Melissa McKinnies Speaks On Son Danye Jones' Alleged Lynching: "I Can't Even Grieve, I'm Stuck"
Source: YouTube
Source: YouTube
"Say his name over and over again until he gets justice," Melissa McKinnies said of her son Danye Jones.
As more reports surface of Danye Jones' death, his mother Melissa McKinnies is speaking out against the police's belief that he died by suicide.
In an interview with Roland Martin as a part of his Unfiltered digital show, McKinnies discussed how she found Jones' body and why she doesn't believe he died by suicide.
McKinnies said her husband went to Jones' room to ask him to turn off his light but he wasn't there. McKinnies then got up and went to his room and found a brick close to where he sleeps.
"I'm like 'That's odd,'" McKinnies said. "So I got the brick and I was taking it outdoors because I thought he was maybe sitting out there because he goes and works out at night."
Upon going outside, McKinnies looked over at a tree in their backyard and saw a chair turned over. She then looked up and saw Jones hanging in the tree.
"I screamed his name...I remember falling to the ground," she said.
McKinnies' brother and husband took Jones out of the tree after the 911 dispatcher told them to. But before they took him down the brother took pictures of Jones so they had evidence of the incident.
From there, McKinnies and her family learned that the police were calling Jones' death a suicide.
"They told us just the other day that it's not suicide when we asked for the sheet back," McKinnies said, referring to the sheet that was found around Jones' neck.
McKinnies disputed her son's death as a suicide, saying that the knots used in the sheet were navy knots and Jones was never a part of anything where he'd learned to make knots like that.
She also said that Jones wouldn't take his own life.
"People in the past have committed suicide and he was totally against it," McKinnies said. "He wouldn't leave us...we have too much fun. This isn't something I'm partially sure of, he did not do what they said."
Toward the end of the interview she directs her attention to Jones' murderers.
"Whoever's involved they better turn somebody in, they better turn on each other...they took mine, they touched mine...big mistake thinking they were gonna shut me up. They just really pissed me off," McKinnies said. "...I can't even cry no more, I'm stuck. I'm can't even grive, I'm stuck."
A family news conference and rally in support of Jones took place this past Thursday.
