"One comment left on the Tougaloo sundown town registry said that the town blew a whistle every day when the sun was setting. Another said that signs were originally posted in the city using racial slurs and telling Black passer-by "don't let the sun set on you." Due to this history, Bolden Day and Crump reject the previous claims that her son had committed suicide.
"Carmen and her family reject the innuendo that he committed suicide," Crump said. "People ask me where the evidence is that he was murdered, and I say, 'You don't have any evidence he killed himself.'"
"Day was a graduate student at Illinois State University at the time of his death. He was studying for his Ph.D. in speech pathology with dreams of becoming a doctor. Crump said that it made no sense that he would want to commit suicide, as he was well-liked by peers and teachers and could afford his education.
"You look at this young Black man who did everything right," Crump said, "and yet, you are trying to find excuses for why he could have killed himself."
Sorry to say, but this article is very poorly written. Read the bolded comments and the actual quotes. I know many believe that Crump has an agenda, but this author is quite biased and her words are misleading. She is paraphrasing and presenting information to make Jelani's family and lawyer sound absurd.
Crump's point was simply that there is no evidence of suicide or murder so both angles should be thoroughly investigated. He states that rather than finding evidence that supports suicide, many are looking for excuses to call it suicide, and most is based on speculation. I think that's a sane line of reasoning, but the way the author presents it makes him look clueless.
Sadly, Jelani's death may just be nearly impossible to solve, no matter how thorough the investigation. Important pieces of the puzzle are missing even though LE and Jelani's family almost surely have that info -- like what was that meeting with the professor regarding and why did he choose to skip it and buy marijuana instead? How was he doing that semester? What was his history with marijuana and/or other drugs? The fact that no one in the media ever asks these questions -- or more likely, that MSM has asked and never received any answers to these questions -- is what leans me in the direction of suicide more than any other speculation. Very weird that LE hasn't released any of this info. Understandable if family doesn't want the info released because they are worried it may push even more people into the suicide camp.
While I do not blame the family in their time of immense grief and I empathize with their pain and anguish, I do worry about who is starting what appear to be unfounded rumors regarding people like the unnamed ISU professor. Throwing out some vague statement implicating someone without any evidence to back it up and without reporting it to LE is 100% wrong. I find it hard to believe the family or lawyer is doing this and suspect it is perhaps friends of the family or maybe even just strangers who are upset about the case.