*Activists and the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana are calling for an independent investigation into the death of Quawan “Bobby” Charles, a Black 15-year-old whose body was found several days after he was reported missing.
His mother, Roxanne Nelson, said her family filed a missing persons report Oct. 30 in the St. Mary Parish town of Baldwin. Her son’s body was found the evening of Nov. 3 about 20 miles (32 kilometers) away in woods near the Iberia Parish town of Loreauville. Nelson said Thursday that sheriff’s investigators told her this week that her son drowned, but they also were waiting for toxicology test results.
“This is a nightmare,” Nelson, told The Associated Press, adding that she’s heard conflicting accounts of what preceded her son’s disappearance. “I’ve had to go on a wild goose chase just to get information.”
A fundraising page, set up to raise $15,000 for Charles’ family, had brought in more than $160,000 by Thursday. It’s topped by post-death photographs’ of Charles’ face, with parts of his lips missing, and the face of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was lynched in 1955. Charles’ family took the picture of his face, said civil rights attorney Ron Haley, one of three representing the family.
It “looks like a hate crime,” NAACP Louisiana Conference President Michael McClanahan said in a livestreamed interview for his weekly radio show Sunday on WTQT-FM in Baton Rouge. In an interview Thursday, he said he was hoping to get the Justice Department to investigate it as a hate crime. However, Haley said he did not know whether damage to Charles’ face was caused by violence or by decay from days in Louisiana’s humid heat.
An independent autopsy by American Forensics of Mesquite, Texas, will answer that and other questions, he said. He said Charles’ body was sent there on Tuesday and he expects a report late this week or early next week.
Below, a report on the investigation, followed by YouTubers who are calling attention to things about the case that need some explaining. (Warning: graphic photo.)
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