Coweta County (Ga). Dead man's mother: Hanging not suicide

21 Year Old Bernard Burden found hanging on 10/13

The mother of a man found hanged in Coweta County last month remains convinced that her son was the victim of foul play and not a suicide, as the coroner concluded. Tamathy Pless said she is dissatisfied with the progress in the investigation of how Bernard C. Burden, her 21-year-old son, died. He was found hanging from an oak tree in the yard of a friend on Oct. 13. His feet were touching the ground. "Bernard did not hang himself in that tree. Nobody is going to convince me of that, with his hands free and all he had to do was stand up," said Pless, who led a rally Saturday in Grantville, about 50 miles south of Atlanta, to protest the slow pace of the investigation. "He was put there," she told about two dozen supporters, who included members of the Rev. Hosea Williams Peoples Church of Love. While the image of a black man's 6-foot-6-inch body hanging from a tree may conjure up troubling Southern stereotypes, authorities maintain that Burden took his own life. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said it did not find "one iota of evidence to point to foul play" in its initial investigation. The hanging occurred at the home of Burden's best friend, Christopher Andrew Ward, 20, who is white. Burden, a troubled youth who had admitted to drug use and was on probation for fighting at East Coweta High School, had lived with Ward's family off and on for nearly a year. Ward found Burden while walking his dogs early in the morning. He told police he thought Burden was playing a joke, because although there was a rope around his neck, he was hanging so low from the tree that he could have stood up. For much of the night before he died, Ward said, Burden was upset over the prospect of breaking up with his longtime girlfriend, Charity Hope Watson, who is white. He also said Burden was concerned that he might have to go back to jail for violating his parole because he was caught driving with a suspended driver's a license. "I know Bernard; he didn't hang himself," said Brandon O'Neal. [more]