FBI: Autopsy report days away in hanging of Mississippi man
 

PORT GIBSON, Miss. (AP) ? The body of a black man found hanging in a tree in Mississippi has been sent from a state crime lab to a funeral home, but the FBI said it will be days before autopsy results are complete. Until then, investigators are holding off on saying whether Otis Byrd was killed or took his own life, and they're urging people to be patient.

"The community deserves answers. Specifically, the family deserves answers," Don Alway, special agent in charge of the FBI office in Jackson, told a crowd Friday outside the Claiborne County Courthouse in Port Gibson. He said preliminary information about the cause of death is expected next week.

"We're doing everything in our power to be transparent, to talk about what's going on so far," Alway said. "But we want to reiterate that individual, single pieces of information and bits of rumors, we're going to hold off on speaking to those until we can collectively come to a conclusion and get you the truth that everybody deserves."

The county coroner confirmed that the man found hanging from a white sheet Thursday was Byrd, a 54-year-old ex-convict who was reported missing by his family more than two weeks ago. Byrd lived just 200 yards from the spot where his body was found, in woods behind his house.

Alway said investigators are interviewing Byrd's family and friends and searching his rental home and a storage unit for clues. "We are trying to paint a picture of Byrd's life. We are trying to find out what was going on with him personally and professionally," he said.

Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas Sr. told The Associated Press earlier Friday that Byrd did not appear to have stepped off of anything in the area where he was found hanging by a sheet from a tree limb about 12 feet high. His feet were dangling about 2 feet off the ground, and his hands were not bound, Lucas said.

"Life matters," Lucas told the crowd at the courthouse where he appeared with Alway. "I commit to you, as the sheriff of Claiborne County, that I will not allow the shadows of the past to cast a shadow on the future."

Byrd's body was released on Friday to a Port Gibson funeral home, said Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain. An employee at Rollins Funeral Home said funeral arrangements will be made early next week.

Byrd worked on offshore oil rigs and enjoyed gambling in casinos in his off time after getting out of prison, where he served 26 years for fatally shooting a woman while robbing $101 from her convenience store in 1980.

He wasn't the type to kill himself, friends and family said. "He tried to turn his life around. He was going to church every Sunday," said his stepsister, Tracy Wilson. Lora McDaniel, a high school classmate who went to church with Byrd and his family, said "he always had a smile on his face. I just can't see him committing suicide."

"He was a quiet man. He didn't bother nobody," added Anita Smith, another high school classmate. "He had been out nine years and all of the sudden this happens to him? Impossible." Smith said she is planning to participate in a march Monday in Port Gibson to protest Byrd's death.

Mississippi NAACP President Derrick Johnson said he doesn't want people to rush to judgment. "We just want to make sure there's a thorough federal, state and local investigation," Johnson said. The hanging is being investigated by the FBI, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the United States Attorney's office as well as the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. These officials are on the scene to determine if it's a potential hate crime or other violation of federal law, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Claiborne County sits on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, with Natchez to the south and Vicksburg to the north. About 85 percent of the county's 9,250 residents are African-American. Port Gibson is in the district of U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat and the only black member of Mississippi's congressional delegation. He issued a statement calling on the government to use "every resource available to bring swift justice" if foul play was involved.

"Given the history of the state, it is unavoidable that the hanging of a black man in Mississippi justifiably engenders deeply raw emotions," Thompson said.

FBI: Autopsy report days away in hanging of Mississippi man

Was he Gay? If he was Gay and black the black community wouldn't care as much, if at all.

Yesterday I saw a short clip about it, friends were quoted by the reporter - "he was turning his life around". I instantly thought of GFY after hearing that :1orglaugh
And I also wondered if the reporter had a kick of that phrase in that regard as well :)

"Byrd did not appear to have stepped off of anything in the area where he was found hanging by a sheet from a tree limb about 12 feet high. His feet were dangling about 2 feet off the ground, and his hands were not bound, Lucas said."

Interesting:2 cents:

when I was a kid my friend and I used to climb up the cherry tree with the bucket in summer time. We climb really high and sit on the the big branches and picked cherries eatem.


why nobody is saying that its possible he climbed up the tree and hung himself is beyond me

It says he might have killed himself in the first paragraph.

He was a convicted murderer. karmas a bitch

"They" want it to be murder so that they could assume the reason was color of the skin so that they could race monger about evil whitey.

He was turning his life around!

Have to wait for the report from Al Sharpton.

fukin dummy old ass racist beeyatch

Even black people hating on good ol' Race Scumpton :thumbsup

man i wish you didnt hide like a bitch :2 cents::2 cents:

Says BM who:
https://gfy.com/fucking-around-and-pr...s#post20406991

:thumbsup:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

You are free to test that theory by posting the story of the gay guy being hung in a tree.

Waiting right here.

wanna meet up? u scared?

hit me on the email foo

I guess you don't care unless he's gay.
I didn't hear that you cared in that response.

:2 cents:

i couldn't care less about that dude.

did you hear that?

Yeah, and so?

Like that would be new info.

:1orglaugh

Ooooooo...ouch.

You really got me there.

:eyecrazy:eyecrazy:eyecrazy

http://www.troll.me/images/successfu...-ers-thumb.jpg

:1orglaugh

it's funny because it's true.

Hung Gay man NEXT!

Who would actually care that some guy died who had killed a lady during an armed robbery? Maybe his family and friends but beyond that no one until the news tells them care.

It sometimes sounds like black american is another political party. You must back your party regardless of the issue.

I guess I really hurt your feelings since you had to gay it out.

:1orglaugh

That's sad, you're upset because you don't have a gay murder to exploit here for sympathy.

:(

Quoted for the truth. And some people care, I bet they even wish, so that they could race monger.

Who said anything about caring about the guy?
It's more a matter of if we care about crime.
Because why care about his previous crime if we don't care about crime?
So we either care about crime or we don't.

:2 cents:

Because he killed a white 8 month pregnant mother of 3?

Nope.

You're just a racist clown that tried to hide behind being gay.


:2 cents:

Are you trying to confuse me? If someone hung him there then they can die without anyone caring as well. But, I don't know if white supremacists are active in towns that are 85% black. And I'm guessing they'd use rope instead of a bed sheet. Isn't that somewhat common in prisons; to hang themselves with their sheets?

Nobody knows what happened yet, cops just know a guy is dead and it's not easy to
explain how he did it himself.

There isn't any evidence in the case yet so bringing up white supremacy is premature.
So you should stop defending white supremacy before it is even attacked.

:2 cents:

I think the original concern from investigators was due to history because it happened in Mississippi. That's what I read anyway. And that's all I have to say about that.

You can't prove I'm Gay or racist.

Proof or ban

why even argue with these bitchez?? in person then would not say shit i promise u

hung by a bed sheet? prison debt?

Proof.

..

I'm sure it was an accident.

This actually makes sense.

The man spent 25 years in prison, only to get out and die by hanging, his body dangling from a tree for weeks before being found. damn

And the plot thickens - the woman he murdered was the mother in law of former congressman, and secretary of defense, Paul McHale. A revenge killing for his wife?

"The Mississippi Department of Corrections said Byrd spent a little over 25 years in prison for the murder of Lucille Trimm during a robbery. He was convicted of capital murder on Feb. 8, 1980, and was paroled Nov. 2, 2006. Trimm was the mother of Martha Rainville, the first woman in the history of the National Guard to serve as a state adjutant general when she became adjutant general in Vermont in 1997. Rainville lives in Virginia and is married to the Hon. Paul McHale, a former congressman from Pennsylvania and a former assistant secretary of Defense."

from that height, he would probably have a broken neck ?:2 cents:

That's a lot of words without a shred of evidence in it.

:2 cents:

You did meet baddog at Phoenix forum, right? :1orglaugh

i dont live in phoenix :(

that's alright the phoenix forums isn't in phoenix either.. it's in Tempe and was in Scottsdale before that.

well phoenix is the biggest in Az. im over in the seedy part of glendale.