OurTupelo

Sarah Whites-Koditschek is an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow. She can be reached at sarah.whites-koditschek@nytimes.com.

Federal authorities have charged a civil rights activist with arson in a fire that damaged the Senatobia Police Department headquarters. Officers tracked Garrick Rawls, 41, to a relative’s house in north Alabama using surveillance video, community tips and his cellphone signal, court filings show.

Federal investigators reviewed surveillance footage from the scene of the fire that occurred before dawn Saturday, and identified Rawls, known locally for his involvement in protests against the department over the shooting death of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, who was killed by police.

“The individual is observed on cameras walking up to a window along the front of the police department, and utilizing what appears to be a hammer to break the window,” says a federal complaint filed against Rawls. 

Rawls was arrested in Huntsville, Alabama, and a federal complaint was filed against him on Monday. He is in the U.S. Marshals Service custody, according to federal court filings, and has a federal hearing scheduled Thursday in Huntsville.

The Senatobia Police Department caught on fire early Saturday after months of turmoil following the police shooting of the toddler in June. Firefighters were dispatched at 4:58 a.m. and quickly extinguished the fire, according to the Senatobia Fire Department. 

The department has faced national scrutiny since June 14, when an officer killed Kohen in a Walmart parking lot. Senatobia officer Hunter Foster fired shots as Kohen’s mother and another woman fled the parking lot. The women were suspected of stealing diapers and baby clothes. Foster resigned in October. The department’s former chief, Harold Vanderford, was fired after Mississippi Today and The New York Times revealed in August that he had sent racially offensive slurs in texts to officers. 

In October, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced the state would not pursue criminal prosecution against Foster. Protests and vigils in Senatobia before and after her decision drew activists to the streets, including Rawls. 

Surveillance footage of the fire showed a person with long dreadlocks in dark clothes, a hood and a mask walking down Center Street near the police department at about 4:32 a.m., according to the complaint. 

The person wore a backpack and held a white paper sack with what looked like a gas can, according to the complaint. The video shows him using a hammer to break a window at the police department, entering the lobby and emptying a canister, stepping back outside and lighting a fire. 

“The subsequent explosion sends the individual flying back into the roadway, with several body parts on fire, including the right foot area,” the complaint says. Law enforcement officers found a Tommy Hilfiger boot that was partially burned, two latex gloves, a hammer and the nozzle of a gas can at the scene. 

Joshua Garret, a special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he interviewed local law enforcement and community members who pointed him to Rawls, who had attended recent protests against the police shooting of Kohen. Investigators found footage of a vigil for Wiley on Friday night and saw Rawls in attendance. 

Investigators then tracked Rawls and a group of other activists to the Hampton Inn in Batesville. Investigators found surveillence video footage of Rawls wearing a black hood and mask as he left the hotel parking lot in a silver Jeep. 

Using Rawls’ cellphone data, investigators then tracked him to a location in Huntsville at the home of a relative. Surveillance agents observed him at the property, according to the complaint.  

“Rawls appears to be wearing a large, white bandage on his right leg and has a noticeable limp when walking on the right side,” the complaint said. 

ATF agents arrested Rawls Monday with help from the Huntsville Police Department and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, according to the bureau. 

Attorneys for Rawls and for the government did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

“We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to the Senatobia community for the overwhelming support, cooperation and information provided to investigators,” LaMorris Hampton, interim chief of police for the Senatobia Police Department, said Monday about the fire investigation.   

The department announced online that starting Wednesday, it will operate out of a new location, “until further notice.”

Rawls was active in protesting police-involved shooting deaths in Alabama. In 2021 he was arrested for disorderly conduct at a Huntsville City Council meeting for protesting the deaths of people killed by the Huntsville Police Department. In 2019 he was arrested for staging a “die in” protest during the Veterans Day Parade. 

GREENVILLE — A man who has been incarcerated for nearly 25 years for the rape and killing of 6-year-old Robernisha Webster in 2002 — a crime he says he did not commit — will be released from prison after a judge suspended the remainder of his sentence. 

At a sentencing hearing Monday, Circuit Court Judge Richard A. Smith suspended King Young Brown Jr.’s sentence to resolve an issue revealed in November 2025, after local government officials could not locate DNA evidence crucial to Brown’s appeal of his convictions. State law requires offering a remedy in such cases.

Brown’s attorneys contended the missing evidence might have proved his innocence.

Instead of completing the remaining roughly 25 years of a 50-year sentence, Brown will serve five years of supervised release. He remains a rapist and killer under Mississippi state law. He will also have to register as a sex offender upon release. Brown’s release date was not immediately available.

Smith declined to dismiss Brown’s charges in the absence of exonerating evidence. Brown’s attorneys argued Smith’s decision denied the man’s due process rights. 

There is no remedy for Robernisha’s family.

After the hearing, they said they felt no justice. They wanted accountability for those who allegedly tampered with the DNA evidence critical to Robernisha’s case and undermined a conviction that had granted them some peace of mind.

“It was a slap in the face,” Latasha Carson, Robernisha’s sister, said of the hearing. “And they all want to shake our hands and just pat us on the back and say, ‘We are sorry it ended this way.’ What? No. Somebody needs to be held accountable, shut down, fired or something. Something needs to be done.”

“What is the justice for my family? Where do we go from here?”

Washington County officials lost hundreds of DNA specimens and other evidence

Brown was 15 years old when he was charged with raping and killing Webster. He was convicted after three trials and 13 hours of jury deliberation. He has maintained his innocence.

The missing DNA evidence, ranging from a sexual assault kit to fingernail scrapings, was located as recently as 2023. Smith ordered that it be shipped in September 2025 to a Virginia laboratory for modern DNA testing, for which it had not yet been subjected. But when it came time for the circuit clerk’s office to ship it, it could find none of the over 100 specimens in the courthouse.

Deputy Washington County Circuit Clerk Cynthia Lakes suggested in an affidavit that District Attorney Dewayne Richardson and Assistant District Attorney Austin M. Frye visited the evidence room following a July 28 hearing. Deputy Circuit Clerk Latanya Watson also suggested in an affidavit that Richardson and Frye visited the room that day.

Washington County Circuit Clerk Barbra Esters-Parker wrote in her affidavit that a district attorney’s office employee confirmed over the phone that Frye possessed a box with bags of evidence. When Lakes visited the district attorney’s office the following week, no such evidence bags were in the box.

But an unsigned statement from the district attorney’s office sent Feb. 24 to Mississippi Today said no one at the district attorney’s office “has ever possessed, viewed or handled any of the exhibits and/or physical evidence” since the 2005 trial.

Brown’s attorneys argued that if the evidence was lost, Smith should dismiss the charges against Brown and vacate his sentence. Brown’s attorneys argued that the case against him hinged on microscopic hair comparison, which has since been deemed a pseudoscience in U.S. Department of Justice guidance.

Then in May 2026, Smith canceled a hearing in which public officials were expected to testify about what happened to the missing DNA evidence. He ordered additional filings with testimonies from local officials be sealed to in part shield them from embarrassment. 

Mississippi Today challenged Smith’s decision to keep filings under seal and filed to intervene in the case to ask him to unseal them. Mississippi Today pushed to unseal the filings because investigations into the conduct of public officials was in the public interest.

“The public has a right to know how its elected officials and government employees maintain public safety and how its courts administer justice,” Mississippi Today’s motion reads.

As of Tuesday, all of these items remain sealed.

On Monday, Smith limited discussion of what became of the specimens and who might be responsible.

“What’s striking in this case is that nobody has any explanation for how this evidence could possibly disappear,” Jacob Howard, Brown’s attorney, said Monday. “There was a container with the evidence and some other items. The container’s still there. The other items are still there. All that’s gone is the evidence.”

Smith also blocked Howard from discussing an affidavit from District Attorney Dewayne Richardson detailing the chain of custody of the evidence. Smith also halted discussion of affidavits from circuit clerk’s office employees or other public officials. Some of the circuit clerk’s office affidavits implicated employees in Richardson’s office. 

“And here I’m hamstrung, Your Honor. I just can’t possibly make some bad faith arguments without getting into the details of what’s been provided in the affidavits,” Howard told the court. “I’m asking for permission to be able to make an argument based on the record.”

“I don’t know how else to say it. I think I made my position clear,” Smith countered. 

Smith asked Howard to limit his arguments to cases or the law’s language. He said he felt the bulk of the evidence under seal, including the affidavits, was inconclusive and hearsay. An “innocent” reason can still be behind the disappearance of the specimens, Smith wrote.

Smith said Monday he would enter an order, which would allow Mississippi Today to directly petition Smith to open the court records. But he can still rule to keep the seal in effect.

Whether public officials played a role in destroying DNA evidence in a murder case is squarely within the public interest, and related filings should be unsealed, argued Andrew Coffman, senior staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, which is representing Mississippi Today. 

Families face incomplete justice and unanswered questions

Unresolved questions are part of why justice felt incomplete for the two families at the center of the case. 

As the Monday proceeding closed, Brown turned in his chair to meet his mother’s gaze. Tears cascaded beneath her black eyeglasses as she smiled. A moment she said she thought about for nearly a quarter century arrived. She and her son would be reunited.

After the hearing, Brown Spencer’s thoughts turned to Thanksgiving. It’d be their first together as a family in decades. She said he always loved the holiday, and the chicken she’d prepare with vegetables. She feels he will adapt well to civilian life too.

While incarcerated at the Marshall County Correctional Facility, Brown began taking college courses through Mississippi Valley State University toward a degree in business administration. He also completed certifications in welding and carpentry.

“He wants to be independent, to support himself. He wants to get an education, and start his life,” Brown Spencer told the court.

The outcome was devastating for the Webster family. Relatives of Robernisha huddled on the bench around her mother. 

Addie Cannon, Robernisha’s aunt, and Carson, Robernisha’s sister, left the courtroom that afternoon for the cemetery. They refreshed the flowers by Webster’s grave. A toy penguin was flush against the stone, which was also engraved with Robernisha’s nickname, “Boo Boo.”

Cannon remembers the sweet and quiet girl who loved to snack. The kindergartener with a warm laugh and a light that none of them thought could ever dim.

Carson reflected on the other disruptions and delays in the case. She drove down for the hearing in May that was abruptly canceled. She reminded the court on Monday that the pain her family bears from the loss of Webster is different than the Brown family’s.

“When I drive three hours to see her, I have to go to a cemetery,” she told the court. “The last picture I had with my sister was when she was 6. We are 15 years apart and those pictures got spots on them. They are fading away.”

Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining immigration and criminal justice issues. She can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com.

A new set of records mistakenly released to a local news outlet by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation provides the most detailed look yet at how the agency investigated the police shooting death of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley in a Walmart parking lot this summer. 

In response to a public records request, TVMO News Network received 65 unredacted pages – including summaries of witness statements – that the MBI had not intended to make public. 

After the mistake was brought to MBI’s attention, officials shared a redacted copy with the outlet with names and sensitive information removed, and requested that version be used instead. 

You can access that copy here:

The documents provide a first look at how the officers involved recounted what happened in June, when they chased two women accused of shoplifting diapers and baby clothes and surrounded their car as they began to flee. Previously released video of the incident shows Hunter Foster, then a sergeant with the Senatobia Police Department, stepping in front of the car and pointing his gun as it backed up, and then firing as it approached him.

Mississippi’s attorney general, Lynn Fitch, determined in October that Foster was justified in firing at the car and announced the state would not pursue charges against him.

While the documents include some details that had not previously been made public, there are no major revelations that explain, or call into question, the reasoning behind the attorney general’s decision not to pursue charges. The report does not include any conclusions investigators may have drawn about the officers’ actions.

Alex Gibert, a spokesperson for MBI, said the agency’s investigation remains open and active, despite Fitch’s decision not to prosecute Foster. Gibert declined to comment on the specifics of what or whom officials were investigating. 

The document, titled “Report of Investigation,” does not appear to be a complete record, because it references several attachments that are not included.

Here are some key takeaways from the released records:

1. How many officers, if any, were struck by the fleeing car has been a point of contention. In their statements, four officers said that the car struck at least one of the officers who had surrounded the car. No more than two officers were struck, the statements indicate. 

• Foster told investigators that the vehicle was “already striking” him and the sheriff’s deputy to his right before he could get out of its path. 
• Colson Sims, a Senatobia officer, said he observed Foster “buckled over the hood of the vehicle” due to “being struck.” 
• Nathan Noe, a Tate County sheriff’s deputy, said the vehicle struck his left thigh as it reversed, and then again struck him and Foster as it accelerated forward.
• Marshall Scott, another Tate County sheriff’s deputy, said the car struck Noe as it reversed.

MBI’s first official statement about the incident, issued in June, said the car had “almost” struck one officer. Multiple experts who reviewed body-worn camera footage and surveillance video of the incident said there was no definitive evidence that any of the officers were struck, although the car came close to several of them, making it difficult to determine. 

2. Martin Zummach, Foster’s lawyer, recently said during a television interview that his client had no idea who he was chasing and he wouldn’t have fired at the car had he known they were accused only of shoplifting diapers. The footage released by MBI so far showed a Walmart loss prevention employee only saying, “Two girls running,” before officers sprinted out of the store. 

But the officers may have had more information about the women than was previously known. In their statements, they made several references to the women being accused of shoplifting.

• Noe’s statement referenced a conversation with a Walmart employee, who had told officers he was going to confront two Black women who had been shoplifting. Noe said the employee later came back to tell officers the women were running. That led Foster and the other officers to chase them to their car.
• Sims told investigators that the loss prevention employee said “two shoplifters” were running from them.
• Foster’s statement refers to suspects “who had just shoplifted” when describing the women entering their vehicle.

3. A central question not addressed by state authorities is whether officers at the scene ever saw Kohen in his mother’s arms before Foster fired at the car. None of the officers said in their statements that they saw a child, or knew one was present. Shaquille Moore, one of the Senatobia officers involved in the chase, said in his statement they only learned about the child after the injuries were reported.
4. Experts have raised concerns about Foster’s decision to shoot, in part because at least one officer was standing near the driver and could have been hit. Moore told investigators he did not fire at the driver for that reason. 
5. The report’s incident summary says charges are pending against both Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and the driver of the car, Latoya Ferrell. It does not mention the nature of the charges, or describe whether they are related to shoplifting or other actions taken by the women.  

Mississippi voters reported problems casting ballots across the state Tuesday, from long lines to machine malfunctions, in what appeared to be heavy turnout for a midterm election. 

LIVE: 2026 Mississippi election results

The Mississippi secretary of state’s office in a Tuesday afternoon statement said that its elections hotline had seen a high volume of calls and reports of late-opening precincts, voting machines being temporarily down and issues with voters verifying their registration status.

Polls were open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday, and election officials were urging voters to be patient.

Jada Barnes, a field director with the nonprofit Mississippi Votes Action Fund, said its election hotline had seen a flurry of calls Tuesday morning from voters who faced trouble at the polls, including machine malfunctions and long waits in DeSoto County, and lengthy lines in Hinds County. 

“I know our hotline has really been jumping, for lack of a better word,” she said. 

On social media, Secretary of State Michael Watson wrote his office had received multiple calls about voters who learned at the polls that they had been marked inactive. Watson wrote that this can happen after election commissioners verify voter data shared by his office.

“Voter roll maintenance is the cornerstone of election integrity,” he wrote.

Watson added that voters who have been marked inactive should cast affidavit ballots, which would reactivate their status in the State Election Management System.

That’s exactly what Jennifer Mixon did after a poll worker couldn’t find her name in the voter rolls at First Presbyterian in Madison.

After calling the circuit clerk’s office, Mixon said she learned she had been marked inactive, even though she has regularly voted at First Presbyterian for years, including most recently in a 2025 state Senate election. The reason? Mixon said the clerk’s office told her she had failed to respond to a confirmation letter sent to her old address in Jackson.

Making matters more frustrating, Mixon said her husband, who has lived at the same Madison address as her for the past seven years, was able to vote normally. But she said she was far from the only voter who couldn’t cast a standard ballot at her precinct.

“The affidavit room was very busy,” she said.

In Hinds County, some voters reported protracted wait times. Christopher Windfield said he arrived at 7 a.m. at Griffith Memorial Baptist Church on Terry Road in Byram, the same precinct he has voted at since 2008, to one long, slow-moving line. This was surprising, Windfield said, because the precinct usually uses two lines to keep voters moving.

It took the artist who works at Canopy Children’s Solutions about 50 minutes to cast his ballot. By the time he left, Windfield said the line had grown to wrap around the church.

“I don’t know if it was voter suppression or what caused it, but it was just too inconvenient,” he said.

In past years, Hinds County voters have encountered disorganization, including numerous precincts running out of ballots, leaving voters waiting in line for hours after polls closed.

Hinds County is more organized this year, said Kidada Brown, a Hinds County election commissioner. “We good,” she told a reporter as she walked into a precinct.

On the Mississippi Gulf Coast, voters reported hour-long lines at precincts across Jackson County. 

Jackson County election officials issued a short statement on social media, attributing equipment issues at multiple polling places to Jackson County Election Commission’s new voting machines.

Danny Glaskox, the commission’s chairman, said the new electronic poll books confused some of the elderly poll workers at many of the county’s 31 precincts, even though he held training ahead of election day. 

“I said, ‘Where were you when I trained you?’ And they said, ‘We were there, we just didn’t understand how to do it.’ And I said, ‘Well you should’ve told me!’” 

Glaskox said he had to drive to several precincts to show the poll workers how to fully plug in the electronic scanner. At the Ocean Springs Civic Center, Glaskox said a creased ballot got stuck in a machine, and poll workers didn’t know how to get it unstuck. 

“They were intimidated by the machine, to be honest with you,” he said. 

State Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, said he heard from a constituent who felt the crowd at their precinct was exacerbated by a confusing system to cast a ballot. 

“It sounds like a process issue,” he said. “I hate that.” 

In addition to a hotly contested Senate race between Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic challenger Scott Colom, Wiggins said turnout in Jackson County is being driven by competitive judicial elections. 

Shea Dobson, a former mayor of Ocean Springs, said the line was longer than he’s seen for previous midterms at his polling location, the Ryan Youth Center, when he turned out to cast a ballot on his lunch break. He played a card game on his phone and spoke to a woman about traveling to Europe while they waited in line for over an hour. 

Despite the wait, he said spirits remained high. 

“Everybody seemed pretty nice and just ready to do their civic duty,” he said.

At the Ocean Springs Civic Center, Diana Schmied and her husband also waited for about an hour when they went to vote around 9 a.m. A retired attorney, Schmied estimated the line was just as long when they left the precinct. 

Though the civic center historically sees more voters than other precincts in Ocean Springs, Schmied said there were not enough voting machines and ballot scanners to keep the line moving quickly. 

The long wait impacted a man standing in front of her, Schmied said, who told her he had hip replacement surgery a few years ago. 

“By the time we got up to the building, he was in some pain,” she said. 

Brisk turnout, and at least a few problems were reported as Mississippians cast their votes in the midterm elections on Tuesday. The Magnolia State will help determine the balance of power in Congress as it elects a U.S. senator and four representatives to the U.S. House on Tuesday.

Polls were open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday.

Check results, and follow stories about the races Tuesday night at mississippitoday.org.

LIVE: 2026 Mississippi election results

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful ideas to be shared about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here. 

In May 2025, we projected that data centers would drive residential electricity rates in Entergy Mississippi’s service territory 16% lower in 2030 than they would have been without data center growth. We are well on track to achieve that result.

This summer, the Mississippi Public Service Commission approved a rate plan that keeps Entergy Mississippi’s rates well below the national average and prevented what otherwise would have been a $4.87 per month increase per 1,000 kilowatt hours in July, compared to June rates. New revenues from Mississippi data centers, like Amazon’s, are a primary reason why rates didn’t go up. The Public Service Commission also approved a 41-cent rate decrease per 1,000 kilowatt hours that appeared on customer bills in October. Data center revenues also produced this decrease.

How did these benefits start coming to customers so quickly? It is because Mississippi took the right approach.

In 2024, the Mississippi Legislature came together in a special session and passed Senate Bill 2001 with near-unanimous support. Gov. Tate Reeves signed it, positioning the state to compete for large-scale technology investment. What made it work was the question legislators asked from the start: How do we protect existing utility customers while attracting investment? 

The answer was in the details. The contracts require data centers to pay their fair share, plus provide additional benefits for all customers. At Entergy Mississippi, each data center customer pays a minimum charge that covers the costs to serve it, and every service agreement is individually priced to reflect actual infrastructure needs, whether that’s $100 million or several billion dollars.

The results have come quickly. In two years, Amazon has announced four separate data center campuses and $25 billion in total Mississippi investment. Across most of Entergy’s service territory – including Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana where big tech companies are locating – data center agreements are projected to deliver $7 billion in savings to 2.3 million customers over 20 years thanks to our Fair Share Plus pledge.

Public service commissioners in all three states have validated those numbers. In Mississippi specifically, new data center revenues are funding $300 million in grid reliability investments through the Superpower Mississippi plan, with no additional cost to existing customers for those upgrades.

This growth is producing grid reliability improvements, construction jobs and long-term tax revenue. At the same time, electric rates will be lower than they otherwise would have been. 

Other states are still wrestling with how to bring data centers and their economic benefits without creating unintended consequences that have a negative impact on residents. Some have designed tariffs so restrictive they’ve driven data center customers away. Others haven’t designed adequate protections at all.

Mississippi found a path that welcomes data center benefits for Mississippians and protects existing customers. This path was created within the existing regulatory framework, in two years, with validated results, and has become the template for how all future Entergy contracts with data centers will be structured.

Mississippi’s data center story is different. That $5 monthly benefit is only the beginning of how data centers will help keep Entergy Mississippi’s rates low and protect customers.   

Mississippi got this right. The numbers are confirming it.

Jeremy Vanderloo serves as Entergy Mississippi’s vice president of business operations and strategy, leading the company’s overall strategy to drive growth and enhance operations. Prior to his current position, he led Entergy Mississippi’s regulatory affairs and interactions with the Mississippi Public Service Commission. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate and Marine Corp veteran, Vanderloo also earned a Juris Doctor and MBA from Mississippi College and practiced electric utility regulatory and employee benefits law before joining Entergy. 

Some bowed their heads in prayer, as candles glowed Monday evening at Jackson State University. Others wiped away tears. Many offered hugs as they remembered one of their own, one of two college students killed by gunfire the night before. 

University President Denise Jones Gregory, joined by about 200 others, tearfully gave her condolences to the family of Jada Henderson, a freshman from Atlanta studying psychology, who was killed in a weekend shooting at a Jackson nightclub 6 miles northeast of campus. 

“When one of our Tigers hurts, every single one of us bleeds,” Gregory told students, administrators and community members who gathered for the vigil. “To our students standing here tonight, I see your pain, I see your worry, I see your exhaustion and I see your grief.”

Jackson police say Henderson was killed after two men in ski masks entered the nightclub and began shooting. Police have not made any arrests or identified a motive. The investigation continues. 

The shooting also killed Lovdai Poindexter, 20, of Brandon, and injured six others, who were taken to a hospital for treatment. Poindexter was a student at Holmes Community College. 

Serenity Wilson, a JSU freshman studying marketing, was among Henderson’s friends. During the vigil, she asked the community to pray for her fallen friend.

“Our friend was here one minute, now she is gone,” Wilson said.

Ladorian “Gray” Shelton, a junior creative writing major from Jackson, said he was devastated by Henderson’s death, even if he did not know her. The shooting, he said, brought back memories of losing a high school classmate to gun violence.

“It hurts the spirit. This is another peer. I wanted to see them graduate and be happy. This didn’t have to happen,” Shelton said, as dozens of other students crowded near him, some holding electronic candles that lit up the gathering.

In response to the shooting, Jackson State officials canceled classes on Monday and Tuesday for undergraduates, while graduate courses were moved online, according to a social media statement from the university.

Gregory said students’ safety and well-being remain the highest priority as university officials work with law enforcement and public safety officers. Campus officials encouraged students to use campus resources for support and counseling. 

Jackson Mayor John Horhn, who attended the vigil, had called for the nightclub to be shut down in a statement Sunday. 

As the vigil came to a close, Gregory joined Wilson and some of Henderson’s friends at a bench.

“So, what was Jada like?” Gregory asked. 

“Lovely,” one student responded. 

“Feisty,” Wilson interjected. Then laughter erupted. 

Mississippi is one of only a handful of states that have no limit on how long someone accused of a felony can sit in jail while waiting for a prosecutor to formally charge them.

Cases can be delayed for many reasons. Judges have crowded dockets. Retrieving evidence from the police can take months. But before all that, a district attorney must decide whether to move forward with a case once an arrest has been made. In Hinds County, prosecutors routinely take months — or sometimes years — to do so.

Altogether, these conditions leave people waiting in jail, unsure what’s taking so long or when there will be an update in their case.

READ MORE: A rare push to release Hinds County jail detainees exposes a dysfunctional system

Public defenders say the people who end up stuck in jail typically fall into one of three categories: people who can’t afford their bail, people denied bail by the judge, and people with mental health challenges that need to be addressed before they can be released.

The Marshall Project spoke to three men who have waited for months at the Raymond Detention Center without formal charges — known as an indictment — after they were arrested for nonviolent offenses. During this period, their lives have been in limbo: losing jobs, time with family, and their health, all while sitting without answers inside a notoriously dangerous jail currently under the control of a federal court-appointed administrator.

When you can’t afford your freedom: Depaul Davis, 412 days

September 2026 marked one year that Depaul Davis has been waiting on an indictment. Davis, who has long struggled with homelessness, said he was working day labor jobs to try to scrape together enough money to secure permanent housing when he was arrested last year.

A judge set Davis’ bail at $75,000. Bail bondsmen typically take $7,500 upfront, but that was far beyond his ability to pay. Without any family to turn to for help, his only choice was to remain in jail, waiting to see if prosecutors would take his case to a grand jury. In Mississippi, the district attorney’s office cannot pursue felony charges without an indictment from a grand jury.

“I was staying on the streets, trying to keep labor jobs, waiting to get on a Section 8 housing program,” Davis said. “I couldn’t afford a lawyer, couldn’t afford anything.”

Davis said he only expected to be in jail for about two weeks after making his first court appearance last year. Twelve months later, what’s most frustrating isn’t the roaches, or the countless nights spent sleeping on the floor of an overcrowded cell — it’s that behind bars, his life is frozen, unable to pick up work or continue his search for a real home.

“I was looking at apartments on Highway 80, trying to get housed so I could get stable,” he said. “It can get old, staying at a hotel just one or two days until you run out of money.”

He knows the first step is finding a steady job, maybe something in the service industry. Then, he said, he wants to go back to school for business or hospitality management. He dreams of one day running the hotels he used to sleep at just to get one night of clean sheets and a shower.

More than anything, he said, he wants to get out so he can begin taking steps toward turning his life around. “Life can tear at you in so many different ways,” Davis said, and he’s tried his best to endure the wait gracefully. But at times, it can be hard to comprehend how a whole year has gone by without any movement on his case.

“I can get a little impatient, trying to understand. It’s just frustrating because I can’t make progress,” he said in September. “I’m 29 now, and I don’t want to be found in this same situation at 30 years old.”

In October, Davis turned 30. Still in jail.

When the judge won’t set your bond: Malik Sterling, 254 days

On his 29th birthday, Malik Sterling found himself in jail and only able to see out of one eye.

Roughly two weeks earlier, Sterling was riding a dirt bike for the first time when he flew off the bike, severely injuring his left eye. He had surgery scheduled with an eye doctor to try to save it. But days before his appointment, he was arrested.

An arrest on a nonviolent charge would typically mean the possibility of release on bail, but a judge gets the final say. In Sterling’s case, the judge disqualified him from bail because of a prior felony charge. If the previous case was still open, it would make Sterling ineligible for bail in Mississippi. His lawyer, however, argued in a July motion that the court closed the old case months ago.

But Sterling was still denied bail and has been sitting in jail since February, waiting for prosecutors to decide what to do with his case.

Jail officials wouldn’t let Sterling go to his scheduled medical procedure, he said, delaying treatment another two months before he was finally allowed to see an outside doctor. By then, it was too late to save his eye.

“The only thing they said they could do for me was remove it,” said Sterling, whose left eyelid now droops over a milky surface. “I done lost everything, including the eye.”

Neither the county sheriff nor the court-appointed receiver responded to multiple requests for comment about Sterling’s access to medical care. The receiver, Wendell France, is barred by a federal judge from making public comments.

In addition to his vision, Sterling said he’s felt the loss of the past seven months in nearly every area of his life, from finances to family to his sense of stability.

“Everything I had going before I came here, I lost. All I’ll be coming home to is the pair of clothes [I came in with]. I can’t go to school, can’t go to work,” he said. “I ain’t got nothing to go back to. I just hope my loved ones are there for me when I get home.”

Sterling used to see his 5-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter — whose nickname is tattooed above his right eyebrow — every weekend. But without any way to load money into his account on the jail’s phone, Sterling rarely speaks to them anymore.

“I liked to buy them things, like if they do good on their report cards, but I can’t now because I can’t fend for myself financially,” he said. Last time they spoke, Sterling said, his son wanted a Paw Patrol truck, while his daughter hoped for a Barbie doll. “But I can’t do nothing for them,” he sighed. “I got nothing.”

Before his arrest, Sterling mainly worked odd jobs: cutting grass and landscaping or washing cars. He’d planned to start school online and pursue a business degree, but he can’t continue his education until he gets out of jail. In the meantime, he said, the connections and repeat customers he built up while working have fallen away.

“I’m basically just like a dead body to the world,” Sterling said, adding that the hardest part has been waiting without a clear end date. He asked his attorney for a timeline — any sense of when the district attorney’s office might decide whether to pursue his case — but he knew that nothing was certain in a court system rife with lag and delay.

“Most frustrating is not knowing: how long it’ll be, when I can go to court. I’m just sitting here,” he said. “I don’t got no court date, I don’t know nothing … As of now, I’m just lost in the system.”

When your mental health leaves you stuck in the system: Kahari Thicklen, indicted after 135 days

Kahari Thicklen didn’t know his symptoms — erratic behavior, mood swings — had a name when he entered jail in April 2026.

Thicklen now realizes he has a mental health condition and described the coping mechanisms he plans to rely on to rebuild his life once he’s out of jail: mainly, seeking quiet environments where he can better manage his thoughts and emotions. But even though his mood and behavior stabilized, 24-year-old Thicklen continued to sit in jail waiting on an indictment.

“Because of my mental health, it’s taken time to figure out a good solution,” Thicklen said in September, adding that he was nevertheless surprised to still be sitting in jail after nearly 5 months. “I did think it would take a little shorter time, maybe more like 2 months… but I know [in this legal system], anything can happen.”

While in jail, Thicklen missed his only child’s first birthday in August. He said he tries to call his sister, who has custody of the baby, daily to speak to his son — but it’s not the same as holding him or looking into his eyes, watching him develop from an infant to a toddler.

Equally challenging, Thicklen hasn’t been able to work while in jail; he spoke of the debts he imagines piling up while he sits in his cell, from medical bills to car insurance.

“It’ll take a toll on you,” he said. “Some days you might wake up depressed, some days you might wake up mad, and some days you’ll be okay.”

Before his arrest, Thicklen worked warehouse jobs and most recently drove forklifts for an auto manufacturer. Eventually, he plans to go back to school, ideally in a hands-on trade like culinary school or welding. But he said his first step will be getting a job in a familiar industry and trying to make enough money to clear the hundreds of dollars in debt that’s likely accumulated while he’s been stuck behind bars.

In August, the district attorney’s office indicted Thicklen on only one of the three charges he was initially arrested for, and declined to act on the remaining allegations. Because prosecutors are not legally required to dismiss them, those charges could linger on his record forever.

“In their minds, it’s not their problem to clean up his record,” Thicklen’s attorney said in September. “But a kid who had a mental health episode does not need to be here, sitting in one of the most dangerous jails in the state.”

Thicklen has since been moved to another facility, with a trial date scheduled for March 2027, according to his lawyer and court records.

When asked about the first thing he’ll do whenever he gets out, Thicklen said: “Call my job and try to get back on the schedule.” But he acknowledged there was no guarantee his old employer would take him back after so many months off the job.

“If I can’t go back there, I’ll go somewhere else,” he said resolutely, before pausing. “I just hope it doesn’t take too long.

This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system.

It is the most decorated air mission in U.S. history and yet many Americans today know nothing about it.

Best-selling author Adam Makos has corrected that oversight with his riveting new book about Operation Tidal Wave. Those involved received five Medals of Honor, 56 Distinguished Service Crosses and more than 1,700 Distinguished Flying Crosses — one for each man who flew on the mission.

Mississippians may best know Makos for his book, “Devotion,” which told the Korean War story of the friendship between Navy Lt. Tom Hudner, who passed up Harvard University to fly for his country, and Ensign Jesse Brown, a Hattiesburg native who became the Navy’s first Black carrier pilot. The book was adapted into a 2022 film for Columbia Pictures.

The author’s latest book, “Tidal Wave: The Pilots, the Princess, and the Enemy Ace,” tells the story of one of the most dangerous air missions during World War II — sending B-24 Liberator bombers to blow up Romanian refineries that fueled Adolf Hitler’s armies.

But the rest of the plan sounded suicidal: have the B-24s fly as low as 50 to 100 feet to bomb the Ploesti oil complex.

The lumbering B-24s usually carried out attacks from 20,000 feet to avoid anti-aircraft fire, but in this case, Allied leaders wanted the pilots to blow up the refineries from an extremely low altitude in hopes of crippling Hitler’s war machine.

The leaders thought they would surprise the soldiers in Nazi-controlled Romania, but when the B-24s flew in, the soldiers were far from surprised and began firing immediately.

The book includes a host of memorable characters from these courageous aviators to Romania’s top fighter ace to a real-life princess living in the war-torn land, and the improbable story leads to an improbable ending as well.

Nearly a decade ago, Makos and his team began looking to see if any of the more than 1,700 men involved in the operation were still alive. The only survivor they could find was Ernie Poulson, the copilot on the bomber that crash-landed on the princess’ estate. 

“A copilot isn’t just any crew member,” Makos said in an interview. “He literally had his hands on the controls of the bomber and a hand in the fate of all aboard.

“But would he talk to us? And did his memory still hold the story?

“When we reached out to Ernie Poulson, he was 97 years old but still sharp and spry. He’d risen to the rank of colonel in the Air Force and afterward became a professor at the University of Utah.”

When Makos asked Poulson if he would talk to them, the World War II hero replied, “Come on out. My door is open.”

At that moment, Makos said, “We knew we had a book there. And not only that, but Ernie had written his own memoir of the events that was never published.”

Finding a 97-year-old eyewitness to one of the greatest events in military history “was like winning the lottery,” Makos said. “And that was nine years ago.”

There’s only one reason “you spend this long on a story,” he said. “It’s just that good.”

This review was published in partnership with the Clarion Ledger.

Jerry Mitchell grew up surrounded by aviation. His father was a Top Gun pilot in the Navy during the early days of the Vietnam War. Mitchell is the author of “Race Against Time” and now serves as senior investigative reporter for Mississippi Today.

Mississippi voters will decide today who will fill a U.S. Senate seat, four U.S. House seats, two state House seats, numerous judgeships and several local races or referendums.

The federal midterm elections will determine control of both chambers of Congress, and Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race is being watched nationally as Republicans and Democrats battle across the country.

Mississippi voters have returned about 2.5 times as many absentee ballots as they had at this point in the 2022 midterms. But there was no Senate race on the ballot in 2022, and the numbers remain below the last presidential race.

As of Monday, circuit clerks’ offices had received 116,453 absentee ballots, according to the Secretary of State’s office. At the same point in 2022, the day before that election, they had received 46,120.

The absentee ballot count this year is still below the 2024 federal election cycle, but voter turnout usually increases in presidential election years. At this point in the 2024 election, 197,903 absentee ballots had been received.

In-person absentee voting ended at noon Saturday, Oct. 31. Mail-in absentee ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, Nov. 3, but they can be received within five business days, by Nov. 10.

Mississippi Today readers can follow the races live as results come in. You can also read our election guide for more context on the elections and our FAQ for answers to frequently asked questions about voting.

READ MORE: Hyde-Smith and Colom make final pitches in Mississippi Senate midterm race

Polls in Mississippi were open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday, and people in line at 7 p.m. were supposed to be allowed to stay and cast a ballot.

All Mississippi voters are required to present a photo ID. If you do not present an acceptable form of photo ID, you are entitled to cast an affidavit ballot, but must then present an ID at your local circuit clerk’s office within five business days. For voter ID information or help obtaining valid identification, call 1-800-829-6786.

To find your polling location, view sample ballots and see who your current officeholders are, go the the secretary of state’s My Election Day page.

You can check your voter registration status through this portal on the Secretary of State’s website. For your circuit clerk’s address and contact information, go to the secretary of state’s County Election Information page here.

Those who wish to report an issue with voting can call the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Elections hotline at 1-800-829-6786 or email ElectionsAnswers@sos.ms.gov.

Read more about Tuesday’s races in Mississippi:

SENATE: Mississippi midterms: Colom trying to capitalize on economic discontent. Hyde-Smith trying to tie him to far left

HOUSE 1st DISTRICT: Mississippi midterms: Trump weighs heavily in 1st District contest between Kelly, Johnson

HOUSE 2nd DISTRICT: Mississippi midterms: Thompson takes on repeat 2nd District Republican challenger as redistricting fight looms

HOUSE 3rd DISTRICT: Mississippi midterms: In traditionally red 3rd District, Guest faces political newcomer farmer from Shubuta

HOUSE 4th DISTRICT: Mississippi midterms: In 4th District race, Ezell touts FEMA and Coast Guard wins. Hulum bets on Trump backlash