New questions have been raised about the death of Charles Cochran since my previous posts about it. I started to reply to each one individually but decided readers would be better served by having them all discussed here in one more post about the suicide that still has more questions than answers.

Additional thoughts…

In addition to previous comments about the Cochran suicide, it should also be said that if the Walker Sheriff’s Office or Rossville PD wanted Mr. Cochran dead they could certainly come up with a better way to do it than beat and hang him while he was in their care. If we’ve learned anything from Sam Parker, we know that law enforcement officers (even incompetent ones) are perfectly capable of murdering people without arresting them first. Anonymously killing Charles Cochran in an empty parking lot or in the woods would make more sense than police officers forcibly hanging him in a jail cell. One more unsolved murder in a year filled with them would have generated a lot less attention than what happened on November 6th.

SITE UPDATE
Thanks so much for the encouraging and complimentary e-mails; we read everything even if you don’t get a reply. Sorry for the irregular updates, it’s hard to write lengthy pieces coherently with limited amounts of time. We’re trying to get a fun piece written and posted sometime this weekend, check back soon for more.

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This week’s near-desecration of graves in the LaFayette cemetery is just another display of heartlessness and incompetence from the city’s leadership.

During the October city council meeting, councilman Wayne Swanson called for a motion to require people to clean up after their pets while visiting the cemetery. Swanson then, according to the council minutes, “also asked Richard Moore to monitor objects and other items being placed on or near graves.”

Late in the evening of Friday November 6th, Rossville PD officers arrested Charles Lee Cochran for “disorderly conduct” and sent him to the Walker County Jail. Mr Cochran was later found in a jail cell hanging dead from a t-shirt. The GBI was called in to do an autopsy and investigate the incident, as would be expected.

Initial news reports offered very little information about what actually happened, and a slightly more detailed story on the Walker Messenger site still left a lot of unanswered questions.

As reported on Channel 3 and in the Walker Messenger, Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson has been diagnosed with cancer. The specific form of cancer is Multiple Myeloma, or Kahler’s Disease. It’s a blood cancer that mostly affects the bone marrow and can lead to weakened or broken bones and pain, especially in the ribs and spine. Sheriff Wilson has begun taking chemotherapy and will receive radiation treatments for the next six months.

(The Underground had this information on November 1st but waited to post anything out of respect for the Sheriff’s privacy; now that it’s public record we feel free to comment.)

Our prayers are with Sheriff Wilson as he battles the pain and uncertainty that comes with cancer. Regardless of any differences we may have with the sheriff and his management of the department and jail over the last 13 years, we wouldn’t wish this kind of illness on anyone and hope he has a quick recovery.