On Friday, Dec. 3 the remains of Frederick Jermaine Carter were found hanging from an oak tree in Greenwood, Miss. This week, the county sheriff ruled the death a suicide but there are some very interesting details that seem to point elsewhere.
Preliminary autopsy results have found that there is no validity or support for the claim made by the NAACP that someone else was involved. According to Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks, Carter’s family indicated that he had spent eight months in the state mental hospital in 2008, and had even tried to kill himself by drug overdose and cutting himself.
County Coroner Debra Sanders said that the autopsy’s preliminary finding of suicide is consistent with what was observed at the scene: that “Carter dragged the frame of an old table from one side of the tree to the other, propped it against the tree trunk, and then tied himself to the lowest limb.” In addition, there were no other footprints by the tree.
Carter, 26, was found in the predominately white area of north Greenwood. Prior to his death, Carter’s stepfather, a painter, said he and Carter were working in Greenwood and that Carter wandered off after he was instructed to go and get some tools.
North Greenwood is a wealthy area located 12 miles from Money, Miss., the place where 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in August 1955.
Editor’s note: The photo depicts an historical lynching, not Frederick Jermaine Carter.
