One hundred and three years after his body was found hung from a sapling along the banks of the White River, George Tompkins is finally getting his story written into the pages of history.
Tompkins, a 19-year-old Black man living in Indianapolis with his aunt and uncle, left home in good spirits at 7:30 a.m. on March 16, 1922. Seven hours later, he was discovered with his hands tied loosely behind his back and a noose around his neck, with the other end of the rope knotted to a sapling in the woods of what is now Municipal Gardens Memorial Grove Park along Lafayette Road.
Initially, according to Indianapolis native and historian Leon Bates, the local police detectives and the coroner considered Tompkins’ death a homicide. Yet, two days later, detectives suggested Tompkins had taken his own life and the word “homicide” on his death certificate was scratched out with a pencil and “suicide” was scrawled in its place…