Murders Around Mississippi

Booker T. Mixon, was lynched in October of 1959. He died in Coahoma county hospital in Clarksdale after remaining in a coma from Oct. 12 until Oct. 23.

A 35-year-old Korean veteran, Mixon was found in a ditch outside of the small town of Marks by a Sheriff’s deputy; Mixon was nude and suffering from abrasions, cuts and contusions. He was reported as a hit and run victim but “Persons who viewed Mixon’s body report that it looked like it had been dragged from a car since most of the flesh on his abdomen and back had been savagely torn from his body.”

Mississippi authorities would not grant permission for an autopsy upon Mixon’s death, but the attending physician noted brain injuries and head fractures that would come if dragged by a car, “perhaps, over some grass.”

Mrs. Mixon and his uncle, James, hired an attorney to demand the governor call for an investigation. Mixon had been working in the small town of Crenshaw and had been on the job driving a truck for only three days before the injuries that led to his death.

Click here to read the newspaper article.