Outside review of Lennon Lacy death investigation released

BLADEN COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The NC NAACP released the findings of an outside review of how Lennon Lacy’s death investigation was handled. The Bladen County teenager was found dead, hanging from a swing set, in late August. His death was ruled a suicide. The new report questions the investigation from the very start.

“In cases like this,” said NAACP attorney Heather Rattelade, “where we are trying to determine whether a young man committed suicide or whether he was killed some other way and it staged a suicide, it’s important to look at the death scene investigation. In fact, that’s the most critical aspect of this case.”

Rattelade specializes in forensics.

The Bladen County teenager’s family and the NC NAACP say Lennon Lacy’s death wasn’t a suicide.”Evidence in this case suggests steps taken by officers investigators failed to meet even the minimum accepted guidelines and practices for death scene investigations,” said Rattelade.

And now a pathologist, hired by the NAACP, challenges the handling of the case.
Doctor Christena Roberts met with the state’s chief medical examiner who handled the original autopsy. In Roberts’ report, she questions the way the body was handled when discovered, the way evidence was collected, and how officers acted at the scene of the crime.

She notes that the local medical examiner said state investigators would not let him take pictures at the scene and threatened to take his camera if he did.
Other challenges in the report involved whether it was even possible that Lacy could hang himself given the measurements of him and the swing set.
She also noted that a belt used in the hanging was worn by another male at the mobile home where Lacy was last known alive and that the cause of death should have been ruled undetermined until further evidence was collected.

The family and the NAACP have requested a federal investigation.
WWAY has requested a response from the FBI, but they have not returned our phone calls yet.