By Lisa Backus, Staff WriterUpdated
WALLINGFORD — After two days of calls for transparency by the Connecticut NAACP State Conference, Friday Connecticut State Police issued details on their search for a 17-year-old from Wallingford who died after fleeing from a crash in February.
State and local NAACP officials announced Thursday they are investigating the death of 17-year-old Khasir Jennette, whose body was found 20 days after he fled the scene of a car crash in Wallingford, prompting a several day state police search in February that failed to find him alive.
The organization called for details after members on the state and local level learned about the boy’s death through the press and discovered that no police agency had notified the public when his body was found nearly three weeks after he disappeared in frigid temperatures on the night of Feb. 1.
State police said in a lengthy statement issued Friday that the agency routinely doesn’t send out information “following unattended death investigations.” “Furthermore, press releases are not issued for juvenile deaths as a standard communications protocol,” the release said. “We, at the Connecticut State Police, respect the protections guarded for the identities of juveniles involved in our investigations.”
However, records show state police routinely release the names of children who died in car accidents and release information on human remains that have been found. Most recently state police posted on May 13 the name of a child who died in a crash in Stratford two days before.
President Scot X. Esdaile of the Connecticut NAACP State Conference and Corrie Betts, the state criminal justice chair for the NAACP, contended during a press conference in front of the Wallingford Police Department Friday morning that if the missing teen were a “white girl from West Hartford” that the public would have been notified of the search and of their death.
“A Black child is deceased and the community still does not have clear answers,” said Betts, who went on to add that when a child of color is in crisis, missing, in harm’s way or deceased that it’s handled differently.
Betts said Jennette should have had the “same mobilization that any child deserves.”
Records show state police routinely release the names of children who died in car accidents and release information on human remains that have been found.
The two men announced the investigation after reading a CT Insider article published this week that indicated the 17-year-old had died of hypothermia as North Haven police were investigating a car theft ring connected to the crash.
“We want the truth about what’s going on with this young Black male found 20 days after a search,” Esdaile said Thursday. “It happened in February and we didn’t hear about his death until nearly the end of May. We want answers on who found this body, where he was found and where he was taken. If a dead body was found in Wallingford, what is the protocol and the policy including on the public being notified?”
Esdaile, Betts and the public found out about Jennette’s death after an article regarding a car theft ring arrest Wednesday. No news release was sent out by Wallingford police (who responded to a report of a dead body), North Haven police (who were investigating a car theft ring connected to the teen), or Connecticut State Police (who responded to the crash and when Jennette’s body was found on Feb. 20). The teen fled from the crash and into the woods in Wallingford on Feb. 1, an arrest warrant related to the car theft ring said.
The fact that no police agency issued a news release when Jennette’s body was found in late February is what has the NAACP concerned, Esdaile said.
The arrest warrant charging 20-year-old Khalil Council, a Hamden resident, with an armed carjacking in North Haven detailed the chain of events that led North Haven police to a group of suspects and the crash on Feb.1. Buried within the warrant were details on how the Acura that Jennette and one or two others were riding in after allegedly participating in a carjacking crashed on Route 15 and that the 17-year-old’s body was found three weeks later.
There was six to 12 inches of snow on the ground and the temperature in the overnight hours was “approximately -3 degrees,” the night of the crash, state police said in the statement issued Friday.
Their agency became involved while investigating a three-car crash on Route 15 in Wallingford, state police said. The people in the Acura, which was later determined to be stolen out of Hamden, fled on foot, the agency said, prompting a search of the area.
But the situation didn’t ramp up to a full scale operation until Jennette’s mother reported he was out in the woods with his friends “freezing” at about 1:34 p.m., state police said.
At that point state police called for more resources to find the 17-year-old including a helicopter and police K9s, the statement said. “Tracks were conducted that lead through extreme conditions including frozen waterways, embankments, wooden unlighted terrain, brush, sticks – prickers, and into the Amazon property campus locations with huge solar farms,” according to the statement.
Areas searched included the Quinnipiac riverbanks, South Cherry Street, the on and off ramps of exit 68 on Route 5, and the Amazon warehouse campus in Wallingford, state police said.
When they confirmed his name and that was likely missing in the wooded area, state police said they set up at command post and called in for additional help including a helicopter, a drone, K9 units, “all available Troop I personnel,” troopers from Troop G and H, a major crimes unit, an intelligence unit to aid in the search.
Several Wallingford officers and firefighters using a thermal imaging camera and a drone were also involved in the search, according to reports issued by that agency.
The search lasted about two days, state police said. According to the arrest warrant in the North Haven case, state police were still interviewing people about Jennette’s possible whereabouts four days after the crash.
“We are saddened by the death of Khasir Jennette that occurred in spite of the dozens of police, fire and EMS personnel that worked this case in the hours and days following the motor vehicle collision on Sunday, February 1, 2026, in an effort to find Khasir,” state police said in the statement.
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