On the Friday of
March 20, 54 year old African American, Otis Byrd, was found hanging from a
tree in Port Gibson, Mississippi. Officials said that he was found in the deep woods behind his house with bed sheets around his neck, hanging from a
branch 15 feet off the ground. The main question that officials are trying to
figure out is whether Byrd committed suicide or whether he was actually
lynched, since Mississippi has a history of lynching African Americans and a
reputation of being one of the most racist states in the country. According to
Claiborne county officials, the evidence reported so far does not indicate that
any malicious actions occurred, so officials are leaning more toward the
possibility of suicide, however that will be also hard to prove considering
that there was no chair to be found in the crime scene.
Family members
told authorities that they did not recall seeing any signs of suspicion of
Byrd’s everyday life. His family and friends told authorities that they did not
know of any enemies that would murder Byrd. In 1980, Byrd was convicted of
murdering a woman but was paroled in 1996, so authorities also consider the
possibility that someone could have murdered Byrd as revenge. Crime scene
investigator and president of the Crime Scene Forensics LLC, Thomas Martin,
said that injuries to a dead person is usually an indication of lynching or
finger prints from the rope usually show that the victim was struggling to
escape from the rope.
The FBI is also
looking into the case and is using their team of forensic experts to
investigate the crime scent to make sure that the crime was not a lynching. I
believe that this case was definitely a lynching considering that thousands of
African Americans have been lynched the Mississippi in the past and lynching
continues to occur today. Also I find it
really hard to believe that a man could hang himself 15 feet off the ground without
out any truck or car being present in the crime scene.
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