The body of 35-year-old Cory Zukatis was found hanging from a tree in a wooded area off of Washington Street in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on Monday afternoon. Zukatis was from Brandon, Mississippi.
“It was a white male in a wooded area where people who live there are homeless and on drugs,” Warren County Coroner Doug L. Huskey told the Mississippi Free Press on Tuesday morning when asked for details. “He is homeless. I talked to his family.”
The coroner said he would not speculate about whether foul play was involved or if the death was a suicide.
“We don’t ever say suicide or anything until the autopsy is over with. Right now, it’s just an investigation,” he said, deferring to the police.
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Vicksburg Police Chief Larry Burns confirmed that Zutakis was found around 1:30 p.m. on Monday in a wooded area near the Ameristar Casino, but did not say whether police suspect foul play.
“The matter is currently being handled as a death investigation, and officers are actively investigating the circumstances,” he said. “The victim’s family has been notified. As with any ongoing investigation, details are limited at this time. Once additional information becomes available and can be released to the public, the Vicksburg Police Department will provide an update.”
Burns expressed his sympathy to the Zutakis family and said that he and the rest of the department “appreciate the community’s cooperation as this investigation continues.”
Misidentified Photos Circulate on Social Media
No photos of Cory Zukatis have been released to the public so far. Social media users have posted photos of Galvin Fortenberry, a 17-year-old gun violence victim who died last month in Jefferson Davis County, incorrectly identifying him as Zukatis.
Another photo that the Economic Times and Yahoo published appears to come from the Facebook page of a Florida man named Cory Zukatis. But Huskey told the Mississippi Free Press on Tuesday afternoon that the man in those photos is not the same Cory Zukatis who died in Mississippi on Monday.
DSU Student Found Hanging in Tree Earlier
Zukatis’ body was found mere hours after officials found a student hanging in a tree around 100 miles away on the Delta State University campus in Cleveland, Mississippi. But despite rampant social media speculation, police in Vicksburg said the two deaths are not related, The Vicksburg Post reported Tuesday morning.
The student who died on the DSU campus was Demartravion “Trey” Reed, a Black man. Campus police told the Mississippi Free Press on Monday that they do not currently suspect foul play. A Bolivar County deputy coroner also refuted rumors on social media that Reed had suffered broken arms or legs.
Rumors have spread online since the two deaths, owing in part to the charged political climate since the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah, as well as Mississippi’s history of lynchings targeting Black men. Some viral social media posts have incorrectly described both men as Black.
But so far, neither officials in Warren County nor Bolivar County have publicly raised the possibility that either death could have been a murder.
“I don’t think I should probably discuss this any further than that. My opinion is that it was self-done, and I have reasons for that,” the Bolivar County coroner told the Mississippi Free Press yesterday while speaking of Reed’s death.
