A year after former Piney Woods School COO William Boland was found dead in a Byram, Mississippi, hotel room, law enforcement visited the Rankin County school on Monday, seeking more information on the school official’s murder. Police officers from the Byram Police Department, Capitol Police’s Crime Scene Unit, Hinds County SWAT, and FBI investigators were out in force on campus, executing a search warrant.
Therese Apel’s Darkhorse Press was the first to report the warrants, the second time in a year that law enforcement has descended upon the campus to seek information in Boland’s murder investigation.
Notably, Byram Chief of Police Kevin Turner told the outlet that Piney Woods School was not cooperating with investigators.
“We’re trying to get information to help us close the case, connect some dots, and get closure for the family. We weren’t getting a lot of cooperation, which is why we decided to execute a search warrant,” Turner said.
WAPT reported yesterday that “evidence from the homicide investigation led (police) back to Piney Woods.”
Murder Followed Allegations
Piney Woods, one of the nation’s largest and oldest historically Black boarding schools hired William Keith Boland, 42, early last year as its new chief operating officer. A childhood educator, film producer and author of children’s books, Boland came from New York to take on the new role.
But months after his hiring, allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a student resulted in the institution placing Boland on leave. The school provided Boland with a room at the Extended Stay Hotel in Byram, Mississippi. Dr. Will Crossley, president of Piney Woods School, told the Mississippi Free Press in a 2025 interview that the institution had chosen not to involve law enforcement at that time, stating that the allegations had yet to reach the standards for mandatory reporting to law enforcement.
“We consulted with our board chair, we consulted with outside legal counsel,” Crossley said. Consequently, Crossley said the school assembled an internal team to investigate the allegations.
But only a week later, on July 16, 2025, Boland was found dead in the bathroom of his room at the hotel. Investigators told the Mississippi Free Press at the time that Boland’s death came after a brutal beating. The Mississippi State Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide.
As of Aug. 25, the Byram Police Department has announced no suspects or persons of interest in the killing.
Neither Crossley nor the Byram Police Department responded to requests for comment before press time. Representatives from the Mississippi Department of Public Safety and the FBI stated that the Byram Police Department was the investigating agency and was the only agency capable of responding to media inquiries.
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