Mississippi police were at odds as they searched for missing man, widow says

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — In the weeks after Sudanese Civil War refugee Dau Mabil vanished without a trace in Mississippi, officers from two police agencies blamed each other for the stalled investigation, his widow told The Associated Press.

Fishermen, not police, spotted Mabil’s body floating in a river about 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of where he went missing in Jackson on March 25. But his relatives still know little about what happened to him before his body was found April 13, his widow, Karissa Bowley, said this week. And a court has said it couldn’t consider rules for an independent autopsy that may shed more light on what happened to Mabil until April 30.

Relatives and volunteers spent weeks looking for Mabil, who disappeared during a daytime walk near his home. As they searched remote areas and raised awareness, investigators from the state-run Capitol Police and the city-run Jackson Police Department blamed each other for complicating the effort, Bowley said.