A mother reported her son missing in March. Police kept the truth from her for months.
Bettersten Wade’s search for her adult son ended when she discovered that an officer had run him over — and without telling her, authorities buried him in a pauper’s field.
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Bettersten Wade only recently learned what happened to her son, Dexter.Ashleigh Coleman for NBC News
U.S. NEWS
A mother reported her son missing in March. Police kept the truth from her for months.
Bettersten Wade’s search for her adult son ended when she discovered that an officer had run him over — and without telling her, authorities buried him in a pauper’s field.- SAVE
By Jon Schuppe
JACKSON, Miss. — Seven months of searching for her lost son brought Bettersten Wade to a dirt road leading into the woods, past an empty horse stable and a scrapyard.
The last time she’d seen her middle child, Dexter Wade, 37, was on the night of March 5, as he left home with a friend. She reported him missing, and Jackson police told her they’d been unable to find him, she said.
It wasn’t until 172 excruciating days after his disappearance that Bettersten learned the truth: Dexter had been killed less than an hour after he’d left home, struck by a Jackson police car as he crossed a nearby interstate highway. Police had known Dexter’s name, and hers, but failed to contact her, instead letting his body go unclaimed for months in the county morgue.
Now it was early October, and Bettersten had finally been told where she could find her son.
She pulled up to the gates of the Hinds County penal farm, her sister in the passenger seat. A sheriff’s deputy and two jumpsuited inmates in a pickup told her to follow them.
They bounced down the road and curved into the woods, crawling past clearings where rows of small signs jutted from the earth, each marked with a number.
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The decision to call the police was difficult for Bettersten. She did not trust them. In 2019, her 62-year-old brother died after a Jackson officer slammed him to the ground. The officer was convicted of manslaughter but is appealing.
Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing Jackson officers of excessive force and attempting to cover up their actions, and accusing the city of failing to properly train and supervise the officers. The city has denied the claims and said it isn’t liable for what happened. The officers’ lawyer said they acted responsibly and lawfully. A federal judge dismissed some of Bettersten’s claims; others remain pending in state court.
Bettersten said her mother advised her not to call the police about Dexter.
“My mama told me, ‘They’re not going to do anything,’” Bettersten recalled. “But I had to do something to find Dexter, and I thought that was the best way.”
