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A Jackson municipal judge ruled Wednesday that probable cause exists to send to the grand jury the case against Jarques Ratliff in the killing of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old mother who was found hanging in west Jackson.

Media organizations, including the Clarion Ledger, successfully argued to keep the preliminary hearing open to the public. Judge Lilli Evans Bass had considered closing the hearing in the ongoing investigation.

Wednesday’s proceeding was a continuation of an earlier hearing in which Detective Samuel Dukes of the Jackson Police Department testified that Fortune’s hanging was staged, and she was killed over stolen drugs. 

The discovery of Fortune hanging from a tree on Aug. 3 received national attention because of Mississippi’s history of racist violence. She was Black, as are Ratliff and two other men charged with murder in her killing.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Dukes referred to a witness by the pseudonym Jane Doe to protect her identity during the investigation. He said Doe saw Fortune leave with Ratliff and two other men in a car. When the group returned, Fortune was not with them.

Dukes said the witness also told police that Ratliff said Fortune “fought hard.”

The detective testified that when Fortune’s body was found, she was wearing men’s shoes. The shoes are being tested to determine whether they belonged to Ratliff, 51. 

Dukes also revealed that documents with Fortune’s name on them were found in Ratliff’s closet, and video footage exists of Fortune before her death.

The judge’s Wednesday ruling means a Hinds County grand jury will determine whether there is enough evidence for Ratliff to be placed on trial on a murder charge.

Fortune’s mother, Christy Spivey, traveled from Kentucky to Mississippi with her husband to attend court proceedings. 

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, she said she is grateful the proceeding remained open. She also does not believe Fortune stole any drugs.

“Everyone knows that she did not steal,” Spivey said, “that she would hustle and do whatever she needed to do to get money for food, clothes, whatever she needed, or she would call and ask for money.”

Toney Baldwin, Ratliff’s attorney, also spoke to the media.

“We all want to get to the truth, and I think once we get to the truth, my client will be exonerated,” he said.

Ratliff is the first person arrested and charged with murder in Fortune’s death. Earnest Lloyd Jr., 25, and Eric Derrell Clark, 45 have also been charged, and more arrests are expected, police officials have said.

Clark’s bond was set at $5 million. Lloyd and Ratliff were denied bond.

JPD Police Chief RaShall Brackney said Monday that all three suspects had a “known association” with Fortune. 

At Clark’s initial appearance, Jackson Municipal Court Judge Jeffery Reynolds called the staged hanging “an extremely heinous act” that “invoked the terrible history of our state.”

A $6 billion data center is being planned for Jefferson Davis County. 

The developer, Eagle Rock Partners, hosted an informational meeting on Tuesday to talk with people about their concerns and answer questions about the project, which is called the Big Woods Technology Park. Construction could begin as early as 2027.

“Get informed. Get answers – straight from the people who know,” read a flyer for the meeting in Bassfield.

READ MORE: Your questions about Mississippi data centers, answered

Eagle Rock Partners told Mississippi Today that the company is in the design stage and is working on submissions. It is proposing a three-building complex that will be around 2 million square feet and said it will not request abatements or incentives. The company expects the project to create 200 permanent jobs and over 1,000 temporary construction jobs.

“Eagle Rock looks forward to creating new opportunities in Jefferson Davis County and creating resources for them to continue the ‘Mississippi miracle’ for their community,” the company said. 

Gary Russell Bass, director of the Jefferson Davis County Economic Development Association, said residents can go to a website the developer has set up to find answers about the project. Bass said he wants the project to be transparent to the public and be a model for how to develop a data center well. 

The website for the Big Woods Technology Park says the data center would use a closed loop cooling system to consume minimal water and use natural gas generation located on site that will need to be approved by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality before operation.

The site is on private property, and Jefferson Davis County does not have zoning, which means that the developer has more leeway to build what it wants. 

WDAM reported that some residents expressed concerns at Tuesday’s meeting over water usage, utility rate hikes, noise and opportunities for community feedback. 

Bass said that he did not seek out a data center, rather the developer approached him. When he first met with the developers, he said he shared many of residents’ apprehensions but, through conversations and due diligence, many of his concerns about water usage and electricity were addressed. 

He said the project is in an isolated part of the county, away from homes and that the Board of Supervisors is working on agreements between the county and the developer to make sure residents will have the best possible outcomes. 

Jefferson Davis is one of the poorest counties in the country with a population of about 11,000 that has declined in recent years. Bass said the jobs, investment and expected tax revenue from the data center “could completely transform this county.” 

Eagle Rock Partners is developing data centers in Georgia and South Carolina, and recently it canceled plans to build one in Illinois. The Southern Environmental Law Center is suing over the South Carolina data center. 

There are seven data center campuses under construction in Mississippi. Collectively, they represent over $55 billion of investment in the state. 

Local officials in other counties have said data centers present an opportunity to boost tax bases and make infrastructure upgrades. Amazon is expected to pay millions of dollars in taxes each year to the Canton Public School District that could go towards repairing buildings or raising teacher salaries. Compass Data Centers has partnered with Meridian Community College on a workforce development program.

However, many data centers have faced stiff community opposition in Mississippi and across the country over water, electricity rate hikes, environmental impact and concerns about artificial intelligence. In Southaven, Elon Musk’s SpacexAI has resulted in multiple lawsuits over the company’s use of mobile gas turbines. Residents can hear the turbines day and night and worry that the turbines are hurting the area’s air quality. 

Mississippi Development Authority Director Bill Cork, the state’s head economic development officer, has resigned with little explanation. 

Cork is leaving after a nearly three-year stint as MDA director. Gov. Tate Reeves appointed Cork in 2023 and he was confirmed by the state Senate in April of 2024. 

Reeves called Cork’s resignation a “retirement,” and wished him “all the best in his future endeavors” in a statement.

“Serving Mississippi has been the honor of my career,” Cork said in a statement, although he declined further comment and for a couple of days he and the governor’s office did not respond to questions of whether he had resigned. “Nina and I arrived on the Gulf Coast more than a decade ago, and this state gave us far more than we could ever give back. I am grateful to Governor Reeves for his leadership, his trust and his friendship.”

Reeves announced that Paul Jerrod “P.J.” Waldrop, the current deputy director and chief operating officer of MDA, will lead the agency starting Thursday, as Reeves enters his final year-and-a-half in office. Reeves in his statement did not say whether he would be submitting Waldrop’s appointment to the state Senate for approval as director.

Reeves during his two terms as governor has struggled to keep a permanent, Senate-approved MDA director in place. Former director Glenn McCullough Jr. resigned as Reeves took office. Reeves appointed John Rounsaville to the post, but he resigned after 15 months after he faced allegations of sexual harassment of female MDA employees. After a state investigation, it was recommended to Reeves that he fire Rounsaville.

Reeves announced that Rounsaville was “stepping down to pursue new opportunity,” and initially praised his work before news broke of the misconduct allegations.” Reeves’ appointed his former communications director, Laura Hipp Mayer, who led MDA as interim director for more than two years after Rounsaville resigned.

Waldrop joined MDA in 2021 as the director of the governor’s military affairs office. He spent more than a decade working for various U.S. senators, including the late Sen. Thad Cochran. 

“The award-winning MDA team is in great hands with PJ Waldrop as executive director. I can’t wait to see the records they break next. It’s been an amazing run, and Mississippi’s best days are still ahead of her. Thank you, Mississippi,” Cork said in his statement. 

Cork has overseen a time of historic investment in Mississippi, largely due to the artificial-intelligence data center boom across the South. The state has seen more than $65 billion in investments and the creation of nearly 23,000 jobs from major corporations such as Amazon, SpacexAI and Hitachi under Cork’s tenure as MDA director.

Before leading MDA, Cork served as the agency’s deputy director and chief economic developer. He was previously CEO of the Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission from 2016-2020 and had worked in Texas at the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce, TexAmericas and Sempra Energy. He is a Marine Corps veteran and received his masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

During Cork’s confirmation in the Mississippi Senate, questions arose about a report from the Mississippi Personnel Board, which had investigated claims that Cork had created a hostile work environment and complaints about sexual harassment and age discrimination. The report cleared Cork of any legal wrongdoing but said “Cork’s management style has created a toxic workplace.” 

Cork told a Senate committee that he had not done anything wrong but that he was a tough and direct boss, which some employees interpreted as hostile. The Senate unanimously voted to appoint him.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Cork said he had asked Reeves on Friday to accept his resignation effective Nov. 1 and until then “to recuse me of my official duties because I have a pending job offer.” He said his new job, which will be announced “in due course” would allow him and he wife to be closer to their children and grandchildren. He said Reeves has been “a fantastic boss.”

Update, 9/30/2026: This story has been updated to include comments Bill Cork made on social media on Wednesday afternoon.

The Delta Harvest Neighborhood Market is changing its hours as it continues its mission to support Delta farmers and Mississippi shoppers with fresh, locally grown foods.

The market is now open monthly rather than weekly. It will open on Oct. 22, Nov. 24, Dec. 23 and Dec. 29 at the Jackson Medical Mall from noon until 6 p.m. Shoppers can visit shopdeltaharvest.com to keep up with the market’s hours.

Tracy Johnson, executive director of the Itta Bena Economic and Cultural Alliance, explained that the pilot phase, which lasted from June to August, proved that there was enough demand to make the market work. Now, they’ve entered a new phase focused on supporting the farmers.

“We’re working with the farmers in the Delta, giving them the technical assistance they need so they can grow quality, safe produce, and also growing more volume so that we’ll be able to supply the market,” he said.

Alcorn State University and Mississippi State University are providing the farmers with training and technical assistance. This includes soil testing, food safety, business skills and more. A demonstration farm in Itta Bena will be used as a training center.

The project is also partnering with the city of Itta Bena, the city of Greenwood and Leflore County in the Mississippi Delta.

“It’s really not just about a market, it’s about the complete regional value chain,” Johnson said.

The market has grown to include eight Delta farmers, and they supply about 50% of everything sold there. The hope is that farmers will eventually supply 90%, but for now the market relies on wholesale farmers throughout Mississippi and from Tennessee. 

They’re working to build a regional food system that will connect Delta farmers with local consumers. The long-term goal is to have a stand-alone location open daily and multiple locations across the state.

Some customers at a recent market didn’t mind the new hours. 

“Being open once a month, I think it’s better because it gives the buyer an opportunity to prepare, and they’ll probably spend more,” said Shirley Haynes-Price. She came to the market with her sister, Nellie Haynes-Woodard, to buy squash.

“It really helps me because there’s no one but me really cooking or eating anything,” she Haynes-Woodard, who was excited about her fruit and turkey wings.

At their first market back in June, farmer Patricia Potter spoke about the market’s benefits.

“It (Delta Harvest Market) gets you out to other people to know that you’re growing healthy food and good stuff coming out of the garden,” she said.

Hinds County voters will get their first comprehensive look at how the five candidates for district attorney are financing their campaigns just a week before the Nov. 3 special election.

Even some of the candidates aren’t sure exactly how much money is in their campaign coffers.

“You’d have to ask my wife,” said Marvin Sanders, a defense attorney who previously worked for the Mississippi attorney general’s office.

Sanders said he’s had one fundraiser so far, at the Continental Cigar Club in downtown Jackson. Off the top of his head, he said, he isn’t sure how much is in his campaign account.

“I’m not taking any money from anybody right now,” he said, adding that he’s contributed nearly $15,000 of his own cash to his campaign.

In a normal election year, voters would see multiple reports itemizing contributions of at least $200, according to a campaign finance guide produced by the Mississippi secretary of state’s office. But when the timeline for an election is truncated – such as in a special election – Mississippi law does not require candidates to file more than one report before Election Day, although last-minute contributions over $200 must be reported at least two days before balloting.

The limited financial disclosures take on additional significance for the Hinds DA special election, which was set after former DA Jody Owens pleaded guilty to a federal corruption charge and resigned three months ago.

Federal prosecutors say Owens took money from undercover FBI agents posing as real estate developers and wired the funds from his campaign account to help pay off a Jackson city councilmember’s campaign debt. He is set to be sentenced in early November. 

The deadline for candidates for Hinds DA to declare was Aug. 20. So far, many of them told Mississippi Today the primary contributors to their campaigns have been themselves. 

“You mean how much I’ve loaned myself?” said Greta Mack Harris, an attorney practicing in Madison and Rankin counties, when asked how much she’s raised so far. The answer: More than $16,000. 

Mack Harris is one of two candidates out of the five who has filed paperwork with the secretary of state forming a political committee to solicit donations. The other is Gwen Agho, a prosecutor in the Hinds DA’s office.

In Mississippi, candidates for DA are not required to set up political committees. But doing so creates some separation between candidates and their day-to-day handling of campaign contributions, which is overseen by a treasurer.

Wendy Wilson White, a prosecutor in the Hinds DA office, said she is also self-financing her campaign. 

“At this stage of the game, I haven’t collected enough funds for anyone to be concerned about me mishandling any finances,” she said. 

“My campaign has been funded by me – 95% of it at this point has been handled by me,” she said, before revising her estimate. “Truly 100% of it.” 

Unlike her opponents, Agho said most of her fundraising has come from donations. She has held two fundraisers so far: One at a bar in downtown Jackson in mid-September and another at her father’s restaurant in Clinton, Monte’s Steak and Seafood.

Agho said she’s raised tens of thousands of dollars, but she isn’t sure the exact amount because the donations have been deposited directly into an account that her campaign manager is responsible for checking. 

“It’s being aware of those laws and what’s required,” Agho said. “Even if you have someone else doing it for you, at the end of the day, it’s your name.” 

Darla Palmer, a defense attorney who is running for Hinds DA for a third time, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Clarification 9/30/26: After this story published, the Secretary of State’s office updated its campaign finance database to show that Gwen Agho filed paperwork to form a political committee.

Multiple groups of lawfully present immigrants, including refugees and asylum seekers without a green card, will become ineligible for Medicaid and CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, starting Oct. 1. The changes take effect following the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that President Donald Trump signed into law last year. 

Health policy experts and organizations that work with immigrants in Mississippi warn the changes will worsen a culture of fear that could compel immigrants to delay seeking medical attention. Downstream, this can lead to costlier care of potentially preventable illnesses and create more strain for an already burdened healthcare system.

“These immigrants will be left with very few affordable coverage options,” said Drishti Pillai, director of Immigrant Health Policy at KFF, a national nonpartisan health policy organization. Pillai pointed to upcoming restrictions on subsidized Affordable Care Act Marketplace and Medicare plans. Starting in January, these options will be limited to only the three groups of immigrants that also retain Medicaid eligibility.  

Who is and isn’t eligible

Green card holders, also known as lawful permanent residents, will still be eligible for Medicaid, the joint federal and state program that provides free or low-cost health insurance to low-income individuals. Immigrants from Cuba, Haiti and Pacific Island nations in the Compact of Free Association, an international treaty with the United States, also will remain eligible for such benefits.

Several groups of immigrants with vulnerable backgrounds, however, will lose access to Medicaid coverage. Refugees and asylees, who fled their home countries for fear of persecution and have received humanitarian status in the U.S., will no longer be eligible. Neither will survivors of domestic violence with approved or in-progress applications for a green card under the Violence Against Women Act. The act created a pathway to lawful permanent resident status for women whose green card sponsors abused them. 

Refugees in the U.S. are fleeing terror and violence in their home countries, said Lorena Lewis-Quiroz, executive director of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, a Jackson-based immigration advocacy group. 

“You’re already coming from that and then losing access to care. I just can’t believe that this is happening, you know?” she said. “This is chipping away at this system of healthcare for immigrants.”

Similarly, immigrants who will lose eligibility include victims of human trafficking, such as sex and labor trafficking, and those who have an approved or pending T visa. This temporary status allows immigrants to apply for permanent residency. Other groups losing Medicaid are: 

• Immigrants granted humanitarian parole to stay in the U.S. for at least one year;
• Immigrants who have been granted a withholding of deportation;
• Canadian-born members of a federally recognized Indian tribe or American Indians;
• Older individuals who were granted conditional entry before the Refugee Act of 1980 (including people who fled communist countries in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as well as some refugees from Southeast Asia).

In Mississippi, children and pregnant adults who have legal status will also lose Medicaid eligibility. Some states have opted to continue offering coverage for these groups under the 2009 Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act, which waives the five-year period many immigrants wait between gaining their green card and being able to enroll in Medicaid. Since January, 38 states have chosen to provide health coverage for legally present immigrant children, and 32 states have done so for people who are pregnant. Mississippi has not chosen to cover either group. 

“The changes to Medicaid are harsh and could prevent coverage for eligible children, if the parents can no longer file on their citizen children behalf due to the parent’s immigration status,” wrote El Pueblo Executive Director Kathy Sykes over email. The statewide organization provides free legal and social services to immigrants. 

“There are so many changes coming down from the federal government it gets quite confusing and may scare away those who are eligible from ever applying for needed services,” she said. 

Impacts beyond losing insurance

Pillai worries about the broader impact of losing eligibility and verification processes — even for immigrants who are still eligible for Medicaid.

States will need to verify the immigration status of people being disenrolled through the Department of Homeland Security’s database, Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) and social security databases. If the state Medicaid agency can verify eligible status, enrollees will maintain their Medicaid coverage. If officials are unable to verify status with that information, they must request additional information from the person affected, and give them 90 days to respond. 

Khaylah Scott, program manager at the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, said the rules around Medicaid eligibility have been in place for 30 years, since the 1996 Welfare Reform Act.  

“When you’re facing few or little communication from the Division of Medicaid and the first time hearing about this may be receiving that letter, it is pretty sudden,” she said. “I’m just imagining the confusion, the fear that some could experience just receiving this letter in the mail and knowing at the heart of it is your immigration status.”

This verification process may be confusing for immigrants, especially those with low-English proficiency. Pillai said past research has shown that when disenrollment occurs, it can also affect people who changed their address or otherwise weren’t able to fill out the required paperwork. 

“All of these could lead to disenrollments, not due to eligibility, but for administrative reasons,” she said.

The Mississippi Division of Medicaid did not respond to Mississippi Today’s request for comment on how these changes will be implemented. A Sept. 14 public notice for a proposed Medicaid state plan change notes that the amendment “is anticipated to be budget neutral due to a low number of effected individuals” but does not provide an estimate on how many immigrants will be affected.  

Immigrants who no longer qualify for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program can still receive coverage under Emergency Medicaid in specific circumstances, such as sudden onset of severe symptoms that, if left untreated, could result in serious harm. A pregnant person entering labor, for instance, is covered in all states. Because Mississippi has not expanded Medicaid, eligibility is limited to a narrower group of categories. A low-income undocumented adult who is not pregnant, not a qualifying parent, and does not qualify through a disability category cannot rely on Emergency Medicaid even if they have a qualifying event. 

In the long term, Pillai said, this loss of eligibility could lead to worse health outcomes as people wait until their conditions become unbearable. 

“If individuals don’t have coverage and they’re not getting routine care, it’s likely to increase reliance on emergency rooms,” she said. “It could further strain community health centers, since those treat patients regardless of immigration status, regardless of ability to pay.” 

Lewis-Quiroz sees a similar impact looming: “It’s just gonna be another case of, ‘Well, you know what? I will just wait until I have that stroke.’”

This story was produced with support from the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism.

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Scott Colom said Tuesday he accepted invitations from two TV stations to debate and challenged Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith to join him.

Flanked by a staffer in an inflatable chicken outfit, Colom told reporters he sent Hyde-Smith’s campaign an invitation to debate before the Nov. 3 general election. In a letter sent to the Republican’s campaign, Colom asked her to respond by Friday. 

“She’s chicken!” Colom said of Hyde-Smith at the press conference. 

Jake Monssen, Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager, said in a statement that “losing candidates always want to debate about debates” and that there was “no point in debating someone so out of touch with Mississippi that he advocates for the sex change surgeries for children.” 

“Mississippians are not confused about this race,” Monssen said. “Cindy Hyde-Smith has spent years delivering real results and defending our values. Scott Colom is bankrolled by billionaire George Soros, ActBlue, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and he is beholden to their far-left agenda.”

Monssen’s statement about children refers to a letter Colom, a district attorney in northern Mississippi, signed in 2021 where he condemned the criminalization of gender-affirming care and said families of trans youth should not be prosecuted.

Colom has said that he has never supported gender-affirming surgeries for children and that he does not believe trans athletes should compete in women’s’ sports.

If Hyde-Smith doesn’t agree to debate Colom, it’s unclear if the TV stations would proceed with Colom talking about his platform. It’s also unclear if Ty Pinkins, an independent candidate, was invited to participate in the debate. 

Hyde-Smith participated in a 2018 debate during a special election runoff with opponent Mike Espy. She did not debate Espy two years later when she ran for her first full six-year term, and it appears she doesn’t plan to debate this year. 

Hyde-Smith has a long history of not doing off-the-cuff events or open town hall meetings and rarely does interviews with the media. Some constituents have complained about a lack of access to her or response from her.

Last year, Mississippi Today tried to interview Hyde-Smith at the Capitol to ask her about budget cuts President Donald Trump’s administration was making and how they would impact her home state and about Mississippi’s infamous welfare scandal. 

When asked if she had time to answer a few questions, she curtly responded, “No.” 

After the Washington trip, Mississippi Today emailed her spokesperson asking if she was satisfied with the investigation into the federal welfare scandal that has rocked Mississippi’s politics and caused several people to plead guilty to federal crimes.

Her office did not respond to the question, which made her the only member of Mississippi’s congressional delegation to either not respond to the question or not grant Mississippi Today an interview. 

Colom, Hyde-Smith and Pinkins will compete in the general election on Nov. 3. The last day citizens can register to vote is Oct. 9. 

WATER VALLEY — “I can’t believe I’m 60 years old,” said Beth Mayeaux to the friends gathered in her Water Valley home’s light-filled, eggshell blue living room. She paused, smiling, as they clapped and cheered.  

The education sales professional from Jackson thanked the assembled guests for supporting her birthday fundraiser for medical debt relief. The eight-week campaign, which ends Wednesday, raises money for north-central Mississippi’s Yalobusha and Calhoun counties. 

A glossy sign next to her proclaimed, “You gave $21,000.” The money will go to Undue Medical Debt, a national nonprofit that buys past-due medical debt from hospitals and debt collectors for a fraction of the amount patients owed. Using donations, they pay off the balances and notify recipients with a letter in the mail. 

Because the debt can be purchased cheaply, the nonprofit says each dollar donated can relieve up to $100 in medical debt. The money Mayeaux raised erased $3.2 million in medical debt, according to the organization.  

The funds from Mayeaux’s “Getting (G)older, Giving Back” campaign will help over 1,600 people, said Marisa Clemente, Undue Medical Debt’s vice president of philanthropy. It’s enough to cover the nonprofit’s already purchased debt holdings in the two counties, and additional money will go to the Mississippi Delta, where Mayeaux’s wife Robbie Fischer is from.  

In Water Valley, a town of  about 3,400, over a quarter of residents live below the poverty line. That’s more than the roughly 18% poverty rate in Mississippi, which also has among the nation’s highest rates of medical debt. 

Water Valley was a setting that made sense for Mayeaux, who  knew she wanted to do something big for her 60th birthday bash. For past decade birthdays, she had taken trips — to Paris and Champagne for her 50th, to New York for her 40th. This time, she wanted to give back to the community that had welcomed her nearly a decade ago.

She remembered having medical debt in her 20s, how a third party that bought her debt “hounded” her and how it  started impacting her credit score. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, she learned about Undue Medical Debt. The pieces clicked. 

“It’s just so very Beth,” said Kerry O’Donoghue, a Water Valley resident who became friends with Mayeaux and Fischer soon after they moved to the area. O’Donoghue remembers first hearing about the campaign. 

“I was absolutely all in, and also furious that we live in a country where this is needed,” she said.

A big ask, and a broad imagination

Mayeaux first brought her idea to the mission committee at Church of the Nativity, the small Episocopal church where she helped start an on-site food pantry, now restocked twice a day with shelf-stable foods. She spoke in the first part of the meeting, before church treasurer Eddie Woods presented his financial report.

“When Beth finished with her presentation, she said, ‘I would like to have $3,000.’ And the room went silent,” Woods recounted at the party on Saturday.

“I was thinking, that’s a lot of money,” said the church’s senior warden, Mary Beth Pulsifer, standing beside him.

Wood smiled as he re-enacted the dramatic moment. 

“I said, ‘Well, it all comes down to finances. So in looking at the budget, I don’t see that we can do $3,000.’ And then I paused and I said, ‘I think we need to do $5,000.’” 

Cheekily, he added, “And Beth seconded the motion.”

Pulsifer talked about her motivation for supporting the campaign: imagining what it would be like to get a letter in the mail saying that your debt is erased. Another partygoer, bankruptcy paralegal Jack Barry, said he’s seen people have to declare bankruptcy due to their medical debt. 

Undue Medical Debt identifies people who earn at or below four times the federal poverty level, or $132,000 annually for a family of four, or have medical debt that exceeds 5% of their income. People don’t need to apply for relief, and face no adverse tax consequences, Clemente said. Because they buy bundled portfolios of debt and can only purchase from hospitals willing to sell to them, the organization can’t respond to individual requests for debt relief. 

Mayeaux and Fischer kicked off the campaign in August with $1,966, representing Mayeaux’s birth year. She wrote letters by hand to her network, a sizable one given that her annual Christmas card list includes some 400 people. While some donations came in larger amounts from grants, the majority were raised through individuals and neighbors in a true “people’s campaign,” she said.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever been a part of,” 71-year-old Woods said. 

Out on the spacious porch, guests mingled over bubbly beverages while Mayeaux flitted between friends. Barbara Phillips, a civil rights attorney, waved Mayeaux over and imparted a secret about her birthday gift. 

That business taken care of, she shared a recent moment when  an acquaintance in New York told her that for things to change in Mississippi was “beyond his imagination.” 

“It occurred to me, well, your imagination does not limit our reality,” said Phillips, a Virginian who grew up in Memphis but has since made Mississippi her home. 

She conjured an image of Mississippi civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, standing up in a cotton field that stretched for as far as the eye could see and imagining that she could change her world. The vision that Hamer and people that went with her to register to vote had still astonishes her, Phillips said.

For her, that spirit is reflected in efforts such as a medical debt fundraiser, where people take a larger issue into their own hands. 

“We’re doing it right here in this house in Water Valley,” she said. 

The party, which fell on Mayeaux’s actual birthday, provided a fitting finale to the monthslong campaign. “Thank y’all so much,” Mayeaux had said earlier in the living room, at the end of her toast. “Let’s just keep on drinking champagne, eating cupcakes, and erasing medical debt.” 

An hour after the stated 5 p.m. ending time, Mayeaux and Fisher waved off the last of their guests and retired with their terrier Mike to the kitchen for a dinner of frozen pizza. A half-empty basket of pink rubber eraser party favors stood by the door — a reminder of the debt that their collective efforts will wipe away. 

HATTIESBURG — Katie Herndon, curator of the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi, opens a box and pulls out several original illustrations of “Curious George.” They are as fresh and captivating as the little monkey’s mischief in the classic books by H.A. and Margret Rey.

Inside a folder, she carefully thumbs through pages to find letters between H.A. Rey and Albert Einstein, and a receipt of Rey’s contribution to the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists. 

In McCain Library’s de Grummond Manuscript Room, Herndon pulls down another box from towering stacks, lifts its lid and reveals Ezra Jack Keats’ brilliant collage art that illustrated his 1962 classic “The Snowy Day.” 

The book’s prestigious Caldecott Medal win, top prize for an illustrator in the U.S., was a first for a picture book with an African American main character and a breakthrough for minority representation in mainstream children’s publishing. “The Snowy Day” remains the most checked-out book of all time from the New York Public Library.

A more recent bequest from Diana Klemin, longtime art director at Doubleday and friend of the collection, included never-before-shown Andy Warhol originals predating his Pop Art stardom. Warhol’s sketches showed “exciting promise,” an editor noted in a letter that “most reluctantly” rejected the picture book manuscript they illustrated. A future exhibition is planned.

Charm and history often nestle side by side in the de Grummond Collection, which marks its 60th anniversary this year. 

This year also marks the 85th birthday of “Curious George,” first published in 1941. The Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson celebrated that occasion with cookies and photos with Curious George in the Kids Tent and a hands-on activity inspired by H.A. Rey’s love of the stars.

Lena de Grummond (1900-1987) started the collection in 1966 after capping a career in library science in her native Louisiana with 15 years as the state supervisor of school libraries for the Louisiana State Department of Education. During that time, she earned her doctorate in library science at Louisiana State University, graduating the same year her son got his bachelor’s degree, in 1956.

Retirement in 1965 just pushed her in a new direction. 

“She decided she wasn’t done,” Herndon said. “She didn’t actually want to stop working.”

USM was the site for her second career as a professor teaching children’s literature in the School of Library Science. Her once weekly, four-hour graduate course drew students, mostly working adults, from all over, Herndon said.

“She wanted the best for those students. She was preparing them to be future librarians, and we didn’t have a children’s collection at all.”

Their professor fixed that, with permission to found a special collection of children’s books and original manuscripts, and the persistence to work her lifetime of contacts.

“She did it the old-fashioned way, and I mean, really old-fashioned way, by writing letters,” said de Grummond Collection Curator Emeritus Ellen Ruffin.

“She started buying books,” Herndon said, “and writing to authors and illustrators of those books and saying, ‘Hey, I’m buying your books, I’m building this collection. Do you have some stuff you’re done with, that you could donate to us? If you’ve thrown it in the trash can already, send us the trash can. We’ll dig it out.’

“Her record was writing 500 a week,” Herndon said. “She was definitely a charmer, judging from these letters, and she made friends with all these people.” 

Herndon recalled a mention in one letter of a three-month visit to England, her goal to visit every author and illustrator she could find and managing to visit 35 people. “She was really putting in time with everybody.”

Ruffin recalled her interviews with de Grummond’s students for the collection’s 40th anniversary, and their tales of what a thrill it was as boxes of materials came in that included original illustrations, original manuscripts and illustrated correspondence. 

“A lot of people answered,” Herndon said. Some worried about 1966 Mississippi, segregation and the possibility that donated items could be off limits to some. “She wrote back to whoever questioned that and said, ‘I am building this for all the teachers, all the children, all the librarians in Mississippi and beyond.’”

The Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival at USM each spring started in 1968 as a way to highlight the collection. Hosted by the USM School of Library and Information Science, the event brings the best in children’s literature to campus for celebration and honors. 

The USM Medallion recognizing authors and illustrators for their total body of work and the Ezra Jack Keats Award highlighting a new picturebook author and a new illustrator for outstanding work are presented at the festival. Keats, Judy Blume and Dav Pilkey are past medallion recipients. The Keats Foundation and the de Grummond Collection co-administer the Ezra Jack Keats Award. Seeds are planted at the festival, too. 

“We get to meet new authors and illustrators at the very beginning of their careers and then, if things go the way we hope they will, we stay in touch with those people and, of course, watch their careers (reach their) zenith,” Ruffin said. “Then, they often mentioned to us that they would like their papers to come to the de Grummond collection.”

The collection’s main concentration is American and British children’s literature, historical and contemporary, but diversity is woven in from the beginning, Herndon said, with creators from China, Jamaica, Canada, Brazil and more represented.

The collection is a key resource for children’s literature scholars, for those working on biographies of authors and illustrators and for graduate students. Sometimes, aspiring illustrators come to look at original art for picture books, Herndon said, “to see how someone else did it.” Documentary filmmakers and podcasters also reach out with requests. 

It is one of North America’s leading research centers in children’s literature. Ruffin speculated that founder Lena de Grummond “would probably not be surprised, if I’m going to be honest,” she said, “because she truly was driven to create the best possible children’s literature archive that she could.” Practices and principles she started carry through to this day.

The de Grummond Collection now holds more than 1,400 original papers collections and about 250,000 books, Herndon said. 

“And, more come in every day. Literally, every day.”

The manslaughter trial for two former Capitol Police officers in the fatal shooting of a 25-year-old Jackson man ended Monday with both defendants walking free.

After nearly five hours of deliberation, a Hinds County jury deadlocked on whether to convict Michael Lamar Rhinewalt, who fired the fatal shot, and acquitted Steven Frederick Jr., who also shot his gun. 

The hung jury meant the lawyers for Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office who handled the prosecution could decide to retry Rhinewalt as soon as February, when Hinds County Circuit Judge Faye Peterson said she would be available. But the office said it would not pursue another trial.

“The benefit of the doubt goes to our law enforcement officers, and we will not seek to retry this case,” the attorney general’s office wrote in an email Monday night. “The men and women who wear the uniform have earned that.”

The defendants, who are white, told jurors they shot Jaylen Lewis, a Black man, in the head in self-defense during a traffic stop when he started to drive away. This is the first criminal trial related to the Capitol Police’s record year of shootings in 2022.

Lewis was the lone fatality in the agency’s four shootings by officers that year — the most of any law-enforcement agency in the state. The spike came as the Legislature expanded the force to cover a larger stretch of Jackson, in a controversial effort to address record homicide rates.

When the judge read the jury’s decision to acquit Frederick, the former officer appeared emotional, leaning his head down on a table while one of his attorneys, Boty McDonald, reached out to him. Neither he nor Rhinewalt responded to questions from reporters.

Frederick’s father-in-law, Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey, attended the close of the trial and walked with him out of the Hinds County Courthouse in downtown Jackson. The sheriff had previously been under investigation by state and federal authorities over whether he helped his son-in-law escape a DUI charge in 2023, when Frederick totaled a Capitol Police truck — allegations the sheriff denies.

For the nine Black and three white jurors, the trial stretched into an extra third day of testimony last week after both former officers unexpectedly took the stand Friday — the fourth anniversary of Lewis’ death.

Both officers testified they shot Lewis because he turned his car toward them in an effort to run them over.

Lewis’ parents were both present for the last day of the trial. His father, William Drake, said Monday’s outcome adds to the list of unresolved questions surrounding his son’s killing.

“I wish we could get some type of conclusion today, some type of ending today,” Drake told reporters. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get that, but I still have faith that justice will be served.”

Did Lewis want to run over officers?

The prosecution’s case seemed doomed from the start as five of their law enforcement witnesses backed the former officers’ story, found evidence consistent with their statements or said they followed police protocol.

During final arguments, prosecutors and the officers’ defense attorneys sparred over whether Lewis intended to ram his car into the officers or even knew he was the subject of a traffic stop.

The prosecution focused on the passenger in Lewis’ car, Selena Hayes, who testified the pair didn’t know they were being stopped by officers. She said all she saw was a car pulling in front of them, a bright light and then a white man with a gun.

As a result, she testified, Lewis moved his car because he was trying to drive around the man, not at them.

To back up their case, prosecutors presented photos showing that instead of typical uniforms, the former officers were dressed in plain clothes and tactical vests. They were also driving unmarked police cars, although the defense argued their blue lights were on.

“These defendants claim self defense after they chose to approach Jaylen Lewis’ Jeep in unmarked cars, in plain clothes, in a very dark location at night,” Special Assistant Attorney General Luke Williamson said. “We believe that the evidence has shown that the actions of these defendants killed Jaylen Lewis and were unreasonable and unnecessary.”

But in an impassioned closing argument, Frederick’s defense attorney, Merrida Coxwell Jr., blasted the prosecution’s words as akin to “QAnon conspiracies.” 

“If you can’t see those police cars, you need to get your glasses fixed,” Coxwell told the jury. “As you can see those lights, there can be no question whatsoever that there are policemen there.”

Instead, the defense attorney presented a different theory, arguing that Lewis “fled” because he didn’t want officers to discover he was violating his probation. After the shooting, officers discovered Glock pistols, an assault weapon and bags of marijuana in Lewis’ car, Coxwell said.

By shooting Lewis, the defense argued, the former officers acted like any “reasonable person” would when faced with a “supercharged,” 707-horsepower car. The attorneys also contended that the former officers acted in line with their training to protect themselves from getting run over and potentially killed.

“You understand that we have to allow for police officers to make split-second decisions,” Coxwell told the jury. “They had, at that point, no option left (but) to fire.”

Rhinewalt’s attorney, J. Scott Gilbert, said the officers’ later discovery of guns in Lewis’ car — including a pistol with an extended clip — showed the officers were “dead correct” in suspecting the driver.

“You know how many people you kill with 30 rounds?” Gilbert asked the jury.

Not Frederick’s first time avoiding a conviction

State certification records show six months after Lewis’ death, Frederick resigned from Capitol Police in March 2023 “to prevent termination” after totaling a squad Ford F-150 and flunking a breathalyzer test.

State troopers arrested Frederick, but a judge dropped the DUI charge against him after a trooper failed to appear in court to testify in the case. 

State authorities learned that a prosecutor said Sheriff Bailey called him to ask what would happen if a trooper didn’t show up for a DUI hearing, and the prosecutor replied the case would be dismissed. 

Bailey has denied these allegations, telling WLBT, “Whoever said that I talked to a prosecutor is a liar.”

A year and a half after the incident, Frederick wrecked another patrol vehicle, this time as a Scott County sheriff’s deputy.

Regardless of prosecutors’ decision on whether to retry Rhinewalt, his legal troubles aren’t over.

Just a month before Lewis was killed, Rhinewalt and former Flex Unit officer Jeffery Walker also opened fire on a car, shooting a passenger in the head. That victim, Sherita Harris, survived but now has “permanent neurological and facial injuries,” according to a lawsuit she filed against Rhinewalt and Walker.

A Hinds County grand jury indicted Rhinewalt and Walker for aggravated assault in that case. No weapon was recovered from Harris’ car, according to the lawsuit.

The pair are scheduled to stand trial for Harris’ shooting in the county courthouse next Monday.

Prosecutors showed jury officers’ explanations for shooting, in blow to their own case

Prosecutors last week introduced Frederick and Rhinewalt’s recorded statements to investigators, where they gave their explanations for why they shot Lewis.

The defense hadn’t planned to put the pair on the witness stand, leading Judge Peterson to say she would instruct the jury to consider these statements as “self-serving” hearsay because the officers were never cross examined under oath.

Frederick and Rhinewalt then decided to take the stand. They told jurors they feared for their lives.

Frederick and Rhinewalt were serving on the Capitol Police’s crime suppression Flex Unit when they stopped the Jeep Grand Cherokee Lewis was driving after he ran two red lights. They said the vehicle matched the general description of a car suspected in auto burglaries.

After their unmarked police car boxed in Lewis’ Cherokee, he rammed the police vehicle behind him and then gunned the Cherokee to flee, Rhinewalt told investigators. Both officers fired their guns through the car’s windshield.

“I felt like he was going to run us over,” Rhinewalt said.

But Hayes, Lewis’ passenger, testified the driver didn’t know officers were performing a traffic stop and didn’t see the police car behind him. Lewis backed into the police vehicle in his effort to drive away, she said.

9/28/2026: This article has been updated to show that the attorney general’s office said it will not retry Michael Lamar Rhinewalt.