Inquest: Conflicting accounts of how young Black man died

By JIM SALTER
Associated Press

Audio from an inquest into the shooting death of Derontae Martin offers widely conflicting accounts of how the young Black man died inside a rural Missouri home during a party in April. One witness says someone confessed to killing Martin. Another says he saw Martin shoot himself. The Associated Press obtained the audio through an open records request. At the hearing in July, a six-person jury overruled a local coroner’s decision that Martin shot himself, finding instead that he died by “violence.” No investigator involved will discuss the case. Martin’s relatives worry that despite the ruling, investigators are so convinced of suicide that they’ve moved on.