Black-on-gay-black crime: The motive for the murder of an openly gay candidate for mayor of the City of Clarksdale, Mississipi, and the exact cause of his death remained unclear after sheriff’s deputies charged a 22-year-old black man with the candidate’s slaying

The Sheriff’s Office said that the body of Marco McMillian, 34, one of four candidates running in the May 7, 2013 Democratic primary for mayor, was found on an earthen levee next to the Mississippi River just outside of Clarksdale. Although Sheriff’s Office officials said that the motive for the murder was unclear, they said that there was no evidence to indicate the incident was a hate crime or politically motivated. The body was found one day after Lawrence Reed, the black man arrested for the murder, was inside McMillian’s sports utility vehicle when it became involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle at a location miles away from where McMillian’s body was found, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office said. Clarksdale, which has a population of about 18,000, is a majority black city with an overwhelming majority of voters who are registered as Democrats. No Republican filed to run in the mayoral election.