A topsy-turvy regional round in the NCAA baseball tournament has set up an intriguing set of eight super regionals featuring seven teams from the Southeastern Conference, just one from the Atlantic Coast Conference and four mid-major programs.

Nine of the 16 national seeds advanced to super regionals but conspicuously absent are the top two, UCLA and Georgia Tech. Two No. 4 regional seeds, Little Rock and St. John’s, reached the tournament’s second weekend for the first time.

Four of the best-of-three supers are Friday through Sunday: Cal Poly (39-22) at No. 16 national seed West Virginia (43-15); Little Rock (39-26) at Troy (36-30); Southern California (47-16) at No. 5 North Carolina (48-11-1); and Mississippi (39-21) at No. 4 Auburn (42-20).

The four series Saturday through Monday: Oklahoma (36-22) at No. 15 Kansas (45-16); St. John’s (36-24) at No. 7 Alabama (40-19); No. 11 Oregon (43-16) at No. 6 Texas (43-13); and No. 14 Mississippi State (43-17) at No. 3 Georgia (49-12).

The eight winners advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, starting June 12.

2025 CWS teams all gone

None of the 2025 CWS teams will be back in Omaha after Arkansas, Coastal Carolina, Oregon State and UCLA were eliminated in regionals. The other four CWS teams from last year — Arizona, Louisville, national champion LSU and Murray State — did not make the NCAA Tournament.

This marks the first time no teams from the previous year’s CWS reached super regionals. It will be the second straight CWS with no teams from the previous year after there had been at least one in every CWS from 1957-2024.

SEC bounces back

The SEC had seven of its 12 tournament teams get through regionals after having only four of 13 do so last year. College baseball’s most powerful conference has produced the last six national champions, 11 of the last 16 and have had a team in 15 of the last 16 CWS finals.

The SEC is assured of having two teams in the CWS and could have a record-tying four.

ACC flops

The ACC had the No. 2 conference RPI and had nine teams in regionals. Only one, North Carolina, made it through. Prior to this year, the ACC had never had fewer than two teams in super regionals. The Tar Heels went 3-0 in their regional and if they make it to Omaha, they’ll play for the ACC’s third national title in baseball and first since 2015.

First-timers in supers

Cal Poly, Kansas, Little Rock and Troy will be making their super regional debuts.

Big West Tournament champion Cal Poly was the No. 3 seed in the Los Angeles Regional and beat Virginia Tech once and St. Mary’s twice. Mustangs pitchers combined for a 1.33 ERA in the three games and Nick Bonn earned his nation-leading 16th and 17th saves. Casey Murray batted .583 (7 for 12).

It’s old home week for Kansas, which hosts former longtime conference mate Oklahoma after overcoming a five-run deficit to beat Arkansas 13-10 in the regional final. The Jayhawks’ 45 wins are tied with the program record set by the 1993 CWS team, and they’ve hit a school-record 110 homers.

Little Rock of the Ohio Valley and Troy of the Sun Belt are paired against each other for a battle of the Trojans. One surely will be adopted as the local fan favorite in Omaha (think 2025 Murray State, 2023 Oral Roberts, etc.)

Little Rock, which reached a regional final a year ago, broke through with three straight wins as the No. 4 regional seed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Blake Simpson was regional MVP after going 8 for 14 with a double, triple, homer and four RBIs.

Troy, one of the last four teams to receive an at-large bid, went to Florida and outscored the Gators 26-13 over two games to advance. Regional MVP Jabe Boroff homered four times and drove in 12 runs over five games in Gainesville.

It’s been a while, Johnnies

Big East champion St. John’s heads to Alabama after one of the most surprising regional runs. The Red Storm went 3-0 in Tallahassee, Florida, to advance to supers for the first time since 2012. They’ll be playing for their first CWS berth since 1980.

St. John’s was the first team since 2023 to win three games in a regional when trailing by multiple runs. Adam Agresti’s two-out grand slam in the fifth inning Monday sent the Red Storm to a 5-4 win over Florida State, Agresti also homered in a 6-5 win over the Seminoles on Friday.

Year of the catcher

The deep pool of talent at catcher will be on display across the country.

SEC player of the year Daniel Jackson of Georgia is batting .396 and is fourth nationally with 29 homers and 83 RBIs. Then there’s Texas’ Carson Tinney (.333, 21 HRs, 56 RBIs); Auburn’s Chase Fralick (.321, 20 HRs, 60 RBIs); St. John’s Adam Agresti (19 HRs, 54 RBIs); Oklahoma’s Deiten Lachance (14 HRs, 58 RBIs); West Virginia’s Gavin Kelly (.381, 16 HRs, 56 RBIs); Cal Poly’s Ryan Tayman (.362, 18 HRs, 56 RBIs); and Troy’s Jimmy Janicki (.349, 23 doubles, 85 RBIs).

Two possible top-10 picks in the MLB amateur draft, Georgia Tech’s Vahn Lackey and Arkansas’ Ryan Helfrick, didn’t make super regionals.

Home field advantage

Since the tournament went to its current format in 1999, the team hosting a super regional on its home field has won 69.3% of the time. That’s 142 of 205 and does not include three series that were played at neutral sites.

CANTON — Lakiska Garrett wanted a different school for her granddaughter. She said her granddaughter cried each day she had  to go to the local public elementary school,  where she felt ignored and overwhelmed. Then a kindergartener, the girl would sometimes play sick or lie on the floor. 

Once, she fell to the ground and cried at the school drop-off because she didn’t want to enter her classroom, Garrett said.

When SR1 College Preparatory and STEM Academy, a charter school, opened in Canton in 2023, Garrett was excited. She enrolled her grandchild in the first grade at SR1 CPSA and saw her succeed. She was able to read with higher proficiency and make her way confidently through math worksheets.

“All my grandbaby needed was someone to be hands-on and take their time,” Garrett said. “I believe if I would have left her in public school that she’d probably have failing grades.”

Now the state may revoke the school’s charter because of numerous concerns with its leadership, including severe fiscal mismanagement.

In December, the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board began the process of shuttering SR1 CPSA after regulators found the school had one day’s cash on hand, turned in multiple late financial audits and had over-projected its enrollment for a third year. Regulators also said they have evidence of food safety issues in the cafeteria in violation of federal standards.

Regulators also expressed academic concerns about SR1 CPSA during a May hearing. Seven out of 11 Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs, were missing parent signatures, according to Dillon Pitts, charter school authorizer board attorney. These plans outline how school officials are accommodating a student’s disability. The board also claimed to not have received documentation for who supplied the school curriculum.

Amid the fight about the schools’ future, parents and some SR1 CPSA employees said they’re in the dark about what’s going on and why. 

Thursday, at an event that school officials organized to discuss the situation, some SR1 CPSA employees asked if they would still have jobs in the fall. Parents asked for suggestions of how they could advocate for the school. Some questioned why the authorizer board was moving to close the school. Parents, guardians and one employee said they’ve had minimal direct communication from state officials about the situation. One employee shared that school leaders have provided minimal communication about the charter revocation proceedings, too. 

They also expressed anxiety at losing one of the few alternatives to the local public school district. They said their kids enjoyed the more experiential approach to learning, which they say involves more projects and science experiments. School officials organized the event to dispel misconceptions about the charter revocation process, which still may culminate with the school’s closure.

Ozie Smith, whose daughters attend SR1 CPSA,  said she has felt ignored at charter authorizer board meetings about the school. She wishes state leaders and regulators would consider parent perspectives more. She recalled a cold reception from charter authorizer board members when she explained how impactful the more experimental curriculum had been for her daughters.

Authorizer board Executive Director Lisa Karmacharya told Mississippi Today that it’s school officials’ responsibility, and not the agency’s, to communicate with a charter school’s stakeholders before the board takes action. Charter schools are public, and public school boards are tasked with keeping the public informed on actions, spending and other updates as outlined in state law.

“Our responsibility and our contract is with the governing board who has the responsibility to oversee and communicate with the school until the charter board takes action to actually close the school, and then there would be responsibility on both ends,” Karmacharya said. 

The charter contract requires that governing authorities keep a record of all action taken by the school as well as all corporate affairs. In the case of SR1 CPSA, that would be the board of SR1 (Scientific Research), the Ridgeland-based nonprofit organization run by Tamu Green that operates the charter school. 

Some parents say embattled charter school was a ‘godsend’

After the recent event at SR1 CPSA, some parents and guardians lamented losing an alternative to the local public school district. Garrett said she would rather homeschool than send her granddaughter back to the local public schools. Three other SR1 CPSA parents said they have the same plan.

Smith said a representative from the Canton Public School District called her two months into the beginning of the 2023-24 school year to ask why her daughter hadn’t shown up for classes. Smith was shocked that the district just realized she was enrolled elswhere. She said she knew at that moment she had made the right choice for her kids.

SR1 CPSA is for parents that “want something different for their child,” Smith would tell other Canton parents with students enrolled in the local public schools. In the public schools, they were “only teaching the kids how to pass the state test.”

For Garrett and Smith, SR1 CPSA has been a “godsend.” Around 88% of the school’s roughly 19 third-graders passed their state reading tests this year. Garrett said her granddaughter has learned how to read faster than her own children did. 

Smith was one of the first parents to enroll her child in kindergarten at SR1 CPSA. She also went door-to-door to recruit local parents. She said she was met with much resistance because locals have a lot of pride for their hometown public schools. 

Canton Public School District elementary schools have improved their test scores in the last five years. Two elementary schools in the district received a B on the state accountability model last year, while one received an A. SR1 CPSA enrolls 98 students, while roughly 3,142 students attend district schools. 

Some parents sought out SR1 CPSA for its curriculum geared toward careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or STEM.

Three parents and grandparents who left Canton public schools for SR1 CPSA said bullying is common in the district, and they accused district leaders of playing favorites when disciplining students. Canton public schools also reported 90 incidents of violence during the 2023-2024 school year, which is the most recent year with data available. Beverly Luckett, a spokesperson for Canton schools, declined to comment.

Smith told Mississippi Today her children had a different experience at SR1 CPSA. She said its teachers and administrators are largely not from Canton. She said they’ve exposed her daughters to new career pathways like engineering and got them thinking early about their futures.

“We needed things to make our kids think differently,” Smith said. “This is college prep. They’re thinking about college.”

Some SR1 CPSA parents said they want to help the school and be better advocates. 

Smith told Mississippi Today she wishes she was better informed about the figures and data on which the charter authorizer board based its decision to start the process of shuttering the school. The authorizer board cited late audits, over-projected enrollments, lack of adequate documentation for spending, incomplete recordkeeping and food safety issues as some grounds for closure.

“We don’t have as many options in Canton, and that’s the issue,” Smith said. “I really wish that they could see it from our eyes so they can let us know what we can do, if we can do anything to change their decision.”

Volunteers with the Zoo Area Progressive Partnership, a nonprofit led by west Jackson residents, were shocked when they pulled up to the Jackson Zoo to find families lined up at the ticket booth. 

It was 9:50 a.m. on Saturday. The zoo – and its renovated splash pad – wouldn’t open for another 10 minutes. 

“We’re excited that y’all are here,” said Heather Logan, a ZAPP board member, who took a video on her phone to remember the moment. 

A number of events on Saturday drew families from across the metro area to the Jackson Zoo – from Pocahontas to Pearl – including many who said they couldn’t remember the last time they’d visited. About 175 people went to the zoo last weekend, Logan said. 

The turnout encouraged volunteers, local leaders, city officials and zoo employees who’ve been working to revitalize the struggling west Jackson attraction. Earlier this year, Jackson Mayor John Horhn announced his Planning and Development department would seek developers for the Jackson Zoo and the adjoining Livingston Park, but the city has yet to open bids. 

Nonetheless, improvements are underway. After three years, kids can once again wade in the bright-blue splash pad, featuring a tiger-tongue slide and a pelican that dumps water from its orange bill. 

“I’m so excited about the splash pad that I don’t know what to do,” said Pamela D.C. Junior, director of the city’s Human and Cultural Services department. 

ZAPP volunteers also spruced up the entrance of the 100-year-old zoo. With the help of a $5,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Mississippi, they installed signs featuring some of the zoo’s prized animals, including Big Mike, the rare white rhino. 

“It’s a great day in Ward 5, a great day for west Jackson,” Ward 5 Council Member Vernon Hartley said. 

Two local artists painted colorful murals featuring birds, trees and a magnolia flower. Justin Ransburg, one of the two muralists, said he wanted to capture “how peaceful it is here.” 

Deanna Crews, a 35-year-old teacher, said she could tell ZAPP’s work had freshened up the historic property. Her son, 4-year-old Issan, loves animals and is “a young scientist in the making,” but the last time she brought him to the zoo was a year ago. 

As they walked past the gibbon exhibit, Crews and her friend remarked that the zoo seemed like it had more animals than it did last time. 

The zoo also has at least 10 prairie dog pups that were born within the past few weeks, said Dave Wetzel, the deputy director. 

The prairie dogs – which Wetzel said don’t have names, because there are so many – are the only animals the Jackson Zoo is currently breeding. Wetzel said the chimpanzees are partially related, so they take oral birth control. The black-necked swans are brother and sister. The ostriches are too old. And don’t get Wetzel started on those gibbons, Buster and Emma. 

“The gibbons, they do everything but breed,” he said. “They are allowed to, if they so choose to.” 

Instead, Buster and Emma prefer to groom each other and snuggle. Wetzel speculated their relationship has remained platonic because Buster was hand-raised. 

“He didn’t get to see those movies,” he said. 

 A 7-year-old boy named Keylon and his 9-year-old sister named Lyniah toured the zoo with their parents, who did not want the family’s last name published. With lips stained from a blue raspberry snow cone, Keylon hollered in excitement at the ostrich exhibit. The Gluckstadt boy loves to recite facts about animals that he learns from watching YouTube videos, and the large bird reminded him of his favorite type. 

“That’s a dinosaur,” he shouted.

Lyniah was more critical of her time at the zoo. Standing in front of a shady exhibit housing a kookaburra, she said she thought some of the animals looked sad and that the $5 snow cone was too expensive. 

“Me and my brother had to share,” she said. 

There might be a grain of truth to Lyniah’s observation. Wetzel said the animals are happier when lots of people visit the zoo – especially Mathan, the North American black bear that Wetzel affectionately calls “Buddy.” 

“He likes company,” he said. “He likes people to sit there and talk to him.”

Ray McCants, the president of ZAPP, said the zoo is holding another family friendly event this coming Saturday, the “Kidtrepreneur Youth Marketplace” where dozens of kids will set up vendor booths. 

“Hopefully we repeat the traffic again next week,” he said.

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

When I was a sophomore at a small rural high school in Mississippi, I took the ACT for the first time on a Tuesday morning in the school auditorium. There was no prep course, no college counselor explaining the score, let alone what to aim for.

My school had no advanced placement classes, and the number of foundational classes outweighed the number of honors classes. I never thought this was unusual. It was just how school works.

I have reflected on this memory more often as Mississippi officials and national education reporters have celebrated what they are calling the “Mississippi Miracle,” the dramatic climb from 49th in the nation in reading and language to genuinely competing with the national average – an extraordinary achievement by one of the poorest states in the country.

Early literacy policy, phonics instruction and high standards in primary school worked. That much is provable, and it deserves recognition.

But a phenomenon that ends in fourth-grade classrooms isn’t a miracle. It is a head start that we keep failing to build on.

The current media coverage continues to dismiss that by the time Mississippi high school students reach graduation, the numbers tell a very different story. Mississippi’s ACT composite average for the graduating class of 2023 was 17.6 out of a possible 36 points, compared to the national average of 19.5. The ACT’s college-readiness benchmarks – scores that indicate a reasonable chance of passing an introductory college course – require around a 22 in most subjects.

Out of 240 public high schools in Mississippi, only one school graduated a majority of seniors who indicated college readiness in all four tested subject areas. That school is the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science (MSMS), a selective public academy. For everybody else, the picture remains far less miraculous.

The NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) is an excellent measure of what an 8- or 9-year-old has learned to do. It does not measure a 17-year-old’s ability to form a college essay, understand a loan document or pass a statistics course. When we continue to conflate a fourth-grade test score with educational prowess, we are reframing the beginning of an educational journey as the final destination.

The gap between these two things is exactly where I grew up.

My high school offered no AP courses. This wasn’t neglect from any of my teachers, many of whom I cherish. It was a problem of resources. It compounds in rural districts where there aren’t enough high-performing students to justify the addition of an AP chemistry course, not enough trained staff available to teach it and nowhere near the amount of funds to pursue it realistically.

I did not see this as a disadvantage until I arrived at college and found myself in introductory courses alongside students who had covered a semester of material a year, or even two, prior. Many of my former classmates never made it to these types of rooms at all.

The absence of college counseling compounds this further. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of no more than 250 students per counselor — yet Mississippi’s average has consistently exceeded 400:1, far above that recommendation. When a single counselor is responsible for hundreds of students, college planning becomes an afterthought. Students cannot pursue opportunities they have never been told exist.

The gap in expectation and access is dire. Mississippi is one of only 13 states to mandate the ACT, yet it has no requirement or curriculum for ACT preparation. The result is a system that administers a college-readiness exam without committing to the students taking it. Access to preparatory materials varies greatly across the state, and the distinction falls predictably along lines of wealth and geography.

None of this negates the state’s accomplishments in early literacy. The Literacy-Based Promotion Act was a serious, evidence-based intervention, and its effects are tangible. When adjusting for student demographics, Mississippi fourth graders scored among the highest in the nation for reading and math.

But credit is not synonymous with completion. A state that has learned to teach children to read must still guide them on what to do with that skill. Access to advanced coursework, college counseling, ACT preparation and career pathways is not a luxury, but a necessity. Right now, this scaffolding is distributed unequally, and students in rural and underfunded districts are the ones left reaching for rungs that aren’t there.

Mississippi is a state where roughly 36% of its young people move out-of-state. Part of what drives that migration is the sense that opportunity lives elsewhere – and they’re typically correct.

The “miracle” narrative feels good because Mississippi has spent so long garnering negative attention. But the students who will leave this state, or continue to struggle within it, deserve more than a feel-good spin.

The real miracle is one that could follow them all the way to graduation – and beyond.

Abigail Presley attends Columbia University in the city of New York as a rising sophomore and John W. Kluge Scholar majoring in neuroscience and behavioral biology. She is a native of Grenada, Mississippi, and a 2025 graduate of Grenada High School. 

National NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson talks with Mississippi Today about GOP redistricting in Mississippi and across the South, and on his organization’s call for a boycott of major college athletic programs in states pushing to weaken Black voting power through gerrymandering.

A controversial, state-created water authority set to take over Jackson’s water and sewer systems is now limited by a partial federal injunction announced on Monday. By design, the Metro Jackson Water Authority would only take over after the end of an ongoing federal receivership.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate granted in part and denied in part a request from the city to enjoin the water authority from moving forward. State lawmakers created the authority, under House Bill 1677, this past legislative session. A nine-member board would run the new utility with appointees from state and local officials. Jackson leaders have protested the law for not giving the city a majority of appointees.

Under the injunction ordered Monday, the authority and its board cannot take any action other than appointing and seating board members.

“The Authority may not at this time, select a Board President, unless and until this court gives approval,” Wingate’s order said. “The Authority shall enact no regulatory measures, finalize no lease agreements, issue no bonds, and assume no managerial influence or deputy control over Jackson’s water and sewer systems unless and until this court explicitly alters this decree or determines to relinquish its ongoing authority over the systems.”

In its request for an injunction, the city argued HB 1677 interfered with the federal receivership Wingate initiated in 2022. In an order placing Jackson’s sewer system under the receivership, Wingate tasked receiver Ted Henifin with creating a transition plan by Oct. 5.

As things stand, the judge wrote, HB 1677 doesn’t interfere with his 2022 order because it only takes effect once the court allows Henifin and his company, JXN Water, to step down. Moreover, Wingate could reject the Metro Jackson Water Authority altogether.

“The state law, in this court’s eye, simply stands as an unexecuted contingency—a structure waiting in the wings,” Wingate wrote. “If this court decides to reject the Authority as a viable successor entity within the final transition framework, the Authority cannot assume control.”

Even so, the judge specified three ways the water authority law “attempts to encroach upon” his role overseeing Jackson’s utilities:

• First, by creating a specific governance model, the state law attempts to narrow the options for a succession plan available to the court.
• Second, the state law says the president of the water authority would serve as Henifin’s deputy, disrupting the “inner management” of JXN Water.
• And third, the state law requires the authority to immediately negotiate a lease of the water and sewer assets with the city, in addition to allowing the authority to issue bonds as soon as July 1. Such actions would “infringe upon” the court’s rule overseeing the utility systems’ finances.

“This court is persuaded that the potential insertion of a state-appointed official into the operational hierarchy of the (interim third party manager) risks creating an administrative dichotomy that could fracture the unified command necessary to rehabilitate Jackson’s infrastructure,” Wingate ruled.

Officials so far have named most of the nine board members. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann chose Jackson businessman Sandy Carter, the city of Ridgeland named its city engineer, Paul Forster, and the city of Byram chose WGK engineer Tramone Smith.

Jackson Mayor John Horhn selected Daniel Walker, a water treatment professional, as well as longtime politico Austin Barbour and Jackson businesswoman Shirley Tucker. The Jackson City Council, though, still has to confirm the mayor’s picks.

Gov. Tate Reeves last month declined to name his two selections, citing Wingate’s initial temporary injunction against the water authority. Reeves and Horhn have to consult over the ninth board appointee.

Former Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach, the eccentric and revolutionary offensive savant whose teams set dozens of scoring and passing records over his 21-year head coaching career, is among the nominees for the 2027 College Football Hall of Fame class.

The National Football Foundation released the ballot Monday for the class that will be announced in January. It includes 80 players and nine coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision and 99 players and 39 coaches from lower levels.

A player is eligible 10 full seasons after his last year in college and must have received first-team All-America honors by a major selector. The nominee’s college football achievements are a prime consideration, but his post-football record as a citizen also is a factor.

Leach, who died in 2022 at age 61, became eligible for induction under adjusted criteria for coaches to be considered. The NFF announced last year the minimum career winning percentage required would go from .600 to .595 beginning in 2027.

Leach had a .596 winning percentage with a 158-107 record at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State.

Leach was known for his innovative wide-open offenses and his knack for pulling upsets. He won 18 games against Top 25 opponents when his team was unranked.

Among other FBS coaches on the ballot are Larry Coker, whose Miami team won the 2001 season’s national championship; Dennis Franchione, who made stops at TCU, Alabama and Texas A&M; Ralph Friedgen, who led Maryland to bowls in seven of his 10 seasons; Darryl Rogers, 1977 Big Ten coach of the year at Michigan State; Jackie Sherrill, all-time wins leader at Mississippi State; and Tommy Tuberville, who coached at Ole Miss before leading powerful Auburn teams of the 2000s.

Heisman Trophy winners Cam Newton of Auburn (2010) and Robert Griffin III of Baylor (2011) are on the ballot along with first-time nominees Tavon Austin of West Virginia, Melvin Gordon of Wisconsin, A.J. Hawk of Ohio State and Barrett Jones of Alabama.

Nominees go through a screening process to assure they meet eligibility criteria before a vote is taken among members of the NFF and Football Writers Association of America. Voting results are sent to the NFF Honors Court, which makes final selections.

A Mississippi company plans to move forward in building a private power plant and an artificial intelligence industrial campus. 

State utility regulators, though, declined to make a ruling on the project, calling the developer’s request for an opinion “premature” and “hypothetical.”

The state’s two largest power companies are protesting the effort, arguing the project would classify it as a public utility. 

“We’re celebrating the ruling of the Public Service Commission,” said Gabriel Prado, CEO & president of PraCon Global Investment Group, the developer of the project and a slew of others throughout the Jackson metro area, including Topgolf in Ridgeland and a luxury apartment complex in Fondren.

While his initial filing to the PSC said the data center campus would be in Ridgeland, Prado has since said the project will be in the Jackson metro area and declined to say exactly where the project will be. The Jackson metro area, which includes Ridgeland, is in Entergy Mississippi’s service territory, meaning the company has exclusive rights to sell power there. 

In March, Prado AI, an affiliate of PraCon Global Investment, asked for a PSC opinion on whether it would be considered and regulated as a public utility if it generated and supplied power to its tenants at a potential data center and semiconductor manufacturing campus. It said in its initial filing that electricity would be included in the lease and not metered. 

On Friday, the PSC, which regulates public utility providers in the state, declined to issue an opinion saying that it did not have enough information. Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps told Mississippi Today that Prado didn’t answer “basic” questions, such as how many tenants the power would serve.  

“The limited facts presented by Prado AI present multiple questions of fact such that [a change in] any variable could result in a different opinion,” the report said. 

When asked why he didn’t provide more detail to the PSC, Prado said making that information available to the utility companies would take away the project’s competitive advantage. 

Prado called the decision “the best outcome in our legal strategy.” 

Prado AI is still working on securing all the funding it would need for a project of this size. Amazon’s data centers in Mississippi start at $1 billion in investment, and Gabriel Prado says his long term goal is to bring in over $25 billion. Any potential project would still need to go through state and local permitting.

In Mississippi, companies are generally allowed to generate power for their own use. The sticking point for utility companies is that Prado AI would be generating and providing power to its tenants. Entergy and Mississippi Power, the state’s two largest power providers, argue this arrangement would make Prado AI a public utility, subjecting it to the same PSC rules and regulations as them.   

In a brief to the PSC, Mississippi Power wrote that the request “could intentionally or unintentionally upset this delicate regulatory balance” and warned that the request could cause “significant and sweeping impacts that are truly difficult to overestimate.”

Prado AI disagrees and has cited an exemption which allows landlords to supply electricity to tenants. But the utility companies say the exemption only applies to transmitting electricity, not generating it. 

Even if Prado AI didn’t qualify as a public utility, the power companies argue Prado would need a “certificate of public convenience and necessity,” or CPCN, from the PSC in order to generate power. 

“An entity seeking to construct a generator, even without becoming a public utility, must still obtain a CPCN from the (PSC) first, giving the (PSC) the opportunity to determine whether the construction of the generator is in the public interest,” Entergy wrote in an April 13 filing. 

The company added, in a statement to Mississippi Today on Monday, that while it “supports customers’ right to generate their own power in compliance with state laws,” Entergy wants to guarantee the facility won’t affect its ratepayers. 

“We want to ensure if this large industrial project asks to connect to the electric grid in the future, it will cover all related interconnection costs so those costs aren’t passed on to Entergy’s residential, small business and other customers,” Entergy said in the statement. 

In the Jackson metro area, officials are trying to balance economic development with pushback from residents over environmental impacts. Jackson officials are grappling with potential zoning changes after being recently approached by a data center developer, while the City Council is considering a six-month moratorium on any data center construction in the city. 

Prado said that while he’s opposed to a moratorium in Jackson, he thinks it’s important for there to be public debate.

“When we go into our site and then need to speak to the public, I will be there,” Prado said. 

In April, Ridgeland officials passed an ordinance creating a 500-foot buffer between data centers and residents, and also ensuring such facilities plan for their utility needs ahead of time, including electricity, water and sewer. 

Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and former Jackson City Council Member Aaron Banks declined to plead guilty by a federal judge’s Friday deadline on charges they face in an FBI operation that roiled Jackson officials in 2024. 

U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan set the deadline last year in an effort to ensure orderly resolution of a complex case. An expert says, though, that nothing would prevent the three men  from pleading guilty before or during a trial. 

Owens, Lumumba and Banks are the remaining defendants in the case. They are set to go to trial on July 13 in what the judge previously wrote he expects to be a month-long proceeding. 

Each of three defendants has previously pleaded not guilty. They can change to a guilty plea at any time, said Matt Steffey, a Mississippi College School of Law professor. 

“Let’s be clear, there’s nothing that prevents the parties from at any time agreeing to a negotiated plea,” Steffey said. “You can try anything.” 

At the same time, the judge is free to reject a plea – a move Steffey said would be unusual but not rare. 

“If the judge rejects the terms of the plea agreement, then a defendant has the right to withdraw the plea,” he said. 

Owens, Banks and Lumumba are facing multiple charges stemming from a sweeping FBI operation aimed at exposing public corruption. Undercover agents, posing as real estate developers, sought to build a convention center hotel in downtown Jackson on a plot of land the city had previously obtained a federal loan to develop. 

The undercover agents enlisted an unsuspecting Owens to help them gain credibility with powerful Jacksonians, including Banks and Lumumba, Mississippi Today previously reported.

The only bribes that the indictment charges Lumumba with taking are campaign contributions. While on a yacht off the coast of Florida, Lumumba discussed the payment Owens was going to give him on behalf of the developers and then placed a call asking a city employee to shorten a bid window for the hotel development, the indictment alleges. 

Prosecutors allege Banks took cash bribes in exchange for his vote on the development, but the city never selected a winning bid and the vote did not come to fruition. 

Two people have already pleaded guilty in the scheme: Another former City Council member, Angelique Lee, and Owens’ cousin and associate, Sherik “Marve” Smith. 

WEST POINT — Tameshia Shelton remains in prison for life for murder — a conviction contradicted by much of the evidence, including an apparent suicide note never presented to the jury, a four-year investigation by Mississippi Today has found.

Mississippi Today retraced Shelton’s path through the criminal justice system from the beginning, attending multiple court hearings, examining hundreds of pages of transcripts, exhibits and other court records, and conducting dozens of interviews.

The reporting revealed law enforcement concluded 21-year-old Danelle Young’s death was a homicide even though much of the evidence pointed to suicide, creating a cloud of suspicion that landed Shelton behind bars.

This narrative went unchallenged through Mississippi’s justice system until it hardened into a murder conviction through discrepancies in officers’ testimony, a since recanted deputy state medical examiner’s homicide ruling and a defense attorney so ineffective that an appeals court later ruled he violated Shelton’s constitutional rights.

Not long after arriving at Young’s fatal shooting on Oct. 16, 2009, Clay County sheriff’s deputies concluded his death was a homicide. Shelton, who has maintained her innocence, became the prime suspect because she was the last known person to see Young alive. 

Current Sheriff Eddie Scott, then the chief deputy, told a local reporter he’d ruled out the possibility that Young died from suicide or an accident because the 21-year-old had been shot in the chest from 30 feet away.

Only the gun was actually fired from less than an inch away. That’s what a State Crime Lab expert concluded after finding gunfire burns in Young’s jacket.

Studies show this finding is far more consistent with suicide. 

The deputy state medical examiner officially ruled Young’s death a homicide — a determination the pathologist has since called an “error.”

A grand jury indicted Shelton for murder, and a jury convicted her in 2015.

After five years behind bars, Shelton was granted an opportunity that could lead to freedom: The Mississippi Supreme Court ordered Clay County to hold a hearing to determine if she deserved a new trial. But after hearing new testimony, the trial judge denied her request in 2024.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals recently ruled in her favor, but it will be up to the Mississippi Supreme Court to decide by July if she gets a new trial.

“I’m trying to fight for my innocence,” Shelton said in a phone interview from prison. “I’m trying to fight for my life. I’m trying to fight for my freedom.”

Regardless of the outcome, her case illustrates how each step of Mississippi’s criminal justice system failed her. “It was easy for them to sit there and just throw me up behind the system,” she said of Clay County authorities. “Now it’s hard for me to get out from under the system.”

‘Y’all took too long! He’s dead!’

Shelton’s journey through Mississippi’s justice system begins with the night of Young’s death: Oct. 16, 2009.

Tameshia Shelton told the 911 dispatcher there had been an accidental shooting and shrieked, “Oh, my God! Danelle!”

“What’s going on?” the dispatcher asked.

Shelton paused before replying, “OK, he’s still breathing.”

The dispatcher told an ambulance and deputies to head to Mhoon Valley, a Clay County community that arose on the fertile soil of the Black Belt. The land grew gobs of cotton and became even busier when the Georgia Pacific Railroad set up a station in the late 19th century, but the place had long since fallen on hard times.

For Shelton and her family, the anchor became the Mhoon Valley Missionary Baptist Church, where they spent much of their time. Shelton sang in the choir and taught the girls in the congregation to mime dance.

After graduating from the nearby Mary Holmes College with an associate degree in cosmetology, she cut hair and did other work until the 2000s, when she began to suffer health issues, including seizures, that prevented her from working. But she continued to cook, making the family’s meals.

Left: Danelle Young was found fatally shot on the night of October 16, 2009, outside Tameshia Shelton’s trailer home in Mhoon Valley under an oak tree, pictured 17 years later on May 17, 2026. Credit: Jerry Mitchell/Mississippi Today

Right: The oak, pictured May 17, 2026, was a favorite of Tameshia Shelton’s grandfather. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today

Shelton breathed hard and told the dispatcher, “Could you please hurry up?”

She shared that Young told her he saw a raccoon in a nearby oak — the same one her late grandfather loved to sit beneath and regale her and other children with stories.

Young asked for a gun to shoot the raccoon, and she handed him her grandfather’s .22-caliber pistol, she said. “I was in the house. Next thing I know, I heard a shot. I came outside. He’s down on the ground on the tree.”

Shelton, barefoot and in pajamas, walked to the middle of the street so the first responders could see her. The chilly wind gusted as she clutched her 5-month-old daughter, Treasure, in a baby blanket.

“She’s out here in the cold,” Shelton told the dispatcher. “Please hurry up.”

Her youngest sister, Ketina Tutton, arrived and saw her boyfriend on the ground. She began to scream, pull her hair and stomp the ground. 

When the first sheriff’s deputies — Sgt. Cassandra Smith and an auxiliary officer — arrived at the scene 17 minutes after Shelton called 911, she later testified that Shelton screamed, “Y’all took too long! He’s dead!”

Neither of the deputies were investigators. But testimony shows that Smith, a patrol officer, told her partner to let the chief investigator know she thought this was no accident — this was murder.

Qualifications: The state of Mississippi doesn’t require any homicide training for homicide investigators. Coroners aren’t required to have any medical experience. They simply must be 21 and have a high school diploma or its equivalent, but they must take a 40-hour course in death investigations and receive 24 hours of continuing education each year. 

Under Mississippi law, sheriffs aren’t required to have law enforcement experience. The only requirement? 

They can’t be atheists.

Young’s last week alive

Four days before his death, Young surprised Tutton by showing up at her home for her 22nd birthday and flashing his “Kool-Aid smile,” as his family called it.

The two had met in 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee, where Young was studying to become an auto mechanic while Tutton attended art school for graphic design.

After Young graduated in 2008, they began living together. When Tutton’s classes ended in April 2009, they moved to Mhoon Valley. A month later, they went together to the hospital to welcome Shelton’s new baby.

But the couple’s romance grew rocky. Family members recalled Tutton throwing Young’s clothes onto the lawn when the couple broke up that May.

Before Young left for his family’s home in Forest, Shelton’s middle sister, Shenikia, recalled him saying, “I’m tired of her leaving me, but she’ll see. Just wait. Just wait.”

In the months that followed in 2009, the couple began a long-distance relationship and eventually agreed to reunite. Starting in January, they planned to live together in Meridian, more than an hour and a half from Mhoon Valley.

Young dreamed about their future together, including marriage. The week he died, he gave Tutton a necklace and a birthday card addressed to “My Wife Mrs. Katina Young,” complete with a doodle of the couple holding hands.

He signed the card as “Yo Man, Yo Husband, Yo Hero, Yo Soulmate.”

“I’m giving You my life, You T, because I wanna spend mine with u,” he wrote Tutton, whom he called “T.” “I hate being away from u. It’s not fair 2 me & especially you.”

The couple spent the night together at Shelton’s trailer. But Tutton didn’t want to get married. She had gotten a full-time job nearby and no longer wanted to move away and live with Young.

Shenikia spent much of Young’s last week with him. “He was like my baby brother,” she told Mississippi Today. “My kids called him uncle.”

She said he talked about a change in plans, saying Tutton didn’t want to live together anymore.

On the morning of the day he died, Young babysat Shenikia’s son. Later that day, Young worked on Shelton’s car, and she cooked supper for him and the rest of the family.

That evening, Shenikia went to her mother’s red Ford Expedition to find her work schedule. She noticed Tutton and Young inside. 

They didn’t look happy, she said. The couple sat apart — Tutton remained in the middle of the back seat while Young rested on the floor with his legs hanging out the SUV’s open door.

Shenikia grabbed her schedule, went inside and returned later, asking the couple to go to Walmart to buy her some baby wipes.

By the time the couple returned at about 8 p.m., dreams of a new life together had deteriorated into a verbal spat that lasted 15 to 20 minutes. “I had just told him that we were not – that I was not going to move in January like we had planned,” Tutton later told deputies. “This was something we had planned … until I got the job.”

The argument ended with the couple parting ways. She said she walked inside her mother’s house, and Young headed to Shelton’s trailer. 

It was dark when Shelton said Young knocked on the bedroom window of her trailer. She was already in bed with her two daughters.

There was no way to open the window, which had an air-conditioner, so she headed for the front door. When she opened it, she said Young told her there was a raccoon in the tree and that he needed Shelton’s revolver and only one bullet to kill it.

She said she replied that he might need more than one bullet, so she loaded the .22 pistol and handed it to Young.

She heard a shot, and when Young didn’t return, she said she went outside to check on him, only to find him face down beneath the towering oak her grandfather loved.

Drawing Conclusions: Renowned criminologist and former detective Kim Rossmo said the biggest problem with law enforcement making a conclusion before the majority of the evidence is collected is, “It’s hard to walk back that decision, even if you later realize it’s the wrong decision.”

A 1999 National Institute of Justice study compared DNA of suspects in more than 21,000 cases with DNA from the crime scene. DNA tests exonerated the prime suspect in 23% of the cases.

“If DNA excluded the prime suspect 23% of the time, that means authorities were looking at the wrong person in almost 1 out of every 4 cases,” said Lucian Dervan, law professor and director of Criminal Justice Studies at Belmont University College of Law. “One has to wonder what these results mean for the vast majority of cases where there is no DNA evidence to test.” 

In 2014, Rossmo and a fellow professor at Texas State University examined 43 wrongful convictions. They found that a rush to judgment was a significant factor.

“Wrongful convictions are a form of criminal investigative failure,” Rossmo said. Such failures harm society, cause people to lose faith in the criminal justice system and signal structural weakness in that system, he said.

The investigator never considered suicide

Clay County sheriff’s deputies discovered the .22 pistol in the grass near Young’s feet. It became one of the most important pieces of evidence in their death investigation.

They sent it to the State Crime Lab but didn’t ask for the pistol to be tested for fingerprints. If Young’s fingerprints had been present, that would have cast doubt that Shelton shot him.

Neither Sheriff Scott nor the Clay County Sheriff’s Department responded to repeated requests for an interview with Mississippi Today.

Chief Investigator Ramirez Williams rejected Shelton’s explanation of the moments leading up to Young’s shooting. The chief investigator testified he believed that because Young was wearing camouflage, the victim knew how to hunt. If Young truly had to shoot a raccoon, Williams reasoned, he would have asked for Shelton’s shotgun, not a pistol.

Shelton’s current lawyers, Sandra Levick and Tucker Carrington of the Mississippi Innocence Project, pointed out on appeal that “the reasonable inference is that Mr. Young asked for one bullet in the handgun rather than for the shotgun because he intended to turn the gun on himself. He used the ruse that there was a raccoon in the tree as a reason to ask for the gun.”

Deputies discovered a banana hair clip, a rubber band with hair in it and “badly disturbed” gravel at the scene. After learning Young and Tutton had argued that night, officers concluded a physical altercation had taken place in Shelton’s driveway. That speculation led them to conclude without any additional proof that Shelton had killed Young to protect her sister.

Officers from the Clay County Sheriff’s Department testified at Shelton’s 2015 murder trial that they found three pieces of evidence near Danelle Young’s body that made them conclude an “altercation” occurred before he died: “badly disturbed” gravel, a hair clip and a rubber band containing hair, as pictured in crime scene photographs from October 2009. Credit: Mississippi Supreme Court records

By his own admission, Williams never considered suicide as a possibility — even after deputies obtained a surveillance video that contradicted elements of the officers’ theory of an altercation. Tutton didn’t have a hair clip or rubber band in her hair when she and Young bought baby wipes earlier that night at Walmart.

Deputies shared their findings with the coroner, who wrote that “statements given to investigators at the scene indicate that there might have been some type of altercation or argument between Mr. Young and his girlfriend prior to the incident.”

Tunnel Vision and Confirmation Bias: Tunnel vision is the tendency for actors in the legal system to lock in on a crime and a suspect and build their investigation and prosecution around finding evidence to prove guilt, said Keith Findley, who co-founded the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences. “Confirmation bias is one of the psychological processes that can drive tunnel vision.”

He said confirmation bias takes place when anything that backs the conclusion is considered relevant and important while any contrary information is considered irrelevant or unreliable. 

For instance, if there is a mistaken eyewitness identification, officers may continue to “build a case” against that suspect, he said. Or if police interpret a piece of evidence as proof of a crime, they continue to believe a crime took place even when other information contradicts it, he said.

In 2000, then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan put a moratorium on executions, and his Commission on Capital Punishment concluded that tunnel vision played a significant role in most cases that wrongly sent 13 innocent people to death row.

The 2014 Texas State University study that examined 43 wrongful convictions found that confirmation bias played a role in four out of five cases where innocent people were sent to prison.

‘Gunshot wounds in the heart are frequent suicidal injuries’

A gun fired from less than an inch away, as in Young’s case, nearly always points to suicide. A study of 1,450 handgun deaths found that 96% of close-contact wounds were suicides and 3% were homicides. 

But that’s not what the deputy chief medical examiner for Mississippi at the time, Dr. Lisa Funte, who now goes by “Liam,” determined. Instead, the pathologist ruled it a homicide.

Funte did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mississippi Today.

The autopsy report made no reference to an argument — only an altercation, which police typically use to refer to a physical fight.: “This individual was reportedly shot following an altercation with his girlfriend.”

Funte based that determination on the bullet’s pathway. The bullet, fired through the left center of Young’s chest, had no significant deviation to the left or right, the pathologist said. “It was pretty much straight back and down.”

Funte, who had three years’ experience as a pathologist at the time of the death, testified later that he had never seen a suicide case where a bullet took this pathway. Over a decade later, he told a court that as he has gained more experience, he has since encountered such suicide cases. In 2018, Funte began serving as the deputy chief medical examiner for Maine.

While more suicides involve firing at the temple (36%), the left chest is a common location (15%), according to a 2002 study of 624 gunshot autopsies. “Gunshot wounds in the heart are frequent suicidal injuries, especially in men,” a 2005 study said.

Funte had told jurors the death was a homicide because, if Young was going to shoot himself in the chest, it would be difficult to turn his hand completely around. That would cause the bullet to deviate to the left or right.

But the pathologist’s conclusion seemed to ignore that you don’t have to turn your hand around; you just have to turn the gun around and pull the trigger with your thumbs.

Funte failed to take into account other factors, including the rise in suicides among young Black men. In 2009, the suicide rate for Black men between 15 and 24 was 9.78 per 100,000 people — more than twice as high as it was in 1960. That trend has continued, prompting a 2019 report, “Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America.”

At trial, the pathologist testified there was a lack of mental illness. But a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 54% of those who die by suicide suffer no such illness. 

The pathologist also mentioned the lack of previous suicide attempts. One study concluded that nearly two-thirds of men who commit suicide die on their first try.

At the time, Funte was unware of the upsetting argument Young had with his girlfriend or the apparent suicide note he wrote.

A study by the CDC with the University of Georgia found that 1 in 5 suicides is linked to intimate partner problems. For young adults, breakups are especially traumatic, resulting in a 25% increase in suicidal thoughts, according to another study.

In a 2022 hearing seeking a new trial for Shelton, Dr. Randall Frost, the medical examiner for Bexar County, Texas, testified he saw no evidence that would make him conclude Young’s death was a homicide. “It’s completely consistent with a self-inflicted wound,” he said.

Pathologists: Medical examiners must operate independently, “without any undue influence” from law enforcement agencies and prosecutors under National Association of Medical Examiners’ standards. Despite that, 70% of their members reported pressure to influence their findings. 

A 2025 editorial in “Forensic Science International” declared that forensic labs under law enforcement control “face pressure to support prosecution.” Independence is essential, but scientists who challenge “official narratives often experience professional retaliation,” the editorial says.

“When a medical examiner feels he or she is part of the prosecution team, that gives rise to a lot of wrong diagnoses,” said renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, one of the founding members.

“Forensic pathologists have to just say what the facts are and not be concerned if anyone is found guilty or innocent,” he said. “If they feel they work for police or their job depends on cooperating with police, then their opinions can be easily swayed.”

Shelton rejects plea bargain: ‘I’m not going to lie and go to hell’

After a grand jury indicted Shelton in 2011, she looked to hire a lawyer. Fearful a public defender might not represent her well, she visited former prosecutor Rod Ray, who agreed to take the case.

His fee was $50,000. According to a sworn statement from her family, they and their church managed to scrape together $43,000 to pay him.

After hearing her story and talking to authorities, Ray believed Shelton was innocent.

“Why would somebody call 911 and stay on the phone for, I think it was 17 minutes, begging people to come to the scene to talk to the one person in the world who could say who did or who did not do it?” he testified in the 2022 hearing.

In 2014, Shelton took a voice-stress test, which deputies turned into a two-hour questioning session on crime – all without her lawyer’s presence.

Her attorney told her that authorities had offered a plea bargain for manslaughter. She refused. Her position remained the same as when investigators first questioned her.

“I’ll tell the truth and go to jail,” Shelton recalled telling them. “But I’m not going to lie and go to hell.”

Prosecutors relied on erroneous testimony

Six years passed before prosecutors put Shelton on trial in 2015. When they finally did, they told the jury they didn’t have a motive for why she did it, and they didn’t need to provide one.

Instead, prosecutors hammered home that Young’s death was a homicide and used gunshot residue tests to support their case that Shelton shot him.

Gunshot residue tests were designed to determine if someone has fired a gun, handled a gun or been close to a weapon when it was fired, but experts say the tests can’t prove anything beyond that.

Prosecutors told jurors that gunpowder residue had been found on Shelton. One microscopic particle of residue was on the back of her hands and four particles were on her palms – a location that a defense expert said would match someone who handled a recently fired gun.

Shelton told deputies she had fired the gun earlier in the week to scare a bulldog chasing her nephew, but prosecutors said Shelton was just trying to cover up her crime.

Some deputies testified that from their recollection, Shelton repeatedly wiped her hands before they tested her hours later for gunshot residue at the station – a timeframe later proven wrong.

“She had hours, four hours to get rid of the evidence,” Assistant District Attorney Mark Jackson told the jury in 2015. “And man did she have the motive. She knows she shot him in cold blood. She has to get rid of whatever it is that Ramirez Williams is going to be looking for to pin this crime on her.”

Gunshot residue was also found on the back of Young’s hands. “Gunshot residue particles are typically found on the backs of the hands of the person who fired the weapon,” Bexar County forensic scientist Crystina Vachon testified in the 2022 hearing.

Prosecutors argued that because only five particles were found on Young, he didn’t fire the gun – a conclusion that defense experts questioned.

“You cannot make any determination about a shooter or a bystander or someone who just handled a weapon based on the number of particles,” Vachon said.

Gunshot residue tests: Experts say the public sometimes has a “CSI” view of gunshot residue — a test that definitively identifies the shooter or exonerates the innocent. But the truth is these tests fall short of such conclusions.

Residue generally reflects whether someone fired a gun, handled a gun or was close when a weapon was fired, but experts say problems exist with these tests. They can result in false positives because of contamination by officers or labs.

In many cases, tests fail to find residue even after someone fired a weapon. A study of 116 suicides determined that in half of these cases, no residue was found.

The FBI Lab stopped conducting these tests in 2006.

“Gunshot residue is notoriously unreliable,” said Chris Fabricant, author of “Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System.” “It’s hardly conclusive.”

Authorities ‘were grasping at straws’

After prosecutors in their opening statement accused Shelton of gunning down Young, defense lawyer Rod Ray delayed his opening statement until the defense presented its case.

When he later delivered his statement to jurors, he spoke fewer than 100 words, promising jurors they would “hear from the people that were in Mhoon Valley.”

The only witness they heard from was Tutton, who confirmed what she had told deputies.

Ray did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Mississippi Today.

The prosecution gave jurors no motive for why Shelton would have wanted to kill Young, but Ray helped them out by getting the chief investigator to share his theories on her motives.

Ray didn’t consult with or call experts on the manner of death or gunshot residue. He later testified in the 2022 hearing that his strategy was to focus on Shelton in the 911 call, when she hysterically pleaded for the ambulance to hurry.

“I knew from talking to the people involved that they (authorities) were grasping at straws. They didn’t know what had happened. They didn’t have a motive. She’d never been in trouble,” he testified. “It didn’t add up.”

Ray didn’t interview any experts or witnesses before the trial started, according to court records. 

But he later testified that he worked hard for his client. “I fought my guts out to win.”

‘These are my last words’

A month or so after Young’s death, Shelton found a note he wrote her, stuck inside her baby book. The note began, “Thank you for accepting me 4 who I was.” 

Not “who I am.” Who I was.

Shelton kept reading. Young thanked her for giving him advice and a place to lay his head. He asked her to keep watch over her baby sister.

“I love her 2 death. She’s my heart. I planned my life with her around her. I never planned 4 just me,” he wrote. “I have no life without her. These are my last words.”

He mentioned Shelton’s 5-month-old daughter, Treasure, and told Shelton to tell her oldest daughter, Trinity, “I said bye & be a good girl ok Tell Treasure about me one day. Bye Bye.”

Shelton shared the note with her family. They agreed it was a suicide note and sealed it in a plastic bag. When Shelton met with Ray, she shared the note, and he made a copy.

On the second day of the trial, Ray sent Shelton home to get the note. Nothing in the trial transcript indicates he ever tried to introduce it as evidence.

Lawyers who later represented Shelton on her post-conviction appeal accused Ray of a “complete lack of preparation. He had not prepared any witness who was familiar with Mr. Young’s handwriting to authenticate the note. … Mr. Ray had not retained a handwriting expert. He had not prepared Ms. Shelton to testify. He had not shared the note with counsel for the State in advance of the trial.”

Failure to share evidence prior to trial typically results in that evidence being excluded, legal experts say.

Ray later testified that he needed a witness to introduce the letter and that Shelton “chose not to testify.”

During the murder trial, Judge James T. Kitchens Jr. of Caledonia told Shelton it was her right as to whether she testified, but he urged her to “listen to what your attorney suggests.”

Shelton told Mississippi Today that Ray told her not to testify. She said she would have gladly testified if it meant the jury could read the note. 

As a result, jurors never knew about Young’s note to Shelton. 

“I have no life without her. These are my last words,” Young wrote. “Bye, bye.”

Mississippi Today shared the note with five jurors in Shelton’s murder trial. One of them, Robin Daniels, said that note would have absolutely made a difference in the deliberations.

A second juror, Patricia Glasson, said she believes the note creates reasonable doubt about Shelton’s guilt. A third juror, Chris Glover, said Shelton deserves a new trial. “And I would be willing to serve on the jury.”

Inadequate Legal Defense: Many defense lawyers represent their clients well, but some fall short. They may neglect to fully investigate a case. They may not challenge questionable evidence. Or worse, they may fail to call possible witnesses or introduce evidence that would help clear their clients.

In some cases, these lawyers are overworked, burned out or lack the funding or resources that district attorneys have. In still others, these lawyers may fail to do their jobs.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals concluded that Shelton’s defense lawyer committed errors so grievous it deprived her of a fair trial. 

Despite their doubts, jurors vote to convict 

Jurors struggled to reach a unanimous decision, at one point asking the judge in a note, “Is accidental shooting ruled out already? Could this be considered?”

Judges aren’t permitted to give new instructions, so Kitchens pointed them back to the instructions he had already given.

Some time after his response, the jury returned a “guilty” verdict. 

When the circuit clerk polled the jurors, one juror gave no response, according to the court transcript. She later said in a sworn statement that she wasn’t convinced Shelton was guilty. The juror has since died.

Young’s twin sister, Dominique, told the judge, “I know nothing will bring him back, but this woman needs to feel our pain. I feel that she should get life in prison or the electric chair. She took an innocent man’s life so her life should be taken away.”

Young’s mother, Edith, said to Kitchens, “I’m thinking of him every day, crying, not able to control it. I’m a mother who lost a part of me, my child. He didn’t deserve to be killed like a dog shot down in cold blood.”

Young’s family did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mississippi Today.

The judge sentenced Shelton to life in prison. When she turns 65 in 2043, she can petition the sentencing court for conditional release. It’s a request that lawyers say is rarely granted.

To the new DA, ‘The evidence sounded thin’

In the years following Shelton’s conviction, her family reached out to everyone they could, including to District Attorney Scott Colom in 2018. They told Colom that Young’s death was a suicide, not a homicide.

The wall of Colom’s office has a reminder to him about not rushing to judgment: a photo of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, two exonerated men who together spent a total of 30 years behind bars, including time on death row, for a murder they didn’t commit. 

Their prosecutor was Colom’s predecessor, Forrest Allgood, whose office saw six convicted people later have their convictions thrown out — the record for any district attorney in the state, according to a Mississippi Today analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations. 

Allgood said he did not recall the Shelton case, which other prosecutors tried. He said he and his staff never tried anyone they thought was innocent.

He defended Shelton’s defense lawyer, Ray, who previously worked for Allgood as a prosecutor. “He’s probably the premier defense lawyer in the district,” the former district attorney said. “There’s probably a very good reason he didn’t introduce the [apparent suicide] letter.”

Just because an appeals court dismisses a case doesn’t mean it’s right, he said. “Appeals courts are made up of fallible human beings.”

He said he disagreed with the term exoneration when a case is reversed because “there’s a bias toward the accused being innocent, even after a jury says otherwise.”

Colom said Brooks supported his campaign for district attorney and made him promise that if he ever had a case with questions about someone’s guilt, he would have people look into it.

After reading the 2017 Mississippi Supreme Court opinion upholding Shelton’s conviction, Colom began to have questions. “The evidence sounded thin,” he said. “There was not much motive.”

On top of that, he said, if Shelton were truly guilty of murder, “Why would she call 911?”

He reached out to the Mississippi Innocence Project to look into the case. And he later wrote a sworn statement in support of a hearing to determine if Shelton deserved a new trial.

In 2020, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously ordered such a hearing. The trial judge removed Colom from the case because of the statement he signed and had the attorney general’s office replace him.

Defense attorneys point to ‘false and misleading testimony from prosecution witnesses’

In 2021 and 2022, Judge Kitchens held three days of hearings.

At Shelton’s original trial, deputies testified that from their recollection, Shelton was wiping her hands to try and remove gunshot residue before they tested her at the station at about 1 a.m.

Her defense team, now including Jake Howard of the MacArthur Justice Center, slammed that testimony as false. A form from that night signed by chief investigator Ramirez Williams showed he had tested Shelton for gunshot residue at 9:51 p.m. — less than 30 minutes after Young was pronounced dead outside her trailer, and hours before she made it to the station.

But the jury never saw the form documenting the actual time.

This evidence “completely undermined the State’s theory that she had tried to rub away the evidence that she had fired the gun,” her new lawyers wrote. “The State secured its conviction against Tameshia Shelton by presenting, and failing to correct, false and misleading testimony from prosecution witnesses.”

After seeing additional materials regarding Young’s death during the hearings, Dr. Funte admitted in a sworn statement that his ruling that Young’s death was a homicide was an “error.” During a new hearing, Funte told the court that he lacked knowledge of any data or scientific studies that supported his original conclusion for Young’s manner of death — in fact, they contradicted it.

If Funte had the chance to rule again, the pathologist wrote to the court that he would deem the death undetermined but leaning toward suicide.

“Any bullet trajectory can occur in both homicides and suicides. I see no evidence at this point to support homicide,” Funte testified.

The judge told lawyers that cause of death in cases — gunshot, poisoning or otherwise — are more of an issue than manner of death, whether it be homicide, suicide or otherwise.

Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr., who was acquitted of bribery and tax evasion charges, said the cause of death in this case may be a gunshot wound, but the manner of death makes all the difference.

If the pathologist had ruled the manner of death a suicide or an accident, he asked, what proof would there be that a homicide took place? 

“If the manner of death didn’t matter,” Diaz said, “Tameshia Shelton wouldn’t be in prison.”

Phantom crimes: Nearly three-fourths of exonerated women were convicted of “phantom crimes” — crimes that never took place, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations.

Through reviews or court appeals, authorities determined that what they first thought were crimes were really accidents, suicides or other acts misinterpreted as wrongdoing.

Nationwide, more than 300 women have had their convictions overturned over the past three decades. Although the reasons vary, many of these cases involve faulty forensic methods and conclusions.

Shelton lost because of the evidence, state maintains

Judge Kitchens took so long to rule on Shelton’s case that the Mississippi Supreme Court scolded him.

Nearly two years after the hearings, the judge finally ruled. He denied Shelton a new trial in a 15-page order.

After her lawyers appealed to the Mississippi Court of Appeals, Special Assistant Attorney General Barbara Byrd wrote to the court that Shelton had failed to show why she should be granted a new trial. Byrd stated that the defense “failed to show that the State’s witnesses testified falsely or that the prosecution knowingly elicited false testimony or that the jury relied on the allegedly-false testimony in rendering its verdict.” 

Shelton lost because of the evidence, not her defense lawyer’s performance, Byrd wrote. “Trial counsel challenged the State’s evidence at all stages of this case by filing and arguing pre-trial motions, making strategic objections at trial, by thoroughly examining witnesses, and by making a persuasive (though unsuccessful) closing argument.”

She called the apparent suicide note irrelevant as evidence.

Left: Sisters Tameshia, left, and Shenikia Shelton smile for a last photo together in 2015 before Tameshia was imprisoned after a Clay County jury convicted her of murder in the 2009 death of their youngest sister’s boyfriend, Danelle Young. Right: Shenikia Shelton, bottom, visits Tameshia Shelton in prison. Tameshia Shelton is serving a life sentence in the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County. Credit: Courtesy of Shenikia Shelton

But the appeals court disagreed. The judges ruled 7-3 in favor of a new trial for Shelton, citing Dr. Funte’s reversal on manner of death and the defense lawyer’s failure to introduce an apparent suicide note as evidence. “We find it difficult to conclude that its absence did not prejudice Shelton’s defense,” the appeals judges wrote.

The appeals court did acknowledge discrepancies in the officers’ testimony. But it rejected the defense’s argument that the testimony was false, ruling that the defense failed to show the officers intentionally lied.

In appealing the decision to the Mississippi Supreme Court, Byrd said the same studies that supposedly support the deputy medical examiner’s reversal “quantitatively showed that Dr. Funte’s original opinion was still the most probable manner of death.”

She cited one study that said only 36.4% of suicidal gunshot wounds were to the left chest, “meaning 63.6% did not.” And a later study showed that less than 15% of suicides involve chest wounds.

Byrd declared the defense’s failure to admit the apparent suicide note into evidence “does not establish prejudice. At most, it shows a possibility — not the reasonable probability — of a different result. That is insufficient.” (The attorney general’s office declined to comment further on the case.)

Shelton’s lawyers responded that “no competent medical examiner would rely on statistical probabilities to determine, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the manner of death” since “‘any bullet trajectory can occur in both homicides and suicides.’”

They wrote that “Young’s ‘These are my last words’ note … was relevant to Young’s state of mind where the asserted defense was suicide, as the Court of Appeals correctly holds.”

Mississippi Supreme Court justices have until July to decide if they will consider the case. If they don’t, the case would return to Colom’s office.

“It’s my job,” Colom told Mississippi Today, “to look at what the facts show and do justice.”

Undoing Wrongful Convictions:Overturning a wrongful conviction in a murder case borders on impossible in Mississippi.

The Mississippi Supreme Court has upheld convictions in more than 86% of appeals decided on merits over the past decade. Getting a circuit court judge to order a new trial in a murder case is even more difficult. 

Since 2021, the Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered 38 circuit court judges to review murder or capital murder cases to determine if new trials are warranted, according to a Westlaw search. Not a single one of those judges ordered a new trial.

Jackson lawyer Graham Carner has been fighting for a new trial for his client, Jeffrey Havard, since 2008. His case involves allegations of sexual assault, which even the state’s experts agree never happened, and a “shaken baby” syndrome that scientists have disproven.

“The system values finality more than reaching the right result,” he said. “Once there is a conviction, the system wants to just move along. And it’s almost impossible for the innocent to get justice. We need to do better.”

‘We didn’t get to grieve Danelle. We loved him.’

In the 11 years since Tameshia Shelton went to prison, weeds and trees have overtaken her trailer. Her prized black Mustang sits nearby with the vanity tag, “Truely” – shorthand for her phrase, “I’m truly a walking miracle.”

Her sister, Shenikia, said the pain runs deep, not just for the loss of her sister, but for the loss of the young man her children called “uncle.” She said the lead investigator advised them against attending Young’s funeral or reaching out to his family.

Because deputies believed Shelton had killed Young, “we didn’t get to grieve Danelle,” she said. “We loved him. He was family.”

From prison, Shelton told Mississippi Today that despite being behind bars, she maintains “an optimistic outlook and a positive mindset. My trust and my faith is in God.”

Putting innocent people behind bars does more than hurt a single individual, she said. “My family is hurting, the community is hurting, my kids are hurting. It’s like a domino effect.”

Her children have grown up without her. Her now-17-year-old daughter, Treasure, has battled depression and suicidal thoughts in the past, Shelton said. “If I was there, my kids wouldn’t be going through counseling. If I was there, my sister wouldn’t have to sit there and play the mom role.”

Left: Tameshia Shelton’s black Mustang, pictured April 27, 2026, sits parked in Mhoon Valley by where her trailer once stood before she went to prison in 2015. Right: The forest has overtaken Tameshia Shelton’s abandoned trailer, pictured April 27, 2026, in Mhoon Valley over the 11 years that she’s been in prison on a murder conviction in the 2009 death of her sister’s boyfriend, Danelle Young. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today

If she is freed, she plans to spend the rest of her life helping those in similar circumstances, she said. “I don’t want this to happen to other people.”

Shelton said she would like for Young’s family to know that “we weren’t the ones that pulled the trigger. We did not do any harm to him. We never did anything to him besides treat him like family.”

She expressed sympathy to his family for their loss. “I know how his family feels because my daughter tried to kill herself,” she said. “I am truly sorry that they suffered that loss. Being in here, I feel the pain. I honestly feel the pain.”

Madeline Nguyen is a Roy Howard Fellow at Mississippi Today. Ilyssa Daly is an investigative reporter who previously worked with Mississippi Today to help investigate this case.

This story was published with the support of a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, in conjunction with Arnold Ventures.

Illustrations by Bethany Atkinson. Layout and interactive elements by Dennis Dean.