"FBI awaits autopsy in hanging of Miss. black man" Associated Press March 21, 2015
PORT GIBSON, Miss. — A Mississippi sheriff said Friday that a black man found hanging from a tree did not appear to have stepped off anything before he died.
Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas Sr. said 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 2 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 US Attorney’s office as well as the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
The federal investigators are there to determine whether it is a potential hate crime or other violation of federal law, Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday.
The man’s identity has not been confirmed, but Lucas believes the dead man is Otis Byrd, a 54-year-old former convict who lived about 200 yards from the tree and had been declared missing by his family about two weeks ago.
?????????????
They just found him?
--more--"
UPDATE: "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 are urging people to be patient (AP)."
So what well-connected person or authority did it?
