PORT GIBSON, Miss. — An FBI agent appealed for patience Friday after a black man was found hanging from a tree in Mississippi, saying 30 federal, state and local agents were working to determine whether he was killed or committed suicide.
“Everybody wants answers and wants them quickly. We understand that,” FBI Special Agent Don Alway told a crowd at the Claiborne County Courthouse. “We are going to hold off on coming to any conclusions until the facts take us to a definitive answer.”
The county coroner confirmed that the man found hanging from a white sheet Thursday was Otis Byrd, an ex-convict reported missing by his family more than two weeks ago. Byrd lived 200 yards from the spot where his body was found, in a wooded area off a dirt road that ran behind his house.
Alway said investigators are interviewing Byrd’s family and friends and searching his rental home and a storage unit for clues, and will not reveal any evidence along the way.
“We are trying to paint a picture of Byrd’s life. We are trying to find out what was going on with him personally and professionally,” he said.
Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas Sr. said earlier Friday that Byrd did not appear to have stepped off of anything in the area where he was found hanging from a tree limb about 12 feet high. His feet were dangling about two feet off the ground, and his hands were not bound, Lucas said.
“Life matters,” Lucas told the crowd. “I commit to you, as the sheriff of Claiborne County, that I will not allow the shadows of the past to cast a shadow on the future.”
The results of an autopsy by the Mississippi Crime Lab could take days, Lucas said.
Byrd worked on offshore oil rigs and enjoyed gambling in casinos after getting out of prison, where he served 26 years for fatally shooting a woman while robbing $101 from her convenience store in 1980.
He wasn’t the type to commit suicide, friends and family said. “He tried to turn his life around. He was going to church every Sunday,” said his stepsister, Tracy Wilson. “Anybody could have done this. I just don’t see him doing it to himself.”
