A White man by the name of Steven Vogel was sentenced to life for the murder of Michael Williams in Grinnel, Iowa, whose Black body was found burning in a ditch one year ago according to the Des Moines Register.
That feels like a rarity these days. But a terrible crime deserves a credible punishment.
In November, Vogel was convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of Williams whose body was found in September 2020.
Vogel admitted that the reasoning for the killing was because of an affair between Vogel’s girlfriend and Williams.
From the Des Moines Register:
During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence and witnesses who indicated Vogel admitted to three witnesses he killed Williams out of jealousy stemming from a love triangle involving Vogel’s girlfriend.
Cody Johnson testified Vogel told him he killed “Black Mike” by clubbing his head from behind and hanging him with a rope in the basement of Vogel’s Grinnell home. Williams’ head injuries were consistent with blunt-force trauma and Williams appeared to have been strangled for five-to-six minutes, according to the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s office.
Judge Shawn Showers sentenced Vogel to life in prison without the possibility of parole and five years because Vogel was also convicted on a charge of abusing a corpse.
Three other Grinnell residents — Johnson, Julia Cox and Roy Garner— were accused of destroying evidence of the killing. Garner and Cox were also accused of abusing Williams’ corpse and helping Vogel transport Williams’ body.
All four people charged are white and Julia Cox, one of the four accused, is Vogel’s mother. But, the Iowa-Nebraska chapter of the NAACP did not find any evidence that Williams was killed because he was Black per the story from the Des Moines Register.
Something as heinous as burning a Black man’s body, however, aligns with many of the hateful lynchings we’ve seen throughout U.S. history.