MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Aiexpress) — A state autopsy found that the Black man who was found hanging in an empty Alabama home in late September had killed himself. This is different from the private autopsy that his family had done, which did not find any solid proof that he had killed himself.
Dennoriss Richardson’s body was found in rural Colbert County in September. It was a long way from his home in Sheffield, Alabama, a small town of about 10,000 people on the Tennessee River.
Colbert County Sheriff Eric Balentine told AL.com that the 39-year-old man killed himself, according to a state autopsy report that was given to police in late December.
Even though the state has released its official findings, the case has caused a lot of anger and doubt in a community that has a history of racial injustice and a deep-seated mistrust of its police.
In October, Balentine asked the FBI to look into Richardson’s death. Richardson was one of many Black men who had recently sued local police in a federal civil rights case, saying they had abused them over and over again.
Balentine said that the most current report backed up what the first autopsy found.
Balentine told AL.com, “They get those preliminary results back pretty quickly. We had those within a week” of Richardson’s death. “It took three months to get the official report back.”
The Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences did not give a copy of the autopsy right away because it is public information unless there is still an investigation going on into the death.
Dennoriss Richardson’s wife, Leigh Richardson, hasn’t seen the formal paper and says she doesn’t think her husband killed himself.
“From the start of the investigation, the sheriff’s office has said he committed suicide within five days,” Leigh Richardson said in a statement. Let’s fight for the truth because of this. It has not been easy at all. But we know for sure that “NaNa” did not kill herself.
Late in December, a private autopsy was given to Richardson’s lawyer. It said, “A thorough and meticulous investigation should be carried out to rule out staged suicide.”
The private autopsy done by forensic pathologist Dr. Adel Shaker confirmed what the state already knew: that Dennoriss Richardson died of “asphyxia secondary to neck compression,” which is the same thing as hanging.
The report did say, though, that the hyoid neck bone wasn’t there when Shaker looked at the body. This bone is sometimes broken in deaths from hanging or suffocation. In his report, Shaker said that this made it impossible for him to say whether Richardson had been killed or had killed himself.
Dr. Thomas Andrew, a forensic doctor who has worked in the field for over 40 years, says that the hyoid bone doesn’t always give clear proof of how someone died.
Andrew said, “You can’t think about how someone died based on the hyoid bone alone.” Andrew also said that the hyoid bone breaks in about a quarter of all hangings and half of all strangulations. “Most of the time, the manner of death determination is based on evidentiary and circumstantial information,”
Andrew said that in cases like Richardson’s, it was his normal practice to take out the hyoid bone. He would only give it to private doctors doing secondary autopsies if they asked for it.
Shaker said Richardson only had a sore neck and no other bruises on his body. His toxicology report was also normal. Andrew said those were “important points of view.”
Shaker said in the report that it was impossible to say how Richardson died without seeing pictures of the place where his body was found or the rope that killed him. Both were not given the body, according to Shaker.
Roderick Van Daniel, the lawyer who helped Dennoriss Richardson sue the Sheffield Police Department for civil rights violations, also said he does not have any pictures of the scene.
Van Daniel said, “This whole investigation seems fishy.” “This family and community are tired of the vague answers and lies being told to them,” he said.
In November, about 100 people marched from Sheffield’s city hall through the quiet streets to Tuscumbia, the nearby city where the county sheriff’s office is based, to demand that police be open and honest.
Lead leader of the march, artist Eartist Bridges, said, “We can’t keep letting the same things happen over and over and over again and not do anything about it.”
A social worker from Sheffield named Trinda Owens spoke at the march on the steps of the courthouse. She said, “It’s not just about finding answers; it’s about making sure that our minds and bodies are valued, heard, and safe in the future.” Owens also told the protesters to stop being ashamed to talk about mental health.
After a lot of people complained, Sheriff Balentine asked the federal government to look into Richardson’s death. Balentine says that the FBI probe is still going on. A spokesperson for the FBI said they couldn’t say anything about an ongoing probe.