Autopsy suggests suicide in hanging of black man in Mississippi
Source: LA Times
Preliminary results from an autopsy on the body of Otis Byrd, whose body was found hanging from a tree in rural Mississippi, strongly suggest the death was a suicide rather than foul play, a federal law enforcement official said Friday.
...
Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas told the Los Angeles Times that while a bedsheet was wrapped around the mans neck, there were no other visible signs of distress on the body. The mans hands and feet were not tied or bound, his mouth was not gagged, there were no other outward signs of injuries.
...
The sheriff said the man, a riverboat employee, was last seen around March 2 when he and a family member visited a local casino. He said Byrd returned home with someone else, whom the sheriff identified as a friend.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-mississippi-hanging-20150320-story.html
Good that they're looking into this.
Romeo.lima333
(1,127 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)...although it is probably early for a toxicology report.
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)take longer than an autopsy? I've never understood that. It seems like it would be a fairly simple test.
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)Thanks to you I learned something today.
Mugu
(2,887 posts)Romeo.lima333
(1,127 posts)Warpy
(111,247 posts)depending on how backed up the crime lab is.
I'd want to know if there was either a note or if his family and friends had noticed he was depressed.
Otherwise, I'll always be suspicious of this death.
Condolences to his friends and family, whether it's suicide or homicide, it is always hard to take.
BP2
(554 posts)Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)that the extraordinarily, wildly improbable possibility of a hate crime in a good ole Southern State of the US will be immediately rejected as ludicrous.
Oh. And welcome!
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Of course they should.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)Hopefully it has nothing to do with the victim he murdered back in 1980 during that robbery.
His face looks sad in the photo at the link.
If they found a GBCW note it would be more apparent. And they haven't said they've found one, so there's that...
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)relatively few (about 25-30%) suicides leave notes, so the absence of one doesn't indicate much.
MADem
(135,425 posts)If he did leave one, or write a letter and mail it, though, it would help solve the mystery.
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)It' a sad situation, regardless.
valerief
(53,235 posts)of suicide.
hack89
(39,171 posts)in Virginia, 25% of all suicides by black men are by hanging/suffocation.
http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/medexam/pdfs/suicide%20methods%20final%20to%20web.pdf
BumRushDaShow
(128,877 posts)in the nation.
https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures
Which is why claiming such continues to need to be questioned.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Like, for instance, the lack of injuries or signs of struggle, the fact that his hands and feet weren't tied, etc.
BumRushDaShow
(128,877 posts)might have had perpetrators remove the bindings?
I don't see any "binding" on these poor folks -
I'm sorry but anything from an "investigation" out of a rural Mississippi town, is suspect at this point. For all we know, he could have died of "natural causes" (e.g., heart attack, which is generally, the most common manner of death of black men of his age), his body found, and strung up on a tree as a "message". A REAL investigation with competent pathologists and forensics specialists, is needed.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)1. When people are bound and the bonds are removed, that still leaves marks medical examiners can find
2. The sheriff and coroner are both African American, elected by a population that is 85% African American. The sheriff is the President of the county NAACP chapter.
3. A coroner's finding is not definitive; it is the coroner's opinion that the manner of death was suicide. That does not prevent the sheriff (who, I remind you, is the president of the county NAACP chapter) from opening a homicide investigation in this matter.
4. Suicide affects all races, genders, and income levels.
romanic
(2,841 posts)Though I do hope the sheriff looks into the hanging a bit more to find concrete evidence that this was a suicide and not something more sinister.
BumRushDaShow
(128,877 posts)1.) From what some articles claim, the body was apparently hanging there for awhile and decomposed or decomposing, so it may be difficult to ascertain this conclusion
2.) The race of the sheriff and coroner are irrelevant. I am not alleging a "cover-up". Right now, people are being released from prison after decades, for false evidence and testimony due to either a lack of methods for comprehensively examining evidence, general poor investigations and a lack of a good defense due to lack of money, pure unadulterated rail-roading by corrupt investigators, or total incompetence of the prosecutors, with little or no ability for the defendant to defend themselves due to lack of money
3.) Agree, which is why more time is needed to definitively determine what might have happened, although no one can summarily rule out the scenario I presented (i.e., "natural death" and then what might have amounted to what is often dubbed "interfering with a corpse" .
4.) My link shows that "suicide" is a choice that has been established as the LEAST chosen option by blacks of any group. It does NOT rule it out, but it is not something that is common and should automatically be assumed to be the case just based on what whites do. I have seen over the years where with increasing integration and interaction between races (where there is no longer "legal" segregation, although de facto segregation still exists), that the option for suicide has increased over the years among the black population. However it still remains near rock bottom among all groups.
You will find that in a large number of the most heinous mass shooting crimes committed by whites, the perpetrator kills himself. The end. Very few black criminals chose suicide as a get-out-of-jail card, and not many as a general get-out-of-life card either. Again, there are black suicides, but not to the degree that it should automatically be considered at the top of a list.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)And I hope this is more thoroughly investigated.
I posted simply to counter the pervasive image that this was a case of white officials covering up the suspicious death of a black man.
BumRushDaShow
(128,877 posts)Black cops beat and kill black "suspects" (in quotes) as brutally as white cops in many cases. The problem is training, perceptions, and "value" or "worth" of blacks vs others, regarding what decisions are made during encounters, investigations, and the results of either or both.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)This won't be a case of coverup, no matter what else turns out to be true.
I think the investigation will take a while. A better headline should be "So far no contraindications of suicide."
Skittles
(153,150 posts)mwrguy
(3,245 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)And both are elected positions.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)thats what they said back in the 60's
heaven05
(18,124 posts)with the preliminary finding here, not surprised at all. He''ll be another written of as another death of no consequence.....for sure.
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)If this is a murder that is being covered up as a suicide, it would have to be a spectacular conspiracy. The FBI, medical examiner, local police, and who knows who else would have to be involved and on the same page to pull off a cover up like that.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)here. The hands could have been untied after the murder, this type of mentality has been passed along generation to generation as well as methodology of white lynching black and not getting caught, yes even the FBI can be fooled/wrong. What's so hard about simple logic in this type of murder? Everyone wants to deny the overall history and current social situation. This is becoming a very dangerous society for black children and POC. Wouldn't be spectacular at all...... pretty easy in fact, by the perps and their buddies in the local and state investigation bureaus.
840high
(17,196 posts)tied - there would be marks.
840high
(17,196 posts)Fiendish
(47 posts)Full disclosure: I identify Mississippi as home. I wasn't born there, but I'm a military brat whose old man was stationed at Keesler. I lived there from age 6 to 19, so for all intents and purposes, it's home.
This just makes me sick at heart. Based on what little we know now, this doesn't strike me as suicide. For one thing, the lack of a chair/stool near the body should make it pretty obvious suicide is an unlikely option at best. Yeah, he might've climbed up onto the tree limb and then jumped down... except a "rope" made of tied bedsheets likely wouldn't have stood up to the strain of a falling body.
Hopefully the cops there are using their heads for something other than their hats. If the sheets didn't come from his home or weren't just purchased (i.e., have skin cells or hair or other material traces indicating they're not brand new), that's another strike against the suicide theory. I just don't buy it.
It hurts to say that, too. I love Mississippi in a lot of ways. I knew a lot of great people there. I knew (and know) that there are ugly parts of the state and the South in general, but living on the Coast, things seemed better there. That this sort of thinking persists in the 21st century never ceases to floor me. That people act on this sort of thinking is just sad and disgusting.
I hope the authorities don't shrug their shoulders and carry on with business as usual. If this poor man was murdered, he and his family deserve the full measure of justice, and whoever killed him deserves the full measure of justice.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,593 posts)Fiendish
(47 posts)I guess you could say I'm a recovering Republican. In my younger days I was pretty conservative, but the older I've gotten and the more I've seen of the world, the more liberal I become.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,593 posts)More than a few people here have been down that same road.
Again, Welcome Aboard!
DamnYankeeInHouston
(1,365 posts)Fiendish
(47 posts)shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)You need a good six feet fall for a hanging, in order to break the neck. Anything less is simply a garrotting, or in other words a death from slow strangulation. Plenty of people do make that mistake and die a horrible death because of it, but other people are wise to it.
I do agree with you that the sheets are key. He could have taken them off someone's clothes line I suppose, or purchased them. Conversely, if they are from his house, it would be difficult to conclude that this was other than a suicide.
Fiendish
(47 posts)The origin of the sheets will be a long step in the direction of sorting this out. As you said, if they came from his home, then suicide becomes much more likely, even with the other problems with that theory.
If, however, the sheets weren't from his home or weren't just purchased, there should be something to go on there. Even a freshly laundered sheet is going to have hair and other biological traces. It's not a lot, but at least it's something. If good old-fashioned detective work leads them elsewhere, biological traces recovered from the sheets might play a big part later on.
DallasNE
(7,402 posts)My second thought was that a gag, belts to "tie" the hands and feet could all be removed after the hanging so what does this really tell us. With the passage of time those marks would have faded if there were any.
He was hanging for something like 10 days so Mississippi heat would have decomposed his body a great deal.
I'm not impressed that this is anywhere near conclusive.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)and not excuses for murder.
Fiendish
(47 posts)And absolutely nothing excuses murder because of race.
It just makes me sad when I hear people disparage the South as nothing but hicks and racists. Yes, there are hicks and racists in the South, but there are also a lot of really good people in the South, too. Hicks and racists don't disappear once you're north of the Mason-Dixon. Hate and ignorance have nothing to do with geography.
If this poor guy was murdered because he was black, I hope to hell they catch the person(s) who did it. And if and when that happens, I hope they get the justice they so richly deserve.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)Supposedly he had been gambling with someone else right before last known contact. Did he win a lot? Did he lose a lot?
It could be robbery-murder, suicide or something else.
Fiendish
(47 posts)I didn't mean to say that if he was murdered for some other reason I don't care if they catch the bastard(s) or not.
If he was gambling before he dropped out of sight, then let's hope the cops and the feds follow up on that and take a long hard look at his gambling buddies. Sure, if he lost a boatload of money that makes suicide a little more likely, but no matter how the cards fell when he was gambling, they need to run this down.
Too often the murder of a person of color is just brushed off with, "Oh well, nothing more to see here."
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)NOLALady
(4,003 posts)Ya think?
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I do hope this is the case. The thought of lynchings making a comeback is not one I wish to have.
ripcord
(5,347 posts)He was missing for two weeks but found hanging 500 feet from his home, I doubt anyone would have kept him alive that long just to take him back to his house to hang him, way too much of a chance to get caught.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)apparently identification of the corpse was difficult.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)Lucas, who is himself African-American, said Friday that he's worried people will jump to the conclusion that Byrd was murdered and that race was a factor.
"I don't want the community to go excited saying it was a white-on-black thing. That's the worst thing that can happen, is people making it into a race issue," Lucas said. "And that's my biggest fear. And I don't want that to happen.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/20/us/african-american-man-found-hanging-in-mississippi/
Corey_Baker08
(2,157 posts)With the word FED painted on his body & his US Govt Census ID Stapled to his torso...Which was also ruled a suicide.
I don't buy it...