Nearly a year after he disappeared after going on a walk in Jackson and his body was discovered counties away in the Pearl River, Dau Mabil has been laid to rest, but questions about his death remain. 

The 34-year-old Belhaven resident was buried Sunday and a celebration of life ceremony was held and attended by family and friends from the area, said Spencer Bowley, the brother of Dau’s wife, Karissa.

However, several key members of Dau’s family, including his older brother and birth mother who traveled from a Kenyan refugee camp last year, were not present or informed beforehand. Bul Mabil said he learned about his brother’s burial through someone else – not a member of the Bowley family – and he hasn’t received a response from them since he reached out Sunday. 

“Why wouldn’t they reach out to us?” Bul Mabil asked during a Tuesday interview. 

Spencer Bowley defended his sister and family’s decision not to inform Bul Mabil ahead of time because they believed he would potentially make the funeral service difficult. Mabil has accused members of the Bowley family of murdering his brother a number of times publicly on Facebook, which the family has continued to deny.  

“We frankly didn’t feel safe informing him of what we were doing,” he said Wednesday. 

The mother of Dau’s son was told about the funeral beforehand and they were invited, but she and the boy were not able to attend, Spencer Bowley said. She could not be reached for comment. 

Dau was buried months after two autopsies and a Capitol Police investigation were completed. 

Bul Mabil has raised concerns about whether his brother would be cremated, saying as early as last year that their culture does not permit it. Bowley said Wednesday that cremation was not part of the plan to put Dau to rest because his wife knew it was against his wishes. 

Dau and his brother came to Jackson in 2000 as “Lost Boys” of Sudan who fled war. They were among 50 boys who came to Missisisppi through the help of local churches.

Karissa Bowley reported her husband missing March 25, 2024, after he left their Belhaven home to walk around an area in town where the couple was known to go. 

On April 13,2024, fishermen spotted a body in the Pearl River in Lawrence County – over 50 miles downstream from Jackson. A preliminary autopsy by local officials identified the body as that of Dau and the sheriff said there was no evidence of foul play.

Since the discovery of Dau’s body, Bul Mabil has questioned whether his brother was the victim of a homicide. That suspicion led him to file a lawsuit against Karissa Bowley to prevent the release of Dau’s body to her until an independent autopsy could be conducted. 

In court, insinuations were directed at Bowley and members of her family, and at one point Karissa Bowley’s attorney asked if she had anything to do with her husband’s death, to which Bowley responded no. The hearing in Hinds County Chancery Court was for a civil case rather than a criminal one.

Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas later dismissed Bul’s lawsuit and affirmed that Karissa Bowley, as Dau’s widow, was his next of kin who has legal authority over how to handle his remains.  

Thomas did, however, allow an independent autopsy to be conducted at the “direction and expense” of Bul Mabil. 

A second autopsy was completed in August in Florida by Dr. Daniel Schultz – a pathologist approved by Karissa Bowley over one proposed by Bul Mabil, according to court records. 

In a recent email, Bul disagreed with previous reporting that he agreed with Karissa Bowley to use Schultz. Instead, he said the court forced him to use that pathologist “or else the second autopsy would not have been conducted.” 

The second autopsy shared with Mississippi Today is longer and more thorough than the first completed by the state, but it arrived at the same conclusion: Dau died from drowning and his manner of death was undetermined. 

It addresses allegations of a video showing what is believed to be Dau’s abduction and harm. Schultz wrote he watched the video repeatedly and didn’t find evidence to support the claims, noting that the video showed a blurred image from a distance likely moving but not a specific activity. 

“And it is extremely important to also consider the context of the two independent autopsies (one by the state and one by a pathologist [myself] effectively hired by those who think that this might be a homicide and want to clarify),” Schultz wrote.

“My role is to be honest and neutral. And in that vein, there is no evidence of foul play.”

The report provides more context about how Dau ended up in the Pearl River. The place where he entered the water is unknown, but the report states a reasonable location could be the dam near the water treatment plant, which is an area where Dau walked. 

Google Earth pictures included in the report show a 1.4-mile distance between where Dau was last seen in video surveillance and the dam. 

The pathologist wrote Dau’s manner of death as undetermined because available information make it difficult to distinguish whether his death was an accident or by suicide. 

To support that conclusion was a new finding of a bite mark on Dau’s tongue, which the pathologist said likely happened from a seizure from drowning after entering the river or before due to a seizure related to consumption of alcohol.

The report noted Dau had a “history of chronic alcohol abuse” supported by several pieces of information, including how his wife reported him drinking more than a dozen alcoholic beverages in a week and how he experienced shakes that could be a sign of withdrawal.

It also notes how a person who saw Dau in the early morning before he disappeared smelled alcohol on him, and how former coworkers at times saw him drunk at work. 

Toxicology reports can’t pinpoint whether Dau had alcohol in his system at the time of his death because alcohol is a common byproduct of decomposition, the report noted. 

Spencer Bowley said the family had some reason to believe alcohol may have been a contributing factor in Dau’s death, and the autopsy report supports that. Overall, he said they are glad to have more information that wasn’t available earlier on and in the previous autopsy report. 

Bul Mabil disagreed with the report’s emphasis on Dau’s alcohol consumption and a years-old DUI charge, which he said made it seem like Dau caused his own death.

He also wanted to learn more about the bite mark in the report, which was called a deep muscular hemorrhage, and found a scientific journal article that suggested such injuries on the tongue could be evidence of strangulation from homicide.  

Bul Mabil said he shared the journal article with the pathologist and asked if it could be incorporated into his findings, but the pathologist did not, and he said it felt the information was dismissed.

Mabil said the emphasis on Dau’s drinking, findings about the tongue injury and what he sees as a failure to incorporate other evidence of a crime against Dau leads him to see the recent report as biased. 

He is looking to hire a new attorney and a private investigator to uncover new information and a forensic pathologist to review the recent autopsy report. 

“It’s very difficult for me to accept any report and to give up on my brother’s case,” Mabil said in a video posted on Facebook Sunday evening.

The post Dau Mabil buried amid strained family relations and unanswered questions appeared first on Mississippi Today.