In early May, a man walking his dog through his north Charlotte neighborhood spotted what appeared to be someone standing still by a tree in a shady churchyard.
His dog tugged him closer. As he approached, he realized to his horror the figure was a lifeless Black girl, held up by a ratchet strap around her neck. Her feet, in slip-on sandals, rested on the ground near a blue toddler-size chair.
The ratchet strap — typically used for securing truck cargo — was wrapped around a leaning tree trunk at least twice the girl’s height. This was on a Friday afternoon.
By Monday, the medical examiner ruled her death a suicide. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police closed the case four days later.
The Charlotte Observer investigated the circumstances around Juliana’s death and how CMPD handled her case. Police apparently never found her cell phone. No one from CMPD contacted the man who found Juliana’s body. Authorities did not do an autopsy, although police said a thorough inspection of the body was performed.
Look, I’m no medical expert. Most of us aren’t. But it’s difficult to imagine a medical examiner determining within three days that a teenager died by suicide, especially if it’s true that no autopsy was performed. Did the examiner know anything about the victim’s mental health background? Did the police have that information, considering they didn’t even so much as question the man who discovered Juliana’s body, according to the Observer?
To be fair, according to a GoFundMe page launched by the family, Juliana did struggle with her mental health. In fact, her life “was shaped by struggles no child should ever have to endure,” the page reads.
Still, just like in virtually all the other cases involving a Black person found hanging, Juliana’s family members, who emigrated to the…
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Read Full Article by Zack Linly at madamenoire.com
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