News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2016, attorney says.

Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by autoexec on Friday January 12, 2024 @08:53PM (#38976609)
> "It is not a secret burial ground," she said. "In those graves are the bodies of those who went unclaimed by family when they died. These persons are either homeless people, inmates from local jails who died but relatives never claimed their bodies, unidentified persons who officials were never able to connect with family, or even persons who died" whose families couldn't afford a funeral.

An investigation would be a very good idea just to make sure that none of those bodies were being dumped there by the prison or by the police. Especially since the police were lying to families about the "missing" relatives that ended up there.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by defrost on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:15PM (#38976713)
NPR is very much implying the "paupers grave" is being used by the police to dump "inconvenient bodies"

     Bettersten Wade told the anguishing story of how, months after she filed a missing persons report about her son, Dexter Wade, she was finally told that her son was dead at age 37. The police also told her that county officials had buried him in the local pauper's field, she said.

    Police investigators said Dexter Wade had been struck and killed by an SUV driven by an off-duty Jackson Police Department officer on Interstate 55, just hours after his mother last saw him. The police report said Wade was on foot at the time.
Naturally police investigated and determined it was all an accident, neglected to inform the family, and had a bit of a red tap boo boo with the paperwork.

These things happen.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by autoexec on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:24PM (#38976753)
The NBC article they link to (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bettersten-wade-dexter-...) says that it wasn't the just family making repeated calls to the police asking about the guy they hit, the coroner’s office was too. There was something very wrong with that police department.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by distortionfield on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:50PM (#38976877)
Sounds like thats a feature not a bug for the police.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by opportune on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:58PM (#38976921)
Welcome to government in the South

It’s hard to understand the mindset of casual incompetence and corruption if you’re not from there. Local government runs on nepotism and good ol boys networks - it’s such a standard ingrained practice that it is not even surprising or cause for concern when you notice it. It’s part of why these areas stay perpetually poor and get brain drained to hell

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by euroderf on Saturday January 13, 2024 @02:29AM (#38977993)
All the while claiming the moral high ground, I'd suspect.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by bozhark on Saturday January 13, 2024 @04:05AM (#38978309)
They have “police jurisdiction” zones.

They have their own laws

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by anikan_vader on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:24PM (#38976750)
Cop kills someone (allegedly by accident) and then the police bury him in a pauper’s grave and don’t inform any relevant parties.

>> These things happen.

No, they really don’t. That’s why it has made national news.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by MathMonkeyMan on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:52PM (#38976892)
I believe defrost was being satirical.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by c22 on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:49PM (#38976873)
A charitable reading of the post you're responding to would probably note some sarcasm in that quoted line.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by anikan_vader on Saturday January 13, 2024 @10:39AM (#38980893)
Oops! Definitely. It actually looks to have been a clever use of irony. The internet is such a hard place to be clever though, in that people tend to take things at face value.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by Sparkyte on Thursday January 25, 2024 @03:06AM (#39127326)
I secondly agree with you. You can't just even pauper graveyards. That is all terrible.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by inamberclad on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:24PM (#38976751)
These things should never happen. They only do happen in a horrendously corrupt system.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by riffic on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:40PM (#38976831)
the medical field has a corresponding term (Never event):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_event

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by racketcon2089 on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:34PM (#38976803)
> These things happen.

"It's not a placed to dump inconvenient bodies, it's just a place where at least some of the bodies are people of known identity who were killed by police or corrections officers that cleared themselves of wrongdoing and somehow forgot to tell anyone."

Very reassuring. I think we can all agree that this isn't worth investigating because Mississippi has always been a place bereft of racial bias and government corruption.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by InCityDreams on Saturday January 13, 2024 @11:06AM (#38981188)
A racial breakdown of the dead would be illuminating.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by racketcon2089 on Saturday January 13, 2024 @04:32PM (#38984803)
It's been over 2 whole years since they removed the confederate stars and bars from the state flag, why always with the prying questions?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by WarOnPrivacy on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:32PM (#38976793)
we can identify 215 individuals that were buried behind that jail, and their families have not been notified

> These things happen.

215 times, apparently.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by not2b on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:10PM (#38976690)
That might be true of many of those buried there. But the story describes someone who wasn't unidentified; he was buried with his ID in his pocket and his family had been looking for him for months. At best incompetence, but given the circumstances (evidently he was killed when he was hit by an off duty cop's car) it looks suspicious, like they might have been trying to cover it up.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by shagmin on Friday January 12, 2024 @10:17PM (#38977014)
According to some posts I read on Reddit about this it was likely a retaliation thing after a family member of the victim was beaten to death by a fellow police officer who is now in prison.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by slim on Friday January 12, 2024 @09:54PM (#38976906) 

  unidentified persons
what does this even mean ? did the person refuse to say who they are ? so the person has been tried and sentenced and put in jail and filed under a picture. so you can put anybody in jail, deny him any contact with external world and claim he's unidentified ?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by riffic on Friday January 12, 2024 @10:10PM (#38976983)
the legal system is more than willing to prosecute a John or Jane Doe
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2... by rawling on Saturday January 13, 2024 @04:34AM (#38978436)
> These persons are either homeless people, inmates from local jails who died but relatives never claimed their bodies, unidentified persons who officials were never able to connect with family, or even persons who died" whose families couldn't afford a funeral.

"Inmates from local jails" and "unidentified persons" are separate categories.

[ Parent | on HN ]