A Black family is mourning their son, who was run over by a police officer who then covered up his death.
Dexter Wade disappeared after leaving his mother’s home in Jackson, Mississippi, on March 5th. Wade and his mother, Bettersten, argued that night. So when he left, she didn’t immediately believe he was in danger. However, after several days of no contact, she contacted law enforcement. Wade’s case was mishandled from the start, with the original investigator misspelling his last name on the missing person’s report. As she spent the past seven months searching for her child, authorities knew he was dead all along.
Shortly after Wade left his home, he was hit by an officer-driven vehicle while walking across Interstate 55. Investigators quickly ruled Wade’s death an accident. However, once he was identified and contact details for his mother were located, the Hinds County Coroner’s Office did not notify the family. Instead, they handed Wade’s information to the Jackson Police Department to make a death notification, which they never did. As a result, Wade’s body was kept in the morgue and buried in a numbered grave at the Hinds County jail’s penal farm. Bettersten only learned this information in early October.
“They had me looking for him all that time, and they knew who he was,” Bettersten stated.
Betterstein and her family had already been reluctant to call police about her son given the 2019 death of her brother, who died after a Jackson officer slammed him onto the ground. That, combined with the fact that Wade suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, only made his loved ones more apprehensive about getting the police involved. Now, with his remains located, Betterstein is raising money to have Wade’s remains exhumed and buried in a proper ceremony.
The officer who hit Wade has not been identified publicly.
