FBI to probe Bladenboro teen’s death as questions swirl and NAACP organizes march

Claudia Lacy was talking on the phone with her sister on Aug. 29 when the Bladenboro police chief knocked on her door with a haunting request.

“I need you to come with me,” Lacy recalls Chief Chris Hunt telling her.

In a mobile home park about a quarter of a mile away, her 17-year-old son, Lennon Lacy, lay lifeless inside a black body bag.

She had no idea as she got into her car to follow the chief that the questions swirling in her head would multiply in the weeks and months to come.

Local authorities quickly concluded that Lennon, a high school football player, had hanged himself from a swing set. Lacy has many questions about the local police investigation, and she welcomed the FBI’s confirmation Friday that federal agents will make their own inquiry into how the teen died.

Representatives of the NAACP had pushed for such a probe for weeks. They met recently with Thomas Walker, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and others for nearly two hours to discuss their concerns.

According to his family, Lennon Lacy had been looking forward to the West Bladen Knights fall football season. Four days after his death, though, Bladenboro police told the linebacker’s mother they could find no evidence of foul play and thought the death was a suicide.

“I couldn’t accept that then, and I still cannot now,” Claudia Lacy said on Thursday. “The police didn’t once come to my house. They didn’t look inside my son’s room. They still haven’t to this day.”

Romance, church and football

“This day” and “that day” swirl together as Claudia Lacy tries to make sense of what happened to her son.

The case has captured the attention of national and international media. Katie Couric, the TV newswoman who serves as Yahoo Global News anchor, did a segment. Ed Pilkington has written extensively about Lacy for guardian.com. A reporter has posted stories about Lennon Lacy on the Daily Kos website, and Triangle media outlets have picked up on the story.

On Saturday, NAACP members plan to march through Bladenboro to call attention to the investigation and to honor a teen they contend was working to “build bridges between different groups in Bladen County.”

Bladen County is in the southeastern part of the state. Bladenboro, a town incorporated in 1903, has a population of about 1,700 people.

In addition to working out for football this summer, Lennon had joined a multiracial youth group at a Baptist church in Bladenboro. He attended weekly services and basketball ministry there.

He was romantically involved with a 31-year-old woman who has told people she did not think Lennon killed himself.

“We are glad to hear that the request made by the North Carolina NAACP and the family of Lennon Lacy for a federal investigation has been accepted,” the Rev. William J. Barber II, head of the state NAACP, said Friday. “There must be a thorough investigation. There are too many questions and contradictions raised by our independent pathology report and stories in the community about the facts, quick conclusions, and how the death scene was not protected to leave this case unprobed and unevaluated.”

Jon David, the Bladen County district attorney, has said he welcomes a review by the FBI. State Bureau of Investigation agents conducted an inquiry and reported that they could find no evidence of foul play.

Claudia Lacy acknowledges that another investigation might come to the same conclusion.

“Suicide is possible,” she said.

But she regrets that police jumped off from a remark she made under duress, an answer to an officer’s question.

The day before her son’s death, the family had held a funeral for a beloved great uncle, a man who had been a big part of Lennon’s childhood.

“They asked me was he upset,” Claudia Lacy recalled. “I said he was. But I also said that he did not do that, that I wondered who could have done this to him.”

Claudia Lacy slips back to “that day” and recalls pulling into the mobile home park behind Bladenboro’s police chief shortly after noon on Aug. 29. An officer was rolling up yellow crime-scene tape that had been wrapped around the swing sets in the middle of the trailer park yard.

An ambulance was parked on the grass. She stepped up to it, stood over the body bag and unzipped it to her son’s waist.

“I wanted to know why my son was here, in this desolate place, lying dead in a body bag,” Claudia Lacy recalled.

Lennon Lee Lacy, 5-feet-9-inches tall and 207 pounds, had been seen close to midnight by his father inside their home. His dad heard the door open and close shortly after that and assumed his son had stepped out of the house.

At 7:30 a.m., a 911 operator got a call about a body hanging from the Cotton Mill trailer park swing set. The dispatcher advised the caller to try to get the person down, in case he was still alive. When investigators arrived, Lennon’s body was on the ground.

Investigators told NAACP attorneys that one shoe was on the body and one was on the ground, according to Al McSurely, one of the lawyers.

The shoes were not Lennon Lacy’s, according to his family, and were a size and a half too small.

The family questioned whether investigators took photos at the scene, and if so, whether they had been provided to the state medical examiner. They also want to know why police had not kept the crime scene secured for more than six hours and why they had not wrapped the teen’s hands in bags to protect any evidence that might be collected from fingernails.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Claudia Lacy said.

The questions run through her head on a daily basis.

“Why didn’t they talk to any more of his family members,” she asks. “Why didn’t they talk to more of his friends.”

Deborah Radisch, the state’s chief medical examiner, concluded in an autopsy report on Oct. 12 that Lennon Lacy had died from asphyxiation due to hanging. The report states that numerous red ants were on Lacy’s body and clothes and that multiple abrasions on his face, upper chest and arms were “consistent with ant bites.”

The NAACP retained Christena L. Roberts, a pathologist, to review procedures followed by local and state authorities. Roberts’ report supports Radisch’s finding that Lennon’s head was not marked by any pronounced visible wounds when it was photographed at the official autopsy, but is critical of many other actions of law enforcement.

“They did not do a thorough investigation,” Claudia Lacy contended. “You watch enough stuff on TV to know the basics.”

This story was originally published December 12, 2014 at 10:02 PM with the headline "FBI to probe Bladenboro teen’s death as questions swirl and NAACP organizes march."