OurTupelo

CLEVELAND — Videos of a Black student found hanging in a tree at Delta State University early this week have been turned over to investigators, the campus police chief said Wednesday, but the chief did not say what the videos show.

Chief Michael Peeler said he could not answer several questions about the investigation into the death of 21-year-old Demartravion “Trey” Reed of Grenada, Mississippi. The tragedy swiftly captured the scrutiny of the state and the nation, with some speculating that this was another example of Mississippi’s racist history of lynching of Black people.

However, the chief stood by his earlier statements that there appeared to be no foul play. Peeler said he was the second officer from the Delta State Police Department on the scene after Reed was found, and he saw the body.

Bolivar County Coroner Randolph “Rudy” Seals Jr. said Monday that Reed had no broken bones and did not appear to have been assaulted.

Mississippi’s Chief Medical Examiner Staci Turner was conducting an autopsy of Reed’s body, and preliminary results should be released within two days, Peeler said Wednesday.

Delta State President Dan Ennis recognized that this case touched a nerve, and he defended the school from accusations of racism.

“Richard Wright said that history comes on us, it surges up and it’s fused and tangled. And so, I acknowledge that this imagery is fused and tangled in people’s identities,” said an emotional Ennis. “Sometimes we can’t unknot it. We can’t untangle it, but here is one of the best places to start to pick at that knot, and to acknowledge that situation and build off of it.”

Law enforcement presence on campus increased after several people made threatening calls to the university. However, both Peeler and Ennis emphasized that campus is safe.

“At this point we don’t have any credible threats that I’m aware of and law enforcement will let me know,” Ennis said. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when someone calls the office and says that this is a terrible place, and that people should be hurt.”

Ennis also addressed a statement from the attorney for Reed’s family that the university did not reach out to them. He said the university had been in contact with the next-of-kin Reed listed on a contact form. Ennis did not reveal who those people were, but said the university would cooperate with any investigation into Reed’s death. 

“I also acknowledge that there is a distinction between next-of-kin and family, and I acknowledge that both next-of-kin and family are grieving,” he said.

Stacy Starling, Reed’s aunt, addressed reporters after the press conference but did not answer any questions.

“We just ask that you continue to just to lift us up in your prayers. We thank you, and God bless each and every one of you,” she said before joining other relatives and friends in a prayer circle.

Reed’s body was found hanging from a tree early Monday near the pickleball courts on campus. Reed’s race and the manner of his death triggered an outcry online about Mississippi’s history of racist violence and rattled the university’s community.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson called for the FBI to investigate Reed’s death. Reed’s family has retained lawyers Ben Crump and Vanessa Jones, and they are launching their own independent investigation.

Reed’s death is being investigated by police from Delta State and Cleveland, the Bolivar County Sheriff’s Department and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

9/17/25: This story has been corrected to attribute a quote about the campus not facing credible threats to Delta State University President Don Ennis. It also has been updated to add comments from Reed’s aunt.

Three multibillion-dollar data centers are being built in Mississippi.

People are concerned about pollution and electric bill increases that have been seen in data center hot spots around the country.

Entergy is providing power to two of the centers, Amazon Web Services in Madison County and AVAIO in Rankin County. Haley Fisackerly, the CEO of Entergy Mississippi, sat down for an interview with Mississippi Today to address some of these concerns.

The interview was conducted Sept. 9 and has been edited for clarity and length.

Mississippi Today: The main question we’ve been getting is about electricity rates. Are people’s electricity rates going to go up because of the data centers? You’ve said they won’t, but in other states they really have. Can you explain?

Haley Fisackerly: I appreciate the question because it actually is going to have an opposite effect on our customers. 

Growth is important because if you can improve your sales or your customer base, you have a greater base to spread your costs.

Our dilemma about a decade ago was that Mississippi was not growing. Our sister companies in Texas and Louisiana have seen significant growth. 

READ MORE: Brandon residents want answers, guarantees about data center

We recognized that we weren’t growing, the cost of services were driving up and we needed to invest heavily to improve reliability.  We especially have seen that post-COVID with supply chain challenges, inflation, and add to it now, tariffs. We had aging infrastructure, power plants that needed to be replaced, and we, the consumer, use electricity differently. So that means more investment.

When we had to make these investments, we saw our rates escalating dramatically. And we said, “We’ve got to do something about this now.” We do what we can to manage our costs, but we needed to really move that denominator. 

We looked at ways that we could find transformative growth. About eight years ago, somebody said data centers. This data center idea could bring new revenue into the business that would allow us to reinvest. 

We worked with the Mississippi Development Authority and the state to make the state more attractive for data centers. We talked to local counties to see who would have sites and during this time frame we started to impress Amazon Web Services. They saw a state that was really working to try to break down hurdles. Finally, in late 2022, early 2023, they threw out an opportunity, and that’s what brought AWS here. We are now able to bring in a large customer that is bringing in the volume we need. 

After that announcement, other data centers started looking at places in Mississippi and across the South. Most of the data center activity had really centered around northern Virginia, Ohio, Phoenix. Areas in the South were not, from a large-scale perspective, really looked at. There is available capacity, land, and you don’t have the population constraints they’re running into in the northern Virginia area.

Secondly, how do I know we’re protecting customers? We’re regulated by the Mississippi Public Service Commission, and we are required to make sure that any incremental cost by a large customer like that, they are covered by that customer and provide benefits to other customers.

Take AWS and AVAIO. We knew we were going to have to build two new power plants in the early 2030 timeframe. These are expensive. Because of AWS and AVEO coming in, we’re building new power plants and they’re going to be paying a majority of the cost. 

MT: Can I just jump in really quick with a clarifying question? You would have needed to build a new power plant regardless of whether a new data center was going to come in because of the aging infrastructure?

Fisackerly: It was aging. For example, the first plant we’re building is up in the Mississippi Delta.

We’re retiring a plant in Greenville that was built in the late 1950s. The new plant is a natural gas plant, too, but it uses 90% less water and is 50% more energy efficient. You can use less natural gas and get more output. It will be capable of burning hydrogen, which is a cleaner fuel, if and when hydrogen ever becomes economical, and capturing carbon. We are working on a second plant, too, and we’ll probably be eventually looking at additional ones. 

In addition to that, AWS said they wanted renewables. We’re deploying 650 megawatts of renewables that will be connected to the grid, that AWS is paying the incremental cost for.

When electricity flows, it’d be no different than when I pour water on this table. It’s going to flow in the path of least resistance. We put power onto the electrical grid and it serves all customers.

If AWS and AVAIO become larger customers, they’re going to pay a larger percentage. We need to build substations, upgrade transmission lines, and they’re having to pay for those costs. But the other customers are going to benefit from it because you’re improving import capabilities and making it more robust and resilient. We’re getting a better grid at a lesser cost. 

When power moves from a power plant it’s dispatched onto a transmission line then it’s moved to a substation and that voltage is downgraded through a substation to a lower voltage and put on distribution lines to serve customers. In the case of a large customer like this, they will only be transmission served. Power is going to move from the plants on the transmission lines to substations that they will own and pay for at the site. Other customers don’t have to pay for those. 

MT: But data centers just use a large amount of electricity. The supply that you need then is bigger than what you would’ve needed if it was just going to be residential. Doesn’t that increase the cost? 

Fisackerly: It increases the cost because you’re investing more. But because they’re using a larger percentage of it, just through that alone means they’re covering their cost. 

But those plants are there to serve everybody. Say they use X percentage of that plant. They pay their fair share of that percentage. Other customers are not having to pick that up. Plus, the data centers are having to pay certain premiums above that, too, to have the power available when they need it —  the premium, such as the renewables they want. So as we look at carbon capture, they’ll have to pay those incremental costs. We’ll get the benefits of the clean outputs, but they are paying those incremental costs.

MT: Data centers run 24/7. I’ve heard that they use diesel as backup, and they have a capacity on the AWS site. 

Fisackerly: That’s what AWS is doing. I’m not sure what AVAIO’s plans are. But they have backup in case there’s an emergency. They’re limited on how often they can run those under environmental requirements, but yes, that’s correct. 

MT: There’s been some concern in Mississippi because of what’s happening in Memphis with xAI putting up the unregulated turbines that they have. Do you have any concerns that AWS might do something similar?

Fisackerly: No, I do not. First of all, if you look where they’re building, they’re very isolated. They’re leaving a lot of woods around there on purpose, to hide and buffer it. Those backup generators will not run that often. They’re there in the rare event, a major storm. 

Keep in mind they’re not going to be served by the distribution system. The transmission system serves them. We rarely see disruptions on the transmission system because they’re larger wires with larger rights of way, whereas distribution lines are smaller wires running down streets and through neighborhoods. So that lessens a data center’s exposure, too. 

We’re a part of a market called the midContinent Independent System Operator. It’s a regional transmission organization where utilities dispatch all their power into that pool. If you ever had a situation like during the summer that transmission lines were lost, or a power plant went down, then we have certain reserve margins. If we got to a capacity shortfall, the data centers would be curtailed and they would probably run their backup generators. But those are usually very short-term periods. 

MT: Going to go back to the rates: I saw a video on social media over the weekend where someone said they had talked with (Public Service) Commissioner Stamps, and that he said rates were likely going to go up.

Fisackerly: First of all, rates were already going up. The investments were going up. Inflation is driving all of our materials up. Natural gas costs have been higher. Now those are dollar-for-dollar patch throughs that we don’t make profits off of. But that trajectory we were showing is being lowered. So there’s still going to be rates going up.  Everybody’s rates are going up. 

We have a large buyer who’s going to help contribute toward the cost of the grid that benefits all customers. We were hoping to bring in a big, transformative customer that’s going to help reduce cost. Rates are not going to be as high as they otherwise would’ve been. I can’t promise you they won’t go up. But the trajectory has drastically changed. 

In the legislation that approved the AWS deal, there are protections that mean AWS is required to pay the incremental cost to serve and provide benefits to customers. When we started talking to AWS the governor said, “This cannot harm other customers.”

Everybody was like, we’ve got to do this in a way that it benefits customers. And that’s what we did. We also learned from the other states that went before us. 

MT: Yes, they’ve had lots of issues.

Fisackerly: And no doubt that’s happened in other states. But the regulatory process here in Mississippi, especially in our experience with the Mississippi Public Service Commission, they’ve always been supportive of economic development, but they have also had strict requirements. You could go to other states where their policies may be different. 

There are some areas where they’ll say, we’re fine with you pushing costs onto customers to attract jobs and industry here. Mississippi’s taken a different approach. We want to be aggressive, we want to attract it, but we do not want you harming other customers. 

MT: There’s been a lot of reporting from Virginia and Georgia about rate increases there. What are some of the lessons that you took away from other states? 

Fisackerly: If you take northern Virginia and other areas where the most data centers were initially built, AI wasn’t really on the table. They were doing data storage. They would put a facility here and another one 5 to 50 miles over there. Machine learning comes in and the capacity they need is much greater. Now, at least from AWS’s point of view, they want to find land that’s isolated and outside of towns where they can get a campus and grow on that campus and quit being scattered. That reduces their cost to serve.

We sat down with the customer and said, look, if we’re going to do this, you’re going to have to front the cost to protect other customers, such as specific materials that were required. There are long lead times, it’s over a year in advance to get transformers.

AWS stepped up to pay the cost on those. And so that protects customers.

We learned lessons from other utilities. AWS and AVAIO have not served under traditional filed tariffs we have with the commission. Each one of them has a very specific contract. The contract protects the customers and the company by one long-term contract, termination fees and lots of balances up front. They have to put dollars up front to cover certain costs. Those things insulate and protect other customers. 

MT: I was looking at the timelines and read online that the new power plants would be completed in 2029, but the data centers were going to be done by 2027. What does that mean for consumers?

Fisackerly: First of all, they’re slowly ramping up so they don’t all slow it up. We will finish the Delta Blues Plant in the summer of 2028. And the second plant will be at the end of 2028. Plus, at the time when we negotiated them, we had excess. We always try to stay it along if power plants ever go down. You want to be able to grow with that. We’re ramping with them, AWS will phase in over time. AVAIO will also phase in. 

Also to protect customers, we can curtail that energy if there’s ever a demand on the grid and things of that nature. We can work with them to reduce our load, to help manage us through any type of load crunches or things of that nature. 

MT: It feels like everybody is looking at bringing in a data center. When you decided to build these two new plants, did you take into account that there was potentially going to be more? 

Fisackerly: You always want to try to plan for growth and have capacity for growth. We also have to have capacity, what we call operating reserves. You didn’t wake up this morning and put your order in for electricity, did you? 

MT: No. I appreciate not having to do that. 

Fisackerly: But I have to make sure the power’s there. For industrial customers we know exactly what they need every day. A residential customer, I don’t know what time you’re getting up, what time you’re turning on the coffee maker, what time you’re coming home. So we use data to make sure we have enough reserves capacity to manage through load swings.

When we do our supply plans, we plan to meet both what our needs are, what our reserves are that are needed to do that, and try to plan for growth. 

What is happening right now across the entire United States is not just data centers, we’ve got electrification and AI going on. An AI search uses 10 times more electricity than a normal search and more companies have deployed some sort of AI product. 

Every three years, we’re required to file our supply plans with the Mississippi Public Service Commission. It gives transparency to our regulators on the status of all our power plants, what we project our load growth to be and what we need in the future.

When we file these plans, we’re also saying here’s what we think our load forecasts are going to be and what we need to supply for. There’s a lot of planning around that.

MT: There was some controversy previously about changes (approved by the Legislature) to the Public Service Commission’s oversight. Could you give me some context for what was going on?

Fisackerly: AWS is a provider of data centers and AI to other customers whereas Meta and Google are doing it for their own use. 

A lot of your Fortune 500 companies have had a huge spike in demand for data centers and AI. They were quickly trying to find where they could go to meet the demand.

They needed to find a partner and a state where they could build and ramp these data centers up over three years. The traditional process here in Mississippi would have taken five to six years. We wouldn’t want this. We need to find some growth to come in to help Mississippi grow and all that.

So we sat down with the governor, the Public Service Commission, and leaders of the Legislature and said, “If we want to do this, what do we need to do?”

So the governor and the Legislature said, “We’ll pass legislation that one has to approve the incentives they’re providing for AWS, but also that would give approval to Entergy for the assets they would have to build and deploy to serve them.”

That process would’ve taken five to six years. Most of that would’ve been on the front end where we would have to go to the commission and seek something called a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity, a CCN. That basically says, “We’re going to need to make these investments because of this reason.” And that is a review process during which they agree to say, “OK, the Legislature who has authority over the commission who makes it, says, ‘We’re going to go ahead and grant that CCN.’” 

We reduced that on the front end. So that allowed us to accelerate that. 

There’s a perception that you circumvented oversight. We did not. If anything, I’m taking greater risk because now every one of those assets we build the transmission lines, substations and the power plants. Each one of them individually has to go in front of the commission for a prudency review. That review can come back and say these costs weren’t prudent. And if that’s found, we have to eat it. And that makes me a little nervous now because of that. 

We’re doing a lot of work on the front end, we have a lot of oversight. We use teams to negotiate the best contracts and the best pricing on materials, and the Legislature requires that the Public Service Commission hire an independent third party to audit it.

So it is true, it accelerated the front end of the process. But those things have to be reviewed and prudent and then put into rates have not been circumvented. If anything, I don’t have the assurances of that.

It just holds us more accountable to make sure as we build these things, we’re pricing on the best we can and we’re executing the best we can and covering our risks.

MT: I think there’s a lot of skepticism about what the benefits to a community will be from having a data center.

Fisackerly: Here’s where the benefits come. First, take Mississippi. We’re probably one of the most rural, most poor states in the nation, and we don’t see a lot of growth.

AWS committed to the state a minimum $10-billion investment and a minimum of 1,000 jobs. Based on those minimum numbers, that is going to be an estimated $80 million a year in ad valorem taxes to Madison County every year. 

Think about what that is going to allow them to do for aging infrastructure. We know that all these counties and cities are dealing with water, infrastructure, sewer and road issues. They now have incremental funding. Think about what they can bond with that.

In Mississippi, nearly half of the ad valorem taxes have to go to the local school districts. That excites me. Think of how we’re going to change young people’s lives.

While a lot of people debate if data centers create a lot of jobs, they still create higher paying jobs. We have brought a new sector to Mississippi. I hope it helps to calm down some of the brain drain we lose because we create opportunities. There is going to be some ripple effect, not the type of ripple effect you would see around a manufacturing facility. 

But what we have seen happen in Mississippi just since this: ABB, located in Tate County, is expanding. They make electrical components used not only at AWS or AVAIO but data centers around the world. Modine in Grenada County just announced a major expansion. They make the coal coils that are used in the cooling systems. They’re expanding because of that, creating more economic investment jobs going into those areas. 

We’re building a power plant in Washington County at $1.2 billion, and we’re going to pay ad valorem taxes to Washington County. It is the largest economic development project in the Mississippi Delta’s history. We will be building solar facilities in Bolivar, DeSoto and Tallahatchie counties. And the other one I think is in Washington County. That’s again bringing more ad valorem taxes and more jobs.

These things would not have happened without AWS. I think it’s going to bring huge benefits. And as a lifelong Mississippian who is invested here, grew up here, I’m excited to finally see Mississippi getting a part of something that a lot of other states haven’t gotten.

It is going to transform communities and young people’s lives, and that’s what I’m excited about. 

MT: I was talking with an engineer from Houston working on the Amazon data center. He comes in for two weeks and he flies out. I’m curious about the ability to attract talent to Mississippi. 

Fisackerly: We saw a similar thing when Nissan first came in. For the first year or two you could drive through that parking lot and see tags from other counties and even Alabama. You go drive through that parking lot, you’re going to see a lot more Mississippi tags and a lot more counties right here in the area.

So that will happen. Those data centers will probably bring in certain talent to train individuals. 

We recruited Continental, we recruited Nissan, we’ve recruited Milwaukee Tools. I’ve never seen a company like AWS, who’s come in and put dollars into the community colleges. They’re doing fiber optic and electrical technician training. 

But most of the jobs they’re going to need, there are technical technician-type jobs. They’re going to need some engineers, they’re going to need some management. If you look at it, 80% of the jobs we need now in the systems don’t require a four-year degree. They need technical training and they’re going to be high-paying jobs. They’re doing a lot of outreach to schools. 

It’s not going to happen overnight. There may be some dislocation because they’ve got to get facilities running. But I guarantee you any facility, we’ve looked and recruited here over time, they will grow it. And they’re incentivized, too by the benefits that the state provided them. And as a large employer myself, too, I want my people living and working in that area. Can’t force you to, but at the end of the day, once I have a choice and when I’m interviewing, that will be a factor. 

MT: One of the things that’s come up when I have talked with residents is that they are very concerned about the environmental impact of both the data centers and the increase in power that they’re going to need. I’m curious, what’s your response to that? 

Fisackerly: Let’s take the water issue. The state of Mississippi as part of the deal made a $215 million loan to Madison County. And you want to verify this with Madison County. I’m not the best one to talk about it, but my understanding is that it is to go support the infrastructure improvements, one of which is the wastewater treatment facility in northern Madison County that was under review by the EPA. The money that the state is floating through a loan to Madison County will go to enhance that facility and build a pipeline to Amazon where they will take the wastewater and treat it and run it through their facilities and recapture it and not tap the water supply there.

Two, the technology is changing quickly. The new chips that are coming out are using new ways of cooling. And, a reason why they also are so energy dependent is that those buildings are cooled, too. AWS will, based on the season, will also reduce their water demands based on when it’s easier to cool the building. 

They’re probably one of the most sustainable companies I’ve ever dealt with. They want clean energy to the point of what they’re doing there to do that loan is it will be paid back by AWS the fee in lieu of tax that they’re paying back to Madison County that then pays the state back. I’ve never seen that before. A lot of times when you’re recruiting industry here, it is, “Give me all the incentives you got and we’ll give it back to you through jobs and taxpayers or a tax ad valorem.”

They’re actually paying that loan back. And so that’s a huge benefit there. The AVAIO project is a much smaller project compared to AWS, but they even use a sustainability project. They’re capturing rain water. 

Part of our research was, “Let’s go see these data centers being built.” And what I saw being built out west and up in northern Virginia five, six, seven years ago compared to what’s being built today. These are very robust concrete buildings. The concrete dampens a lot of sound and makes them more energy efficient. So lots of things that go into it are very different.

 Even the aesthetics around it, they are really focused on how they’re seen from the road. The one up at Madison, that is an industrial complex. You look at the one in Ridgeland though, they’re purposely keeping a tree buffer all the way around that property. And hiding it. 

If you think about it, the state of Mississippi didn’t give anything up because we weren’t getting it anyway. What we got was a large capital customer coming to the state, making large capital investment, bringing large ad valorem taxes and jobs. 

MT: You probably can’t answer this one but I’ve heard that there’s another one coming to Madison. Do you know anything about that? 

Fisackerly: First of all, I can’t comment on any projects. I’m under NDAs. I’ll tell you this. We’re very busy. There are a lot of projects. And they will come as long as they pay the incremental costs and protect other customers. 

The way I look at it is we have four stakeholders. We have our customers, our employees, our communities and our owners. At the end of the day when it provides value to all four, then you do it. The moment one of those are harmed, you don’t do it. 

You have your big players but the interesting thing is there’s these other companies, and they call all the time. Our teams are overwhelmed with them. Some of ’em turn out legit like AVAIO did. And you have to weed through those.

Every one of our counties have economic development arms who are trying to recruit these things. We have to work with the data center companies, but we also have to have the counties see that, this one’s not really going to benefit you. It’s going to create more harm. So we try to work through that. Can’t serve ’em all, but we’ll do the ones that provide that value. 

Ole Miss and Mississippi State move to 3-0 and Southern Miss picks up a pivotal win over Appalachian State, plus the Saints finding new ways to lose and one singular high school performance that tested the record books.

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A north Mississippi woman will serve a year and a half in federal prison for defrauding over $5 million from a COVID-19 relief program aimed at helping small businesses pay their employees and cover operating costs during the pandemic. 

On Sept. 11, U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Parker sentenced Lisa Evans, 43, of Olive Branch, to 1 ½ years in prison and three years supervised release. She faced a maximum sentence of 20 years for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

As part of her sentence, Evans must pay $4.4 million in restitution to the U.S. Small Business Administration. She also is prohibited from opening additional lines of credit without prior approval, according to court docket notes. 

She requested to serve her sentence as close to Memphis as possible to be near family. As of Wednesday, information about her location was not listed through the Bureau of Prisons, which makes that determination. 

Between April 2020 to November 2021, Evans submitted fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan applications through her Memphis-based tax service business, USA Taxes.

Small businesses and other organizations that qualified could receive a loan to help pay for payroll, mortgage interest, rent and utilities. Instead, Evans applied for PPP loans for multiple people who weren’t entitled to receive them. 

A 2023 superseding indictment detailed how Evans conspired with dozens of other owners to submit loan applications with false documents and statements, including the number of employees, payroll of the business and certifications of how the money would be used. 

After securing the loan, the business owners paid Evans a kickback of between 20-30% of the loan. One owner, referred to H.S. in court records, received about $786,000 and paid Evans about $220,000 in return. 

“Individuals cheating the Paycheck Protection Program stole money from U.S. taxpayers who desperately needed these loans to keep their small businesses afloat and pay their employees during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Reagan Fondren, the then-acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, said in a February statement. 

Evans was indicted with Lina O’Dea, who allegedly created false federal documents that she used in the loan applications. O’Dea also pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Another business owner was charged in 2022, but the charge was dropped.

Evans pleaded guilty in February and agreed to pay restitution in exchange for the federal government not pursuing additional charges against her for fraudulent COVID-19 relief applications submitted in 2020 and 2021, according to court records. 

WASHINGTON — Republican members of Mississippi’s congressional delegation have declined to call on the Justice Department to release the Jeffrey Epstein case files, labeling the push to unveil the information to the public a political distraction propagated by Democrats and opponents of President Donald Trump. 

In interviews with Mississippi Today at the U.S. Capitol last week, Reps. Mike Ezell and Trent Kelly, both former law enforcement officials, said those who committed crimes in relation to the Epstein case should be prosecuted. But they stopped short of calling for the Justice Department to release the tranche of case files from the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein, the late billionaire financier.

Epstein was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them. He was accused of running a sex trafficking cabal serving mega-wealthy power brokers across the globe. In 2019, he committed suicide in prison while facing federal sex trafficking charges. Conspiracy theories and outrage have swirled around Epstein since his death.

The files have become a political headache for Trump, who has downplayed his connections to Epstein.   

Public fascination with the case reignited after Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested she had an Epstein “client list” on her desk, but then didn’t release documents with any new information. Many Trump supporters and Democrats alike want the government to release the Epstein files, but to their chagrin, administration officials have insisted there’s nothing more to disclose.

Ezell, a former Jackson County sheriff, stopped short of calling for the Justice Department to unveil the files, but he said the attention around the issue would lead to their eventual release. 

“I would expect them to be released. But I’ll tell you this, I just don’t think this needs to be some kind of major priority,” Ezell said. “You know, there are just so many bad things going on right now. And what I think this Epstein thing is is a distraction, a political distraction.”

If the files include incriminating information on Trump, those details would likely have already come to light amid scrutiny of Trump, he said. 

“You know what the FBI did during Trump’s first administration, when he was running for office,” Ezell said. “If there had been anything in there negative with Donald Trump’s name on it, it would have been all over the front page. So I feel reasonably sure that these things will be released at some point in time.”

Last week, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein purportedly signed by Trump. The president has denied signing the letter and has sued The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for their reporting on it.

Rep. Trent Kelly, a former district attorney in northeast Mississippi, also declined to come out in favor of releasing the files, citing a process he said had become politicized.   

“You know, I wish they had asked four years ago — they had four years.” Kelly said of the recent push from Democrats. “Personally, I think everybody who’s involved in any way should be prosecuted, but I think most of that is just for political purposes and political purposes only, and I don’t think they truly care about the victims of those cases.” 

Kelly added that he was interested in the contents of the files as a private citizen, but also said Epstein paid the price for his crimes. 

“As a regular person, am I interested? Yes. (But) I think we’re spending a whole lot of time on things for political purposes,” Kelly said. “What are we making better? What is made better, whether they’re disclosed or not disclosed? … I mean, (Jeffrey Epstein) is about as accountable as you can get. He’s no longer here. He was sentenced to prison, and he died there.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the lone Democratic member of Mississippi’s congressional delegation, did not respond to a request for comment, but he has signed a petition seeking to force a House floor vote on the release of the files. 

Michael Guest, a former district attorney for Madison and Rankin counties, declined an interview with Mississippi Today last week, and his office did not respond to a question about the congressman’s opinion on the release of the files. 

Guest, however, did tell Mississippi Today at the Neshoba County Fair in July that the Justice Department should release all of the files. 

In a narrow vote last week, Senate Republicans defeated a legislative maneuver by Democrats to insert language into Congress’ annual defense authorization bill that would have forced the public release of the Epstein files. 

Mississippi Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith both voted with all but two other Republicans to defeat that effort by Democrats. Neither Wicker nor Hyde-Smith’s offices responded to requests for comment on their votes against the measure. 

During a routine prison shift change at the Marshall County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, the deadly attack unfolding on Unit Charlie 2’s security monitors went unnoticed.

When a new crew would take over for the outgoing guards, the security team would be preoccupied with mundane tasks away from the monitors, a lawsuit and testimony later recounted.

At some point during that shift change, John Lowe was severely injured from the beating he received inside the unit’s shower area and was found by security 10 minutes later, bleeding on the tile floor. He died two days later on July 13, 2021.

County prosecutors had the evidence they needed for a murder charge. The security cameras had recorded the beating. A grand jury indicted a suspect a little over a year later.

Then, for the next three years, the case was effectively forgotten by prosecutors and the prison system.

A phone call, then the indictment resurfaces 

Lowe, who was serving a 15-year sentence for armed robbery, was one of at least 43 incarcerated people killed inside Mississippi prisons since 2015. 

In most other cases, the suspects were never charged by local prosecutors, a team of Mississippi news reporters found. Only six people have been convicted in connection with prison killings over the past 10 years.

Outside of court, the private company that ran the Marshall County prison for the state settled the lawsuit filed by Lowe’s family for an undisclosed amount. The agreement requires the family to keep specific details of the case confidential.

The suspect in Lowe’s death, Terry McCline, was indicted on a murder charge in October 2022. He is currently serving 75 years for armed robbery, carjacking and conspiracy, and won’t be eligible for release until he is 98 years old in 2076.

Typically, McCline would have been officially served the indictment, would have gotten a lawyer, and, ultimately, would have headed to trial, where a jury or judge would have decided his fate.

But McCline was never served the indictment to start the process.

A grand jury had indicted McCline during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly restricted the operation of the state’s legal system.

McCline’s dormant indictment was resurrected only after a Clarion Ledger reporter asked Marshall County District Attorney Ben Creekmore what happened to the case.

Creekmore said he then realized McCline was never served with the murder charge. The serving of the indictment, Creekmore noted in a June 3 email to a reporter, would happen “ASAP.”

On Aug. 13, McCline was taken from prison, brought before a judge in the county courthouse and handed the indictment. He pleaded not guilty.

McCline has not responded to requests to speak with him. He is the only person indicted in connection with Lowe’s murder. 

Creekmore said while it is his office’s responsibility to make sure every indictment is served, the Mississippi Department of Corrections should have followed through, too.

“What you’re identifying is probably that we need to have a better system in place to make certain they get served quicker,” he said.

MDOC investigators brought him the murder case to present to a grand jury in 2022, a year after the murder, Creekmore said. But by then, McCline had been transferred to another MDOC facility outside the county. Because he was no longer in Marshall County, he could not be served with the county grand jury’s indictment, Creekmore said.

Creekmore said the indictment got lost during the court backlogs caused by COVID-19. The process to indict MDOC inmates is difficult because incarcerated people can’t be served inside a prison, he said.

“There are other issues as well. If somebody is safely kept [by MDOC], it doesn’t just jump off the page and say, ‘Hey, this is something that needs to be taken care of,’ unless I get a call from a victim’s family, law enforcement, the judge,” Creekmore said, “or an investigative reporter.”

MDOC spokesperson Katelyn Head said that it is partly MDOC’s responsibility to ensure indicted prisoners are served because it works with county DAs “when [MDOC] knows” a prisoner has been indicted. MDOC took over operations at the Marshall County prison from the private company two months after Lowe’s murder.

Head also said that McCline was moved to another prison after the killing, but before his indictment. Moving a suspect to another facility is a standard security practice, she said.

Gaps in oversight

At the time of the attack, guards were working for Management & Training Corporation, a private company that managed the prison for the corrections department in 2021. Security staffers routinely left shift change duties undone at several MTC facilities, which included watching the monitors and checking cells, said Chuck Mullins, an attorney who represented Lowe’s parents in their wrongful death lawsuit.

In Lowe’s case, deposition testimony showed guards were not in the control tower at the time of Lowe’s attack, Mullins said.

The 25-year-old Lowe was found on the shower floor shortly before 6:30 p.m. on July 11 and put under medical observation for most of the night. He had skull fractures, scratches and bruises to his head, face and neck, according to video footage and details cited in the lawsuit.

In a recent interview, Lowe’s family members said they viewed the prison security camera footage and saw about four men attacking Lowe in the shower.

“You could see [there were] multiple [people], from what I could see, after watching the video that many times,” Lowe’s brother, Justin, said.

Their lawsuit also stated that “[v]ideo footage captured several inmates attacking” Lowe in “plain view.” 

“The reason why the inmates chose that particular time, and based on the deposition testimony … is that that was during [a] shift change,” Mullins said. “[Guards] would leave their post to go do rounds so the inmates knew no one was going to be in the control tower during that time … They had that kind of knowledge.”

Five hours after being found, Lowe was transported from the prison to a nearby Oxford hospital and then 75 miles to a Memphis trauma center. He died the next day.

Lawsuit settles

The wrongful death lawsuit against MTC was settled out of court in late 2024 for an undisclosed amount. 

The lawsuit initially requested a jury trial for the family’s claim, which asked for more than $75,000 in damages.

If the suit had gone to trial, it could have brought prison records about security staffing, video footage of the murder and more into the public eye. 

Mullins declined to disclose the amount the family received in the settlement, citing the confidentiality agreement. MTC also declined to disclose the settlement amount or discuss Lowe’s murder case. In court records, MTC made no admission of wrongdoing.

The Lowe family settled because they felt they could not prove at trial that MTC neglected its responsibility of keeping incarcerated people safe, Mullins said. 

“There was nothing to indicate to MTC or their employees that [Lowe’s murder] was going to happen,” Mullins said.

Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson and researcher for the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit criminal justice think tank focusing on prisons, said prison operators in other cases have used the defense that, without prior knowledge of an act of violence, there isn’t much in the way of liability. MTC made the same arguments in court papers, saying that it followed the law at all times.

Prisons generally do not prioritize prisoner-to-prisoner security, opting to invest in ways to respond to violent incidents, rather than prevent them, she said. 

“Fundamentally, even if it is technically a security matter when someone in prison kills another person, that’s not really the type of security that prisons are interested in providing,” Bertam said. 

Who was John Lowe?

Before prison, Lowe was looking forward to starting a career. His family never thought he would end up in a Mississippi prison. 

“He was a great brother,” Justin Lowe said recently. “I couldn’t ask God to bless me with a better one, because he was that and, mentally, he challenged me all the time … He just stayed on me and [encouraged me] to stay in my books.”

John Lowe grew up in the Greenville area, competitively boxed at a local gym and helped take care of the family.

“We started out [boxing] when I was about 9, he was 10,” Justin said. “Then we won the Golden Gloves together. And then he kind of just faded out, but he kept me going [with it].”

Before his arrest, Lowe was working toward obtaining his GED and eventually a welder’s license.

“He seemed like he had made up his mind before [his arrest], that he was going to focus on what he’s supposed to do,” his father, John Sr., said.

Lowe was a fan of gospel, R&B and rap music, Justin said. Some of Lowe’s favorite artists include Tupac Shakur, whose music touched on culture, racial politics and the lives of Black men in America.

In prison, Lowe’s parents said he was an avid reader and drawer, and continued his education to stay busy.

Justin and John Sr. both said they are glad the murder case is finally moving forward, but said it almost feels like too little too late. 

The real justice, they said, would have been preventing Lowe’s death in the first place.

“They didn’t make [the murder case] a priority,” Justin said with tears in his eyes. “The situation still makes me very emotional. They could’ve done more. His life was taken under supervision … I can only sit and wait and pray that my brother gets the justice he deserves.”

The capital city’s third-party water and sewer utility is again raising alarms over its inability to fund operations. JXN Water, in a Monday court filing, said it will continue to be “insolvent” without a rate increase or another large influx of money.

“The System is barreling toward insolvency, meaning it won’t be able to deliver water and
sewer services to citizens because system operations (will) shut down due to the lack of sufficient
funds,” the utility wrote.

JXN Water, the utility said, is losing $3 million a month. Many of its positions, such as plant operators and repair crews, are contracted out. The utility said it owes $31 million to those contractors after months of not being able to make payments. The $150 million the federal government set aside for operating expenses ran dry by May, the filing says.

Ted Henifin, the court-appointed head of JXN Water, pleaded with U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate in recent hearings to approve a 12% rate increase he first proposed in April. Wingate, though, insisted on exhausting all other funding options before raising rates in a city with a lower median income and higher poverty rate than surrounding areas.

“My team has repeatedly warned the parties and Court of the critical state of the system’s finances, which have reached a daunting level,” Henifin wrote in the report.

Both the Jackson City Council and recently elected Mayor John Horhn have come out against the proposed increase. Only Wingate’s approval, though, is necessary for the rate hike to move forward. City officials have called on the utility to improve collection rates, which are about 70%, before increasing rates. Even with 100% bill collections, though, Henifin maintains JXN Water would still operate at a deficit.

Wingate initially delayed ruling on the rate increase to track down the city’s spending from its settlement with Siemens over faulty water meters. The judge issued subpoenas in July to 18 different parties related to the city and the settlement, but it’s unclear how many have been fulfilled.

Wingate also prioritized chasing large debts from apartment complexes. Last week, WLBT reported, JXN Water arrived at a payment plan with Tracewood Apartments to resolve $910,000 in overdue bills. The judge is also overseeing an ongoing lawsuit between the utility and Blossom Apartments, which JXN Water says owes $400,000 in debt.

Aisha Carson, JXN Water’s communications officer, told Mississippi Today the utility hasn’t heard any updates from Wingate as far as addressing the rate proposal.

Carson said as of now, day-to-day services haven’t changed. Without giving a timeline, though, she added JXN Water could have to scale back certain operations at some point.

“That doesn’t include our large capital projects, but it will include things like field crews, our ability to respond to water leaks or sewer leaks that come up,” Carson said.

On top of reduced services, the utility also warned of impacts to Jackson’s finances. Part of the revenue JXN Water says it needs is to pay off the water system’s debt, of which it owes $5 million by Dec. 1. If it’s unable to tackle the debt, “sales tax revenues collected by the City will be intercepted and used for debt service beginning November 2025 and continue until debt service is paid,” Monday’s report said. Such diversions could reduce Jackson’s revenue by $7.5 million per year, it added.

The report, which JXN Water filed as a supplement to it’s required financial management plan, listed options for temporary relief, such as converting itself to a public water authority so that it can issue tax-exempt bonds — something the state Legislature paved the way for last session — and securing an “Emergency Drinking Water Loan” from the state Health Department. The former, Carson said, would require approval “from Wingate and/or the Legislature.”

The utility also raised the potential of privatization or a public-private partnership, saying it “understands the City may be interested” in either option.

“(JXN Water) wants to be on written record that the financial crisis has gotten to the point where if the City proposes privatization, we believe it needs to be seriously considered,” the report said.

The report also called on the city to, if possible, issue bonds to support the water system directly or help pay off debt.

Mississippi Today reached out to city officials for comment on Tuesday morning and will update this post if the city responds.

Wingate: Customers still not receiving bills

On Tuesday afternoon, Wingate ordered JXN Water to establish a self-reporting method for customers who don’t receive bills.

“Despite prior remedial efforts, the Court has received credible information that a substantial number of customers continue to receive no monthly bill, leaving revenues uncollected and accountability diminished,” the judge wrote.

Wingate went on to write, “to this day a significant percentage of accounts in Jackson are either unmetered, inaccurately metered, or not billed altogether.” Henifin, though, has recently said almost all customers have new meters the utility and city have installed in recent years. While the utility says there are over 11,000 accounts with meters but don’t pay bills, it’s unclear how many people aren’t receiving bills altogether.

“These failures have carried real consequences,” Wingate added. “They erode public trust. They place disproportionate burdens on those customers who do receive bills, often inflated, while their neighbors may receive none.”

The order requires JXN Water to set up ways for customers to reach out online, by telephone, or in person to tell the utility if they haven’t received a bill for at least 60 days. It also authorizes JXN Water to offer customers amnesty from late penalties if a customer reports unbilled usage before Dec. 31.

Wingate set a hearing for Sept. 19 for the utility and city to give their progress on locating unbilled customers.

Mississippi Delta native B.B. King, affectionately known around the world as the “King of the Blues,” would have turned 100 years old Tuesday.

King, who passed away in 2015, is still celebrated by fans around the world.

Hundreds were expected to attend a birthday celebration Tuesday evening at B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale Street in Memphis, which followed a block party on Beale Street on Sunday and celebrations this past weekend at Club Ebony in Indianola, the Delta hometown he claimed.

The show was set to feature Mississippi Blues legend Bobby Rush and include performances from Carla Thomas and Hi Rhythm, along with a special musical tribute by Shirley King and the B.B. King All-Star Legends.

“We’re looking to enjoy the music, the atmosphere,” Kara Kent, who traveled to the Bluff City from Seattle, told WREG.

The Mississippi attorney general is fighting a federal judge’s decision to block the state law that bans diversity, equity and inclusion programs in Mississippi public schools and universities. 

State Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office filed a notice of appeal on Tuesday against the preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate in August. The injunction prevented the law from being enforced until there’s a final decision in the lawsuit. 

Now, the case will go before a three-judge panel on the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I don’t know why the state’s educational authorities would want to try and resurrect these ridiculous provisions which would create chaos in the schools and give our students a thoroughly substandard education,” said Rob McDuff, a Mississippi Center for Justice attorney and one of the lead lawyers representing the plaintiffs. 

“Hopefully, their appeal will fail and sanity will prevail,” he added.

McDuff said the preliminary injunction, in the interim, will stand unless and until the 5th Circuit reverses it. 

Over the past few months, attorneys for the plaintiffs have argued that House Bill 1193, passed by the Legislature this year following a wave of similar bills across the country, is unconstitutional. They said it violates the First and Fourteenth amendments by banning classroom discussions about race, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. The attorneys have said that would include books and discussions about the Civil War, women’s rights and slavery — topics that define the country’s history. 

But the state’s attorneys said that the plaintiffs were reading the statute in bad faith, and that public employees do not have First Amendment rights in the workplace. 

It’s unclear what the timeline will be for the New Orleans-based appellate court to consider the appeal, but it will likely issue a schedule in the coming weeks for the parties to file legal briefs.

Demartravion “Trey” Reed, the Delta State University student whose body was found Monday hanging from a tree on the Cleveland campus, did not have broken bones or “injuries consistent with an assault,” according to a coroner’s preliminary examination. 

“At this time, there is no evidence to suggest the individual was physically attacked before his death,” Bolivar County Coroner Randolph “Rudy” Seals Jr. said in a statement Monday.

Reed, 21, was from Grenada, Mississippi, and was Black. Mississippi has a history of lynchings of Black people, and speculation has been rampant on social media that Reed had broken bones or was a victim of an attack.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who represents that area, referred to Mississippi’s history in calling for the FBI to launch an investigation into Reed’s death.

“We must leave no stone unturned in the search for answers,” Thompson said in a statement released Tuesday. “While the details of this care are still emerging, we cannot ignore Mississippi’s painful history of lynching and racial violence against African Americans.”

He urged the FBI’s involvement to ensure a full and impartial investigation.

Reed’s body is being sent to the Mississippi State Crime Lab for an autopsy, Seals said. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the Bolivar County Sheriff’s Department and the Cleveland Police Department are working with campus police in the death investigation. 

Reed was a first-year student at Delta State and had only been on campus about a month before his death, an attorney representing Reed’s family, Vanessa Jones, said Tuesday, according to WREG-TV. The law firm where Jones works will investigate the death and will order an independent autopsy, she said.

“Trey’s family is not willing to accept any cause of death until they have been presented with all of the facts that will be independently verified through our own investigation,” Jones said in a statement.

She said at a news conference Tuesday that the president of Delta State had not reached out to the family, WREG reported.

“As we move forward, we’re just looking for answers that a simple camera on the university’s campus would answer,” Jones said. “The media knew about his death before Trey’s family did.”

Delta State University said in a statement Tuesday that hundreds of people took part in a prayer vigil Monday night to honor Reed’s life.

The university’s president, Dan Ennis, said in a video statement Tuesday that school officials remain in contact with Reed’s family.

“We give them our love and support, and we know that we can never fully heal this wound,” Ennis said. “None of us will fully heal, but we have to go on.”

Ennis also said school officials and Reed’s family are keeping track of the investigation.

“As you might imagine, we can only release information that’s appropriate, and we will never release any information or make any statement that compromises the ability of authorities to get to an answer that is true, that is real, and that, if not satisfying, at least helps us understand a little bit better what occurred,” Ennis said.

Delta State University Chief of Police Michael Peeler said at a press conference Monday there was no evidence of foul play. Both he and Ennis said there was no threat to students or the community.

Update 9/16/25: This story has been updated to include comments from U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and from attorney Vanessa Jones.