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Partygoers Claimed Black Missouri Teen Died by Suicide--Inquest Calls BS
Daily Beast
‘SAW THROUGH ALL THEIR LIES’
Derontae Martin was found dead during a party at a rural home in Missouri. The home was owned by a man known for his love of the Confederate flag and racist Facebook posts.
Cheyenne Roundtree
Entertainment Reporter
Updated Jul. 31, 2021 8:29PM ET Published Jul. 31, 2021 7:01PM ET
Three months after a Black teenager was found dead of a gunshot wound to his head in the home of a man who flies a Confederate flag, a coroner’s inquest has rejected the initial ruling that the 19-year-old died of suicide and found the teen was in fact killed by violence.
It took only two hours for a six-person jury to make its decision on Friday in the death of Derontae Martin, who was found dead in an attic on April 25 at a rural home outside of Park Hills, Missouri, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
A handful of partygoers told EMTs who were called to the scene in the early hours of the morning that Martin shot himself. But the circumstances surrounding Martin’s death never made sense to his family members, who have insisted there was foul play.
A main point of contention was the initial autopsy performed on Martin, which determined the gun had been fired in close range due to a soot ring on Martin’s left temple. But Martin’s mother Ericka Lotts hired her own pathologist to conduct a second autopsy. This time, the expert said she found no soot ring and concluded the gun had been fired from “two or three feet, or more away.”
snip
‘SAW THROUGH ALL THEIR LIES’
Derontae Martin was found dead during a party at a rural home in Missouri. The home was owned by a man known for his love of the Confederate flag and racist Facebook posts.
Cheyenne Roundtree
Entertainment Reporter
Updated Jul. 31, 2021 8:29PM ET Published Jul. 31, 2021 7:01PM ET
Three months after a Black teenager was found dead of a gunshot wound to his head in the home of a man who flies a Confederate flag, a coroner’s inquest has rejected the initial ruling that the 19-year-old died of suicide and found the teen was in fact killed by violence.
It took only two hours for a six-person jury to make its decision on Friday in the death of Derontae Martin, who was found dead in an attic on April 25 at a rural home outside of Park Hills, Missouri, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
A handful of partygoers told EMTs who were called to the scene in the early hours of the morning that Martin shot himself. But the circumstances surrounding Martin’s death never made sense to his family members, who have insisted there was foul play.
A main point of contention was the initial autopsy performed on Martin, which determined the gun had been fired in close range due to a soot ring on Martin’s left temple. But Martin’s mother Ericka Lotts hired her own pathologist to conduct a second autopsy. This time, the expert said she found no soot ring and concluded the gun had been fired from “two or three feet, or more away.”
snip
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