215 BODIES FOUND BEHIND A MISSISSIPPI JAIL; FAMILIES ARE OUTRAGED

Some 215 bodies were found in a pauper’s cemetery in Raymond, Mississippi. Located just outside of Jackson, the graves are marked with metal rods and numbers. The gravesite is intended for people who have no known family, but according to relatives, they were never contacted by officials.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing the families of Marrio Moore, Dexter Wade, and Jonathan Hankins, who were all buried in the cemetery without the knowledge of their families.

“It’s like they just threw him out like trash, just like they did with the others,” Gretchen Hankins, the mother of Jonathan Hankins, told Fox Affiliate WBLT.

Wade was hit and killed by a police vehicle. Although the victim had an identification, Wade’s family was not notified of his death. The family thought he was missing until they recently learned that he was buried in the pauper’s cemetery.

Reverend Hosea Hines, the senior pastor of the Christ Tabernacle Church and the national leader for A New Day Coalition of Equity and Black America, spoke to The Chicago Crusader, and he said he empathized with the families.

“It really saddens my heart to know that their relatives went that long, some over a year, not knowing if their loved ones were dead or alive and then coming to the realization that they had been buried in a pauper’s grave behind a jailhouse,” he said.

He went on to point out that these oversights did not occur under the watch of the current Jackson police chief, Joseph Wade. According to Hines, the police chief has implemented a new death notification policy that will provide relatives with a notification and details about their loved one’s deaths.

“People all across America are scratching their heads in disbelief about what’s happening in Jackson, Mississippi, with this pauper’s graveyard,” said Crump during a press conference.

“It went from talking about the water” that was non-existent or contaminated “to now we’re talking about the graveyard. What is going on in Jackson, Mississippi?”

Insult to Injury

These families, already flayed by the raw agony of loss, are now subjected to a fresh brand of barbarity. To reclaim their loved ones, their flesh and bone rendered mere numbers on pauper's plots, they must pay. Pay for the indignity of a nameless grave, pay for the privilege of burying their own dead, pay for the audacity to seek solace in the face of such unmitigated horror.

Each dollar demanded in this macabre transaction is a monument to institutional apathy, a grotesque trophy on the shelf of systemic neglect. It whispers that lives extinguished within those walls were worth less than even the cheapest pine box. It tells families, wracked with grief and robbed of closure, that their pain is a market commodity.

Conclusion

215 souls, nameless and numbered, lie silent behind the MS jail, a stark testament to the depths of inhumanity. Their unmarked graves scream accusations of neglect, injustice, and institutional indifference. No scathing words can capture the horror they endured, the families' shattering loss, or the stain this casts upon our society. We demand a full and transparent investigation, not just for closure, but for accountability.
Those responsible for this callous disregard for human dignity must face the full weight of the law. Let their punishment be a beacon, a promise that such obscene disregard for life will never again be tolerated.