On June 17, Donté Perez Jones was found dead at a park playground just outside of Philadelphia, hanging by his Army poncho from monkey bars.
Police were quick to say his death appeared to be a suicide, but the 35-year-old veteran’s family insists he was anything but suicidal and believes foul play may have been involved. They’re now struggling with how quickly authorities seemed to dismiss other theories.
“I really believe that if he was different, a different [race], that this would be a different narrative,” Jones’ mother, Latina Dean, said. “I truly do believe that.”
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In an interview with The Daily Beast, Dean described how close her son, who had three children of his own, was with the rest of his family. Jones lived just minutes from his mom’s place in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, and dropped off one of his kids at her house on June 16 to watch over the Juneteenth weekend.
“He lived five minutes away from me,” Dean said. “Literally, he [could] walk to where he lived.”
The next morning, Dean said a local police officer showed up at her door to deliver the terrible news that her son had died, but she had to call another police department in order to get more details. She ended up talking with the Whitpain Township Police Department, who told her that Jones’ body was found by a stranger at 7:40 a.m. at Wentz Run Park in Blue Bell—a little over 20 miles away from Sharon Hill.
“I was like, ‘That doesn’t make sense,’” Dean said. “He said, ‘Mom, I'm going home.’ I didn’t think anything more about it. So, [when] they rang my doorbell to tell me that my son committed suicide—never.”
Just a few hours after Jones’ body was found, Wentz Run Park was reopened for another event, Dean claims. She also told The Daily Beast that the coroner’s office refused to let her view Jones’ body in the immediate aftermath of his death.
“I had asked if I could see a picture, video, some type of way to identify that they had my son because my son could be somewhere kidnapped. And they was like, ‘No,’” she said. “I never had the opportunity to identify my son until we received his body.”
The family’s attorney, Michael van der Veen, said Jones’ wallet was missing and hasn’t been found.
“You would think they would suspect robbery, something, anything,” he said.
“You know, it’s really a very unusual circumstance where a local police department and county officials won’t give any information to a family where they claim they don’t suspect foul play in any way, or they think it’s simply a suicide case,” he added. “A young Black guy showing up in a part of our state that he shouldn’t be in at strange hours of the night for no apparent reason and to get found hung with no sense that suicide would be in any way logical. ”
First Deputy Coroner Alexander Balacki told The Daily Beast that, unlike other counties in the state, Montgomery County—where Blue Bell is—requires the coroner to identify bodies instead of family members. He said Jones’ body was identified at the scene from his driver’s license that was found in his car.
“That is, in my experience, a common misconception that the family needs to visually identify the body,” Balacki said.
He added that a wallet was not recovered with the body.
Jones’ family and friends have launched a GoFundMe campaign to have an independent autopsy conducted. His mother thoroughly believes that her son wouldn’t die by suicide, that it’s a “lie in the pits of hell.”
“He had too much to live for,” she said. “He had a six-figure job waiting for him starting, actually, this month. …He was looking to buy a home in Delaware, somewhere close. My son has support. He needs for nothing. We do quite fine, my family, and we support him—always have.”
In a statement to The Daily Beast, the Whitpain Township Police Department said the investigation into Jones’ death is ongoing, and the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office is conducting an autopsy.
“The Whitpain Police Department offers its sincerest condolences to the family, children, and friends of Donté Jones,” the department said in a press release. They added that the investigation was not closed and would not be until the release of the coroner’s report.
“This investigation remains open and the final cause of death is pending the outcome of the investigation,” the statement continued. “At this time, based on current facts and evidence, no foul play is suspected and this incident appears to be suicide.”
Jones did not leave behind a suicide note, a fact van der Veen also finds troubling.
“That would be unusual in a suicide event, particularly when the person committing suicide has strong family to communicate to, has children that he would want to leave a message to, has a family that loved him and was with him all the time. It just doesn’t add up,” he said.
If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741
