As many here are aware, I have spent the last few weeks looking into the death of Lennon Lacy, an African American high school junior found hanging from a swing set in a predominantly white trailer park in rural Bladenboro, North Carolina. If you have been following this story, this diary should answer as many questions as it creates. Some of what is relayed is established fact. Some is rumor and innuendo. All indicates that the FBI entering the investigation on Friday, December 12, could not have come a moment too soon.
For those unfamiliar with the case, at 07:25 on August 29th, 911 received a call that a body had been found hanging from a swing set between two rows of mobile homes in Bladenboro, North Carolina, a town of less than 1,800 people. That body belonged to Lennon Lee Lacy, who was just two weeks beyond his 17th birthday.
It took investigators less than five hours to decide that there was ‘no evidence of foul play’ in Lennon’s death. A rather surprising conclusion given that the shoes found on his feet were a size-and-a-half too small, had no laces and didn’t even belong to him. That the shoes he had last been seen wearing were missing. That the two belts used to fashion the noose didn’t belong to him. That, given the length of the noose apparatus and the dimension of the swing set, it would have been a supreme feat to accomplish a one-man hanging. That there were no swings, crates or other implements for Lennon to have climbed up on or kicked off from. That his family didn’t believe he had committed suicide. That there was no suicide note.
By the time Lennon’s mother, Claudia, arrived at the trailer park at just past one in the afternoon, the crime scene tape was already being rolled up and Lennon was in a body bag in the back of an EMT vehicle. Claudia painfully recalls that no one bothered to turn on the lights when she entered the vehicle to identify her son’s body. According to County Coroner Hubert Kinlaw, as she exited the vehicle, she indicated that she believed her son had been murdered.
Minutes later, however, State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) detective, Paul Songalewski, informed Claudia that Lennon’s death was being treated as a suicide. He asked her if Lennon had been ‘depressed’. He asked her if Lennon was in any romantic relationships. He didn’t ask to search Lennon’s room for a suicide note. He didn’t ask to see Lennon’s cellphone. He didn’t ask about the clothes Lennon was last seen wearing. He didn’t ask why Lennon’s mother was so sure her son had not taken his own life.
According to Claudia, the entire conversation lasted for roughly 30 minutes and, at the end, Songalewski said he was sorry for her loss and would be back in touch about Lennon’s belongings.
Chaos
What the Lacy family didn’t know at the time was the degree of drama and bickering between various agencies on the scene before Lennon was placed in the EMT vehicle. As 79 year old County Coroner Hubert Kinlaw tells it, he went out of his way to be solicitous to the SBI but the favor was not returned. He relates that when he tried to take pictures, he was told that his camera would be confiscated. He asked if the photos taken by the SBI would be shared with him but says they haven’t been. He tells a meandering story about a key found on Lennon’s body when his pockets were turned inside-out. A strange key on a Florida key chain. A key the likes of which he had never seen before. He says that the SBI wanted to hose the body down to remove the swarming ants but he stopped them. He says he had to fight for an autopsy because he didn’t feel comfortable trying to assess bruising on black skin and that he stayed with the body until it was ready for transport to the State Medical Examiner’s office.
The District Attorney’s office related a different set of events to the Lacy family. The key found in Lennon’s pocket was a standard mailbox key and County Coroner Kinlaw took it upon himself to leave the scene with it to go to the local post office. The DA’s office also alleged that it was Kinlaw who wanted to wash the ants off the body. Exasperated and furious, SBI agent in charge, Paul Songalewski, kept Kinlaw at arm’s length for the rest of the morning and he was subsequently removed from the case.
Autopsy Raises More Red Flags
The autopsy started the next morning at roughly 09:00 and more red flags started waving. Most notably, the shoes that had been found on Lennon’s feet at the scene were not in the body bag when it arrived at the Medical Examiner’s office, even though the Coroner swears he included them with the remains and other evidence. When asked where the shoes were, the SBI reportedly told the Medical Examiner not to worry about them because they had “already been explained”. To date, no-one outside the agency seems to know what that ‘explanation’ is or where the shoes are being stored.
Also concerning was the fact that Lennon’s hands had not been bagged to preserve evidence. The autopsy report says that no foreign material was found under his fingernails but doesn’t make clear if this means literally no foreign material or no suspicious foreign material.
The autopsy itself was, by all appearances, almost embarrassingly cursory. But to be fair, the Medical Examiner, Dr. Deborah Radisch, had been told that this was a fairly cut and dried suicide case caused by depression over the death of an uncle. She was not provided with key details such as the measurement of the swing set the body was allegedly hanging from. She was not provided with scene photos. She was not told that several individuals reputed to be violent lived at the last place, beyond his own home, Lennon was known to be alive. She was not told that investigators had diagnosed Lennon with “depression” postmortem. She was not told that the family believed it might be murder.
Indeed, aside from a few off-hand remarks in the 79 year old County Coroner’s scene report, a report riddled with errors, it appears that she was never given any real indication that the death of Lennon Lacy might involve foul play. And it bears noting that the same Coroner had already labelled the cause of death as ‘suicide’ by the time the body arrived at Dr. Radisch’s table.
Foul Play?
The Lacys, on the other hand, had many reasons to suspect foul play might be involved.
1. Lennon had displayed no signs of being suicidal and there was no suicide note. Like any normal 17 year old, he had been sad about his almost 80 year old great uncle dying but he was also incredibly excited about the first football game of the season being played the same day his body was found. He was in the starting lineup and had been training relentlessly. He even posted a selfie hours before he was last seen alive referencing the big game the next day.
2. His new Nike Jordan shoes – the shoes he was last seen wearing – were missing.
3. His cellphone, something he never left the house without, was under the pillow of his still made bed.
4. Less than a year before his death, he and two white friends had been robbed by several older white men in their early 20s. It has been alleged that, while in jail, one of the robbers said that the Lacy family should be glad all they did was rob Lennon, they were going to do more. The individual who conveyed that message was out of jail at the time of Lennon’s death and, according to one source, was seen driving around the neighborhood not long before Lennon was last seen alive.
5. Lennon, just two weeks beyond his 17th birthday, was in a relationship with a much older white woman (age 31) who lived in the same public housing development as the Lacys. Directly across the street, in fact. While much can be made of the age difference and the realities of the girlfriend’s life, including an addiction to prescription pills, she is also, at times, a sympathetic figure and a person Lennon genuinely cared about. Some had made it known, however, that they didn’t look too kindly on the interracial relationship.
6. Hours before Lennon was last seen alive by his family, he had been at an allegedly KKK-friendly neighbor’s house. A house that used to have a “N-----s Keep Out” sign in the front yard and Confederate flags flying. His time there was unpleasant, to say the least, given that he learned someone he considered a friend in that house had tried to sleep with his girlfriend. He related the details of the encounter to his brother’s girlfriend when he got home while angry text messages popped up on his phone saying things like “I didn’t f--k your girl”.
7. Beyond rumors of being KKK-friendly, the family living in the last house Lennon was known to be alive (outside his own) also has a reputation for violence. Particularly when it comes to perceived slights.
8. In the days after Lennon’s death, another young adult staying at the neighbor’s house began walking by the Lacy house 20 to 30 times a day. Family members got the distinct impression that he was both taunting them and trying to eavesdrop on their conversations.
An Adversarial Relationship with Investigators
The day before Lennon was buried, SBI investigator Paul Songalewski visited the Lacy family at their home to again inform them that no evidence of foul play had been discovered. He said he had a statement from Lennon’s “best friend” indicating that Lennon had told him in graphic detail not only that he planned to commit suicide but exactly how he was going to do it. It is worth noting that the “best friend” did not attend the funeral the next day and never visited the Lacys after Lennon’s death to convey his condolences. He posted no condolence messages on Facebook and has never attended any of the community meetings about Lennon’s death. He also happens to live in the last house where Lennon was known to be alive and to be the very person Lennon was fighting with in the hours before he died.
The day after Lennon was buried, his grave was cruelly desecrated. Flowers were strewn up to 40 feet away. An enormous hole was dug. The football jersey left to honor his passion was gone. Police told the family that the person responsible had been arrested but when they asked for the name they were told not to worry about it because it was “all under control”. Rumors quickly began to circulate that no-one had been arrested and word from the county jail was that no one had been admitted for the crime.
It didn’t take long before the Lacys felt they were on their own in driving the investigation of what happened to Lennon. For older brother Pierre, in particular, it became an obsession. Leads continued to come in and were regularly turned over to authorities who obliged by reactively investigating. According to my sources, SBI investigator, Paul Songalewski, spent hours on the phone following up these leads and most spoken to were left with the impression that he actually cared about getting to the bottom of things. What isn’t clear is how he followed up on what he was told during those conversations. To be sure, the Lacy family, the people who forwarded the leads, were never kept in the loop or given the slightest consideration when it came to updates about results.
One thing that is clear is that the Lacy family came to perceive Songalewski and even District Attorney, Jon David, as adversaries rather than an allies. Perhaps the most telling interplay was the day Songalewski showed up at their house when NAACP-retained attorney Heather Rattelade was visiting. Upon being introduced by Claudia, Songalewski allegedly became aggressively hostile, refusing to share anything with the family until Rattelade left because he ‘didn’t know her and didn’t trust her’. From Claudia’s perspective, she had to send away the attorney working on her behalf if she wanted to learn anything about the death of her son.
As the rest of the story is told, Songalewski then set about trying to undermine everything Claudia knew to be true. She said the belts used to fashion the noose did not belong to Lennon, Songalewski said they did. She said the shoes found on the corpse did not belong to Lennon and even produced shoes that looked the same from Lennon’s closet – Songalewski said she was wrong. At every juncture, no matter what Claudia offered, she felt shut out by the investigator charged with getting to the bottom of what happened to her son. At some point, a hand written statement was produced for Claudia to sign. With her lawyer gone, she did as she was told. A move she wishes she could take back. Neither she nor her lawyers have ever been supplied with a copy of the statement Claudia signed that day.
Rumors Spread Like Wildfire
Because of the lack of transparency, even with the Lacy family itself, rumors have flourished in this tiny southern town. For example, a man who lived in the trailer with a direct view of the swing set Lennon was found on was killed by a motorist while walking down the street two weeks later. Was he killed because he was a witness? Why wasn’t the person driving the vehicle charged? I looked into this and it seems to have been totally unrelated. But who can blame people for wondering?
Along the same line, another resident of the trailer park with a prime view of the swing set was reportedly evicted that same afternoon. Was this because she saw too much? Or because it was the end of the month and she hadn’t paid her rent?
There are rumors that that one adult member of the last household Lennon was known to be alive is related to the town’s police chief and the other adult member is cousin to one of the officers who was at the death scene – an officer who retired the same afternoon Lennon’s body was found but recently rejoined the force.
It has also been alleged that someone possibly involved had been seen trying to buy multiple gallons of bleach the same day Lennon’s body was found. A source who told me she confronted the person says that, at first, statements like ‘we don’t much like black people and prefer to stick to our own (white) kind’ were made. But when further pushed, tears started to flow along with an utterance that things had gone too far and she didn’t mean for what happened to happen.
There are also rumors that the person who robbed Lennon and his friends in October 2013, the one who allegedly said the family should be thankful more hadn’t been done, the one who was supposedly driving around in the area hours before Lennon was last seen alive, has subsequently been seen with Lennon’s missing Nike Jordans. No one quite seems to know where he is now though.
The rumors go on and on... Lennon was seen alive but beaten in the backseat of a car near the swing set where his body was found. Someone has the desecration of the grave on tape. A person possibly involved tried to hang himself two weeks after Lennon died. There is video of another person possibly involved using a choke hold known to create identical injuries to those discovered during Lennon’s autopsy. That police provided protection for Lennon’s older girlfriend because she said she was afraid the Lacys would try to hurt her. Rumors of various players being involved in selling and taking prescription pills. Rumors of cheating, of prostitution, of racism and threats.
While the rumors seem to come a dime a dozen, real answers have been much more difficult find. People I have spoken to seem universally convinced that Lennon did not commit suicide. When asked if they think they know what happened, they say ‘yes’. When pressed for details, they become suddenly preoccupied with staring at their text messages.
The NAACP Enters the Case
Frustrated by the rush to close Lennon’s death as a suicide, the Lacy family contacted the North Carolina NAACP and pleaded for help. The NAACP, in turn, hired an independent pathologist, Dr. Christena L. Roberts, to review the case. Her report, released to the public on November 21st, highlights a number of disturbing factors including:
1. There is a variation of the choke hold that can cause injuries identical to those found on Lennon’s body during autopsy and that it is impossible to tell if death occurred by this choke hold or by suspension. It is further possible to create suspension marks postmortem.
2. It is not possible to diagnose clinical depression postmortem.
3. Not only did the dimensions of the swing set Lennon was found on make it implausible for him to have been able to act alone in hanging himself, the length of the noose apparatus, two belts tied together, moved that implausibility to virtual impossibility.
Hoping to get a federal investigation opened, the NAACP submitted the Roberts’ report to the Department of Justice along with approximately 20 investigative leads. On Friday, December 12th, an answer was returned: The FBI had formally taken on Lennon’s case.
The next day, almost 1,000 people from across North Carolina descended on Bladenboro (population 1,800) to march for Lennon and let the Lacy family know it is not alone in the quest for the truth. Media outlets ranging from MSNBC to Al Jazeera to ESPN were also in attendance, having finally woken up to the big story unfolding in a small southern town. A smattering of white locals stood at various points on the side of the route, smirking and filming. At least one screamed a steady stream of invective at the marchers but her voice was drowned by the chanting throng that had come to support the Lacy family.
Claudia Lacy has said from Day One that she is prepared to accept her son committed suicide if it is the truth but, right now, there are just too many unanswered questions. Will the FBI have more success than the SBI? I certainly hope so. For without truth, there can be no justice. And without justice, there can be no peace.
....
updated on December 31st.