FEATURE
HANGING DEATH OF NC TEEN LENNON LACY:
SUICIDE OR A MODERN-DAY LYNCHING?
BLADENBORO, NC Friday August 29th was
a big day for Lennon
Lacy. His high school
football team, the West
Bladen Knights, was
taking on the West
Columbus Vikings and
Lacy, 17, was determined
to make his mark.
He’d been training all
summer for the start of
the season, running up
and down the bleachers
at the school stadium
wearing a 65 lb. exercise
jacket. Whenever his
mother could afford
it, he borrowed $7 and
spent the day working
out at the Bladenboro
gym, building himself
up to more than 200 lbs.
As for the future, he
had it all planned out:
this year he’d become
a starting linebacker
on the varsity team, next year he’d
earn a scholarship to play football
in college, and four years after that
he’d achieve the dream he’d harbored
since he was a child – to make it in the
NFL.
and the Bladenboro
police chief, Chris Hunt,
was standing in front of
her. “I need you to come
with me,” he said.
Claudia was led to a
trailer park a short walk
from her home, where an
ambulance was parked
on the grass next to a
wooden swing set. Even
before she had got to
the ambulance she saw
police officers clearing
away the crime scene
tape that had been
placed around the swing.
that night. At 7.30 am on Friday –
exactly 12 hours before the game was
scheduled to start – he was found
The last person known to have seen
Lacy alive was his father, Larry
Walton. Around midnight on the
night before the game, he came out
of his bedroom to get a glass of water
and saw his son preparing his school
bag for the following morning. “I
told him he needed to get to bed, the
game was next day, and he said ‘OK,
Daddy’.” A little later Walton heard
the front door open and close; Walton
assumed Lacy must have stepped out
of the house, but thought no more of it
and went to sleep.
The night before the game, Lacy did
what he always did: he washed