The Suspicious Death of Andre Jones

In the early morning hours of August 22, 1992, Charles and Esther Quinn were awakened by a frantic phone call from the girlfriend of Esther’s eighteen-year-old son, Andre Jones. She told them the Jackson police had arrested Andre.

The following day, the Quinns were informed by police that Andre had committed suicide while in jail. What followed were decades worth of investigations into not only Andre's death, but also other Mississippi inmates who died in the same manner.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hey, hey, welcome back to Autumn's oddities. I'm Autumn. Well,
today's case it is certainly not a lighthearted one. It's
every parent's my worst freaking nightmare, you know, at least
every parent with a child who's able to drive. Anyway.
It's a case of law enforcement's word versus the subject

(00:52):
they arrested and the loane witness. It is quite literally
a back and forth between experts, law enforce horsement witnesses,
and the family of a young man who was arrested,
each just rebutting each other's claims. This is the suspicious
hanging death of Andre Jones. In the early morning hours

(01:13):
of August twenty second, nineteen ninety two, Charles and Esther
Quinn were awakened by a frantic phone call from the
girlfriend of Esther's eighteen year old son, Andre Jones. She
told them that Jackson police had arrested Andre. The following day,
the Quinns were informed by police that Andre had committed

(01:33):
suicide while in jail. The events that led to Andrea
Jones's arrest and death are still disputed. Police say it's
an open and shutcase of a depressed young man fearful
of going to prison, taking his own life. Others contend
that Andrea's arrest was racially motivated and his death was
the result of police anger. Civil rights leaders claim the

(01:56):
ordeal is a testament to a larger problem of racism
in the Mississippi judicial system, and they contend that the
death of Andre Jones, who was the son of prominent
civil rights activists, shows that even as the twenty first
century is here, the nineteenth century Jim crow Era was
still operating in the Magnolia State. In the summer of

(02:19):
nineteen ninety two, Andre Jones was eighteen years old and
about to start his freshman year of college. Andre had
grown up in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, which is
the largest city in the state and is also the capital.
I personally lived in Mississippi for a short amount of time.
I lived in Oxford, I went to Ole, miss My
transferred there, and I left. I'm going to tell you

(02:42):
back then, racism was alive and well, I don't think
I ever heard white people use the N word more,
and that was one of the reasons I left. I'm
not saying everybody in Mississippi is racist. I'm just saying
when I was there, I heard a whole whole, a
whole lot of very, very open racism. Named after one

(03:05):
of our nation's most divisive presidents, Andrew Jackson, the area
is no stranger to racial tension that has plagued it
since its founding, when the Choctaw Native Americans were pressured
to leave the area to make way for America's westward expansion.
And by pressure, I mean they were going to get
fucking killed if they didn't, so they left. Roughly two

(03:25):
hundred thousand people lived in this area, within Jackson itself
and its broader metropolitan area. The city is primarily black,
with more than seventy five percent of the population identifying
as Black or African American. As far as American cities go,
it's one of the most populous cities with a predominantly
black population, coming in just behind Detroit, Michigan. Andre Jones

(03:49):
was a relatively normal kid. He lived with his mother
and stepfather in Jackson. He had friends, a girlfriend, he
played sports, you know, normal stuff. His father, Alonso, lived
in Port Gibson, roughly an hour southwest. Andre's mother, Esther
Jones Quinn, was the president of Jackson, Mississippi's branch of
the NAACP. And you're gonna hear me repeat what his

(04:10):
parents do several times because it really does bear repeating.
I feel like it's important in this case. His stepfather,
Charles x Quinn, was a Nation of Islam minister in
the area. Nineteen ninety two was a momentous year for Andre.
He graduated from high school and he was making plans
to attend college that fall. He'd already been accepted into

(04:31):
Alcorn State University, where he was planning to study engineering,
and he had spent the previous time that summer working
as a full time paid apprentice for a local engineering company.
Andre seemed poised to have a great life and a
great future ahead of him, as he was a hard working,
intelligent young man with a very supportive family behind him,

(04:52):
until a traffic stop changed everything. It was a Friday
night in the summer, and Andre was spending you know,
some time with his girlfriend, Tanisha. It was Andrea's last
weekend before heading off for college, and he was spending
what time he had with friends, you know, but primarily
with his girlfriend. The two were hanging out. They were

(05:13):
driving around in a pickup truck, a nineteen ninety one
s ten Chevrolet, which Andre claimed he had borrowed from
a friend. There's not a lot of details about this
pickup truck and what the allegations about it are. I
have not seen any verification of the allegations made by

(05:33):
police with regard to the truck. Around eleven forty five
pm on August twenty first, Andre and Tanisha visited the
Quinn's home in Jackson for approximately forty five minutes. From there,
Andre planned to drive Tanisha to her home in Brandon,
which was about is fourteen miles east of Jackson. At
one am on August twenty second, Andre and Tanisha were

(05:56):
stopped at a police sobriety checkpoint near the Brandon city limits.
Police claimed that just short of the checkpoint, they observed
Andrea tossing something out of the window, which they alleged
to be a thirty eight caliber handgun. I'm saying alleged
because I cannot find any proof of it. I can't
find anywhere where anyone has seen any proof of a

(06:18):
gun being thrown out of the vehicle. Upon inspection of
the truck, police alleged that they found an open beer can.
A license plate check revealed the vehicle was stolen, and again,
I don't know if any of this is true. A
half hour later, Andre's parents were awakened by a phone
call from Tanisha. Andre had been arrested. At two am,

(06:41):
Andre called his parents from the Brandon police station. He
said he was unaware of what he'd been charged with
they wouldn't tell him. At around four am, Andre called
his mother again and informed them that he would be
transferred to another prison in Mendenhall, which was a neighboring
county to the south, and the reasoning the family would

(07:03):
later learn is that the jail in Brandon's Rank And
County had been overpopulated. During this four am phone call,
Andrea stressed again to his parents that he still was
not sure what he was being charged with and he
wouldn't be able to find out until Monday morning, when
he could stand in front of a judge foreign arraignment.
So if you get arrested on the weekend for something

(07:24):
like a DUI, you will sit in jail typically until
you can be arraigned. So when the courts open back
up on Monday. Throughout Saturday, the family and loved ones
of Andrea had to worry about what would happen to
the young man who had been planning to leave for
Alcorn State University within days. We were told this is
according to his mother, that they could not tell us

(07:45):
anything at that time, and Simpson County, the jail he
was transferred to, just refused to even talk to us,
and they told us that we could not come to
their jail. Esther said she spoke to Andre at least
five different times on Saturday. We could not tell him anything.
He was very concerned about getting out immediately so that
he could attend school the very next day. Then, at

(08:08):
midnight on Saturday, the Quinns heard a knock on their door.
It was a Jackson police officer hoping for good news.
Esther opened the door, but there was no news. The
officer just simply handed her a piece of paper. She
said that it only had a phone number for the
Simpson County jail on it. There was not a note,
there was not a message, it was only a number.

(08:29):
Esther immediately called the police station and received the worst
possible news she could have imagined. She said that she
was informed that Andrea had committed suicide and that they
just casually told her this as if they could have
been talking to someone that didn't even know who he was.
And how crass is that send an officer to a
mother's door in the middle of the night, middle of

(08:49):
the night and not tell her anything and just shove
a piece of paper with a phone number on it,
and then just to tell someone that so bluntly. I
can't imagine having that little tact or heart. Really. Yeah,
So she was informed that he had committed suicide. And
according to Andre's parents, he had never shown suicidal tendencies,

(09:11):
He'd never suffered from depression, and you know, there were
no indications of self harm. Nothing seemed wrong other than
he had just been arrested, and Andre had no previous
arrest records. So when Esther and Charles Quinn started looking
into his death, they naturally began with these circumstances of
his arrest. I know I briefly touched on it, but
I'm going to expand now, expand contract. That night, Andre

(09:36):
and Tanisia stopped by the Quinn's house, like I said
in Jackson, around eleven forty five, they left and drove
east toward Brandon, where Tanisha lived. Near the Brandon city limits,
they came upon the checkpoint I think it was a
dui checkpoint. According to the police, Andre stopped just short
of the checkpoint and tossed something out the window. Police

(09:57):
again alleged they identified the object as a third eight
caliber handgun. Inside the truck, Police again alleged that there
was an open can of beer, and finally, the truck,
which Andre had borrowed and driven for more than a
week from a friend, turned out to be stolen. Again.
Was any of this true, That's unknown because this case

(10:19):
never made it anywhere, because you know, he died immediately. However,
Tanisha loves version of the events was quite different from
the police report. She insists that no gun was tossed
out of the window and that there was no beer
can in the truck. She also says neither she nor
Andre knew anything about the truck being stolen. Police asked

(10:40):
to see Andre's license and insurance card, but he did
not have them with him. He did, however, willingly give
the officers his name and social security numbers so they
can go ahead. Well, they couldn't use a computer at
the time to look it up. They could call it in.
They can find out who he is and verify his identity,
but that's when Tanisha claimed the officer's demeanor changed. She

(11:01):
said that after they asked his name, they all went
into a little huddle, which she called like a football huddle,
and she said that she didn't know what they were
talking about because they were kind of whispering. And after
that they came to the truck and asked Andre again
did he have his license, and he said, no, sir,
I don't have my license, and they asked him to
step out of the truck and that's when they handcuffed him.

(11:22):
She claimed they also shackled his feet and hands at
the same time, and she said she did not understand
what was going on. Jim Ingram, I told you this
is going to be a back and forth the entire
time someone says something, someone else comes along and says, no,
that's not what happened. You know, there were no body
cams or or you know, cameras and police cars back then,
so quite literally, the police can say whatever they want.

(11:46):
Jim Ingram, the police commissioner, claims that Tanisha was telling
a false story. He said that Andre himself, this is
at a left field, admitted that he was in a
gang and came clean about several activities he'd been involved in.
They even claimed that Andre asked them to photograph him
showing different gang signs, so like, he's throwing different gang

(12:08):
signs and wants to be photographed, and they have not
explained why on earth anybody would do that. And to me,
that just sounds like a bunch of rural white cops
who don't know jack shit about you know, black people,
and they pull over a black kid, and they're like, well,
he's certainly in a gang, right, and that's what they do.
They want you to take pictures of them throwing gang signs.

(12:29):
It's like that, No, even if he was a gang member,
he wouldn't have done that, Like seriously, despite repeated requests
from family members and the media, police consistently refused to
release the alleged pictures, without offering any sort of explanation
as to why they will not release them. They claim
to have pictures of the gun, the beer can, and
of him throwing up gang signs, but no one has

(12:52):
ever seen these photos. So I'm going to go out
on a limb and say that they probably don't freaking
exist anyway. Andre's friends and family are adamant that he
was not then, nor had he ever been a gang member.
Did he sound like a gang member to you? He
sure didn't to me. He was a kid who was
doing an apprenticeship at an engineering firm, had gotten into

(13:13):
college and was going to school to be or was
going to go to school to be an engineer, and
had parents in pretty high positions of respect and power
in the area. At approximately two am on August twenty second,
half an hour after Tanisha called the Quinns with the
news of Andre's arrest, Andre called his parents from the

(13:34):
Brandon police station, and he told them again, I don't
know what I'm being charged with. Andrea phoned his parents
again two hours later, saying that he was being transferred
to the Simpson County Jail in Mendenhall, still not knowing
what the charges against him were, which is very strange.
It's like, wouldn't he be question I don't know, Esther says.

(13:56):
She spoke with Andre three more times throughout the day.
That after afternoon, she finally learned the charges against her
son driving a truck whose vehicle identification number had been altered,
carrying a concealed weapon, possession of stolen license plates and tags,
and driving with an open container of alcohol in an automobile.

(14:17):
Commissioner Ingram remained adamant that the arrest was not confrontational.
He was like, Oh, it's actually like super peaceful. He
just like super cooperated. And it's like, but you said
he was throwing gang signs, put a gun, like, chucked
the gun out the window, has a stolen truck and beer.
I would think you guys probably would have made it
confrontational if all of those things were true, especially back then.

(14:37):
Charles Quinn, however, said that an inmate in Brandon told
him that police used racial slurs to intimidate his son.
I obviously will not be saying them. I never have
in my life and I never will. But he was
quoted as saying. One of the inmates who was transferred
with Andre, said that the officer said, do you know
what happens to Inwards for stealing a white man's truck,
And of course other statements were said to put fear

(15:00):
into Andre. The next day, Andrea was transferred to Simpson
County Jail. That night, his body was found in a
shower stall at the end of a dimly lit corridor.
When Esther called the Simpson County Jail shortly before midnight
on August twenty second, you know, after a cop showed
up at her door and shoved a fucking piece of
paper at her, knowing good and full well that her

(15:22):
son was dead. She says that's when she was casually
informed that Andre had committed suicide in the jail shower.
Authorities said that he had tied his own shoelace to
an iron grate above the shower head and hanged himself.
And I don't know, to those who knew Andre Jones,
this news was not believable. But to his family, in
particular his parents, Esther and Charles Quinn, it was more

(15:45):
than that. It was a complete contradiction of everything they
knew about Andre, who again had a very bright future
and who they knew to have a steady head on
his shoulders. Andrea had no history of any known depression
or mental health those issues. He displayed no outward sign
of suicide or you know, self harm suicidal ideations in

(16:06):
the years leading up to this. Charles Quinn, his stepfather,
stated the motive could have been several issues, but we
know he didn't commit suicide and it doesn't sound super
likely to me. Either. I'm trying not to be biased,
but it doesn't sound great. From the beginning, Andre's parents
very much doubted the explanation given to them by police.

(16:28):
From the moment they heard that Andrea had committed suicide.
They doubted that narrative authorities, though, offered up a much
less conspiratorial perspective. They claim that Andre, who had never
been in legal trouble before, had simply gotten spooped by
the threat of going to prison. And I feel like
they're contradicting their own narrative. Honestly, the police are. They're like, Oh,

(16:50):
he's scared of prison, but he's a gang member with
a gun and a stolen car. Like, does that sound
like a hardened criminal to you? Somebody who's scared of
going to jail and kills themselves. But they're in again,
throwing signs, and you've got all these pictures that you
never released to anybody because I don't think they exist.
Doesn't sound likely. John Abernathy, the chief deputy for the
Simpson County Sheriff's Department at the time, stated that it

(17:11):
was his first time in jail and he was upset
because the guys in the cell, in the cell with
him told him that he was going to Parchment, and
I had to look up what the hell Parchment is.
It's the Mississippi State Penitentiary, which is notoriously horrific by
any metric. The prison has a reputation for being a
miserable place to exist, referred to in William Faulkner's novel

(17:35):
The Mansion as destination Doom, and William Faulkner is from
Mississippi and the author. Going further, a historian said in
nineteen ninety six, throughout the American South, parchment farm is
synonymous with punishment and brutality. So it doesn't sound like
a great place to go. But I didn't know him personally,

(17:56):
But I don't know. Like police seemed to be sir
that Andre Jones, faced with the possibility of spending an
unknown amount of time in Parchment, decided to take his
own life. And I don't because he I don't know.
This is my opinion based on the facts. Again, he
had two very well educated and powerful parents, and you'll

(18:20):
see that later. They know a lot of extremely influential people.
I think he would have thought they can help me
get out of this, like we can get this cleared up.
I don't think he would have just been like, I'm
going to immediately kill myself with a shoelaces. That's a
leap truly. Charles Quinn visited the scene where his step
son was found because he estimated the great to be

(18:42):
approximately eight feet above the floor. Charles believed Andre would
have needed something to stand on and that he would
have needed someone to hold him up. He also did
not believe Andre's body weight could have been supported by
a shoelace, and I don't know. He said that when
he saw the area where his body was found, that

(19:03):
it appeared he would need some sort of a stool
to stand on. Doctor Stephen Hayne, the state appointed pathologist
who performed Andre's autopsy, ruled his death a suicide, saying
investigators demonstrated that it was possible for him to have
hanged himself unaided, and that the lace's manufacturer determined its
tensile strength was sufficient to support his body weight. Less

(19:28):
than a week after Andre's death, the Quinns hired their
own independent pathologist, doctor James Bryant of Chicago, to examine
Andre's remains. He concluded that it was highly probable that
Andre had been strangled. Like I said, here go the experts.
They're just going to bat each other back and forth.
Everything one says, the others like, no, that's not true,

(19:49):
just smacking each other over and over. Doctor Bryant says
that in most suicide hangings, the ligature mark is along
the side of the neck and does not go all
the way around. In Andrea's case, it went along the
side of his neck all the way to the back
where it criss crossed, and that sounds difficult to strangle
yourself that way, or to hang yourself that way. For

(20:11):
doctor Bryant, this suggested someone had come from behind and
wrapped the ligature around Andre's neck. Doctor Hayne disagreed what
a surprise, saying the not imprint area would be in
the hairline, which would act as a buffer, preventing the
imprint from being present on the upper back surface of
the neck. Doctor Bryant countered by saying that Andrea's hair

(20:34):
was short, the crisscross marking was not on the hairline,
and no knock marks were found elsewhere. Doctor Haynes's official
autopsy report lists no evidence of bruising on Andre's neck
or anywhere else on his body. Conversely, Doctor Bryant's autopsy
found that Andre had sustained bruising under one of his
eyes and on his shoulders. He says the bruising could

(20:57):
have occurred at the time he died or could have
been inflicted earlier that day, suggesting Andre had endured some
kind of blunt force trauma during the time he was
in jail, and that his murder was staged to look
like a suicide. The official autopsy report listed no evidence,
like I said, of bruising on Andre's nec or anywhere
else on his body. Doctor Haynes's ruling of you know,

(21:20):
Andrea Jones's death as a suicide was supported by the
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the United States Department of Justice,
and the United States Attorney's Office, the FBI, the Attorney
General's Office of the State of Mississippi, and the State
Medical Examiner of Mississippi. And I'm going to get into
their investigations. A little later, Andre's parents were told by

(21:41):
one of the inmates that officers took Andre to an
unknown location that night. The officers then came back from
that location with Andre in a wheelchair. Lastly, according to
the inmate, they went ahead and staged his hanging, and
it should be noted that no other inmate has confirmed
this story. Just one of them told the Quinns that

(22:02):
this is what happened. Many people believed the death of
Andre Jones was the result of police and confidence and
or corruption. Multiple civil rights leaders and others go a
step further, contending that racism still runs rampant in the
Mississippi criminal justice system and that Andrea was harassed by
the police because of the powerful positions held by his parents. Again,

(22:25):
Esther Jones Quinn was president of the Jackson branch of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People the NAACP,
and Charles X. Quinn was a Nation of Islam minister,
So if someone was a white supremacist or racist, Andre
would have been someone they would want to target. Some
believe the problem is much larger, citing the deaths of

(22:47):
at least forty eight inmates while being held in Mississippi
jails from nineteen eighty eight to nineteen ninety three. Each
death was a hanging and all were ruled suicides. That's
a lot. Some of the victims were white, but the
majority were black. In March of nineteen ninety three, a
coalition of civil rights groups held hearings on the suspicious deaths.

(23:11):
Family members of several different inmates gave their testimony surrounding
those mysterious debts, and after just two days, the US
Commission on Civil Rights urged the Justice Department to open
an investigation. Five months later, doctor Emily Ward, the Mississippi
State Medical Examiner, disclosed that she believed all of the

(23:31):
mysterious deaths, including Andre, to be suicides. Doctor Ward reviewed
Andre's autopsy report as well as the autopsies of several
other men who had died by hanging in Mississippi jails,
and she said, quote, I think it's extremely unlikely that
any of these deaths are anything other than suicide. All
the deaths have been investigated by not just one agency,

(23:54):
but one or two or sometimes three. Okay. Following the hearings,
upon red recommendation of the United States Commission on Civil Rights,
the DOJ did indeed open a full investigation, overseen by
then Attorney General Janet Reno. The DOJ cited Mississippi's jail
system for what it called gross deficiencies, particularly unsanitary conditions

(24:16):
and untrained employees. The report, however, found no evidence that
any of the hangings, including that of Andre Jones, was
anything other than suicides. To date, vindication has eluded the Quinns.
They filed two lawsuits, one against the state of Mississippi,
the other against the federal government. However, both were dismissed.

(24:39):
And again I'm going to get further into these lawsuits
and investigations in a moment. An investigation by the US
Justice Department cited Mississippi's jail system for what they called
gross deficiencies, Like I said, just untrained, unprofessional employees and
you know, kind of torturing the inmates with unsanitary conditions.

(24:59):
But the report did failed to find evidence that the
Mississippi hangings were anything other than suicides. In the aftermath
of Andre's death, his family began to publicly connect his
death to a recent rash of suicides which had become
something of an epidemic through Mississippi's jails and prisons. These
were all suicides like Andreas, which featured deaths that loved

(25:20):
ones belt were unexplored, unexamined, and really unlikely. In total,
there would be nearly fifty of these cases which had
been documented in a stretch of just over five years.
Over the next several weeks after Andre's death, the tension
surrounding the circumstances continued to escalate. On one side, you

(25:41):
had Andre's family and friends who believed him to be
the victim of a corrupt or at the very least
racist police force, similar to the incidents that unfolded less
than thirty years beforehand in Mississippi itself. A local newspaper,
The Jackson Advocate, featured a story which I used in
researching this, just a few weeks after Andre's alleged suicide,

(26:03):
which bore the headline our jailhouse suicides a new way
of lynching black mails. Many in the area did believe
that Andre's death marked a continuation of the behavior expected
of Mississippi's rural areas, which had included the infamous incident
from Nashoba County in nineteen sixty four. That was when
three civil rights workers had been abducted and killed by

(26:25):
the KKK with police involvement. Ben Cheney, the younger brother
of one of those victims, had since become a civil
rights advocate. He spoke out on behalf of the Jones family,
who were causing quite a stir in the community with
their allegations. Cheney stated, this is a continuation. It's a
revival of the fear that existed in Mississippi prior to

(26:46):
nineteen sixty four. These atrocities are just building up and
are continuing, and I mean they still are today. We're
still having the same issues on the other side of
this divide, though, you had the police who were led
than pleased to have their reputation tarnished with these allegations.
Walter Tucker, then police chief of Brandon, Mississippi, you know,

(27:08):
the city where Andre had been arrested, stated about the
allegations that Andre's death was staged. He said, how long
are you going to call this and alleged suicide? Everybody
in the world has determined it was a suicide. I
don't like when people say stuff like everybody in the world. No,
a few people have. Even the Justice Department in the
United States, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and the Grand

(27:29):
Juries and all the investigations, the FBI and everybody else
has ruled it a suicide. Okay. Even the Sheriff of
Simpson County, Lloyd Jones, the man who had earned himself
the nickname Goon for his involvement in civil rights incidents
as a younger officer and had earned the support of
the local KKK chapters in his elections. Was annoyed by

(27:51):
the assertion, and I don't really give a shit what
this racist bastard has to say. But he says, I
never killed anybody. I didn't even know the kid was
in jail, sir. Nobody said kill him. He just came
out with, I never killed anybody. Okay, well no one
said you did. But now I'm listening. He said, I
didn't even know the kid was in jail, and we
sure didn't ask who his parents were. We didn't care.
Although after his money. That's what he's saying about Andre

(28:13):
Jones's parents filing lawsuits. And they're not filing lawsuits, of course,
they're filing for damages. Their son is dead and they
believe wrongly, So that's what you do. In March of
nineteen ninety three, a coalition of civil rights groups conducted
a series of hearings in Jackson, Mississippi. Their stated purpose
was to discuss the subject at hand, which was the

(28:35):
recent influx of jail house suicides in Mississippi. These groups
were able to determine that there was an issue and
that it was specific to the state of Mississippi. Over
a span of roughly six years, dating back to nineteen
eighty seven, forty seven cases were identified as being problematic.
These were forty seven individuals that had committed suicide under

(28:57):
questionable or suspicious circumstances while in police custody, and surprisingly,
these were individuals that weren't specific to anyone race or creed.
Out of the forty seven pointed out as being unique,
you know, as far as jail house suicides go, only
twenty four were black. The other twenty three were either

(29:17):
white or of mixed race. But just like the black
men who had committed suicide, they had all done so
over a six year span leading up to this meeting
in March of nineteen ninety three. These were predominantly young
men who had been in similar situations as Andre Jones.
They had been full of promise and potential, but their
lives had gotten sidetracked by an arrest or a conviction,

(29:40):
and it had seemed like they had taken their lives
in the face of either fear or depression. But the
coalition was casting doubt on that. The stories told were
that of David Scott Campbell, a twenty one year old
who allegedly hung himself in prison, as well as Bobby Everett,
a nineteen year old black man who was found hanged
in a Jackson jail just a month prior in February

(30:03):
of nineteen ninety three. For the Civil Rights Coalition, this
was outrageous. They pointed to statistics that showed that nationwide,
roughly sixteen percent of prison suicides involved African Americans. However,
in the state of Mississippi, that number jumped up to
fifty two percent. That's glaring over half of the state's

(30:27):
jailhouse suicides were pointing to a drastically disproportionate trend which
was as shocking as it was horrifying. Some of those
in attendants, who were the family and friends of the
white men and women who had committed suicide in Mississippi jails,
called this a human issue as opposed to a race issue. Others, however,

(30:48):
pointed out that many in the African American community had
long been pointing out issues with prison conditions, only to
go unheard. Now years later, after it was apparent that
this was an issue affecting both black and white prisoners,
it was getting government hearings and this again. This is
in the early nineties. Bobby Doctor, that's his name, the

(31:10):
interim chairman of the US Civil Rights Commission, said as much.
He said, for a long time in this state, you've
had this kind of abuse taking place and directed against blacks,
and the outcry and the concerns expressed by the majority
community left a lot to be desired. Now we see
some of that drifting into the majority community itself. So
what he's saying is these white people only care when
it's happening to white people. They don't care when it's

(31:31):
happening to black people. And I think he's right. These meetings,
which took place in March of nineteen ninety three, brought
up many disturbing stories, anecdotes, and statistics which pointed to
a blatant problem running rampant throughout Mississippi. After two days
of these hearings, the US Commission on Civil Rights recommended
that the DOJ open up a full investigation into the matter.

(31:56):
The following month, in April of nineteen ninety three, a
federal pro began. It was opened by the DOJ to
investigate widespread issues of suicide plaguing Mississippi jails and prison
Janet Reno, then Attorney General, was quoted as saying, how
could that many people die? It's a good question, Janet,
It's a very good question. She then directed the Civil

(32:18):
Rights Division of the DOJ to handle the investigation, and
Bobby Doctor he headed it up, and he said, it
certainly suggests to me that if you have that number
of folks committing suicide, there is certainly something driving them
in that direction. Yeah, fifty two percent of jailhouse suicides
were black men. That's insanity. The point of the investigation

(32:40):
wasn't necessarily defined any evidence of foul play on behalf
of law enforcement, but rather it was to investigate what
was causing all of these suicides and to determine if
it was something wrong with the prison conditions or culture,
and see if there was any possible changes that could
be made. However, if any malfeasance was uncovered, they would

(33:02):
certainly be something else or that would be a whole
other issue entirely. Jim Evans, the state's representative from Jackson, Mississippi,
had been active in the early days of the Andre
Jones investigation and was thrilled to learn the Justice Department
was looking into the matter. He said they were delighted.
Which is strange that this administration has decided to fully investigate.

(33:23):
We feel like, whatever the circumstances, the public has a
right to know. I think this is the beginning of restory.
I can't get through the sentence of restoring the credibility
within the American Justice Department. Well, that's all right, yes, No,
nothing has changed, good sir, it's gotten worse. In June
of nineteen ninety three, the case had a national spotlight

(33:45):
shone on it when incendiary Nation of Islam leader Lewis
Farrikhan attended a local fundraiser. Farakhon, who had given the
eulogy for Andre Jones at his funeral the year before,
made a public statement at a fundraiser held at Jackson
State University to roughly five thousand people. Farakhon spoke on
behalf of himself and the family of Andre Jones, like

(34:06):
I said, his parents had access to some incredibly influential
people like I don't think Andre would have just been like, well,
this is it. This is the rest of my life.
I'm going to be in prison forever. I might as
well just kill myself. That's really jumping the gun for
lack of a better term. Much of the enthusiasm gained
throughout nineteen ninety three seemed to trail off as the

(34:26):
year came to a close, and then again in August
of nineteen ninety three, Emily Ward, the doctor specialist in
forensic pathology medical state or state medical examiner, she said, again, yeah,
it's a suicide. I agree all of these deaths are suicides.
And she cited, you know, potential pieces of evidence, including

(34:47):
the independent review furnished by doctor James Bryant, which said
the exact opposite. So I'm extremely confused by that because
she did not have access to their remains. She's looking
at the original autopsy done and also an autopsy's done
by an independent medical examiner, and she just chose to

(35:09):
go with the state's version. And I would say that
it's a function of not wanting to lose her job.
But doctor Emily Ward remained convinced that Andre's death, in
addition to the other dozens of cases provided by the
US Commission on Civil Rights, were indeed suicide. Okay, And
to many this was a poor outcome for a very
pressing issue, but others saw this as proof of something

(35:31):
other than intrinsic racism or hate crimes. Throughout nineteen ninety three,
the argument began to shift from the rash of jailhouse
suicides across Mississippi being indicative of an intrinsic racial violence
problem to a more wide reaching argument about prison conditions.
After all, these were all individuals that had killed themselves

(35:51):
inside Mississippi jails and prisons over a six year period,
and they stood as direct outliers for the trend of
prison deaths in America. There was clearly an issue. There
was clearly something wrong. Doctor Stephen Hayne, the state pathologist
that conducted the autopsy on Andre Jones, refused to budge
on his belief that the young man's death was a suicide. However,

(36:13):
even he admitted that the fault might may lay at
the feet of the law enforcement officials that operated jails
and prisons throughout Mississippi. He said, I could be wrong
about the homicide, but I don't think I am. If
you think you could be wrong, why would you not
label the manner of death? Why would you not label
it undetermined? Why would you call it a suicide? You

(36:34):
just said you're not sure, he said, but I don't
think I am. But my main beef is the jailers.
They're not watching them. They just put them in the
slammer and leave them there. And yeah, that's the problem,
my guy. If you were not sure that someone killed
themselves and that it could possibly be a homicide, why
in God's name would you not budge? Why would you

(36:56):
not listen to another independent pathology? Why would you not
listen to them? Take it into consideration. Maybe. Joseph Rowan,
an expert on jailhouse suicides from Saint Paul, Minnesota, who
served as the executive director foreign institute called Juvenile and
Criminal Justice International, also weighed in on this issue, an

(37:18):
issue that was not only plaguing Mississippi but several of
its neighboring states. Jail officials in the South pay extremely
low wages, hire unqualified jailers, and offer no training in
suicide recognition and prevention. Yeah, and that's because the United
States prison industrial complex doesn't give a shit about rehabilitation.
And we know that in other countries. I don't know

(37:39):
it was at Norway, they rehabilitate prisoners like they don't
even lock them up there for violent crimes like murder,
and actually treat and rehabilitate them. You know, those who
can be rehabilitated. Obviously, there are some people who straight
up cannot. Pedophiles, rapists, I don't think they can be rehabilitated.
If you want to fight me on that issue and

(38:01):
defend pedophiles, go fuck yourself. The issue that these truly,
there's no getting around it to dance around that issue.
The issue that these experts were presenting, that jail and
prison conditions had deteriorated to the point of many inmates
choosing suicide over suffering, seems to be just the tip
of the iceberg. The claims of poor living conditions for

(38:23):
prisoners in the South had been raised for years, decades even,
but had gone unheard or just straight up not listen to.
It seemed that after dozens of prisoners had seemingly chosen
to opt out of life entirely, the issue was being
raised in the media. This argument was exacerbated when a
former law enforcement agent stepped forward to add allegations of

(38:44):
her own onto the pile. Andrea Gibbs was a former
sheriff's deputy from Gulfport, Mississippi, a city on the southern
border of Mississippis right on the Gulf of Mexico. She
had worked for a youth detention facility throughout the nineteen
eighties up until nineteen nine. During her tenure, she had
witnessed rampant brutality and beatings of the detainees, who were

(39:06):
mostly children. That scares the shit out of me. You're
putting a bunch of unqualified, underpaid, usually typically ment I know,
this is a woman in a facility locked up with
a bunch of children. I could take a guess what
kind of person that would attract someone who wants to

(39:28):
beat on children or sexually abuse them. It's just an
absolute recipe for disaster. In nineteen eighty nine, she attempted
to raise the issue of the beatings to her superiors,
along with three of her coworkers, all of whom happened
to be an African American. Shortly after raising the issue,
you know, and hoping to improve the environment of the
inmates under their supervision, all four were fired from their posts.

(39:53):
Huh okay. Andrea Gibbs went on to work with the
Victim's Voice, a nonprofit that was raising awareness about the
issue of prison conditions in the area. She spoke about
the recent rash of suicides and added in her own
personal experience, she said that she saw kids from ages
thirteen to seventeen being beaten. There was systematic abuse and

(40:15):
violence going on within the jail. She said that she
had never seen anybody hung, but she had certainly seen
situations where it could have escalated into someone being murdered.
And it doesn't take in Einstein. This is, according to her,
to figure out that the best way to cover it
up is to yell suicide and wrap a shoelace around
their neck. And I think she's right. While waiting for

(40:37):
the Justice Department's investigation to get going, we're back to
that the family of Andre Jones had used the threat
of a lawsuit to encourage action. That's how they even
got an investigation going in the first place. A year
removed from the death of their son, they finally filed
a lawsuit in both state and federal district courts. This
pair of lawsuits, which again they filed for twenty five

(41:00):
million in damages, targeted both the Brandon Police Department, which
had arrested Andre at the sobriety checkpoint and initially detained him,
as well as Simpson County Sheriff's office. Which operated the
jail in which Andre died a day later, at the
very least gross negligence. In these two lawsuits, several law
enforcement agents and agencies were named as defendants, including Simpson

(41:24):
County Sheriff Lloyd Jones, Simpson County Chief Deputy John Abernathy,
Brandon Police Chief Walter Tucker, Brandon Police Sergeant John Henley,
Simpson County and its related agencies, and the City of Brandon, Mississippi.
Both lawsuits proposed three theories on Andre's death. That he
had died at the hands of police officers, that he

(41:47):
had died at the hands of someone else as a
result of police negligence, or that he killed himself because
of emotional duress directly tied to jail conditions and treatment
received by police. Specific it read, Andre Jones either was
killed or was placed by defendants in conditions and circumstances
which psychologically caused him to kill himself. I agree. The

(42:11):
lawsuit also made allegations that Andrea had been stopped and
detained without cause again I agree, claiming that the story
furnished by law enforcement at a later date was fabricated
and purported that Brandon police officers had used racial slurs
and threats of physical violence against Andrea to ensure his compliance.
Later that month, both Andre's mother, Estra Jones Quinn and

(42:34):
his stepfather, Charles Quinn, spoke publicly about the lawsuit and
their struggle in trying to spread Andrea's story. Charles Quinn,
his stepfather, stated that this family has committed themselves to
fight and to stand to vindicate our son Andrea until
justice is done, and his mother, Esther said, it has
been a long, hard and difficult year. Our family has

(42:55):
suffered tremendously. The family was hoping that the lawsuit, at
the very least would helps spur on some activity in
the case, or you know, to give it another look
from the community or the authorities. Didn't really and then
in nineteen ninety four, the case of Andre Jones was
featured on Unsolved Mysteries and included mention of dozens of

(43:16):
suspicious Mississippi hangings. This helped bring the story to a
national audience, in addition to some articles published in The
New York Times in Washington Post, both of which I
used for researching this episode. The lawsuit from the Quinn
family continued to hang over the story over the next
few years, as nothing changed in relation to the investigation itself.

(43:38):
In December of nineteen ninety five, a Mississippi Circuit judge
removed several of the defendants from the Quinn family lawsuit.
You remove a defendant when you find that there's no
cause to include them in a lawsuit. They removed some
state officials and Simpson County deputies. However, this judge also
dismissed the defense's motion to dismiss the case and allowed

(44:00):
the case to continue against the four remaining defendants, including
the estate of Sheriff Lloyd Jones remember Goon, who had
recently been killed in a police shooting. Eventually, the lawsuits
filed by the parents of Andre Jones reached a conclusion
which is very hard to decipher. One report claims that
they received an unknown settlement from the defense, but other

(44:24):
sources claim that both of their lawsuits were just flat
out dismissed. So I don't know, can't find the results
on that. If it was settled, the settlement was probably
reached out of court. Regardless, the parents of Andre Jones
continued to fight for more answers in the death of
their son, hoping to find out what led him into
that holding cell on the evening of August twenty second,

(44:45):
nineteen ninety two. His mother, Esther Jones Quinn, who now
goes by Esther Mohammad, published a book in twenty sixteen.
The book, titled Mississippi Jail Hangings Behind the Magnolias, addresses
the story of Andre and the plight of the family
in their desperate search for answers. It also includes the
nineteenth century writings from Ida B. Wells. Esther, who had

(45:07):
dedicated her life to fighting against racial inequality, wanted Andre's
story to be preserved since there aren't many people left
talking about his story or you know the others that
were lost in Mississippi institutions between nineteen ninety seven and
nineteen ninety three. Doctor Stephen Hayin remember the Mississippi state
pathologist that conducted the autopsy of Andrea Jones in addition

(45:29):
to several of the prisoners that committed suicide in those years.
He was the one who officially ruled the death of
Andrea Jones's suicide, and he testified to as much over
the years. But guess what. Starting in the late two thousand,
two thousands, old doctor Haynes's credibility began to be questioned
when it came to light that he had conducted thousands
of autopsies every year in addition to having his own

(45:53):
pathology practice. Thousands. There's three hundred and sixty five days
in the year and he diden of autopsies. That's a lot.
It seems like you couldn't do that many. Kind of
like all the morticians who were burning many thousands of bodies.
When it takes like a whole solid eight hours to
burn a body, it doesn't seem like an adds up,

(46:13):
does it. So he basically acted as a private contractor.
He would charge the state five hundred dollars for each autopsy,
which again would incentivize him to do as many autopsies
as he possibly could. He's going to get five hundred
dollars a pop for him. This allowed Mississippi to save
money every year since they didn't need to hire a
full time medical examiner and they could just outsource the
work that was traditionally required of a medical examiner to

(46:36):
doctor Hayin and his practice. And again, when I say
he performed thousands of autopsies a year, I mean it.
Doctor Hayne testified. Listen to this number that he conducted
approximately seventeen hundred autopsies a year, which rounds out to
more than four four autopsies each and every day. That's

(46:57):
nearly seven times the maximum caseload recommended by the National
Association of Medical Examiners, and for very very good reason.
If a medical examiner or pathologist has to rush through
each autopsy to make way for the next one, they're
likely not giving each case enough attention to make a
definitive decision. So I think we should. I think Mississippi,

(47:19):
at the very least, should be looking back into autopsies
that he committed in people who were convicted based upon
his autopsies and manners of deaths, I think they should
all be looked back into if possible. This brought into
question his credibility for several cases, including the death of
Andre Jones and of course the other inmates that had

(47:40):
committed suicide in Mississippi prisons over the years. His testimony
was successfully discredited in three major criminal cases. So see
it was looked at again and resulted in the release
of three convicted criminals, Corey May, Jimmy Duncan, and Tyler Edmonds.
In each of their cases, Doctor Haynes's t testimony had

(48:00):
been crucial to proving their guilt, and without it, their
cases just fell apart on retrial because they straight up
just did not kill those people. Sweet Jesus, just unethical
people in fields that quite literally like decide the fate
of a human being. Anyone who behaves unethically in those fields.

(48:23):
I'm just like, can you please just jail them for
the rest of their lives because they quite literally unlawfully
jailed people based on, you know, their findings that were
rushed because they had three other fucking autopsies to get
to that day. Stephen Hayne, I'm not gonna call him doctor,
was let go from his position in two thousand and

(48:44):
eight following a large public outcry. He was removed from
the list of approved forensic pathologists. Among several lawsuits and
acquittals stemming from his now discredited testimony, Stephen Haynes filed
lawsuits against multiple publications for defamation, but that blew up
in his space when he testified to having credentials that

(49:05):
he did not have. He claimed that he was board
certified in for forensic pathology and he was not, So yeah,
you can't really defame somebody when they're lying about their credentials,
can you It is unknown how much damage this may
have caused to, However, many cases over the years. As
the National Association of Medical Examiners considers performing more than

(49:26):
three hundred and twenty five autopsies a year a Phase
two deficiency, and this man did seventeen hundred, this is
normally enough to pull accreditation from a pathology firm, and
doctor Stephen Hayne was personally performing damn near two thousand
autopsies a year. No. The decision by the state of
Mississippi to employ doctor Hayne in an unofficial position may

(49:49):
have been an effective cost cutting tool for several years,
but it also did irreparable and unknown amounts of harm
to the gears of justice within the state. Really and truly,
the investigation conducted by the Department of Justice into the
rash of jailhouse suicides came to a disappointing end a
few years after it started. Again. They're like, it doesn't

(50:11):
matter that this dude's been discredited, this you know, medical examiner.
He has been discredited, and that he did the autopsy
on most of these inmates who died by alleged suicide
while in prison. You know, they're just suicides and there
was no evidence of why and spread racism or hatred
driving the hangings of prisoners or inmates. There's no racism

(50:33):
in Mississippi in the early nineties against black people. There
just isn't. Give me a fucking break. If you have
been anywhere in the South, especially back then, you know
that's not true in the freaking So what came of
all of these lawsuits and investigations, what came of any

(50:56):
of the findings? You know, were there any widespread changes
in the state of Mississippi or anywhere else. Well, if
you look at the numbers, you might think so. Following
the death of Andre Jones and the other inmates who
were found hanging in prison cells, suicides by hanging in
the state of Mississippi dropped to record lows. But did
anything really changed. Was there a new widespread policy put

(51:17):
into place that you know, bettered the conditions within jails
in prison? Was there more training offered guards, you know anything? Unfortunately, no,
not really. Jails and prisons have really only put a
band aid on it. They've made it slightly harder for
inmates to hang themselves, But violence within these institutions still
runs rampant and seems to be an epidemic without a cure.

(51:40):
In twenty thirteen, another lawsuit was filed which alleged various
mistreatments throughout East Mississippi jails in the same area where
Andre Jones committed suicide. Allegedly, it included the gut wrenching
and heartbreaking stories of several inmates who had to suffer
innumerable horrors during their incarceration. The lawsuit filed in twenty

(52:00):
thirteen reached to bench jury. You know. In March of
twenty eighteen, so five freaking years. The same month saw
a similar lawsuit brought forth by another Mississippi inmate who
alleged major negligence on behalf of his captors, which resulted
in him being sexually assaulted numerous times and eventually attempting suicide.

(52:20):
Even if you don't care about prisoners and other inmates
who have been convicted of crimes, probably should. Regardless of
what the inmate may have done. The conditions from these
prisons are are worse than a lot of places. I
don't wish that upon anyone except rapists and pedophiles. M Yeah,

(52:44):
I don't know. Because a large majority of these violent
prisoners usually end up getting released. So if you're hoping
to assimilate these people back into society, you would want
to rehabilitate them, right, You want them to come back
as better men and women, not just shells of themselves
who have known nothing but violence and hatred inside of
their cells for however long. I feel like that's what

(53:05):
the United States produces. You know, criminals go in and
even worse criminals come out a lot of the time
because of the treatment within the prisons. Again, rapists, pedophiles.
I don't give a fuck what happens to him in prison.
Couldn't care less. Do whatever you want to them, go
go nuts. They deserve it, really anybody else who I

(53:28):
don't know. I don't know if I agree with them, Charlie,
what I just said, I mean we should care because,
like I like, I don't super care about what happens
to violent criminals, but the statistic, the statistics don't lie.
They usually end up getting released at some point and
put back out onto the streets with the rest of us.

(53:51):
So maybe we should care a little bit about what
happens to people in prison, because I think it released,
they're just gonna come out now much much freaking worse.
I do wish we would adopt the models you know
in places like Norway, like I talked about earlier. But
then again, we have a privatized prison structure, as we

(54:13):
well know, it's a new form of enslavement. Really, like
some people are arrested for minor offenses and they end
up performing free work in jails and for like major
companies too, I found out a long time ago. I
don't know if they still do Victoria's Secret. Their underwear
was made in prisons. So yeah, unlike a no, I've

(54:36):
seen a really random my voice is going out. I
have no idea why. I'm like super ef and exhausted.
We all are, I know, we all are physically, mentally,
emotionally right there with you. But crux of my argument here,

(54:57):
let's maybe try crux of my argument here, let's maybe
try and rehabilitate those inmates who can be rehabilitated if
you're going to release them, you know what I mean, Like,
please don't be putting people who went in for like
I don't know, like stealing, like a felony theft from

(55:19):
like a store or something, a nonviolent crime. You didn't
steal from a person. You stole from a corporation. Oh wait,
corporations are people. We learned that in law school. Corporations
are people. Okay, sure, you know something like that, like
a like a pretty benign crime. You take that person,
you put them in prison, and they get the shit
beat out of them every day. They maybe are sexually assaulted,

(55:42):
and maybe they learn a new criminal trade while they're
in there, and they come out worse. They come out
much worse than when they went in. And does that
help any Like the attrition rates of people who are
released from prison are incredibly high across the United States.
They re offend, and it's like it's a case of
nure be nature. Would they have continued offending or did

(56:06):
you create a worse criminal while in prison? I don't know,
We don't know. I don't think it's studied a hunt,
to be honest with you, because again, the prison industrial
complex in the United States of America is something of
a new form of enslavement. You're getting free or incredibly
cheap labor, much cheaper than you could get from someone

(56:27):
on the outside, and imprisoning people for you know, fairly
minor infractions and inflating the charges would give you access
to more workers, now, wouldn't it again? Prisons are privatized.
Do it that way you will. It's been nearly thirty
years since the body of Andre Jones was found inside

(56:48):
a holding cell in rural Simpson County, Mississippi, but many
of the questions asked by his loved ones, questions which
have been echoed by dozens of other inmates families, continue
to linger over his case. His death has been upheld
by a suicide, even friggin' though the Emmy has been
completely discredited, is a just massive twat. Sorry and admitted

(57:13):
he doesn't know if he was wrong or right. But
we're just gonna dig in and refuse to change. We're
just gonna keep saying that this guy killed himself when
the medical examiner doesn't even fucking know how anyway. But
when we counter in the unexplored factors like take those
into account, you know, the rise of Mississippi jail house

(57:35):
hangings during that time period, the undetermined racism, the tarnished
testimony of that jackass pathologist who performed seventeen one hundred
autopsies a year. It paints a really muddled picture that
is very hard to decipher. And again I could not
find any of these alleged pieces of evidence that would

(57:56):
have given police in Jackson probable cause to detain Andre Jones.
I understand, you can't detain someone at a at a
checkpoint without some sort of probable cause. And they immediately
once they heard his name, said, you threw a gun
out the window. There's an open beer can. This truck

(58:17):
is stolen. It was his friend's truck. Did his friend
steal the truck? Did you prosecute that friend for stealing
that truck? These are questions I was not able to
find the answers to because it appeared the friend committed
a crime. Andre is allegedly driving around in a stolen
vehicle with stolen license plates and an altered vin Did
you go after the friend that you just said a

(58:39):
crime was committed. That's that's a major crime. Why wouldn't
you go after that person? Did they throwing up gang
signs and taking pictures? Give me a fucking break. This
kid was an engineering student. Have you met engineers like
I have lots of engineer friends. They ain't thrown up
gang signs, They're not like no, I'm sorry, Maybe it's
happened somewhere in history, but I don't know anyone. I

(59:02):
don't know a case of it. Let's just put it
that way. I don't know. This whole thing stinks to me.
And if something else was unfolding behind the scenes, it
is yet to be determined. But if Andre Jones, David
Scott Campbell, and the other forty plus inmates killed themselves,
their deaths have gone just on without any conclusion as
to you know, it's just never been determined. Why why

(59:23):
they kill themselves? Seriously, like you have no no explanation
for why all these people killed them And Andre Jones
it was like less than twenty four hours. I don't
even think it was full twenty four hours before he's
found dead. You know, were they living in fear of
the unknown? Were they struggling with the same mental issues
in their last moments. It's just really impossible to tell.

(59:45):
And to this day, Andre's death is still classified as
a suicide. Whoa what the fuck happened? Well? I mean,
I think the theory is put forward by all of
the investigations and that were sent in to investigate Andre's
death and the other hanging deaths of the Mississippi inmates.

(01:00:07):
I think they were one hundred percent accurate. I think
either he this is the least likely scenario. I don't
think he killed himself again, like you with your shoelace.
This guy wasn't a hardened criminal. How would he even
come up with that? Really? Truly, you think a regular kid,
an eighteen year old kid, is gonna be like, I'm

(01:00:29):
gonna take my shoelace out of my shoe and hang myself,
and I'm positive that it's gonna work. You wouldn't be sure.
I'm thinking back to when I was eighteen. Had I
gotten in trouble at that point? I mean no, not really,
like nothing serious. He didn't even know what his charges were.
So why would he be so afraid of spending the
rest of his life in jail that he would hang himself?

(01:00:50):
He he when he was talking to his mother on
the phone, He's like, I need to get out because
I'm going to school tomorrow. This kid thought he was
going to school, and again he just I do hang
himself in a shower with a shoelace. How would he
have known any of those things were there, like the
tools he would need to kill himself? How would he
have had access to them? Like, how would he have known?

(01:01:11):
It was an L shaped cell that they were in,
It was a holding cell and there was a shower
area in the back of it. So he just got up,
went back there, did all this so fast that nobody
saw that he was gone for even a second. I M.
Does that sound plausible to you? And like he knew
exactly where the great was above the shower had he

(01:01:32):
had just gotten there. He had just gotten there. And
also if he have so for a prison you think
he would have walked back to the showers. That's like
the most notorious stereotype, you know, don't drop the soap,
YadA YadA YadA. So a kid who's in jail for
the first time or prison for the first time is
going to just willingly walk back into the showers. I

(01:01:52):
highly doubt that if you would do that. Let me know, really,
none of it adds up for me. First of all,
I don't believe that the police officers in Jackson, Mississippi,
had probable cause to detain Andre Jones and his girlfriend.
They have never presented any evidence as far as I've

(01:02:14):
seen anywhere, you know, as to the things they alleged
were in the car and thrown out of the car
like a gun? You didn't do you have that gun
and evidence? Like, I'm sure they could come up with one,
but you know, do you do you have pictures of
it where it lay on the ground. Do you have
pictures of the beer can where it was laying in

(01:02:35):
the truck? Open and empty? Did you give this boy
a breathalyzer? Did you have him walk? I understand that
he didn't have his license and insurance on him, but
he gave you his name and you could check that
he did indeed have a valid driver's license, so you
could have cited him for driving without proof of insurance, right, Okay,

(01:02:57):
Well you know the fix to that. It's not jail.
The penalty for that is getting rent in a ticket
and then having to show up at the county clerk's
office and just show them that you have insurance. Literally
you show it to them, and you probably pay a
little fine, maybe fifty bucks I don't know about back
then and you go. It's like if you're driving with
you know, expired tags, you just have to go and

(01:03:18):
be like, Okay, I renewed it, I pay my fine,
I leave. I don't think there was any probable cause
to stop him the car being stolen. I'm not sure
I believe that either. Again, if that car was stolen,
he told you that he borrowed it from someone, So
why wouldn't you then go pay a visit to that
person and arrest them for having I mean you could

(01:03:40):
if you really wanted to charge Andrea of being in
possession of stolen property but he didn't steal it, you
wouldn't immediately go to I'm going to arrest you for
grand theft auto and all of these other charges without
doing any sort of due diligence. Again, there was no
problem will cause for any of that. Yes, he was

(01:04:02):
in a stolen vehicle, but he did tell you that
it belonged to somebody else. So again, go visit that
person and leave Andre alone. There will probably never ever
be an answer in this case. I don't really see
how there could be, But to me, it don't look
great and it's very reflective unfortunately, still all these freaking
years later of the treatment of black people in this

(01:04:25):
country and especially within the prison system. Again, I know
this is not a lighthearted episode. Thank you for hanging
in with me. I feel like what you hear You
can hear more episodes every Friday, released on all podcast platforms.
On social media, you can find me at Autumn's Podcast,
on Instagram and threads and Facebook at Autumn's Audities, also
Patreon at Autumn's Oddities. I appreciate you listening, and remember,

(01:04:49):
if it's creepy and weird, you'll find it here to
cat