Mississippi Hanging Victim’s Family Demands An Investigation After Autopsy Questions Suicide Claim

March 30, 2011 - PRLog -- The family of Fredrick Jermaine Carter, a young black man found hung from a tree in Mississippi on Dec. 3, 2010, says that it is time for law enforcement to heed the call of the state medical examiner’s report to investigate the true manner of his death.

In media interviews, Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks and County Coroner Debra Sanders had said they determined that Carter’s hanging in a white neighborhood in Greenwood, MS, was consistent with a suicide. However, Mississippi State Medical Examiner Dr. Adel Shaker, in his recently released autopsy report, wrote that the cause of death was hanging. It listed the manner of death as “pending investigation.”

The five-page report stopped short of calling Carter’s death a homicide. But that’s what his family and their attorney have long suspected.

“We are not surprised by the medical examiner’s finding.  We stated all along that we did not believe that Jermaine committed suicide,” said attorney Valerie Hicks-Powe, using the victim’s middle name (Carter’s family and friends affectionately called him by that name).

“We have waited patiently for more than three months to obtain this autopsy report. It is crucial to our contention that he did not commit suicide. And now with this report in hand, we can provide it to an independent examiner to complete the second autopsy for Jermaine’s family,” she said. The second examiner could not complete his report and release it to the family without including the official findings of the first autopsy, she added.

Hicks-Powe wants other law enforcement officials to thoroughly investigate Carter’s death. She and the family believe that it is impossible for Mississippi law enforcement officials to do so objectively, considering how its officials handled the initial investigation.

She says that Sherriff Banks and County Coroner Harris were very dismissive, even flippant, when Carter’s family challenged their preliminary suicide finding, and pleaded for a full investigation into the hanging.

The family complained that the crime scene was not properly protected; people took their own pictures of Carter’s hanging body because authorities did not cordon off the area. The family also believes that local authorities did not attempt to locate witnesses who could explain how Carter ended up in North Greenwood, many miles from the location where his stepfather, Luell Evans, last saw him alive. The two were painting a building together when Evans left to get additional supplies. When he returned, he could not find Jermaine.  

“An abused dog would have gotten more attention from local law enforcement than this dead young man has received,” Hicks-Powe said. “From the moment his body was found, local officials have labeled this case a suicide, without a scintilla of evidence to support such a finding.

“Therefore, we want Mississippi officials, even Gov. Haley Barbour, to step in and request that the U.S. Justice Department conduct an independent investigation into the manner of Jermaine’s death,” she said. “His mother, Brenda Carter Evans, has said that all she wants for her son is justice. And for her, justice means truth, the truth of what actually happened to her son.”

MEDIA ADVISORY: Attorney Valerie Hicks-Powe will schedule a press conference with Carter’s mother and other family members on Thursday, March 31, 2011 in Jackson, MS. They will petition state officials to request that federal authorities conduct a thorough investigation of Carter’s hanging death.

For appearances or donations, contact Valerie Hicks-Powe at info@andjusticeforus.org  or Valerie@andjusticeforus.org.
Phone:  205-443-6678

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