From the article : “It’s too early in the process to speculate, but “based on the history in Mississippi” of racial hate crimes, we are always concerned when an African-American is found hung in a tree in this state.
From an article 10+ years ago:
The last recorded lynching in Mississippi occurred 40 years ago when eight masked men dragged a black man from a county prison and hanged him just days before he was due to go on trial for raping a white woman.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96223
I think the distinguishing characteristic of a lynching was its public or semi-public nature. The perps therefore seldom if ever felt the need to hide their identities.
A murder, even by a group, is not exactly the same thing as a lynching. IMO, of course.