Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney who has represented the family of George Floyd, raised doubts on Wednesday about the official conclusion that Mikayla Miller — the 16-year old Hopkinton resident found dead last month in the woods near her home — died by suicide.
Crump joined a virtual press conference with several activists and Miller's mother Calvina Strothers, and called Miller's death "suspicious." He noted that the medical examiner said she died by asphyxiation by hanging, but he said she was not found hanging, but rather upright. Strothers said that neither she nor her daughter owned a belt like the one found around Miller's neck.
"What Calvina and the family of Mikayla Miller want to know is: Was she lynched? And if she was, why aren’t we saying that?" Crump said.
Stothers reiterated her belief that her daughter was the victim of a homicide.
"I don’t believe that my daughter committed suicide. So that’s not something that I’m even entertaining at all," she said. "Someone did this to my daughter."
Miller’s death was ruled a suicide Tuesday by the Massachusetts state medical examiner. Crump said that conclusion "defies common sense."
Crump also confirmed that an independent autopsy was performed on Miller prior to her cremation on May 13, and said results would be made available to the public, "at an appropriate time, hopefully sooner rather than later."
"We all understand that truth and transparency are the cornerstones for accountability and some small measure of justice," Crump said.
Miller, who was black and a member of the LGBTQ community, was discovered in a wooded area of Hopkinton on the morning of April 18, hanging from a tree along a trail near her home. The evening prior, she was involved in a physical altercation with five white and Latino teenagers, an incident that Strothers reported to police.
Authorities initially said no foul play was suspected in her death. But Strothers questioned whether authorities have sufficiently investigated a potential link between the altercation the night before and Miller's death. She has been critical of the Middlesex County District Attorney's office and local police for a lack of transparency.
"The conclusion that they made yesterday is the conclusion they made the first day they walked into my house. There's no difference," Strothers said Wednesday. "I will fight tooth and nail and until the day I leave this earth for the truth of what happened to my daughter."
Miller's family, as well as supporters including Monica Cannon-Grant of the organization Violence in Boston, are calling for an independent investigation by the FBI.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan's office declined to comment following the press conference but has previously stated that the investigation into the circumstances surrounding Miller's death remains "open and active." Ryan has said that her office had reviewed multiple lines of evidence confirming that none of the five teenagers involved in the altercation were with Miller at the time she died.
Ryan has also said previously that neither Miller’s race nor the fact that “she was a member of the LGBTQIA community” had any bearing on how her office handled the investigation into the teenager’s death.
“We will continue to be in contact with Mikayla’s family’s representatives moving forward, and we are asking for continued patience as we perform this critically important work," Ryan's office said on Tuesday.
