The Case of the Jena Six: Black High School Students Charged with Attempted Murder for Schoolyard Fight After Nooses Are Hung from Tree
Six black students at Jena High School in Central Louisiana were arrested last December after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. The six black students were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy. They face up to 100 years in prison without parole. The fight took place amid mounting racial tension after a black student sat under a tree in the schoolyard where only white students sat. The next day three nooses were hanging from the tree
Her captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her and made her drink from a toilet, according to criminal complaints.
It wasn’t until an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff’s deputies to the property on Saturday that her ordeal ended and she was able to limp to safety, arms outstretched as she cried, “Help me!”
“I don’t understand such a horrific crime being committed here,” said Johnny Meade, pastor of the community’s Apostolic Church of God in the Name of Christ Jesus.
The FBI is now looking into possible civil rights violations, agency spokesman Bill Crowley said, authorities in West Virginia said they were investigating the case as a possible hate crime.
At one point, an assailant cut the woman’s ankle with a knife and used the N-word in telling her she was victimized because she is black, authorities said.
Investigators are still trying to determine how the woman ended up at the property and whether she knew any of the six people arrested or the two others, suspected of driving her to the home, who are being sought, said Logan County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy V.K. Dingess.
Police tape now surrounds the entrances to the beige-and-brown mobile home where Megan Williams, 20, was found. An extension cord runs from the home to the cramped shed, which authorities say she was held in with a portable stereo, a locker and a power saw.
The Associated Press generally does not identify suspected victims of sexual assault, but Williams and her mother agreed to release her name. Carmen Williams said she wanted people to know what her daughter endured.
“I don’t understand a human being doing another human being the way they did my daughter,” Carmen Williams said Tuesday from her daughter’s hospital room. “I didn’t know there were people like that out here.”
The suspects in the case have prior arrest records going back several years, according to records from Logan County Magistrate Court. Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham said, “I have some familiarity with all those individuals.”
Since 1991, police have filed 108 criminal charges against the six. Frankie Brewster, 49, had the most with 33; Alisha Burton, 23, of Chapmanville had 20.
The most serious of the previous charges was filed against Brewster, the owner of the Big Creek mobile home. She was charged in 1994 with first-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to lesser charges of manslaughter and wanton endangerment. Brewster was released from prison in 2000 after serving five years in the death of 84-year-old Polly T. Ferrell, court records show.
