I can see why the sheriff doesn't want to rush to call it lynching when there isn't evidence of lynching specifically. BUT it appears to be a horrific and violent crime that surely should be their first priority. Sheriff's statement is downplaying the whole thing.
There are 50,000 suicides a year in the US and only 22,000 murders, but y'all suspect it's more likely a guy with his feet on the ground, a rope not even tied, no defensive wounds, and a rope he bought himself, is a murder victim instead of the far outnumbering suicides.
What do you mean we know he wasn't hung by it? What gave you that idea? The rope was tied to a tree and he was hanging. Just not so high that his feet couldn't be on the ground. Read up about how Kung fu star David Carradine died.
The article makes it sound like he was tied to the trunk of a tree, not hanging from a branch, and also that there was no knot in the rope. I'm definitely having trouble putting those details together into suicide or murder or lynching, the whole thing is very odd.
You're interpreting what you read a bit incorrectly.
The rope was tied above on the tree and an end wrapped around his neck, with no knot. Nothing tied around a trunk. The wrapped end around his neck was holding up the bulk of his weight, but he was close enough to the ground that at least his feet were touching.
The whole thing sounds like he did it to himself, either on purpose as a suicide, or on accident as a sex thing.
Well yes if they had said "by technicality this is not a lynching, but it certainly smells like one" I don't think we'd be thinking the sheriff is fucked in the head. But he didn't say that