Mother says her missing son was buried in pauper’s grave without her knowledge

RANKIN CO., Miss. (WLBT/Gray News) - A mother in Mississippi is outraged after learning her son was buried without her knowledge.

For more than a year, Gretchen Hankins believed her 39-year-old son, Jonathan, was missing.

She said she did not learn that he was actually buried at the pauper’s field cemetery in Hinds County until an NBC reporter told her her son was dead. The reporter was investigating to see who was buried at Pauper’s field.

The Hankins family is not the first to find out a loved one was buried at the cemetery without them knowing.

Hankins said it’s simply unacceptable.

“A year and seven months went by,” Hankins she told WLBT. “He’s been dead a year and seven months, and I just found out.”

The Rankin County mother said she had last seen her son on May 20, 2022. Three days later, Jonathan was found inside a Motel 6 in Jackson.

Hankins believed her missing son was still alive and reported him missing to the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department in June of 2022.

The 39-year-old son was buried at the pauper’s cemetery a month later without the knowledge of his family.

Hankins learned her son was dead on Dec. 4, 2023. The next day, the family visited the Jackson Police Department where investigators showed them photos identifying Jonathan’s body.

Hankins said she is still having a hard time processing everything.

“No one has called me or tried to contact me. Nothing — I have heard nothing, and that makes it worse,” the mother said. “When I reported him missing in June, he was already dead. He should’ve been in the system as deceased when I reported him missing in June. Somebody ain’t doing their job. A lot of people aren’t doing their job.”

Hankins has now hired Attorney Benjamin Crump to represent her.

Crump also represents the families of 37-year-old Dexter Wade and 40-year-old Mario Moore. These two men were also buried at pauper’s cemetery without their families knowing, Crump said.

The attorney said Jonathan’s death certificate indicates he died of natural causes but failed to mention he tested positive for meth and fentanyl.

“If they knew how a mother hurts when her child is gone like that, they wouldn’t do people this way,” Hankins said. “I felt like they thought that just because he did drugs that he was just a piece of trash, and they thought, another drug dealer gone, or another drug addict gone. They don’t have any feelings for parents. He may have done bad things, but he was still my child. People just do not understand how it feels until it happens to them.”

WLBT reached out to the City of Jackson for comment. Spokeswoman Melissa Faith Payne said the police department was not notified of the victim’s identity or cause of death.

WLBT also reached out to the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department. An attorney said Jonathan’s case remained a missing person’s case until the recent news of his death.

Hankins said the family is now trying to exhume Jonathan’s body so they can have a proper burial for him.

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