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Was 17-year-old Lennox Lacy lynched? That’s what his family and his older girlfriend, who is white, believe. The Bladenboro, North Carolina teenager was found hanging from a swing set in a trailer park. The town is 80% white, 20% black and Lacy’s girlfriend 32-year-old Michelle Brimhall says she believes Lacy was targeted and killed because of their relationship.

‘I believe Lennon was murdered,” Brimhall told The Daily Mail (U.K.) “The police ruled his death as suicide but Lennon would never harm himself. He’s got too much love for life.’

Lacy was found dead in August. After a police investigation, the coroner ruled it a suicide. However, a few facts stand out – one that Lacy was found wearing sneakers that were a size and half too small and that the sneakers he wore that day weren’t found with him. He was also hung with two belts that weren’t his, says his family.

The local NAACP chapter found enough about the death suspicious to bring in an independent forensic pathologist. Christena Roberts’ report, released in November, found suicide to be “unlikely.”

In her report, Roberts noted that Lacy, 5’9, was found hanging from a swing set crossbar 7’6 inches high, and “there was no item present at the scene that Lennon could have stood on, applied the noose and then kicked away.”

Another point that both Brimhall and Lacy’s family agree on is his love for football. The teen had NFL aspirations and was scheduled to play in a football game the day after he was found, after making the team as a varsity linebacker. He even took a selfie on Instagram mentioning the game on August 28 the night before the game.

His mother, Claudia, told CNN that she believes her son was lynched. She says that she knew about his relationship with Brimhall and didn’t approve. Brimhall, according to the Daily Mail, has since fled Bladenboro in fear of her own life.

The FBI has stepped in, and will investigate the case, several sources confirm. They have confirmed that family has been the target of “racial animus” from townspeople, including the desecration of Lacy’s grave.

Wilson Lacy, 66,  is Lennon’s cousin and an elder in the extended Lacy family. He told the Daily Mail  ‘I don’t know what happened, I wasn’t there. But in this town when a young black boy has been with a white woman there has never been a good outcome.’

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