Death of Hopkinton teen Mikayla Miller ruled a suicide by medical examiner
Updated May 18, 2021;
25
Facebook Share
The medical examiner’s office has made a ruling in the death of Hopkinton teen Mikayla Miller, as questions continue to circle regarding the case.
Sources confirmed to MassLive that the state medical examiner ruled 16-year-old Miller’s death a suicide and the cause was listed as “asphyxia by hanging.”
Miller, who was Black and a member of the LGBTQ community, was found deceased on Sunday, April 18 by a person jogging in Hopkinton. Authorities have said a fight broke out between Miller and two other teenagers in the recreational area of the apartment complex she lived on April 17. Three other teens, one of whom was in a relationship with Miller, were also in and around the complex at the time.
“I was friends with her,” she said. “She was amazing. She was so bright. So beautiful.”
McMullen was speaking of Mikayla Miller, a 16-year-old Hopkinton girl who was found dead off West Main Street on the morning of April 18. Family members and advocates feel authorities are not doing enough enough to investigate how Miller died.
Hundreds of people flooded the Hopkinton Town Common late Wednesday afternoon, standing largely silent as they listened to a group of speakers inside the common’s gazebo. Many held signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and “Justice for Mikayla.
The rally brought supporters locally, regionally and even from out of state. Among the 29 people who spoke to the Daily News, 20 said they lived in Hopkinton or were recent graduates of Hopkinton High. But the group also included one person each from Worcester, Boston, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Family of Hopkinton Teen Demands Justice For Mikayla, Asks DA To Hand Case To FBI
Family members and friends of Mikayla Miller, 16, gather on the Hopkinton Town Common for a vigil remembering her life, May 6, 2021.
Tori Bedford / GBH News
Family Demands Justice For Mikayla | May 6, 2021
Mikayla Miller loved to write. She had dreams of becoming a journalist and planned to spend the summer touring colleges with her mom. The 16-year-old Hopkinton teenager loved basketball, dancing to trap music, going camping in Maine and the ocean. Before they went off to bed every night, she brought her mom a cup of chamomile tea: hot, no sugar.
Mother of Mikayla Miller demands transparent investigation, forensics of item found on daughter’s body during Hopkinton vigil
Updated 10:29 PM;
25
Facebook Share
Only the hum of a helicopter and the cry of a baby could be heard on the Hopkinton Town Common as hundreds of people stood in silence Thursday in memory of 16-year-old Mikayla Miller.
The vigil and rally drew a sizable crowd in response to the death of Miller, a teenager whose life was cut short far too early.
“Nothing I say today is going to take away the pain that we all are experiencing in this new world without Mikayla, but my hope is that by sharing a little about her life, our life, it will help you get to know more about her,” Miller’s mother, Calvina Strothers, said at the rally.
HOPKINTON, Mass. – Mikayla Miller and her mother Calvina Strothers were two peas in a pod.
She loved to make her mom tea every night and was often her mom s dinner date, as the two enjoyed going out to eat. They traveled together regularly, with quick trips from their home in Massachusetts to Maine or New Hampshire and had plans to return to Trinidad soon. Mikayla was only 16-years-old. She was my bright and shining star in this crazy world, Strothers said at a rally Thursday for her daughter, less than a month since her death.
On the morning of April 18, Mikayla, a Black teenager, was found dead in a wooded area by a jogger in what the Middlesex County District Attorney s Office initially said was not considered a suspicious death. It remained an “open and active” investigation, the office said at the time.