Family is calling for the reopening of a suspicious 1985 Concord suicide case

CONCORD, California. – Timothy Charles Lee was found hanging from a tree in Concord in 1985, and his death was immediately ruled a suicide.

But given the many questions that have remained unanswered for 39 years, his family and supporters want the case reopened.

Lee, a 23-year-old gay black man of Native American descent, was found hanging from a fig tree near the Concord BART station on November 2, 1985.

Lee’s death was ruled a suicide, but several factors raised the suspicions of his family and supporters, including the way his sister’s name was misspelled in the alleged suicide note, the destruction of evidence by Concord police within 24 hours of his death, and the fact that Lee had two other Black men in the Concord area were stabbed that same night by two people dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes.

In March 1986, The Oakland Tribune reported that handwriting expert Andrea McNichol, director of Graphology Consultants International, found that the note did not fit Lee’s usual style.

Frank Sterling, Lee’s cousin and organizer of the memorial march, said that if Lee wrote the note himself, he likely wrote it under duress and deliberately misspelled the names so his family would know something was wrong.

“Actually, (his sister) Tammy said he did it on purpose and drew a funny hangman’s noose shape like he was trying to signal something,” Sterling said, adding that even though 39 years have passed, he is still collecting signatures for the petition. Once that number reaches at least 500, he and other supporters will present the request to California Attorney General Rob Bonta in hopes that his office will reopen the investigation.

Lee’s supporters will hold a memorial march at the Rainbow Community Center in Concord on Saturday and continue efforts to reopen his case.

What happened that night in 1985 shocked the community and was widely reported in various local media, with many clippings included in the FBI files relating to the case.

On the Friday evening before his death early Saturday morning, Lee was riding BART from San Francisco to his home in Berkeley when he fell asleep on the train and missed his stop.

He woke up in Concord and couldn’t take the train back because the system was closed. He contacted his friend Joyce Carter, who said he called her just after 1 a.m. from a payphone and asked for a ride, but she was unable to provide one.

A Concord resident found Lee around noon Saturday, his body hanging from a tree in a vacant parking lot on Mt Diablo Street.

News clips from the time reported that then-Concord Police Chief George Straka said there were no signs of struggle at the scene of the death, and medical reports showed that Lee’s neck was not broken as a result of the hanging, which would indicate foul play.

“Most suicides (by hanging) result in death by suffocation or compression,” Straka said in a Jan. 8, 1986, article published by the San Francisco Examiner. Still, the NAACP insisted on involving the FBI after local authorities ruled the case a suicide given previous racially motivated crimes in Concord. Marilyn Hannum and William Callison – a married couple who lived near where Lee was found – came forward with reports of hearing screaming the night he died.

Hannum’s statement detailed her account of leaving the house after she heard screaming and witnessed a group of people, including a person who appeared to be wearing a uniform.

“Someone appeared to be writing something while leaning over the hood of the car while others gathered around,” Hannum wrote. “I only had a second to notice it when the uniformed person spotted me. When she saw me, she turned around, shouted a few shocked words, and started running towards me as if to chase me. I immediately turned around and rushed back into the house and locked the door.”

The statement also alleged that Hannum received threatening phone calls after his death. Sterling was referring to a 1977 Contra Costa Times article that discussed the KKK’s attempt to recruit police officers into the “Klavern,” or Klan unit, in Contra Costa County.

Given the historical connection, Sterling expressed the need to separate the sheriff’s office from the coroner’s office, which is the same office and determines causes of death. Although Sterling was young when his cousin died, Sterling said it was important to continue advocating for the case to be reopened.

“We are the last generation of the family that can hold these people accountable,” he continued. “If the people who killed Timmy were around his age, they could still be living in Concord in their 60s and 70s, hanging around with their grandchildren and living their lives, while Timmy’s family died young and from stress ”

The walk will begin at the Rainbow Community Center, 2380 Salvio St., Suite 301, in Concord; Then on November 2 at At 3 p.m., participants go to the tree where Lee died during a candlelight vigil.