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The only certainty the family of Everett Palmer Jr. has — after months of demanding answers — is that he was alive when he was sent to York County Prison and that he was dead 48 hours later.

But what happened to Mr. Palmer during two days in solitary confinement at the Pennsylvania lockup remains a mystery.

When his body arrived at a funeral home, it showed troubling signs: Mr. Palmer’s head had been badly damaged and a ring of black and purple bruises ran around his neck, according to the funeral director, who was the first to see the remains.

“I think he was murdered,” Mr. Palmer’s mother, Rose Palmer, said as she choked back tears last week at the Maranatha Baptist Church in Queens Village, near the family’s home.