Jayvon Hatchett, 19, who told police he repeatedly stabbed an AutoZone employee because he "felt the need to find a white male to kill," is now accused of killing his white cellmate in the Muscogee County Jail.
Authorities say Hatchett beat his cellmate, 39-year-old Eddie Nelson, Jr., to death. Nelson was found dead on Saturday.
His mother is pointing a finger at the sheriff's office for putting her son in a cell with a man who already had attacked a white person because of his skin color.
"I have a question for the Sheriff," the woman told a local TV news outlet. "Why? Why did you put my son and that other man in there together? Why? Can you answer me that? I lost a son because of y'all's negligence."
The Nelson family has retained an attorney, who also called into question the decision to place a white man in a cell with a person accused of a racially motivated attack against another person.
"If this mentally imbalanced individual had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, they would not have put him in a cell with a black person," attorney Craig Jones said. "If he was a rapist, they wouldn't have put him in a cell with a woman. If he had bombed a synagogue they wouldn't have put him in a cell with a Jewish person. If he had been that white kid up in Wisconsin that shot those demonstrators they would not have put him in a cell with demonstrators. I mean, this is either sheer stupidity or meanness, that's the only way I can explain it."
