PORT GIBSON, Miss. (AP) – A Mississippi sheriff said Friday that a black man found hanging from a tree did not appear to have stepped off of anything before he died.
Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas Sr. told The Associated Press on Friday that the body was found Thursday hanging by a bed sheet from a tree limb about 12 feet high, and that his feet were dangling about two feet off the ground. The hands on the body were not bound, he said.
The results of an autopsy by the Mississippi Crime Lab to determine whether the death was homicide or suicide could take days, Lucas 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.
The man’s identity has not been confirmed, but Lucas believes the dead man is Otis Byrd, a 54-year-old ex-convict who lived just about 200 yards from the tree and had been declared missing by his family about two weeks ago.