MILWAUKEE—Family, friends, community and local civil rights leaders are distraught and expressing deep concern over the tragic death of Torrance (Tory) Medley, a 39 year old Black man, whose body was found hanging from a tree near a suburban golf course in neighboring Waukesha County, about 15 miles west of his home, after leaving his residence the evening of November 11.
Mr. Medley, who rented a space in a Milwaukee rooming house at the time of his disappearance, was friendly, had a young spirit and had no children of his own, according to his oldest sister, Shena Medley, who told The Final Call she has been speaking on behalf of her family since her brother’s death.
She said neighbors saw him as kind and having a good heart, while he suffered from mental challenges related to schizophrenia. Mr. Medley did not own a car.
“He was living in a rooming house down on 30th and St. Paul, and he went missing the night of Tuesday the 11th and the last phone call was at 7:39 p.m.,” Ms. Medley said of the last time he was known to be in Milwaukee.
“They had him on video leaving his unit. He left his home, walked up to the bus stop. After that, police didn’t know where he went until they said they think he went downtown.
“At 7:39, he tried to call my brother, so it’s really weird how that happened,” Ms. Medley said, adding that he did not leave a message. “There’s no text messages or phone calls, nothing after that 7:39 call. His phone is missing, his wallet is missing, his backpack was missing.
It’s very odd,” she said, noting that the Brookfield police initially labeled her brother’s death a suicide after finding his body hanging from a ratchet strap on a tree near the Brookfield Hills Golf Course on November 13. Brookfield is a city approximately 13 miles from Milwaukee and is considered part of the metro Milwaukee area.
Ms. Medley added that her brother’s red backpack was found in a security office at the Brookfield Square Mall, after a passerby reported to authorities that they discovered his body at the golf course about a mile away.
She also noted that video footage of her brother, both with and without his backpack in and around Brookfield Square Mall, was the last time he was seen on video.
She said the footage showed him speaking with a White couple in a parking lot and showed him walking near a group of hotels not far from the golf course. That was on November 12, she said.
According to an official statement posted to the Brookfield Police Department’s social media page November 23, Chief of Police Christopher D. Garcia revised initial statements that said Mr. Medley’s death was from suicide and that an investigation was ongoing.
“The City of Brookfield Police Department is aware of several speculative and inaccurate statements circulating publicly regarding the ongoing investigation into the death of Torrance Medley on November 13, 2025,” Chief Garcia’s press statement said.
“In the interest of transparency, and to ensure the community has accurate information, we are providing this update. We have also met with Mr. Medley’s family, provided them with an update on the status of the investigation, our findings thus far, and obtained additional specific facts from them, which investigators will follow up on,” the statement continued.
The Brookfield Police Department also said it urges patience for the sake of the investigators and the Medley family, noting that the spread of inaccurate information is not helpful as the search for more information continues.
“We will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead, and we will share additional verified information when available,” Chief Garcia’s written statement said in part.
More questions than answers
Montré J. Moore of the Waukesha County Branch of the NAACP,whose area of responsibility includes the City of Brookfield, told The Final Call that the suburb contrasts with the city of Milwaukee not only along the lines of race, ethnicity and size, but also through stratified populations isolated by wealth, class and politics.
“I’m a Black man and I know how other Black men think,” Mr. Moore said. “So, we find there’s a whole lot of questions with this situation and the fact that the police appear to be slow rolling with sharing information, and just not being as forthcoming as the family needs them to be, just heightens the situation that much more,” he said.
Stating that Brookfield is one of the oldest and wealthiest communities in the state, Mr. Moore said it is unusual to see tragedy of this nature within its space, particularly on or near a golf course frequented by its local residents. He also said competing narratives surrounding Mr. Medley’s death only compound people’s frustrations.
“If you’re not from Brookfield, it’s not a place you’re going to feel comfortable at. I’ll make that plain, especially as a Black man,” Mr. Moore insisted. He alleges that even White people perceived as poor or lower class are not welcomed there as well.
“I know and understand this community very well. The average Black guy wouldn’t just walk through and say, ‘I feel comfortable here.’ You would stick out like a sore thumb first and foremost,” he said.
As of Final Call press time, the Brookfield Police Department and the Waukesha County Medical Examiner have yet to complete their forensic investigations regarding the condition of Mr. Medley’s body and release the official cause of his death.
Attorney William Sulton, of the Milwaukee-based Sulton Law Firm, retained by the Medley family in the wake of Mr. Medley’s death, told The Final Call that confusion, concern and anxiety in Milwaukee’s Black community stems primarily from police officials and others labeling Mr. Medley’s death a suicide before concluding a thorough and proper investigation.
“The police department is not the medical examiner’s office, and so they can’t declare anything to be a homicide, a suicide, an accident or natural,” Atty. Sulton explained.
“That’s something for the medical examiner’s office to do, and they have not done so. It was completely and utterly inappropriate for the police chief to come out and say that it was a suicide based on his opinion,” Atty. Sulton said.
“It’s a tragedy, no matter whether it’s a homicide or other cause of death,” Atty. Sulton continued.
In addition to retaining legal counsel, Shena Medley said she hired an independent forensic pathologist and the services of a consultant to ensure the veracity of any evidence found regarding her brother’s death, any chain-of-custody concerns regarding evidence and to seek out and question others familiar with the Brookfield community and other possible witnesses willing to step forward.
Reuben Anderson is the investigative consultant retained by Ms. Medley.
“She shared with me her frustrations with the Brookfield Police Department and the handling of the case,” Mr. Anderson said of the police chief visiting family members to convince them the death was from suicide.
He told The Final Call that other issues, such as the GPS coordinates of patrol officers when Mr. Medley was last seen walking through Brookfield, could put other concerns to rest. “I found it kind of weird considering Brookfield, Wisconsin, is always heavily patrolled from the highway to Moreland Avenue,” Mr. Anderson said.
All the family and community want is transparency and a proper and thorough investigation. Ms. Medley and Atty. Sulton were shown video footage of Mr. Medley. There is additional video footage under review, but not all of it has been made available to the family due to the ongoing investigation.
“They (the family and the public) deserve to know what happened and how it happened and it’s suspicious. I think that the City of Brookfield Police Department has simply decided for whatever wrong reason to be less than forthcoming with his family as they would in other circumstances,” he said.
“I think that they’re afraid that this was a racially motivated homicide and they don’t want to deal with it is what I think, and I’ve told many people that if this turns out to be a homicide, then you have to investigate it like a homicide,” Atty. Sulton insisted.
“To just come out the gate without even having a final opinion from the medical examiner’s office that this is not a homicide, (that) this is not racially motivated, you know, to attack members of the public saying they are spreading misinformation, which is not true, is bizarre and wrong,” Atty. Sulton said.
As to the possibility of undue political pressure undermining the legitimacy of their investigation, Atty. Sulton said he wasn’t clear as to whether local politics is playing a role.
“I don’t know if it’s political reasons, but yes, I think the chief of police for Brookfield is absolutely lobbying the medical examiner’s office to declare this a suicide,” he said.
“I think that’s absolutely why he came out on TV, why he has attacked members of the public for raising the specter of this being a homicide,” Atty. Sulton said of the Brookfield police chief.
“It is very sad to learn that a Black family from Waukesha is being treated like second-class citizens when all they want to know is how their loved one perished.”
The Final Call will continue to follow and report on this story as it develops.