October 8, 2025
A family is demanding answers regarding Jayvon Givan’s alleged suicide and the police-ordered cremation they only learned about more than a year later.
The family of Jayvon Givan is demanding answers and a reopening of the investigation into his death, which police ruled a suicide without their knowledge.
Police reports state that Givan was found hanging by a metal chain from a commercial building in Corrales, New Mexico, on Sept. 17, 2024. But, it wasn’t until Oct. 1, 2025, over a year after his death, that his twin sister, Jaivryon Walker from Kansas City, filed a missing persons report in Albuquerque and learned the police had sat on his case file the entire time.
Now the family has received support from local advocacy groups to demand a full investigation, including answers on why Givan was cremated without their knowledge.
“That is not negligence. And it’s not a rumor like we’ve heard people online say. This is a cover-up,” organizers from Building Power for Black New Mexico, Millions for Prisoners New Mexico, Albuquerque Save the Kids, and the SouthWest Solidarity Network told The Kansas City Defender.
After reviewing police reports, researchers allege that the Albuquerque police had no intention of properly investigating Givan’s death. However, amid public outcry over the racial implications surrounding deaths by hanging, the department now plans to conduct a thorough investigation.
“I am arranging for an independent review to look into the initial investigation of Mr. Givan’s death,” APD Chief Harold Medina said in a statement. “Our field officers rely on medical investigators to determine the cause and manner of death, which informs the department’s decision to pursue a criminal investigation. While this death appears to be a death by suicide, the fact that it involved a hanging is enough reason for further scrutiny.”
Police reported that Givan was wearing a hospital bracelet when found, indicating a recent medical visit. His last known address was an emergency housing shelter in Santa Fe. At the time of his death, he had an active warrant for conspiracy to commit armed robbery linked to a Cricket Wireless theft investigation, accused of stealing phones to exchange for cash at Eco ATMs.
However, his twin sister, Jaivryon Walker of Kansas City, is suspicious about her brother’s alleged suicide.
“I feel like if he was going through something, he would have reached out to me,” his sister said.
The reports make no mention of any attempt to contact Jayvon’s family in Kansas City. The only person listed in the “Relationships Addendum” is Martin Ulloa, whose connection to Jayvon is marked as “UNKNOWN.”
Walker says Detective Lorenzo Apocada, who finally called the family on Oct. 1, offered almost no information and later refused to return their calls. When another detective eventually called to deliver the news, the family says they received vague answers to basic questions about the autopsy and photos of Givan’s body, which police had cremated without their knowledge.
”He just said that his body was cremated and that we could get the police report online,” Jada said. “He never gave us any details. He never said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna be sending you over some photos so you can identify him.’ My cousin was literally identified from the name, only name, and birthday.”
Organizing groups have rallied behind Givan’s family to demand a transparent investigation into his death, which they are ruling as a lynching pending a final investigation.
”This department concealed the lynching of a Black man for over a year, and had the audacity to label it a ‘suicide.’ We reject that narrative outright,” a statement from the advocacy groups reads. “Black people do not hang themselves in public in America. We know this because the history is written in blood. From Reconstruction to Jim Crow to right now, police and coroners have covered up racial terror by calling it ‘self-inflicted.’ These are not isolated incidents; they are continuations of state-sanctioned violence.”
Organizers have demonstrations planned, in addition to putting pressure on the Albuquerque Police Department. I
f you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, help is available. Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the U.S.) or use the 988 Lifeline Chat via 988lifeline.org.
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