ..and headed to prison that’s how bad this is …and if they hadn’t of dropped him off at the hospital that night they all would be facing murder charges right now ..these kids don’t need phones , they need to be taken off all social media.. Guess they thought what they did was OK ?? Coz they posted on social media ..smh they never thought they would get caught ..they need the book thrown at them ..I understand that they tried to hush this under the rug for 2/3 days so that some of the kids that were at the party could go to their
Sr. Prom ..which never should have happened ..they should have been in jail waiting trial ..this is just horrible ..and these parents need to pay also ..some of the parents are trying to make excuses for their kids who were at these party’s..SMH ..