UPDATE (5/19):
The death of 16-year-old Mikayla Miller has been ruled a suicide following questions about the circumstances leading up to her mysterious passing.
The Middlesex District Attorney's Office announced the results of an autopsy from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Massachusetts on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. Miller’s body was discovered hanging from a tree in the Boston suburb of Hopkinton by a local jogger on April 18.
Family members and advocacy groups called for an investigation into Miller’s death, as she had reportedly been accosted by a group of students just hours before she was found. Some speculated that she had been lynched.
Authorities are currently conducting an investigation, which the district attorney’s office is “active and ongoing” despite the medical examiner’s report.
“We will continue to explore every investigative angle necessary as we do that work and intend to issue a complete and thorough report at the conclusion of the investigation,” a representative for the DA said in a statement cited by the Associated Press.
ORIGINAL (5/7):
A Black, queer teenager was found hanging from a tree in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, a predominantly white town, last month. The mysterious circumstances surrounding her death have prompted calls for an investigation, as well as allegations that police have mishandled the case.
Mikayla Miller’s body was discovered the morning of April 18 after she reportedly got into a fight with two other teens. Miller’s mother, Calvina Strothers, alleged that police in Hopkinton — a town of just under 15,000 people 36 miles outside of Boston — dismissed her daughter’s death as a suicide. She added that an unnamed officer warned Strothers not to go to the press or Miller’s sexuality would be exposed, according to the Boston Globe.
“My concern is, did they really thoroughly look at the crime scene?” Strothers told the newspaper. “Or did they just dismiss it because she’s a Black girl on a tree in Hopkinton?”
A large crowd of community members gathered at a rally and candlelight vigil on Thursday to call on police to fully investigate Miller’s death, which many believe was a lynching. Organized by Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson and the advocacy group Violence in Boston, attendees demanded information from Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan concerning the teen’s death and chanted Miller’s name.
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“If they would not have immediately made a conclusion regarding my child’s death, and did a proper investigation, or did any investigation initially at all, we wouldn’t be here,” Strothers told rallygoers, in comments reported by the Boston CBS affiliate WBZ-TV.
Her mother told the Globe she believes Miller was attacked by a group of teenagers on the evening of April 17, shortly after Miller had a falling out with her girlfriend. Strothers said she questioned whether her daughter died by suicide, and many in the community are alleging a police cover-up.
Monica Cannon-Grant, founder of Violence in Boston, told the Globe that Ryan should “step down and let the FBI handle this case.” She said Violence in Boston would perform its own independent autopsy of Miller’s body.
Ryan called allegations of a cover-up due to Miller’s race or sexuality “patently false,” the Globe reported. She said in a statement provided to the local news site Patch that the exact cause of Miller’s death isn’t yet known but added that it doesn’t appear to be the result of a hate crime. She said the DA’s office is waiting for autopsy results.
The district attorney also claimed there was insufficient evidence to press charges against the teens who were with Miller the evening before her body was found.
Ryan claimed Miller got into a “physical altercation” between 5:15 and 6:45 p.m. with two teens in a clubhouse located near her apartment, where three other teens stood by. But based on cell phone and EZ-PASS records, video footage, and witness statements, Ryan claimed none of those teens — who are all white or Latinx — were with Miller later that night.
At a recent press conference, Ryan told reporters that the last communication Miller had was with a phone call with a “female” around 9:00 p.m., as the Boston Herald reported.
The Globe writes that police initially would not grant reporters access to records related to the attack or Miller’s death until advocacy groups got involved in the case. Police allegedly told local media that the records were part of an ongoing investigation.
As demands for further investigation into the case continue, those who knew her and loved her say that Miller loved playing video games and basketball and that she dreamed of becoming a journalist. Strothers told the Globe she planned to take her daughter to visit historically Black colleges and universities in May. Instead she and family members attended Miller’s funeral.
“I don’t want to be a vigilante in this, I don’t want to have to spend all day on the phone getting and passing along evidence in order for justice to be served,” Strothers said at Thursday’s vigil. “What I want is for the criminal justice system to work.”
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