Two men were found hanging from trees in Mississippi on the same day, on September 15 — one a 21-year-old Black college student discovered on a college campus, the other a man reported to be unhoused and living in the woods near a casino in Vicksburg.
The stories of Demartravion “Trey” Reed and Cory (or Corey) Zukatis are different in many obvious ways — their ages, racial identities, life circumstances — but together they have ignited a national conversation about history, institutional credibility, and what it takes to rebuild public trust in a place whose past still looms large.
This piece lays out the hard facts we know so far, places those facts in Mississippi’s painful historical frame and offers a sober list of what institutions and citizens must do if the state is to move from suspicion and sorrow toward accountability and healing.
The facts
On Sept. 15, 2025, Delta State University officials and Cleveland police found Trey Reed hanging from a tree near the university’s pickleball courts. Local and state medical examiners completed an autopsy and, after preliminary review, authorities announced the death was ruled a suicide. The Bolivar County coroner said the preliminary exam showed no lacerations, contusions, compound fractures, or other injuries consistent with an assault. Trey’s family and their lawyers, however, requested an independent autopsy and more transparency from law enforcement.
Hours earlier on that same day in Vicksburg, Warren County deputies found Cory Zukatis hanging in a wooded area near the Ameristar Casino. Coroner and police officials have said Zukatis was unhoused and struggling with substance use; his death is being investigated, and an autopsy was ordered. Local authorities have said, so far, they have no evidence linking the two deaths.
Those are the anchor facts: two bodies found hanging, two active investigations, one official cause of death announced by the state medical examiner (for Trey Reed), and one autopsy pending (for Zukatis). Beyond those facts is the climate of mistrust and pain that has made these cases national news. Ben Crump and other civil-rights advocates are involved; members of Congress and national advocacy groups have said they are watching closely.
Why does this trigger more than ordinary curiosity in Mississippi?
Mississippi does not sit outside the history of racial terror in the American South. Between Reconstruction and mid-twentieth-century Jim Crow, hundreds — by some counts, the most per state — of racial lynchings occurred in Mississippi. That legacy is not only a historical fact; it’s a living memory that shapes how Black communities interpret certain images and narratives — a man hanging from a tree is not an abstract tableau here. The Equal Justice Initiative’s work documenting lynchings and their memorial projects has made that history impossible to ignore, and it explains why a campus hanging sparks immediate national attention and demands for independent inquiry.
At the same time, Mississippi has communities struggling with homelessness, substance use and poverty. The death of a man who’d been sleeping in the woods is interpreted through those strains as well as through politics, media narratives and social media rumors that can outpace careful reporting. The result is a volatile mix: historical trauma, contemporary social vulnerability, and the wildfire speed of online speculation.
How the nation sees it
When images and phrases cross the country — “found hanging,” “on a college campus,” “Black student” — the national reaction is not simply curiosity. It is an invocation of broader questions about safety, race, and institutional legitimacy. For non-Mississippians who view the state through a historic lens, such events can confirm old fears about the South’s past. For many in Mississippi, the national gaze feels simultaneously right (people should look) and threatening (the story is being told from the outside). Both reactions are understandable.
What matters for Mississippi’s civic life isn’t simply controlling the narrative; it’s producing trustworthy facts and showing a commitment to impartial, thorough inquiry. That is how you blunt conspiracy and speculation. That is how you protect grieving families from having their loved ones turned into clickbait or political symbols before full facts are known.
What it would take to come back from this — a practical checklist
If the goal is to move toward accountability, calm, and healing, here are immediate and medium-term steps institutions and communities should take:
1. Full transparency from investigators. Release timelines, chain-of-custody information for evidence, autopsy findings (to the extent allowed by law), and a clear explanation of what remains unknown and why. Independent review — whether an independent autopsy paid for by the family or an outside agency review — can be a bridge to credibility when local trust is frayed. (We’ve already seen calls for exactly that in Trey Reed’s case.)
2. Protect and center the families. Families must be treated with dignity and given access to evidence, counsel, and independent experts if they request them. Public officials should avoid premature language that closes off inquiry.
3. Federal involvement where appropriate. When local trust is low and potential civil-rights implications exist, the FBI or federal prosecutors can offer additional forensic resources and an outside perspective — not as a political move but as a tool for thoroughness.
4. Repair the broader social fabric. These deaths sit at the intersection of mental-health crises, campus safety, homelessness, and substance-use disorders. State and local governments must invest in campus mental-health services, homeless outreach, harm-reduction programs, and crisis intervention teams so tragedies don’t keep repeating in different forms.
5. Civic education and historical honesty. Mississippi’s history of racial terror cannot be wished away. Communities benefit when public education and memorialization acknowledge the past honestly; that work reduces the space where myth and fear grow.
6. Responsible media and digital literacy. In the first 24–48 hours after an event, social platforms are often more rumor than reporting. Authorities and newsrooms should push verified facts; communities should be taught how to evaluate claims online.
The human stories — two short portraits
Trey Reed was a 21-year-old student on a college campus. Reports describe a young man with promise whose death has stunned classmates and derailed campus events. The autopsy ruling of suicide has not ended calls for independent review from Trey’s family and civil-rights lawyers who seek full transparency and the release of forensic evidence and video that the family has requested.
Cory (or Corey) Zukatis, reported as a 35–36-year-old man from Brandon, was found in a wooded strip near commercial development and a casino.
Officials have said he was unhoused and struggling with drugs; Warren County authorities ordered an autopsy and are continuing the investigation.
The coroner and police declined to link his death to the campus case. His story is a reminder that vulnerability to violent death is not limited to any single race or place — homelessness and addiction put people at acute risk and deserve public resources to prevent future deaths.
A neutral but moral conclusion
It is possible to be neutral about what the facts currently support and still insist on moral clarity: facts deserve thorough, independent scrutiny; families deserve compassion and answers; communities deserve investments that prevent despair; and history demands that we treat images of violence with the seriousness they deserve. Mississippi’s past does not condemn its future. But the state’s institutions must prove they are up to the work: transparent investigations, meaningful policy responses to homelessness and mental health, and honest reckoning with history.
If those things happen — and if the findings of the investigations are shared clearly and honestly — the national fear and suspicion can begin to ebb. If they do not, hurt will metastasize into cynicism, and every similar death will be another grain of doubt in the public mind.
We owe Trey Reed and Cory Zukatis more than headlines. We owe them the discipline of rigorous inquiry, the charity of humane treatment for their families, and the hard political choices that prevent such deaths where preventable. That’s how a place recovers — not by looking away, but by looking carefully, acting honestly, and rebuilding the institutions that make trust possible.
