Black man questioned in murder of white GA woman, found dead hanging from tree
Black man questioned in murder of white GA woman, found dead hanging from tree
A black man who was recently questioned in connection to the death of a white woman was found dead hanging from a tree in rural Georgia on Monday morning.
There was no immediate sign of foul play in the death of Roosevelt Champion III, 43, in Greensboro, local and state investigators said.
Champion was spotted by a passerby at around 11am. He was found hanging from a plastic ratchet strap at an address at which he did not live.
There were no visible wounds on Champion’s body and it did not appear as though he was lifted into the tree, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Joe Wooten said, according to NBC.
Wooten added that a formal cause of death cannot be determined before the pending autopsy results come in.
Champion was interviewed at least twice in the death of Carol Lewis, but no charges had been filed, according to The Daily Beast.
‘I understand that there is a lot of concern’, Wooten told NBC. ‘Because of that, we’re going to be as transparent as we can be.’
Champion’s sister told The Daily Beast that she didn’t believe it was her brother when she first heard the news, because he ‘wouldn’t do anything like that’.
‘It broke my heart,’ she said. ‘We were best friends. We were close.’
She added that her brother never evaded questioning when it came to the Carol Lewis Case.
‘Every time they called him into the station, he went on his own,’ Johnson said. ‘They didn’t come get him.’
Champion’s mother, JoAnn Henderson, and his sisters said that he was ‘very happy’ and ‘a very good guy’.
Another of Champion’s sisters, Miranda Wright, said that questioning from the police might have been hard on him, but she didn’t make an immediate connection between his death and the murder case.
‘I think he was under a lot of stress from them questioning him, but I don’t know if he committed suicide,’ she said.
‘He had been back and forth to jail, but it was minor stuff,’ she added. ‘I don’t know what happened.’
