Two men found dead in Mississippi
The conditions in which their bodies were found suggest the victims were lynched, but authorities have suggested otherwise.
Photo courtesy of Trey Reed via Facebook
On the morning of Sept. 15, 2025, campus police at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi opened an investigation into a dead body they found “hanging from a tree near the university’s pickleball courts,” as detailed by Delta State University campus police Chief, Michael Peeler, and the Cleveland Police Department. The case was then turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Authorities identified the victim as 21-year-old Delta State student Demartravion “Trey” Reed. After investigations, Reed’s death was ruled his death a suicide, according to the county coroner. Authorities added that no foul play was suspected in his death, however, many people were quick to believe otherwise.
Mississippi has deep historical ties to racism against Black men and women, as well as segregation laws. Between 1877 and the mid 1960s, many states implemented and followed Jim Crow laws, which was a “racial caste system” that legitimized “anti-black racism,” and perpetuated the idea that African Americans were “innately intellectually and culturally inferior to white people,” as explained by the Jim Crow Museum. Current states that heavily enforced these racist laws, as listed by the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff, include Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, where Trey Reed was found deceased. Lynchings were a form of terror and extreme violence perpetrated against Black men and women under the protection of Jim Crow laws during that era.
The Reed’s family attorney, Ben Crump, confirmed that the family will be having an independent autopsy done on Reed’s body, after his death was hastily ruled a suicide and no foul play was found. He noted that there is a “collective memory of a community that has suffered a historic wound over many, many years” that Reed’s death has brought up, creating the need for a larger investigation. United States representative for the state of Missippi, Bennie Thompson, also supported this idea of conducting an independent autopsy due to the high stakes surrounding his death, as Reed’s family’s attorney noted, saying that Missippi has a “painful history of lynching and racial violence against African Americans.”
The independent autopsy will be paid for by former NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp initiative. Know Your Rights Camp is an organization “founded by Colin Kaepernick to raise awareness on higher education, self empowerment, and instructions on how to properly interact with law enforcement,” according to the official website. Kaepernick is the same football player who gained national attention in 2016 by kneeling during the national anthem at a professional football game in order to bring awareness to systematic oppression, especially by police and law enforcement, towards Black and brown people.
Beyond receiving support from the professional athlete, many Delta State University students stood with Trey Reed and his family, with some saying that “considering the history of Missippi, it’s hard to be sure” if his death was truly a suicide, or if it was more connected to the tragic, rascist history of the state. Other students were more sure in their belief that Trey Reed was a victim of lynching, saying the county coroner’s autopsy was “bull.”
On the same day that Trey Reed was found hanged, another man’s body was also found hanging from a tree in Mississippi. That afternoon, the body of a 36-year-old, white male was found in a wooded area in Vicksburg, Mississippi; his body was hanged from a tree similarly to how Trey Reed was found. The Captain of Vicksburg Police Department has told the media that this incident, with the victim identified as Cory Zukatis, does not appear to be related to the death of Trey Reed.