The body of 35-year-old Cory Zukatis was found hanging from a tree in a wooded area off of Washington Street in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on Monday afternoon. Zukatis was from Brandon, Mississippi.
“It was a white male in a wooded area where people who live there are homeless and on drugs,” Warren County Coroner Doug L. Huskey told the Mississippi Free Press on Tuesday morning when asked for details. “He is homeless. I talked to his family.”
The coroner said he would not speculate about whether foul play was involved or if the death was a suicide.
“We don’t ever say suicide or anything until the autopsy is over with. Right now, it’s just an investigation,” he said, deferring to the police.
The Vicksburg Post reported on Wednesday that Zukatis was a man who had a child and “loved his dog”—so much that he had declined an invitation to live at a the River City Rescue Mission shelter because he would not give his dog up.
“The dog got hit in front of the mission a long time ago,” Jimmy Dawson, a member of the River City Rescue Mission, told newspaper. “He healed the dog, and that dog was beside him the whole time. When they called the pound on that dog, it just knocked his spirit. When they took that dog, they took everything from him.”
‘Details Are Limited at This Time’
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Vicksburg Police Chief Larry Burns confirmed that Zukatis was found around 1:30 p.m. on Monday in a wooded area near the Ameristar Casino, but did not say whether police suspect foul play.
“The matter is currently being handled as a death investigation, and officers are actively investigating the circumstances,” he said. “The victim’s family has been notified. As with any ongoing investigation, details are limited at this time. Once additional information becomes available and can be released to the public, the Vicksburg Police Department will provide an update.”
Burns expressed his sympathy to the Zukatis family and said that he and the rest of the department “appreciate the community’s cooperation as this investigation continues.”
Social media users have posted photos of Galvin Fortenberry, a 17-year-old gun violence victim who died last month in Jefferson Davis County, incorrectly identifying him as Zukatis. Another photo that the Economic Times and Yahoo published appears to come from the Facebook page of a Florida man named Cory Zukatis. But Huskey told the Mississippi Free Press on Tuesday afternoon that the man in those photos was not the same Cory Zukatis who died in Mississippi on Monday.
The Vicksburg Police Department later released a photo of Zukatis on Wednesday.
DSU Student Found Hanging in Tree Earlier
Zukatis’ body was found mere hours after officials found a student hanging in a tree around 100 miles away on the Delta State University campus in Cleveland, Mississippi. But despite rampant social media speculation, police in Vicksburg said the two deaths are not related, The Vicksburg Post reported Tuesday morning.
The student who died on the DSU campus was Demartravion “Trey” Reed, a Black man. Campus police told the Mississippi Free Press on Monday that they do not currently suspect foul play. A Bolivar County deputy coroner also refuted rumors on social media that Reed had suffered broken arms or legs.
Rumors have spread online since the two deaths, owing in part to the charged political climate since the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah, as well as Mississippi’s history of lynchings targeting Black men. Some viral social media posts have incorrectly described both men as Black.
But so far, neither officials in Warren County nor Bolivar County have publicly raised the possibility that either death could have been a murder.
“I don’t think I should probably discuss this any further than that. My opinion is that it was self-done, and I have reasons for that,” the Bolivar County coroner told the Mississippi Free Press yesterday while speaking of Reed’s death.
Read more of the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of Trey Reed’s death here.
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This story has been updated on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, to include additional information about Zukatis from a report by The Vicksburg Post.
Correction: This story originally misspelled Cory Zukatis’ last name in two places. We apologize for the error.
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