Mississippi police await autopsy results for Black student found hanged
at Delta State
[September 18, 2025]
By SOPHIE BATES
CLEVELAND, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi police on Wednesday awaited autopsy
results for a Black student found hanging from a tree at Delta State
University, in a case that has ignited strong emotions in a state with a
history of racist violence.
The 21-year-old student was found near the campus pickleball courts
early Monday. While police have said they saw no evidence of foul play,
his family is demanding answers and has hired prominent civil rights
attorney Ben Crump.
Campus police Chief Michael Peeler released little new information about
the investigation at a news conference, calling the death an “isolated
incident” and insisting there were no active threats to students and
faculty.
“Out of respect for those grieving, we ask for continued patience and
compassion as this investigation proceeds,” Peeler told reporters at the
Delta State campus.
The chief state medical examiner was conducting an autopsy Wednesday,
and Peeler said preliminary findings should be released in a day or two.
Peeler said the evidence includes video footage, but he would not say
what it shows and where it came from, citing the ongoing investigation.
Crump said in a statement Wednesday that police should allow the
student's family to view any video police have gathered. He said he also
plans to lead an investigation alongside civil rights groups that would
include an independent autopsy.
“We are taking every step to uncover the truth about what happened,”
Crump said.
Family members also pressed for more information from university
officials during a news conference on Tuesday. Vanessa Jones, another
attorney for the family, said the student had just started classes at
Delta State this fall and was “full of life, eager to be there.”
“There should have been cameras at the university that easily could
enlighten us as to what happened,” Jones told reporters, adding: “From
the moment he left his dorm room or entered that campus, there should be
surveillance of all of his actions.”
Online rumors that the student was found with broken limbs were disputed
by Bolivar County Coroner Randolph Seals Jr. In a statement cited by
local news outlets Tuesday, Seals said his office conducted a
preliminary examination and concluded the student did not suffer any
lacerations, contusions, compound fractures, broken bones or injuries
consistent with an assault.
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Friends and family of a deceased Delta State University student
gather outside to pray after a law enforcement briefing, Wednesday,
Sept. 17, 2025, in Cleveland, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)
Seals did not immediately return phone messages from The Associated
Press.
“We recognize this is not only about facts,” Delta State President
Dan Ennis said Wednesday. “It’s about emotions and about feelings
and the way this loss and how it was discovered affects people’s
lives.”
Many social media posts about the case have evoked a darker period
in U.S. history when killings of Black people by white vigilantes
inflicted racial terror in Mississippi and other parts of the Deep
South. They include the infamous lynching of Emmett Till, whose body
was found 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the Delta State campus.
Marquon McKinney said he and other Black students at Delta State
have been shaken by the death.
“Everybody’s upset right now,” McKinney said, adding that he feels
that university officials are trying to downplay the death. “It's a
lot of emotions going on.”
McKinney said his mother called him in the middle of a class on
Monday to make sure he was OK, before he had learned that someone
had been found dead.
Located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, near the Arkansas
state line, Delta State had a fall 2024 enrollment of more than
2,600 students, 42% of whom are Black.
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, has called for
the FBI to investigate.
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AP journalist Russ Bynum contributed from Savannah, Georgia.
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