Hancock County coroner accused of intimidating grieving family after Calgon Carbon manufacturing death

Family also suggests a conflict, as coroner once worked at Calgon and became a full-time police officer a week before disputed death

An attorney representing the widow of an apprentice electrician who died earlier this month at a Calgon Carbon manufacturing plant in Bay St. Louis has accused Hancock County’s coroner—a former employee of the company—of spreading misinformation about the death and intimidating the man’s family.

Coroner Jeff Hair allegedly made “staggeringly inappropriate,” “inaccurate” and “heartless” comments to the family of Justin Davis, 28, while defending his former employer, according to attorney Chip Herrington, who spoke with The Mississippi Independent days after releasing a public statement in an attempt to correct early accounts of how Davis died.

“He scolded Mr. Davis and Justin’s widow, Candace [Davis], about any social media posting suggesting Justin had been electrocuted,” Herrington said in the May 23 statement posted to his professional Facebook page, referring to Davis’s father, Edwin Davis. “He did so in a disrespectful tone, raising his voice, such that it felt like harassment and an attempt to intimidate the family into silence.”

Herrington said he was moved to speak publicly after Candace Davis read and heard reports that her husband had fallen 20 feet to his death, an account the family disputes. Herrington said the family had been told by an experienced electrician who found Davis’s body that he was discovered next to a “hot” circuit atop the scaffolding and had died by electrocution.

The confusion began when the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office told WLBT that Davis died after falling 20 feet from scaffolding on May 12. The station reported that deputies responded to “reports that a worker had fallen from scaffolding,” and that Sheriff Johnny Alison said “when officers arrived, they found that a man had fallen 20 feet, striking additional scaffolding on the way down but not reaching the ground.”

Herrington said that account was wrong.

“He did not fall,” said Herrington, who cited witnesses at the scene saying Davis’ body was lowered to the ground using a pulley system. “There was no impact, no head trauma, nothing like that.”

Charlie Green, the man Herrington said found Davis’s body, is a journeyman electrician. According to Herrington, Green quit his job working at the Calgon plant due to the company’s handling of the death and a series of long-running disputes with the company over safety. “He blames them and their policies for killing Justin,” Herrington said. “Everybody knew the scaffolding Davis was using was not properly insulated and requests for an insulated scissor have been regularly denied.” The Mississippi Independent has so far been unable to reach Green to confirm Herrington’s account or ask further questions about safety at the company.

Hancock County Sheriff Alison did not respond to questions from The Mississippi Independent about the source of his office’s initial account of Davis’s death.

“They didn’t hear that from me or Justin’s family,” Herrington said.

Herrington became involved in the matter after helping Candace Davis win full parental rights over his daughter the day before he died, and said, “I told coroner Hair during a very stern conversation that any attempt to shift the blame for Justin’s death away from Calgon Carbon is going to be a problem. He indicated that he understood.”

Hair allegedly yelled at Edwin Davis, denied that Davis’s son had been electrocuted and threatened to personally intervene if anyone in the family posted that Davis had died by electrocution, Herrington said. Hair also emphasized the company’s “impeccable” safety record while on the phone with the family, according to Herrington.

In comments to The Seacoast Echo, a Bay St. Louis-based news outlet, Hair stressed that Davis was not an employee of Calgon, though Hancock County Chancery Court records show that Hair was previously employed by Calgon Carbon, through which he had a 401(k) retirement account. The records do not say how long he worked for the company or in what capacity.

Hair did not respond to questions sent by The Mississippi Independent to his personal and private email addresses. He returned to full-time patrolman duties with the Waveland Police Department less than a week before Davis’s death, according to minutes from a May 5, 2026, meeting of the Waveland mayor and aldermen.

The Davis family is awaiting the results of an autopsy by the state medical examiner.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration office in Jackson is also investigating the death, according to online records. The agency has opened two safety investigations: one into Calgon and another into Doleac Electric Co. Inc., the electrical contractor that employed Davis as an apprentice.

To Herrington, the early framing of Davis’s death as a fall raises conflict-of-interest concerns and appears to shift the burden of liability away from Calgon and onto Davis.

“I anticipate that they’ll say he fell, or he died of natural causes, like a heart attack, which they will also claim is not their fault,” Herrington said of Calgon, adding that electrocution can cause cardiac arrest. “It is and always will be about the money.”

Calgon confirmed to The Mississippi Independent that a fatality occurred May 12 at its Pearl River facility, but the company did not directly answer questions about how Davis died or about the alleged intimidation of his widow and father by the county coroner.

“Local authorities are leading an investigation into the cause of death and we are cooperating fully,” Calgon Carbon director of global marketing and communications Jay Kissman said in an emailed statement. “Our deepest condolences go out to the individual’s family and loved ones during this difficult time.”

Calgon Carbon, which has 23 offices and 17 industrial facilities across North America, Europe and Asia, is wholly owned by the Japanese chemical manufacturer Kuraray.

A co-owner of Doleac Electric did not respond to questions about Davis’ death or alleged safety issues at the site. In Davis’s obituary, his family praised the company for its kindness and generosity.

A coroner’s office with broad powers and few barriers

The allegations against Jeff Hair land in a government office that, in Mississippi, carries extraordinary responsibility with comparatively few formal qualifications.

County coroners are called to scenes involving sudden, unexpected, violent or unexplained deaths, from car wrecks and suspected homicides to jail deaths and workplace fatalities. They help determine whether a death requires further investigation, coordinate with the state medical examiner’s office and play a central role in the official account of how a person died.

Yet in Mississippi, the minimum educational requirement to serve as county coroner is a high school diploma. Coroners are not required to be physicians. Across the state, they often come from funeral-home, law-enforcement or family backgrounds rather than medical ones. They are paid $900 a month, plus $185 for each case.

The state’s medicolegal system has improved from its most discredited era, but its history remains difficult to separate from the present. Mississippi went roughly 15 years without a state medical examiner. For nearly two decades, Dr. Steven Hayne dominated the state’s autopsy system, performing an estimated 80 to 90 percent of Mississippi’s autopsies despite not being board-certified in forensic pathology and despite mounting criticism that his testimony helped secure wrongful convictions.

Hayne’s work, often alongside discredited bite-mark analyst Dr. Michael West, became a national symbol of Mississippi’s broken forensic system: high-volume autopsies, questionable science and conclusions that critics said too often aligned with the needs of prosecutors.

When state Public Safety Commissioner Steve Simpson removed Hayne from the state’s approved list of medical examiners in 2008, it appeared to end his grip on the system. But many county coroners pushed back. Led in part by Yazoo County Coroner Ricky Shivers, they sought an attorney general’s opinion allowing adjoining counties to create independent autopsy districts and hire examiners outside the state-approved list. Hayne then circulated the ruling and legal paperwork to sympathetic coroners.

The effort was widely viewed by reform advocates as an attempt to restore the old system, in which coroners, law enforcement officials and prosecutors had easier access to a familiar pathologist, even after exonerations and scandals had exposed the dangers of that arrangement.

Shivers remains the Yazoo County coroner.

Hair’s own public career also reflects the overlapping roles that can define coroner offices in Mississippi. He was elected Hancock County coroner in a 2021 special election after longtime coroner Jim Faulk stepped down because of health complications. Faulk was later indicted in March 2023 by State Auditor Shad White on allegations that he submitted duplicate expenses and collected fees for coroner work he did not perform. He died the following month.

There is no allegation or public record suggesting impropriety by Hair as coroner, as a law-enforcement officer or as a former Calgon Carbon employee. But his position illustrates the conflict questions that can arise when a coroner has close ties to law enforcement or to entities connected to a death investigation. Hair’s position as a coroner who is also a police officer and an elected officials politician raise questions about how coroners are expected to independently help determine what happened in deaths that may involve police, prison officials, employers or other powerful local institutions—including those that they have relationships with.

National death-investigation experts have long warned that coroner systems can blur the line between medical inquiry and law enforcement. The National Academies has identified “potential or actual conflict of interest” where coroner or medical examiner offices overlap with law enforcement, while the National Association of Medical Examiners (known as NAME) has recommended that death investigators work for the medicolegal system, not as agents of law enforcement.

NAME states as its official position that medicolegal death investigators “must investigate cooperatively with, but independent from, law enforcement and prosecutors. The parallel investigation promotes neutral and objective medical assessment of the cause and manner of death”

Hair’s career in the coroner’s office predates the 2021 election. In campaign materials, he said he had served as a deputy coroner under Norma Stiglet, who held the Hancock County coroner’s office for 21 years between 1990 and 2011. She ended up with the job after the death of her husband, the previous coroner. Stiglet had worked at a bank before Hancock County officials asked her to take the position.

Chancery court records show Hair married Stiglet’s daughter in November 1998. It is unclear from available records how long Hair served as deputy coroner, whether that service overlapped with the marriage, or the precise terms of his appointment. Mississippi law has prohibited county officials from hiring close relatives, including relatives by marriage, into certain public positions since 1926, though its application depends on the official’s hiring authority, the position itself and whether public funds were used.

The same chancery records also identify Hair as having worked at Calgon Carbon. They do not say how long he worked there or in what capacity.

Herrington said those overlapping relationships and the ability to influence death investigations contributed to the family’s alarm over Hair’s comments after Davis’s death.

“There is concern that if Calgon Carbon has control over the County Coroner’s office, might they also have control over the medical examiner? Said Herrington in his press release. “This type of corruption erodes public confidence and we deserve better.”

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Image: Candace and Justin Davis (courtesy Candace Davis)