JACKSON, Miss. — The body of a Mississippi man who was found dead after vanishing under mysterious circumstances will not be released to family members until law enforcement agencies finish investigating the case, a state judge said Tuesday.

At a hearing in Jackson, Mississippi, Hinds County Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas did not make an official ruling from the bench. He instead told attorneys the body of Dau Mabil would be preserved at the state crime lab while investigators try to shed light on what happened to the man. Mabil, who lived in Jackson with his wife, Karissa Bowley, went missing in broad daylight on March 25 after going for a walk.

Mabil escaped a bloody civil war in Sudan as a child and built a new life in America. His disappearance prompted an outcry from civil rights organizations and is alleged to have sparked discord between local law enforcement agencies. Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, whose district includes Jackson, sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting a Justice Department investigation.

Tuesday’s hearing had been set to settle a legal dispute between Bowley and Dau Mabil’s brother, Bul Mabil, regarding the standards for a future independent autopsy. But Thomas also allowed attorneys to ask questions about Bowley’s marriage to Dau Mabil.

Bowley took the witness stand and was peppered with questions by Bul Mabil’s attorney, Lisa Ross. In a tense exchange, Ross asked Bowley to read text messages detailing arguments between the couple over several issues, including Dau Mabil’s alcohol consumption and Bowley’s penchant for “feminist podcasts.”

Bowley’s attorney, Paloma Wu, said the hearing had become a “forum for freewheeling defamation” of Bowley, but Thomas overruled her objections.

Police have never said Bowley is a suspect in Dau Mabil’s disappearance. The legal conflict between her and Bul Mabil began after fishermen spotted a body April 13 in the Pearl River in Lawrence County, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Jackson. Days later, officials confirmed the remains were those of Dau Mabil.

A sheriff said an initial state autopsy did not uncover signs of foul play, but Bul Mabil has disputed those findings. Bul Mabil filed an emergency request that an independent medical examiner examine Dau Mabil’s body before releasing the remains to Bowley and her family.

In a subsequent filing, Bowley’s attorney said her client did not oppose additional autopsy by a qualified examiner. But she asked the court to ensure the second autopsy takes place only after law enforcement finishes investigating to preserve the integrity of the evidence on her late husband’s body.

On Tuesday, Thomas said he agreed that police should finish their investigation before releasing Dau Mabil’s body and that a second, independent autopsy would likely be permitted.

“I do not draw conclusions about anybody or what’s happened to this man other than that it’s unfortunate. I hope … there was nothing nefarious done to him,” Thomas said. “But I want to find out. And I want the state to find out. I think they’re going to do that.”

Medical examiners do not typically store a body for the entirety of a police investigation, however long it takes. But, authorities would make an exception due to the “extraordinary nature of this case,” said Eric Brown, an attorney for the state medical examiner’s office.

Thomas said he would issue a formal order later in the week to deal with the specific requests made by Bul Mabil and Bowley over setting the rules for a future autopsy conducted by an independent medical examiner.

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Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.

• MCPP’s Douglas Carswell says last week’s education funding reform win shows that when reformers in Mississippi work together, they win. 

Imagine if all the restaurants in your neighbourhood were guaranteed the same revenue even if they managed to serve fewer customers? 

That’s pretty much how Mississippi has been funding public education for the past thirty years, under the so-called Mississippi Adequate Education Funding Formula Program, or MAEP system.

Under MAEP, taxpayer dollars are allocated in a way that suited education administrators and local bureaucrats.  Under the so-called ‘hold harmless’ provisions of the MAEP, they did not need to worry about loss of revenue, even if they lost students and underperformed. 

Last week, the Mississippi legislature finally voted to replace the antiquated MAEP system, with the new Mississippi Student Funding Formula.  HB 4130 passed unanimously in the House, and before sailing through the Senate on a 49-3 vote.

Under the new Student Funding Formula, Mississippi will fund actual students, not a self-serving system.  What does this mean in practice?

Every student will now be allocated a base amount of $6,695.  On top of that base amount, a weighted system will be used to allocate additional funds to each student depending on their individual circumstances.

MAEP treated every child as if they were an identical accounting unit on a bureaucratic spreadsheet.  As every parent knows, each child is different and has different needs.  The new Student Funding Formula recognizes this fact.  Children with special needs, or particularly gifted students, get more, as do those from lower income neighborhoods. 

The new formula has a specific weighting for career and technical education, too, which could be important for future workforce development. 

Also important is the fact that those crony ‘hold harmless’ deals, which reward mediocrity, will be terminated in 2027. 

Early on in this session, Speaker Jason White made it clear that he was 100 percent committed to getting this new funding formula passed.  Both he, and the Chairman of the House Education Committee, Rob Roberson, who authored the bill, deserve enormous credit for getting it though the legislature.  Kudos, too, to Jansen Owen and Kent McCarty.

Frankly, this bill would not have passed without a strong lead from the Governor, Tate Reeves, as well.  He made it clear that he was 100 percent behind this reform, and repeatedly talked about the need to fund students, not a system.

HB 4130 is really important for the future of education reform.  Perhaps, though, there is an even greater significance in its passage through the legislature.

What happened last week shows that Mississippi has leaders that are willing to spend political capital achieving the kind of change our state needs.  Do-nothing intransigence is not so powerful after all. 

When reformers in our state work together, they win. 

BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) – A vivid double rainbow was spotted arcing across the South Mississippi sky Monday evening after a gloomy day of showers and thunderstorms. The rainbow was not the only spectacle. As the sun began to sink below the horizon, a brilliant burst of oranges, pinks and reds splashed up against the bottom on the cloud deck over South Mississippi resulting in a show-stopping sunset full of color and awe.

The double rainbow and colorful sunset came after a shelf cloud and mammatus clouds were spotted along the coast.

Along the leading edge of showers and thunderstorms Monday, a shelf cloud was spotted tracking slowly across the coast. Shelf clouds form on the leading edge of thunderstorms. They mark the dividing live between the warm, moist air ahead of the storm and the rain cooled air behind it. The cooler air behind the storm “scoops” up the warm moist air ahead of it. The air cools, condenses into a cloud and is molded into a “shelf” due to the motion of the storm.

After the storms cleared, the upper-level cloud deck remained over South Mississippi. Sinking air above the clouds formed “pouches” in the cloud deck over Biloxi known as mammatus clouds.

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