OurTupelo

Jason Reid’s day starts at 5 a.m.

He rolls out of bed, lets his dog out and drinks his first cup of coffee. After making sure his kids’ water bottles are full, Reid walks to nearby Lewisburg Elementary School. In the crisp air and dark morning, he starts a school bus, waiting for it to warm up.

Reid, a physical education teacher in DeSoto County School District, has been teaching for 17 years. But in 2019, he also started moonlighting as a bus driver to earn extra money.

This is a reality for educators in Mississippi, which has the nation’s lowest teacher pay. 

According to the National Education Association, the average teacher salary in Mississippi is $53,704. That’s $15,000 less than what the Economic Policy Institute says is needed to comfortably support a single parent, one child household in the Jackson metro area, which is $68,772. In DeSoto County, where Reid lives, that cost is even higher — $76,612 a year.

Even though some districts pay teachers more than the state minimum, without a spouse making higher pay, some educators say they have to keep second jobs and cut corners to make ends meet. 

Some promising young teachers — and even others with years of experience — are considering moving to other states where they are better compensated. 

Mississippi is up against a critical teacher shortage. Nearly 3,000 teacher jobs are vacant across the state, according to a 2024 survey conducted by the Mississippi Department of Education. Educators say the biggest contributing factor to those vacancies is low pay, according to the Mississippi Professional Educators’ annual survey.

Teacher vacancies mean bigger classrooms and less individualized time, which deeply impact student learning. Research shows that higher pay attracts quality teachers and incentivizes them to stay. 

On the heels of nationally recognized academic achievement in the state’s public schools, teachers say they deserve more. 

And legislators say they’re listening. The issue will likely be a hot topic during the 2026 legislative session. State leaders, such as Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, have indicated they’ll focus on raising teacher pay next year, and the Senate Education Committee met about the topic in October. House Speaker Jason White said this summer that his chamber will likely include all of its education policy, including school choice measures, in an omnibus bill next session.

Educators fear their salaries will get tied up in the controversial legislation.

“Teachers should not be held hostage and used as political pawns in order to gain support for another policy issue,” said Kelly Riley, executive director of Mississippi Professional Educators. “It appears to be another sign of disrespect for our educators and teaching profession as a whole.”

Legislators passed the last meaningful teacher pay raise in 2022, a historic increase of $5,140 on average per year. But teachers say that raise was almost immediately rendered null by health insurance premium increases and inflation.

And the retirement benefits that previously kept educators in the profession were changed earlier this year, when state legislators overhauled the public employee retirement system. Teachers who start after March 1, 2026, will receive fewer benefits than their peers. 

It’s a bleak outlook that young educators, such as second-year teacher Vivienne Diaz in Jackson, have to reckon with.

“I would like to stay in Mississippi, but after I finish my master’s degree, the amount of money I’d be making as a teacher …  after all these hours of work,” she said, “it’s just not worth it.”

‘A double kick to public school teachers’

Princess Thompson can smile about it now, but she remembers feeling shocked when she received her first paycheck 20 years ago. Her annual $24,000 salary translated to $1,300 a month.

“I asked my principal, ‘Is everything OK?’” said Thompson, who teaches music at an elementary school in Madison. “Me and another first-year teacher were like, ‘What happened here?’ Our principal laughed.”

Now, two decades into her career, her pay is better. But teaching has also gotten harder. Kids are entering kindergarten with learning difficulties that should have been addressed in preschool. She said that this generation of children, raised around screens, is difficult to keep engaged.

On the Gulf Coast, Carrie Bartlett’s older students are also easily distracted, and she reports more behavior issues in recent years. Without commensurate pay, it’s increasingly frustrating to deal with, she said.

Bartlett has been teaching social studies at Long Beach High School for 15 years, and her husband teaches at Long Beach Middle School. With a daughter in her sophomore year of high school and a son in college, their finances are tight.

When Bartlett and her colleagues commiserate, they echo the same sentiments about the job — they love being educators, but they wish they were getting compensated as professionals.

“I think that teaching is an important job, and it’s rewarding intrinsically,” Bartlett said. “I just wish it was more extrinsically rewarding and that the state had higher appreciation for us doing this job, educating the state’s future.” 

Despite talks about raising teacher pay next year, Bartlett doesn’t feel appreciated. Adding insult to injury are state leaders’ discussions about expanding school choice, or policies to fund education outside of public schools, she said. 

“Pay raises should continue regularly and not be attached to political footballs, which is what I fear will happen this year,” she said. “It’s a double kick to public school teachers.”

Rising health insurance costs

The worst part about being a teacher? According to Reid — and educators across the state surveyed by the teachers association — it’s the health insurance premiums. 

When the state raised teacher pay in 2022, the monthly cost for teachers to insure themselves and their families was around $700. 

Four years later, that’s up to about $900 a month, or $10,800 a year. It’s an annual increase of $2,400. For a teacher with 10 years of experience and a master’s degree, that’s more than a fifth of their salary. At the same time, deductibles have gone up.

Rising premiums are a major part of what’s driving teachers away from the sector, said Megan Boren, who leads teacher workforce policy efforts for the Southern Regional Education Board, a nonprofit focused on improving education. In October, Boren spoke to Mississippi senators about challenges facing the education system nationwide and in the South. During that presentation, she said health insurance premiums have gone down in the region, largely due to reductions in two Southern states with some of the highest premiums. 

In Mississippi and most of the region, costs keep going up.

“Typically, older and more experienced teachers are the ones who have a family to cover,” she told Mississippi Today. “When you factor in premiums for a family, those teachers’ net pay has decreased because of that significantly increased cost.”

Reid has had cancer twice. During his second round of treatment in 2022, his deductible was $13,000. He met the deductible early on, but still spent a huge chunk of money, he said. And as a teacher, there’s not an option to take paid medical leave.

“We go on vacation … we’re not living paycheck to paycheck,” he said. “But we can’t live the lifestyle a lot of neighbors would live.”

Reid’s wife also drives a school bus to supplement their income. Their kids are limited to one sport each. The family used just one car to get around for a long time. And for a year, they made do with a mostly broken washer. 

It’s not what a 17-year classroom veteran deserves, he said. 

After a quarter century in the classroom, Julie Price, a third grade reading and social studies teacher in Pearl, is getting paid less than her son in his first year as a civil engineer at the Mississippi Department of Transportation. 

“I’m proud of him, and I know the job is challenging and complicated,” she said. “But that was a slap in the face.” 

Though Price is too invested in her life in Mississippi to leave, temptation lingers. In her home state of Alabama, just a few hours away, she’d be paid almost $10,000 more each year, she said.  

Price’s husband died from COVID-19 complications in January 2021. Abruptly going from two salaries to one, right as her son was headed to college, was hard — and still is, she said. 

Recently, Price had to renew her car tag, a $300 expense that she didn’t budget for. She and her son only eat out once a week. And without meeting her deductible, going to the doctor for continuing neck issues has been expensive. 

“If you don’t have some cushion in there, you’d wipe your money out,” Price said. “Then how would you live?”

To attract quality people to the profession in Mississippi, Reid said, pay raises need to be frequent and substantial.

“Politicians can’t raise pay once and take three to four years off in between election cycles because these pay raises degrade so quickly,” he said. 

“If we want our schools to be great, we’ve got to pay for that.”

Can Mississippi teachers afford to stay?

Vivienne Diaz, a 23-year-old who teaches juniors and seniors at Jackson’s Jim Hill High School, is at the dawn of her career. 

What she sees ahead makes her nervous. 

Diaz, the daughter of a teacher, didn’t go in blind. She knew her pay wouldn’t reflect the hours she’d spend outside of the classroom, planning her lessons and sponsoring a club. With her free time, Diaz helps plan educational programming and teaches at her synagogue on Sundays, which brings in around $200 a month. 

“My senior year, I told my mom, ‘I’ll never be a teacher. I see how you get treated,’” she said. “It is just as difficult as I knew it was going to be.”

But she loves mentoring her students, getting to watch them bloom and being part of the process. That’s why she became a teacher, despite the challenges. 

Still, when Diaz finishes her master’s degree in teaching, it doesn’t financially make sense for her to stay, no matter how much she loves teaching. She’s looking into schools in other states or a job in Mississippi in another field.

Diaz is exactly the kind of person Mississippi leaders want to keep around — a young, smart professional who might make her home and raise her family here. A pay raise is the bare minimum state leaders could do to keep people like Diaz in Mississippi, said Boren of SREB. 

“It’s really important for state leaders to recognize that the work here to help kind of restore faith in the profession, restore those wanting to come in and stay in the profession, it’s a comprehensive approach,” Boren said. “There’s not one silver bullet. Increasing pay alone is not going to cover it. 

“That’s not always what our leaders want to hear. They want to hear what’s the solution and how to fix it now, and I sympathize with that, but the solution is a comprehensive plan and a comprehensive investment in our educators and in the profession as a whole.”

Diaz might reconsider if lawmakers pass a substantial raise, she said. But even then, she’d think twice.

“I love watching my students learn and develop and become new people,” Diaz said. “But just because I have that heart doesn’t mean I don’t deserve that good paycheck.”

STARKVILLE — The 124-year-old football rivalry between Ole Miss and Mississippi State has a new subplot that could very well overshadow what is a high-stakes game in its own right.

The sixth-ranked Rebels (10-1, 6-1 SEC, No. 7 CFP) could lock up a spot in the College Football Playoff with a victory Friday over the Bulldogs (5-6, 1-6) in the Egg Bowl — only to have their celebration muted if coach Lane Kiffin announces after the game that he has decided to leave the program for another suitor.

During the past two weeks, Kiffin family members have traveled from Oxford to both Gainesville, Florida, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while Ole Miss has sought to fend off efforts by Florida and LSU to lure away their coach.

Kiffin and Mississippi athletics director Keith Carter had a meeting last Friday where they reportedly discussed the coach’s future. Carter emerged from that with a public statement that Kiffin was focused on the Egg Bowl and a decision on his future would be announced by Saturday.

The sixth-year Rebels coach has offered little clarity since.

“Keith and I have a great relationship. We communicate daily on a lot of things and I love it here. It’s been amazing,” Kiffin said. “We’re in a season that’s the greatest run in the history of Ole Miss at this point, having never been at this point.

“It’s really exciting. So, I’m just living in the moment,” Kiffin continued. “And our players are, too, you know? I see their joy … about where they’re at and have so much on the line. It’s just awesome to be a part of.”

This is the second time that the rivalry game has been shadowed by Kiffin’s potential exit from Oxford.

In 2022, Kiffin was linked to an opening at Auburn. His Rebels lost to the Bulldogs at home, 24-22, and wound up 8-5, but Kiffin signed an extension with Ole Miss.

Going for gold

A trophy known as the Golden Egg has gone to the winner of this matchup since 1927 — a year after a brawl broke out in Starkville after Ole Miss fans attempted to take down the goal posts.

There has been plenty more vitriol between them since, regardless of what else was at stake for either team.

On Friday, the stakes are higher for the Rebels, but the Bulldogs have a chance to extend their season as well because one more victory would make them bowl eligible in coach Jeff Lebby’s second season.

“We have a bunch of staff members that played here and played inside this game, understand what it’s about,” Lebby said. “The more you can talk about that part of it and guys that have come before and played in between the white lines in this game, they have the ability to communicate to our guys that haven’t been here long and don’t know the history as some of the others.

“It’s great for our entire football team to understand the urgency of what’s at stake,” Lebby added. “You see the guys that are from this state and have played in this game, there’s great pride in how we do what we go do on Friday.”

Recent dominance

Ole Miss has had the better of this rivalry in recent years, winning the past two and four of the past five.

But Kiffin, who had Lebby on his Ole Miss staff earlier this decade, has been impressed by the Bulldogs’ improvement this season.

“Lebby’s done a great job,” Kiffin said, calling him “one of the best offensive minds in football.”

Meanwhile, Kiffin declined to discuss his future this week and said his players have not appeared distracted by the uncertainty surrounding their coach.

“Our team has been very focused since noise has been out there,” Kiffin said. “It’s a different generation … They all can leave every year. A lot of that is financially based. And so, they don’t think the traditional way.”

A man who was brutalized by Rankin County Sheriff’s deputies during a traffic stop filed a federal lawsuit against the county Tuesday evening. 

Alan Schmidt, who filed the lawsuit, said Rankin County deputies beat and sexually assaulted him in late 2022. Three of the involved deputies were sentenced to federal and state prison terms last year, in part for their role in the incident. They are also defendants in the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, which represents one side of a legal argument, Schmidt alleged that the department was responsible for a pattern of misconduct by deputies and jail guards, listing several other lawsuits against deputies and county jail guards. 

While he’s seeking an unspecified amount of compensation for his own pain and suffering, he said he is also filing the lawsuit on behalf of everyone who has been abused by the sheriff’s department.

“There are many things that go on in this county that have gone on for many years,” Schmidt said. “I want justice for everyone that has been wronged.”

The department did not respond to a request for comment. 

In December 2022, deputies pulled Schmidt from his car and beat him while he was handcuffed, the lawsuit alleges. One deputy pressed his arm into an anthill, and former narcotics investigator Christian Dedmon fired a gun near Schmidt’s head while interrogating him about the location of stolen tools he believed Schmidt had taken. 

Dedmon punched Schmidt and shocked him several times with Deputy Hunter Elward’s Taser, then pulled out his own genitals and attempted to rub them in Schmidt’s face, the lawsuit claims.

Dedmon pleaded guilty to violating Schimdt’s constitutional rights, but has since denied the sexual assault. Former deputies Hunter Elward and Daniel Opdyke pleaded guilty to failing to stop the beating, according to court documents.  

The deputies also pleaded guilty to a separate late-night raid of the home of Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, two Black men who were tortured and called racial slurs for hours by five deputies and a Richland police officer in early 2023. 

Schmidt’s lawsuit is the latest in a series of allegations from people who say they were brutalized by Rankin County sheriff’s deputies and guards at the county jail, which is run by the sheriff’s department. 

An investigation by Mississippi Today and The New York Times found that the Rankin County deputies, some of whom referred to themselves as the Goon Squad, had been torturing people they suspected of using drugs for nearly two decades. 

The Justice Department launched an investigation into a potential pattern of civil rights violations at the department last year. That investigation is ongoing. 

Dedmon has since said publicly that the abuses he participated in were part of a widespread practice at the department, where deputies would routinely enter homes illegally, beat people and humiliate them to extract information and scare criminal suspects out of the county.

A recent investigation by the publications found that for years, guards and administrators at the Rankin County jail brutalized the inmates in their care, sometimes enlisting other inmates with special privileges, called trusties, to help them beat inmates who broke jail rules. 

Schmidt’s attorney, Trent Walker, who has represented several people who say they were brutalized by the sheriff’s department, said Schmidt’s case proves the entrenched culture of violence at the agency. 

“The case puts the lie to any claim that what happened to Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker was isolated,” he said. “ I want the citizens of Rankin County, specifically, to be able to look at this case and the other cases and say that it’s enough, it’s time for a fresh start.”

Mississippi Today is grateful to announce the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism, a generous gift honoring the life of the young journalist for which it is named. 

The fund, provided by her parents, Melissa Stanza and Alan Haselhorst, will place an emerging journalist in a yearlong fellowship on the health team at Mississippi Today, beginning in 2026. Application information is available at this link for the fellowship, which offers journalists an immersive experience with the opportunity to report on issues including mental health, maternal health and underserved communities.

Sarah was 31 when she died in 2024 in South Carolina.

She was a native of St. Louis, Missouri and worked in health care before becoming a reporter with a passion for health journalism. She worked at the Clarion Ledger in Jackson from 2021 to 2022, where she covered the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Mississippians and the health care system, among other pressing health topics. 

“Sarah dedicated so much of her energy and effort to shedding light on and sharing the truth about the realities too many Mississippians face when attempting to access health care, including mental health care,” said Laura Santhanam, Mississippi Today’s health editor. “It is our honor to carry her memory forward with this fellowship and to help early-career journalists continue that important work so more people in Mississippi and beyond can get the help they need.”

A graduate of the University of Missouri’s journalism school, Sarah was committed to truth and persistent in her search for it.

And though Sarah was opinionated, “she made such an effort in her reporting to be fair, to not put her perspective in there, and to give everybody a voice,” Stanza said.  

After leaving Mississippi in 2022 and moving to Hilton Head, South Carolina, to report on climate at The Island Packet, Sarah worked on a story about erosion of a barrier island owned by the University of South Carolina. The island was given to the university with the condition it remain untouched, save for the building of a lab, and that it be used for scientific and educational purposes. 

When Sarah was told she couldn’t visit the island as part of her reporting, she pushed back – and got her first inkling that there was more under the surface. 

She kept digging after publishing the first story. She interviewed the family of Philip Rhodes, the owner of Pritchards Island who donated it to the university decades ago. She also visited the island. Her months-long reporting uncovered disrepair and underfunding, in addition to a little known fact: that the deeds associated with the gift stipulated that if the University of South Carolina did not abide by its rules, Pritchards would go to the University of Georgia, Rhodes’ alma mater. 

A year after Sarah reported that story and others about the island, the South Carolina Legislature, with the support of the governor, passed a bill awarding $500,000 a year in recurring funding for Pritchards Island. The money allowed the university to revive its research efforts, which continue to this day.

A rocking chair bearing a plaque now sits on the front porch of the Beaufort College Building on the historic campus of the University of South Carolina-Beaufort. It reads: “In grateful memory of Sarah Yelena Haselhorst whose writing helped save Pritchards Island.”

The reporting by Sarah had the same kind of impact the journalists at Mississippi Today strive to achieve. The fellow will be urged to work in the same spirit as Sarah: to dig deeper, be persistent and uncover the unknown.

Stanza and Haselhorst said their daughter spoke highly of Mississippi Today when she was working in the state. The respect she held for the newsroom led them to fund a fellowship in her honor. 

“Sarah did not give her praise lightly,” Stanza said. “So when she said something was good, she really believed it was good.” 

A note Sarah wrote to readers and friends when she left Mississippi showed how deeply she was touched by her time in the state and the people she met. 

She wrote beautifully of the tragic, including the COVID-19 death of a 13-year-old girl, and the joyful, including the 100th birthday celebration of a Mississippi Delta native.    

“I hiked up to the Delta and saw high cotton, ate barbecue at a 97-year-old staple and met the bravest woman I’d ever spoken with. I went down to Biloxi to lie on the hottest sand my feet had ever encountered. Then ate some damn good fish tacos,” Sarah wrote. “I spent time with nurses, farmers, Freedom Riders, activists, people experiencing homelessness, people with fancy titles and those who were too young to talk.”

She also wrote: “The Delta is more breathtaking than you’d ever imagine. The politics more divisive. The heat and humidity more cloying. But at the crux of it all are the people. Mississippians are gracious. They share. They’re natural-born storytellers. And the people I spoke to on a regular basis craved good change.”

Stanza said Sarah always longed to return to Mississippi and to health journalism.

“It was her dream,” she said. “And in a way, now, she’s doing it.” 

If you would like to contribute to the Sarah Yelena Haselhorst Fund for Health Journalism, you may do so by donating here. Please include Haselhorst Fellowship as your reason for giving. For questions and additional information, please contact Mary Margaret White, Mississippi Today CEO & Executive Director at mwhite@mississippitoday.org. 

The stage is set for another classic Egg Bowl, but the stakes have been raised substantially for both Ole Miss and Mississippi State. The Cleveland boys discuss scenarios for the game and the future of Ole Miss football should Lane Kiffin leave for Baton Rouge.

Stream all episodes here.

Mississippi’s private contract for prison medical services has come under growing scrutiny this year as complaints mount about care and oversight. 

The allegations are nothing new. Mississippi has cycled through five private prison health vendors over the past three decades amid recurring concerns about staffing shortages, weak oversight, unpaid bills to hospitals and inadequate care provided to patients. One report published nearly two decades ago by the Legislature’s watchdog committee echoes many of the questions raised by state lawmakers this year. 

Meanwhile, Mississippi Today’s Behind Bars, Beyond Care series has documented alleged routine denial of health care in Mississippi prisons: potentially thousands of people living with hepatitis C going without treatment, an untreated broken arm that resulted in amputation and delayed cancer screenings one woman said led to a terminal diagnosis. One ex-corrections official said people are experiencing widespread medical neglect in Mississippi’s prisons. 

The Legislature appropriated $690,000 this year for monitoring and review of its current prison health contract, held by Kansas-based VitalCore Health Strategies, Inc. A report is due to legislators by Dec. 15. 

Mississippi Today took a closer look at Mississippi’s contracts for medical services and asked experts what changes can be made to strengthen them. 

How long has Mississippi relied on private medical contractors?

Incarcerated people are one of the few groups in the United States with a constitutional right to health care. In the 1990s, faced with frequent lawsuits filed by incarcerated people, consent decrees and ballooning prison populations, an industry of private companies sprung up to shoulder the state’s responsibility of providing health care to people in prison. 

The Mississippi Department of Corrections began contracting out its medical services in 1998 after years of providing health care itself. The University of Mississippi Medical Center was the first entity chosen to provide the services, and since then, the department has held contracts with four other companies. 

Mississippi selected VitalCore for a three-year contract worth over $357 million in 2024. The company won out over Wexford Health Sources and Centurion of Mississippi, both companies that have held the contract for prison medical services in the past, in a competitive bidding process. VitalCore was awarded over $315 million in emergency, no-bid state contracts from 2020 to 2024.

VitalCore holds correctional health contracts in several other states, including Massachusetts, Michigan and Delaware, and it has faced legal battles and scrutiny in other jurisdictions. 

VitalCore was sued last year by its former chief officer medical of operations in Vermont, who alleged the company forged his signature on policy documents and fired him after he raised alarm bells about conditions in the state’s prisons. A 2019 lawsuit alleges that a 48-year-old with documented heart problems collapsed and died in a New Mexico county jail after VitalCore staff failed to properly monitor his condition. And significant understaffing of medical positions in Massachusetts prisons led VitalCore to pay back $1.4 to $1.7 million a month to the state, according to reporting by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.

Dan Mistak, the director of health care initiatives for justice-involved populations at Community Oriented Correctional Health Services, described the process of states contracting corrections medical companies as a “revolving door.” 

When a new company is awarded the contract, it often rehires many of the same staff members. If controversy arises over the quality of care or another issue, the company carries the blame and either receives more money from the state to fulfill its obligations or leaves. A new company then rotates in. 

“Rinse, cycle, repeat, over and over again,” Mistak said. 

Centurion, a company previously tasked with providing health care to Mississippi’s prisoners, terminated its contract with the corrections department in 2020 amid an ongoing legal battle with prisoners, arguing that the state’s failure to invest in infrastructure and correctional staffing prevented the company from performing its duties. Centurion was brought in under an emergency contract, like VitalCore, in 2015.

The prior contractor, Wexford, was accused of funneling consulting fees to a former Mississippi state legislator, Cecil McCrory, who pleaded guilty to bribing a Mississippi corrections commissioner, Chris Epps, in exchange for Epps’ efforts to steer state prison contracts. The state collected $4 million from the company in a lawsuit. 

How have prison health care costs changed under the new contract? 

Mississippi’s per capita spending on prison health care has risen steadily over the last 25 years, according to reports by the Legislature’s watchdog branch, the Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Committee. 

In 2000, the state spent $5.07 per day on health care for people in its custody. In 2024, the cost was three times as high – $16.03 per day. In recent years, spending on basic medical care has risen starkly while the costs of specialty care have grown more slowly or dropped. 

Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain attributed the rise in costs to inmates overusing medical services. Speaking at a legislative budget hearing Sept. 24, he likened the business of providing medical services to people in Mississippi’s prisons to caring for animals.

“It just goes up, and these inmates go to the doctor for everything,” he said. “And the problem is, it’s like being, I hate to say it, sometimes it’s like being a veterinarian to say what really, what’s wrong with you.”

The Department of Corrections did not respond to questions about why costs are rising or what Cain meant. 

Marc Stern, a faculty member at the University of Washington and former assistant secretary for health care at the Washington Department of Corrections who serves as a medical adviser for the National Sheriffs’ Association and American Jail Association, said the rise in basic care costs may be the result of rising costs for salaries and medications. 

He said health care in jails and prisons in the U.S. is often not funded as well as it needs to be to ensure that people receive quality care.

“As a result, you get what you pay for,” Stern said. “… Is it the fault of the company or is it the fault of the legislature? I guess that’s a philosophical question.” 

Mississippi’s prison population is growing older, which can result in more costly care. The portion of prisoners aged 55 or older has grown by about 10% in the past 20 years, accounting for 12% of the population in 2019. 

Mississippi has one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the world — 661 people per 100,000. About 19,500 people are currently incarcerated in state prisons. 

How does a fixed-rate model of health spending shape the care prisoners receive? 

VitalCore is paid a flat rate adjusted to reflect the number of people in custody, regardless of their medical needs. It is required to provide onsite care, including mental health, dental, dialysis, laboratory and optometry care, and cover the costs of offsite care at hospitals or for specialty care. In the first year of the contract, VitalCore is paid about $115 million, with adjustments of $53.54 for each inmate below 19,000 or above 19,600. The payment rates grow each year. 

This means that if a contractor spends less to provide health care to people in state custody, it reaps a larger profit. But, it loses money if it exceeds cost projections.

The fixed-rate model is more predictable for the state than other models, like reimbursing a contractor for the care they provide. While the state won’t see the savings if less is spent on medical services, it also won’t be required to pay extra if more is spent. It is the most common way to structure prison health contracts among all states, according to a report from Pew Charitable Trust published in 2015. 

This model can, in theory, reward preventive care measures that keep people healthy and reduce expensive interventions. But it can also encourage delayed or inadequate care, since contractors can save money by limiting the care they provide. Strong monitoring is the key to curbing these risks, experts said. 

Because about 95% of people will be released from prison at some point, communities absorb the consequences of delayed or inadequate care in the long term through higher emergency room use, worsening population health or infectious disease spread, Mistak said. 

This can burden hospitals and state safety-net programs, like Medicaid and Medicare, down the road. 

“Those costs are going to be borne by the state and the community,” he said.  

What if a company’s bid isn’t enough? 

In a competitive process for prison health care vendors, the company with the lowest bid usually wins the contract. But when correctional care providers propose a low budget to stand out during the procurement process, they sometimes can not afford the costs of care they proposed and still turn a profit, Mistak said. 

In some cases, contractors will return to government entities that contracted them to ask for more money. This has played out in Missouri and a county jail in Wisconsin in recent years. 

“You end up paying more anyway for a lot of these contracts,” Mistak said. 

That’s what happened in Mississippi. In May, MDOC requested $4 million for a “deficit appropriation” – money to cover a shortfall – for VitalCore, according to House Corrections Committee Chairwoman Becky Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven.

How do staffing clawbacks work?

If VitalCore does not meet staffing requirements outlined in the contract, the company must pay the corrections department back the average hourly wage for each unfilled hour of work, plus a 20% fee for employee benefits, according to the contract. 

“We’re really good at that,” Cain said Sept. 24. “We take back from the money that they didn’t spend on hiring people. They don’t get to keep it.” 

He said the department has used funds recouped from VitalCore for unmet staffing requirements to pay for improvements to buildings and infrastructure. 

But returning the salaries of unfilled positions isn’t enough, Stern said. To truly motivate companies to fill the position, they must face a financial consequence beyond the value of the vacant position. 

“Those penalties have to be stiff enough to be more than what the vendor saves from not filling the position,” he said. 

Why have legislators said VitalCore is ‘slow paying’ its bills to vendors? 

At the Sept. 24 budget hearing, Sen. Daniel Sparks, a Republican from Belmont, said that VitalCore delaying payments to vendors, including the University of Mississippi Medical Center, has been a “continual issue.” 

Currie told Mississippi Today that Bolivar Medical Center in Cleveland, about 25 miles from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, has faced similar challenges. 

Neither hospital, the Department of Corrections or VitalCore responded to a request for comment. 

Cain said Sept. 24 the issue was due in part to hospitals billing VitalCore at rates higher than the agreed-upon costs for prison medical services. Deputy Commissioner of Administration and Finance Derrick Garner said the agency is monitoring the issue and aims to increase oversight of the payments.

Sparks said that VitalCore could pay the agreed-upon rate rather than waiting to negotiate rates. 

“But to not pay the bill at all, and let the bill get into the millions of dollars when that’s a state entity that’s supposed to be paid by a state entity and the intermediary is holding up the payment, it doesn’t settle well,” Sparks said. 

What kind of oversight does Mississippi use to monitor the contract? 

The Department of Corrections performs oversight of its contract with VitalCore. Monitoring tasks include reviewing service levels, quality of care and administrative practices, meeting with VitalCore to address issues, conducting site visits and inspections and reviewing third-party reimbursements, according to the contract. 

The state examining its own contract reduces the costs of bringing in an outside monitor and allows the state more control over what it tracks, said Stern. 

But the quality of monitoring depends on how willing the state is to hold a contractor accountable, and states may be less stringent out of fear that a contractor will bail. 

“The threats of leaving can really make a state gulp,” Mistak said. “…And so sometimes they lay off the gas when it comes to enforcing their own contract.”

The Mississippi Legislature has made several efforts of its own to scrutinize the medical care provided in state prisons. 

The Legislature tasked the health department with studying the challenges of providing health care to people who are incarcerated in 2024, and State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney presented initial findings at the Capitol in January. The health department will produce a report roughly a year from now, including recommendations to MDOC, said spokesperson Greg Flynn. 

This year, the Legislature appropriated funding for the Department of Corrections to monitor and review the medical services contract, with a report due to legislators by Dec. 15. Cain said Sept. 24 that the contract for the report has been finalized. 

MDOC did not respond to questions about who was awarded the contract.

Currie, who has spent the last year probing for answers as to why inmates are getting sicker as the state increases its spending on medical care, said she is curious to see the report’s finding. She authored a failed bill this year that would have tasked the health department with conducting a sweeping review of medical care for people incarcerated in Mississippi at no cost. 

“Yet, we spend $700,000 on a report,” she said to Mississippi Today. 

Does privatizing prison health care make the system better?

Most states contract all or part of their prison health services with private companies. Several states provide their own prison health services through government agencies, like Louisiana.

If a state develops a strong oversight system, they can gain the expertise to manage the contract themselves, said Stern. Providing health care in-house can reduce costs for states, he said, because contractors must make a profit margin and less duplication of services exists between the state and the contractors. 

It also creates more opportunities for continuity between prison health care and community health care, which would make it easier for health providers to care for people when they are released, experts said. 

Some evidence shows that medical services run by government agencies may lead to lower death rates. A 2020 Reuters investigation of more than 500 jails in the U.S. showed that facilities with private healthcare contractors had higher death rates than those run by government agencies. 

Currie said she would like to see prison health care run by the state or a local hospital system, which she said would ensure stronger accountability and quality care. 

“I’m just not able to sit back and watch people die and be treated badly, no matter who they are,” Currie said. 

“…Most of these people are coming out. And the new law is that most of them will come out. And you know, we need them to be healthy and ready to go to work and lower our recidivism rate.”

A system is only as good as the people who use it. 

Two domestic violence tools the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office unveiled three years ago provide the kind of information that could save the lives of victims and the officers who respond, law enforcement leaders say. 

But challenges remain. Adding an incident into the Mississippi Domestic Violence Registry is double the work: One report goes to  the law enforcement department and one goes to the system, said Luke Thompson, former chief of the Byram Police Department who trains officers about how to respond to domestic violence. 

Officers have used the system and the Mississippi Protective Order Registry, but the attorney general’s office is hoping for better participation. 

Thompson and Oxford Police Chief Jeff McCutchen recognize how situations can turn deadly for victims and law enforcement during domestic violence calls. The Officer Down Memorial, a nonprofit that tracks line-of-duty deaths, found that in nearly every state since 1992, officers have died while responding to domestic violence calls. 

Just this year, Missisisppi officers have been killed during domestic violence calls. 

In February, Hinds County Deputy Sgt. Martin Shields Jr. was shot and killed by a man who had shot his own wife and another woman in Terry. The man later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. McComb Police Sgt. Jason Blake died in August while responding to an off-duty request where a man shot and injured a woman before fatally shooting Blake and himself.  

When they are training officers within their department or around the state, leaders like McCutchen and Thompson are able to share how every piece of information they add to the registries can help keep them, other law enforcement officers and the public safer. 

“The more data that you have at your disposal in real time, the better decision you can make and the better outcomes that can come,” said McCutchen, whose department has been using the incident registry since its launch. 

Access to information about prior incidents at the same address, by the same abuser and active protective orders could be used to help corroborate a victim’s story in live time, he said. 

It’s also a chance to build trust by showing victims that officers have prior information, that they can add the current incident to the system, and that if abuse happens again there or somewhere else, someone can look it up, McCutchen said.

Domestic violence prevention through intervention

Mississippi’s law enforcement departments and agencies often have separate systems specific to their local, county or state jurisdictions. Law enforcement can access and submit to federal systems such as the National Incident-Based Reporting System, but that system has limits and data collection only began in 2019. 

Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office used the same electronic platform many officers were already using for motor vehicle crashes, believing that familiarity would lead to more input of information. Her office also has been training officers on how to use the systems. 

As of Jan. 1, officers have logged about 5,400 incidents into the system, according to the attorney general’s office. 

Officers are asked to fill in basics like location and a narrative, but they can also include additional details, including whether children were present at the time, whether the victim is pregnant and diagrams that show any injuries, according to a user guide for the Domestic Violence Registry. 

A way to help prevent domestic violence incidents from turning deadly is through intervention. 

Within the domestic violence registry, the attorney general’s office added a lethality assessment, which is a tool to help determine a person’s risk of being injured or killed by a partner. Officers ask a series of questions to learn about abusive behavior. From there, they connect victims with domestic violence services. 

As chief, Thompson implemented domestic violence response training with domestic violence advocates and educators and used the lethality assessment. In 2018, the first full year of using the training and assessment, he said the department reduced the number of domestic response calls by over 30%. An additional 25% reduction happened the next year. 

The numbers made Thompson curious about what changed. What he found were fewer calls to the same addresses. He said that earlier intervention and referral of victims to service groups helped reduce calls in the future. 

To save additional time for officers, Thompson started an app that streamlines the lethality assessment and automates data sharing between law enforcement and their area domestic violence service provider. It’s currently used by several Mississippi law enforcement agencies, he said. 

Tracking protective orders

Another domestic violence-related system by the attorney general’s office is the Mississippi Protective Order Registry, which is among several statewide systems across the country. 

Through a federal system, the National Crime Information Center Protection Order File, law enforcement agencies and the military submit protection orders. 

Mississippi’s registry contains court-issued civil and criminal protective orders. These can be temporary or long-term orders a person  sought and a judge approved, or from a court-ordered protection in a criminal case. 

So far for this year, nearly 600 domestic abuse protection orders have been entered into the registry, according to the attorney general’s office. 

Clerks add full protective orders to the system. A number of players from the justice system, including judges, law enforcement and prosecutors, have access to the registry and can use it to tell if protective orders are being followed. 

Clerks fill in basic information such as conditions of the protective order and which judge approved it, according to a user guide for the order registry. Additionally, once law enforcement gives access, clerks can add updated bond conditions and case disposition information to incidents logged in the domestic violence registry. 

The domestic violence incident and protective order systems are not accessible to the public because they contain investigative law enforcement material and may involve an open investigation or ongoing litigation, according to the attorney general’s office.   

McCutchen, the Oxford chief, said the protective order registry is similarly helpful because it gives officers information. In some cases, that may be entire copies of protective orders detailing who is protected and the terms of the order to be followed. 

If someone is found to have violated the protection order – broken conditions of no abuse, no contact and distance from the protected person – police then could call the judge who issued the order, who may ask for the person to be brought to court. Violation of a protection order is a misdemeanor that can lead to up to six months in jail and/or a fine. 

A protective order database can be helpful in a community like Oxford, where people from Mississippi and other states attend school and visitors come for games and other events, McCutchen said. 

Thompson said if service providers or advocates know someone has a protective order, they can help the person make plans to stay safe. That could mean crafting an exit strategy, saving money for when they leave an abusive partner or getting a new cellphone. 

“How are we going to make this piece of paper effective for you?” he said about protective orders and assistance from a domestic violence organization. 

“You don’t just run,” Thompson said. “You have resources.” 

That whooshing sound you’ll soon hear coming from High Street is no cause for alarm. It’s just all the oxygen being sucked out of the Capitol by next year’s legislative bugaboo: school choice, or private school vouchers, or “education freedom,” depending on your worldview.

A pattern has firmed up nicely with Mississippi’s Legislature under the current Republican House and Senate leadership. And so far, this pattern has tended to gum up the works and kill off many initiatives at the Capitol. This year, it resulted in the Legislature accidentally passing a flawed, sea-change tax cut bill and ending its regular session without being able to pass a state budget.

The pattern:

House Speaker Jason White and his closest adherents, months out from the coming year’s legislative session, announce their main priorities and get to work with hearings and forums, to set the market when lawmakers gavel in in January. 

And these House priorities always include at least one doozy: Medicaid expansion White’s first year, then eliminating the income tax, and now, school choice. 

Meanwhile Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and his Senate leaders react to the House’s pre-session maneuvering with something along the lines of, “Um … yeah. We’ll take a look at all that. We’re not so sure we want to do that … but, we’ll see, maybe.”

Per the new pattern, Hosemann, usually well after White has announced the House priorities and with much less actual groundwork or public-facing hearings and such, comes out with something of a Senate priorities list.

And as the session nears, White and Hosemann don’t just appear like they’re from different political parties, but from different planes of existence.

Hosemann said he wants to focus on student absenteeism, raising teacher pay and the lack of affordable housing for first-time homebuyers (even though it’s unclear what the state, or state taxpayers, can do about that).

White said he wants an omnibus education reform package to reshape the state’s K-12 education system, with school-choice initiatives to allow public money to be spent on private schooling at the front and center of any plan.

White, by his own account, said he’s continuing to push “bold and uncomfortable” initiatives.

So far over the last few years, Hosemann has appeared to be the one most uncomfortable with White’s bold initiatives. 

And whatever the opposite of bold is, that’s how the Hosemann Senate priorities and out-of-session strat-e-gery come across. They’ve mostly been playing defense, parrying the House’s thrusts. They’ve been so busy being against what the House comes up with, they’ve had trouble figuring out stuff they’re for.

One longtime senator recently asked jokingly whether White could go ahead and provide the major themes he plans for the next few sessions so they could start fighting early.

The school-choice debate promises to overshadow the entire coming legislative session or, as mentioned above, sap all the oxygen from other issues – health care, infrastructure, you name it. During the 2025 session, the House-Senate standoff over income tax elimination killed much other legislation, including the state budget.

Is school choice the most pressing, clear-and-present issue facing Mississippi? That’s a fair question, but under the new legislative paradigm, it doesn’t matter. It’s the one about to get all the focus.

And it will likely suck up the most oxygen at the Capitol in 2026.

The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning board of trustees has selected a group of Jackson State University faculty and alumni to serve on a group to support  its search team for a new president. 

The five-member search advisory constituency, announced Thursday, is tasked with helping to vet candidates for the historically Black university’s next leader, according to the IHL board. 

The board also announced plans to begin recruiting candidates to be Jackson State’s next president in December. The top job at Jackson State has been vacant since May, after Marcus Thompson resigned without explanation less than two years into his tenure. Thompson was the third president to depart in five years. 

Denise Jones-Gregory, who was the provost and vice president of academic affairs, is serving as the interim president. 

The constituency members “were selected for their professional insight and long-time connections with Jackson State University,” John Sewell, director of communications for the IHL board, said in an email.

The search advisory constituency group members are: 

• Nicholas J. Hill, dean of the College of Business 
• Candice L. Jackson, secretary of the faculty senate and an associate professor in the Department of English, Foreign Languages and Speech Communications 
• Deidre L. Wheaton, associate dean of the College of Education and Human Development
• Retired Brigadier General Robert Crear, Jackson State Development Foundation advisory board member
• Patrease Edwards, national alumni association president

Some alumni still question if the IHL board will allow the group full agency to properly vet candidate applications and approve of candidate finalists. Jackson State alumni and supporters have questioned the IHL board’s opaque search process, advocating for more stakeholder input into selecting the next president.  

The creation of the constituency group is one way the board is acting on concerns from JSU alumni and supporters who want more input in the search process. Last month, the board voted unanimously to create the group.

IHL board policies allow for the creation of an advisory group of up to 15 members. It’s not clear why they selected only five. Sewell did not directly respond to a question from Mississippi Today about the rationale for the group size.

The IHL board has not used an advisory group to assist with Jackson State’s president searches since 2017. That search resulted in IHL hiring William Bynum, who was unpopular among alumni and constituents — but Bynum wasn’t on the list of finalists the constituency group recommended. 

The board ultimately rejected the group’s input and named Bynum president of the university. Bynum resigned in 2020 after he was arrested in a prostitution bust that ended his presidential term. 

In 2022, the IHL board revised its policies to provide for a search advisory constituency. 

The advisory group should have a meaningful stake in the selection of Jackson State’s next president, said Mark Dawson, chairman of Thee 1877 Project, an alumni-led group advocating for transparency in the selection process. The number of alumni selected for the advisory group is disappointing, he said, and the individuals the IHL board selected for the advisory group doesn’t represent a breadth of alumni voices.

“Members should have the full ability to reject and approve candidates. As constituents, we should also know who the potential finalists are for university president,” Dawson told Mississippi Today.  “Our group will continue to advocate for a fair, transparent search and the opportunity for all constituents and stakeholders voices to be heard and involved in the university’s president search.” 

Sen. Sollie Norwood, a Democrat from Jackson, said he would want more representation of students and community in the group, but ultimately, those chosen will have the best interest of the university at heart. 

“My hope is that after all this we will have a leader in place. We’re missing out on a lot of opportunities, and we all need to galvanize and work together to take Jackson State to a place where it should rightfully be,” Norwood said. 

Since August, the IHL board has gathered constituent feedback to shape the role before it starts to seek potential applicants. The job profile will provide an overview of Jackson State as well as information on issues and challenges stakeholders presented during campus listening sessions in October.

More than 100 pieces of DNA evidence integral to a rape and manslaughter appeal in Washington County are likely missing, attorneys allege in a recent court filing. The evidence, ranging from a sexual assault kit to fingernail scrapings and strips of masking tape, is tied to the 2002 killing of a 6-year-old girl in Greenville.

If the evidence is lost, attorneys Jacob Howard and Adnan Sultan argue, their client King Young Brown Jr. should have his charges dismissed and his convictions vacated.

Brown is incarcerated in the Marshall County Correctional Facility and serving two consecutive sentences — 30 years for rape and 20 for manslaughter. He was convicted in 2005 of raping and killing the child whom the attorneys refer to as R.W. in their motion. 

It was a day Gloria Brown, King Brown Jr.’s mother, remembers well. She said her life before that day was different. Her son was 15, and had never been arrested before. He will turn 39 in prison next month.

“I may not be behind bars, but I feel like I’m doing the time with him,” Gloria Brown told Mississippi Today.

For many years after the little girl’s death, the family of R.W. held a block party in her honor at H.T. Crosby Park, where she was last seen alive. Addie Cannon, R.W.’s aunt, misses her niece.

Cannon believes the state has the right man behind bars. 

“She was just a little shy child,” Cannon recalled. “I will always remember the way she said, ‘Hey auntie, come give me a hug.’”

Brown Jr.’s attorneys are appealing his convictions and hope a new analysis of the evidence will help to clear their client’s name. They write that as recently as Aug. 29, 2023, the Washington County Circuit Clerk’s Office in Greenville had the evidence. 

On Sept. 16, Washington County Circuit Court Judge Richard A. Smith ordered Circuit Clerk Barbara Esters-Parker to ship the evidence within 30 days to Bode Technology, a Virginia-based company that provides forensic DNA analysis, including newer methods such as Touch DNA and Y-STR testing. Smith’s order also required Esters-Parker to email a copy of the shipping receipt.

But in a Nov. 6 court filing, Howard and Sultan allege that Esters-Parker can’t account for the evidence or the other exhibits.

“More than thirty (30) days have passed since the Court issued its Order and the Clerk has failed to ship the specified biological evidence to Bode Technology,” the attorneys wrote.

Esters-Parker and Deputy Clerk Cynthia Lakes declined to comment because of pending litigation.

If the evidence is not located, the attorneys argued, the court should vacate Brown Jr.’s convictions and drop the related charges, the attorneys wrote. 

On April 21, 2002, R.W. was found dead in a garbage bin that belonged to her grandmother’s neighbors — Brown Jr.  and his family. Brown Jr. was tried three times for the crimes. The first two trials resulted in hung juries. At the third trial, after over 13 hours of deliberation, a jury found Brown Jr. guilty of rape and manslaughter. 

“We remain hopeful that Mr. Brown will have the opportunity to establish his innocence through the DNA testing ordered by the circuit court,” said Sultan, an attorney at The Innocence Project who focuses on securing DNA testing for post-conviction cases and overturning wrongful convictions. Howard, senior counsel for the Mississippi office of the MacArthur Justice Center, also focuses on wrongful convictions.

Modern DNA testing

In their motion, Howard and Sultan said, “Law enforcement collected a wealth of biological evidence in this case that has never been subjected to DNA testing or that can be re-tested using more advanced technology.”

None of the hairs collected from Brown Jr.’s home that underwent microscopic comparison were linked to Webster or her “material relatives” the attorneys wrote. “The results of this testing were never presented to a jury.”

The prosecution’s case against Brown Jr. hinged on the testimony of a hair follicle expert who compared microscopic hairs found at the Brown home to those of the victim, the court filing reads.

There is also controversy over the accuracy of microscopic hair comparison. In 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey wrote in a letter that FBI examiners made statements about the analysis that “went beyond the limits of science,” putting “more weight on a hair comparison than scientifically appropriate.”

In 1999, a Justice Department task force found that 96% of 150 cases involving microscopic hair analysis had flaws. In 2009, the National Academy of Science announced that microscopic hair analysis had “no scientific support.” After Innocence Project co-founder Peter Neufeld asked the FBI to review cases in which microscopic hair analysis had been used in evidence, the FBI established that every member of the agency’s 28-person hair and fiber unit had given flawed testimony in the 268 convictions that were reviewed. 

“In several cases in which microscopic hair comparison evidence was introduced, defendants were later exonerated by DNA after being convicted,” Comey wrote. “We want to make sure there aren’t other innocent people in jail based on our work.”

In R.W.’s case, the state did not submit for modern DNA analysis of any of the DNA evidence nor did prosecutors present it to a jury.

The analyst who inspected the fingernail scrapings from R.W.’s killing in 2005 conceded it was difficult then to make an accurate identification of the perpetrator given the capabilities of technology at that time. Modern DNA testing doesn’t require as large of a DNA sample to get a result. 

Some DNA testing was not used at Brown Jr.’s trial because the defense received the results too late to review them and get an expert in court, according to Howard’s and Sultan’s recent motion.

Earlier this year, on April 8, Assistant District Attorney Austin Frye  responded to a motion for post-conviction DNA testing by listing evidence he said was already presented to the jury including Brown Jr.’s fingerprints on both the outer ring of the garbage bag and garbage bags at his home, and DNA analysis results that proved Brown Jr.’s hairs matched those found in the inner and outer garbage bags of where R.W. was found. He also touted the results of microscopic hair comparison, and he said further DNA testing would not exonerate Brown Jr.

Frye did not address the issue that none of the hairs the state submitted from Brown Jr.’s home matched the victim or any of her material relatives. Frye could not be reached for comment by the time of publication.

Sultan and Howard explained that it would make logical sense that Brown Jr.’s hairs and fingerprints would be found in a garbage bin he along with his family used regularly.

A “wealth” of biological evidence suitable for modern DNA testing became available after Brown Jr.’s 2005 trial, said Huma Nasir, an expert the defense team retained who is a director at a private DNA analysis lab in Oklahoma City.

Howard and Sultan’s Nov. 6 motion asks the Washington County Circuit Court for a hearing to determine the chain of custody of the evidence and to have the circuit clerk and deputy clerk testify under oath.

A 2009 Mississippi law mandates preservation of all biological evidence in criminal cases with the court instructed to “impose appropriate remedies” and “order appropriate sanctions” in the case of violation. The law was amended in 2011 to clarify that when biological evidence needed to be destroyed, the incarcerated and their attorney should be notified along with other interested parties.

“Innocent people mistakenly convicted of the serious crimes for which biological evidence is probative cannot prove their innocence if such evidence is not accessible for testing in appropriate circumstances,” read the 2009 law.

Two decades of difficult memories

When R.W.’s killing made headlines in 2002, both the victim’s family and that of the accused were thrust into the media spotlight. The two families had been next-door neighbors for more than two decades.

For Gloria Brown, King Young Brown Jr.’s mother, the news of potentially missing evidence felt like a blow. She hopes that he will win his appeal. She and his stepfather say they were with Brown Jr. the night R.W. was killed. 

“I felt that it was the end for me, and didn’t feel like I’d survive it,” Gloria Brown said of her son’s trials and convictions. “But I had a lot of family support that helped me. I didn’t think I’d be able to be this strong.”

She says it was hard to watch the police search her home after the murder. Her late husband, King Brown Sr., was a well-respected city councilman in Greenville and known as a peacekeeper during contentious council meetings. She wasn’t accustomed to the scrutiny.

The recent motion about the missing evidence has also dredged up difficult memories for Cannon, R.W.’s aunt. She still remembers the mints that her sister, R.W.’s mother, would bring from Sonic Drive-In. Her niece loved them. Cannon also still remembers the scream she believes was hers on the night R.W. disappeared. 

Cannon remembers the shock of identifying her niece’s body over two decades ago. She is wary of the defense’s push to vacate King Young Brown Jr.’s conviction if the evidence is not located. 

“When my sister passed, that’s when it really took a big toll on me because I know that’s [the killing of R.W.] why she was sick,” Cannon said of R.W.’s other aunt. “And it’s still terrible, just the idea of him thinking that he needs to get out. You don’t need to be in the free world if you can do a child like that. You don’t need to be here.”

Correction 11/24/25: This story has been updated to reflect that attorneys for King Young Brown Jr. want the Washington County Circuit Court to dismiss the charges against him and vacate his convictions if the DNA evidence collected in the case cannot be located.