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ANALYSIS: Celebrity attorney Ben Crump has moved on to new clients, stopped talking to Trey Reed’s family
The family of a black college student found hanging at Delta State University is still waiting to hear back from their attorney on an “independent autopsy.”
Soon after local authorities declared Demartravion “Trey” Reed’s Sept. 15, 2025 death a suicide, celebrity attorney Ben Crump swooped in and said he would be representing the family. Crump helped keep alive the possibility someone lynched Reed, and promised an independent autopsy with the support for Colin Kaepernick’s nonprofit.
Reed’s family, as well as some local and internet activists, expressed concerns that the 21-year-old’s death was a part of a pattern of lynchings that were being covered up by local police and the county medical examiner, The Fix previously reported.
These rumors of a lynching were amplified once Crump, who has represented high-profile racially charged cases like those of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, chose to take on the case and pursue an independent autopsy report.
But now, Crump has reportedly ghosted the family and will not return their calls, drawing criticism from a legal ethics expert.
Trey’s mother, Sophia Reed, told the Mississippi Free Press in April that, “ I’ve been calling, calling, calling Ben Crump. … I haven’t heard anything from him since he said that he would get back in touch with me between Christmas and the first of the year.”
“ We’re just trying to figure it out. We just want to know what really happened,” Sharon Candy Tillman, Reed’s grandmother said. The Mississippi Free Press ran its article at the end of July, suggesting Crump had not returned calls throughout the summer, either.
The silence reflects The College Fix’s own results when trying to get comment either from Kaepernick’s group, the Know Your Rights Camp, or Crump.
In September and October 2025, The Fix reached out to Kaepernick’s nonprofit and Crump’s law firm more than dozen times through phone, email, and web submission, but received no response.
The Fix followed up in September and October 2026 four times via email and once by phone to his office and listed attorneys, but was unsuccessful at reaching Crump’s office for comment on this story.
The Fix also attempted to reach the Reed family’s attorney, Vanessa Jones, by email and phone. Although her office took a note of the request for comment, Jones did not make a statement to The Fix.
Other media outlets report their own problems hearing back from Crump or Jones. Crump has not responded to requests for comment from multiple news outlets including MS Now in September, the Mississippi Free Press, and the Clarion Ledger.
Crump’s silence to his clients raises questions about the legal ethics of taking on clients in a high-profile case and then not returning their calls. The Fix reached out to Eli Wald, a professor of law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law to ask about the attorney-client relationship in the context of Reed’s case.
Wald noted that Reed’s case was complicated, but that, “[i]n general an attorney has a duty to respond to a client’s reasonable request for information about the subject matter of representation.”
“Failure to do so may lead to civil liability and may also violate the applicable rules of professional conduct,” Wald said.
While Crump has seemingly stopped responding to Reed’s family and press inquiries, he continues to be in the news, representing the family of a black college football player who died after partying on the 4th of July on Horn Island in Mississippi.
Crump held a press conference in late July to update the media on the “Death of Nolan Wells and Two Similar Cases,” notably leaving out Reed’s case from the conference. Instead, Crump focused on the death of Wells, whose death on the 4th of July holiday sparked outrage over possible foul play, as well as the deaths of two other young black men.
A grand jury declined to pursue any charges in Wells’ death, although Crump says he will continue to investigate. Over the summer, within just weeks of Wells’ death, Crump’s team released its own independent autopsy.
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