Grinnell is a college town of 9,564 mostly-white folks (fewer than 2% African-American) a long way from anywhere.
In September 2020, a local black man was found in a ditch, a rope around his neck, and his dead body on fire.
A jury has decided his girlfriend’s white ex-boyfriend did it. On Tuesday, November 16, 2021, Michael Vogel was convicted of murdering Michael Williams. Three other people, including Vogel’s mother, are still awaiting trial on charges of helping him get rid of the body.
According to NBC News (here), Adam DeCamp, special agent in charge at the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said: “I’m very thankful the jury verdict came out the way it did. It gives peace to the Williams family and the Grinnell community.”
To put that in context, Vogel and his helpers were not charged with a hate crime. Which means this is not officially a lynching. So the Grinnell community can breathe easy, because Grinnell won’t be known as a place where white people lynch black people.
Williams’ family tried to keep Grinnell’s history straight. NBC News says, “during a family meeting at the Grinnell Police Department with the assistant attorney general and other officials in October 2020, [Williams’] family pushed authorities to pursue the case as a possible hate crime. But the officials said a first-degree murder conviction carried a greater maximum sentence ….”
Williams’ aunt says, “They kept making it like it was nothing. I see the point, but I think it takes away from history. It needs to be documented what happened in Grinnell, Iowa.” It won’t be.
Because, “DeCamp said there was no evidence that racial hatred motivated the killing. … Instead, DeCamp said, Williams was involved with a woman who had previously been with Vogel. ‘That fact was more than Steven could handle,’ he said.”
Yep. A white guy’s ex was sleeping with a black guy, and the white guy couldn’t handle it. It’s not a race crime. There was only a “relationship” motive for murder. But would Vogel have killed Williams if he’d been white? Or could Vogel have tolerated his ex-girlfriend hooking up with another white guy? I guess we’ll never know.
The police solved a murder. The D.A. got a conviction. The perp’s going to prison for life. And Grinnell, Iowa, isn’t known as a place where lynchings occur. Everybody should be happy.
Photo below: Grinnell, Iowa, about as wholesome a place as you could imagine
