BLADENBORO, N.C. – The FBI has opened an investigation into the death of a black North Carolina teenager found hanging from a swing set after relatives raised doubts about the official finding that he committed suicide, a conclusion that the county coroner questions now.
A caller to emergency dispatch reported spotting the 17-year-old Lennon Lacy’s body in a trailer park Aug. 29 in the small town of Bladenboro. He was hanging by a dog leash and a belt that his family says did not belong to him, his feet suspended 5 centimetres off the ground.
The state medical examiner ruled that the boy killed himself, but his mother said she does not believe it.
“When I saw him, I just knew automatically he didn’t do that to himself,” Claudia Lacy told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “If he was going to harm himself, his demeanour would have changed. His whole routine, everything, his attitude, everything would have changed.”
She last saw the youngest of her four sons alive as the middle linebacker prepared for a high school football game by putting together his uniform in the early hours of Aug. 29.
His father told him that he needed to get some sleep before the game, his first after his mother made him take a year off from the team to focus on his grades.
“OK, Daddy,” he said. They then heard a door close, which was not unusual, Claudia Lacy said, because her son liked to run at night when the air was cool.
About 13 hours later, she identified her son’s body in the back of an ambulance. The swing set was in clear sight of about 10 trailers.
She said she felt let down when investigators ruled it a suicide and brought her concerns to the state chapter of the NAACP civil rights organization, which has organized a march Saturday in Bladenboro.
On Friday, federal authorities confirmed they were reviewing the investigation. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Tom Walker said Walker’s office acted at the request of attorneys from the North Carolina NAACP representing the family.
Bladen County District Attorney Jon David said Friday that he also asked the FBI to review the case because the family and the NAACP said they had information that they would provide only to federal authorities. He said he had seen no evidence of foul play.
Teresa West, a spokeswoman with the State Bureau of Investigation, said recently that agents have addressed all viable leads. Bladenboro Police Chief Chris Hunt referred all questions to the State Bureau of Investigation, North Carolina’s top law enforcement agency.
Bladen County Coroner Hubert Kinlaw said he signed a death certificate calling the cause of death a suicide, because that’s how the form came back from the medical examiner. Kinlaw, who went to the scene, said he now wonders whether Lennon really killed himself.
But the medical examiner, Dr. Deborah Radisch, said in a discussion with a pathologist hired by the NAACP that she based her ruling partially on Kinlaw’s conclusion that Lacy killed himself.
Comments