OurTupelo

Jackson Mayor John Horhn gives an update on city issues to “The Other Side,” including an arrest in the Beth Israel Congregation arson attack, the latest on the water system, the search for a new police chief as crime rates move in a positive direction and what the city hopes to get from the state legislative session. Hohrn says e many challenges are ahead for the state’s capital city, and “We are a city that is a prototype for what ails America.”

This article is part of a collaborative investigation into Mississippi’s Deadly Prisons.

An investigation by The Marshall Project-Jackson, Mississippi Today and other local reporting partners found that understaffing and gang violence in Mississippi’s prisons led to dozens of incarcerated people being killed in the last 10 years. Their killers seldom face consequences, and their families are often left without answers. 

Of the nearly 50 homicides we identified, just eight killers have been convicted.

Over the course of a year, reporters from The Marshall Project, Mississippi Today, the Clarion Ledger, the Hattiesburg American and The Mississippi Link reviewed thousands of pages of court records, incident reports, and federal and state government death records. We interviewed families who have lost loved ones behind bars, formerly incarcerated people, former guards, attorneys and corrections experts.

Following our investigation, Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said in October 2025 that the department would review unprosecuted homicides and deaths ruled to be of undetermined causes. 

Yet three months later, there have been no additional indictments or convictions in open homicide cases.

The 2026 legislative session began Jan. 6. So far, House Corrections Chair Rep. Becky Currie stated that she plans to introduce legislation to advance prison health care reform. No legislation addressing prison violence, understaffing or homicides has been introduced. 

Here are five key points from our investigation — and what the federal government and other states have done to stem their own prison violence:

1. Prison homicides are not isolated incidents. They are the result of long-documented failures of the state to protect those in its custody. 

Many of the violent, preventable deaths we investigated showed the same factors: Chronic understaffing, lax oversight and gang control. These issues have been documented for decades in civil lawsuits and in investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

2. The killings have not stopped. 

After the stories were published in September, our reporting team identified three additional men who were killed behind bars in 2025. At East Mississippi Correctional Facility in Meridian, 41-year-old Aaron Harrison was killed in July. According to an incident report, Harrison was receiving medical treatment after appearing pale and yellow. A nurse practitioner observed bruising on his lower abdomen. The incident report stated that Harrison’s cause of death was unknown, but the state medical examiner later determined his death to be a homicide caused by blunt force trauma. 

Three months later, 23-year-old Cameron Roby succumbed to injuries following an assault at the same facility. Also in October, 29-year-old Donald Jones was beaten to death by his cellmate at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, according to prison incident reports. No one has been criminally charged in connection with any of these deaths. 

3. The chief problem is prison understaffing.

Most of the documented killings were beatings or stabbings that occurred when staff were either absent, outnumbered or poorly trained to handle the violence. 

From 2015 through 2025, we discovered multiple accounts of a victim being beaten, killed and not found until hours later. In February 2025, officials at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility received a call that an incarcerated person had died in the prison. They found Jonathan Havard strangled to death in his cell, according to an incident report.

In December 2021, Ronnie Graham was beaten in the early hours of the morning. He spent nearly five hours passing in and out of consciousness before being found foaming at the mouth, according to prison incident reports and a Justice Department investigation. He died shortly after. 

When there is not enough staff in a prison, functions like security counts are neglected. Gangs and violent individuals take advantage of these security gaps. 

Deputy Corrections Commissioner Nathan Blevins told lawmakers in September that about 30% of the funded corrections officer positions were vacant. 

“No prison can operate safely with that kind of staffing,” said David Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project.

4. Investigations into prison killings are shrouded in secrecy.

Families are often left without answers. When they did get answers, they typically learned details about their loved ones’ deaths through a whisper network of incarcerated people, insiders, advocates, and, in some cases, from journalists. Family members report little communication with state prison officials. 

Mississippi’s public records law also makes it difficult to find out what happened. The Mississippi Public Records Act exempts law enforcement investigative documents. It is up to the law enforcement agency — in this case, the Department of Corrections — to decide if a document is investigative. MDOC officials used this exemption broadly throughout our investigation, but reporters were able to obtain information through other sources.  

5. Official accountability is elusive. The federal government and other states enacted more oversight. 

Mississippi prison death investigations are handled internally. The corrections department ultimately decides whether to pass its investigation to the local district attorney’s office for prosecution. 

An individual who kills another incarcerated person can either be held accountable through a criminal charge or an internal prison write-up called a rule violation report. Often, they receive neither. Of the 42 homicides examined in our investigation, just eight cases led to suspects pleading guilty in criminal court. A few received a rule violation that led to a loss of privileges, including the use of the phone and buying items from the commissary. 

Outside of the prison system, there is scant oversight to hold corrections officials accountable for misconduct, root out corruption and investigate allegations of abuse. In some states, there are independent oversight bodies or officials who handle these tasks.

For example, Virginia created an ombudsman’s office to inspect its prisons and investigate complaints. The office received more than 500 complaints from June through August last year, which included excessive force, prolonged isolation and delayed medical care. 

New York’s prisons are monitored by an independent agency. The Correctional Association of New York conducts inspections and interviews with incarcerated people and prison staff. The organization publishes reports and maintains a public dashboard with data on staffing, deaths, suicide attempts and more. 

In 2024, the Federal Prison Oversight Act was enacted, creating an ombudsman office and granting the Justice Department’s inspector general office authority to inspect federal prisons. The legislation comes after investigations found rampant sexual abuse, preventable deaths and neglect in federal prisons. 

In Mississippi, the Legislature established a Corrections and Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force in 2014, but it has virtually no authority, said André de Gruy, the state public defender and a task force member. The task force offers criminal justice policy recommendations to the Legislature that are focused on reducing the prison population.

De Gruy said he often receives calls from former clients and their family members about the dangers in prison.

“Not everybody has that ability to call and have a connection to somebody who can actually look into something, and put (it) on the commissioner’s radar,” he said. 

He proposed the creation of an ombudsman’s office for Mississippi, similar to those for Virginia and federal prisons. 

Victims’ families in Mississippi have also sued the prisons. However, such cases are difficult to win, civil rights lawyers said. There are legal protections like qualified immunity, which can shield officials from being held responsible for the deaths.

A person splashed liquid along a wall and onto a couch inside the lobby of Mississippi’s largest synagogue shortly before a fire ignited and destroyed parts of the building in northeast Jackson, according to internal security-camera video footage reviewed by Mississippi Today.

The predawn fire Saturday reduced the Beth Israel Congregation’s library and administrative offices to charred ruins and left smoke damage throughout the building. The destruction occurred in the same part of the building that was damaged when Ku Klux Klan members bombed the temple in 1967 because of the rabbi’s outspoken support of civil rights. 

Local and federal law enforcement made an arrest Saturday night after the suspect was found at a Jackson hospital with burns that were not life-threatening, said Charles Felton, a chief investigator with the Jackson Fire Department.

The fire was ruled an arson, meaning it was intentionally set. By Sunday afternoon, law enforcement had not released the suspect’s name, the exact charges he will face or a possible motive. It was not immediately clear whether investigators consider this a hate crime. 

A Mississippi Today reporter watched a segment of the congregation’s security-camera footage only hours before the arrest was announced Saturday. It showed a person wearing a hooded shirt and a mask over most of his face. The person was holding what appears to be a plastic container while dousing the inside of the lobby with liquid, including a wall adorned with the synagogue’s Tree of Life, an installation that marks special occasions for congregants such as bar and bat mitzvahs.

The video footage has become part of a joint federal, state and local investigation.

The fire was reported shortly after 3 a.m. Saturday, and firefighters extinguished it before sunrise. No congregants or firefighters were injured.

Beth Israel’s congregation president, Zach Shemper, said in a statement Sunday that damage assessment continues, and several churches have extended offers for Beth Israel congregants to use their buildings for worship space. He said the congregation has established a donation fund for rebuilding, with a link on the congregation’s website.

“We are a resilient people,” Shemper said. “With support from our community, we will rebuild.”

Jewish congregations have been attacked in the U.S. in the past several years, including in Pittsburgh, the San Diego area and Colleyville, Texas. The attacks have come amid a rise in  anti-Semitic rhetoric in public spaces and on social media.

News of the fire at Beth Israel prompted an outpouring of support from the Jackson metro area, including from Mayor John Horhn and local religious leaders.

The Rev. CJ Rhodes, pastor of Mount Helm Baptist Church in downtown Jackson, said on social media Sunday that Beth Israel Congregation “holds a sacred place in Jackson’s moral history” because of its courageous support of the Civil Rights Movement. 

Rhodes also said that attacks on houses of worship “strike at the heart of our shared moral life.” He called on people to pray for the Beth Israel Congregation and stand in solidarity with them.

“An injury to one faith community is a concern for us all,” Rhodes said.

Mississippi also has a history of bombings at Black churches. Those reached a peak during the Civil Rights Movement, including the June 1964 arson of Mount Zion Church in Neshoba County — a Ku Klux Klan conspiracy that drew civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman to the area to investigate the fire. 

Chaney was Black, and Goodman and Schwerner were Jewish. After the three young men were jailed a few hours in Philadelphia on an accusation that Chaney was speeding, they were released. Waiting Klansmen chased them on a rural highway, pulled them over and shot them to death. 

Beth Israel is Jackson’s only synagogue, with about 150 families. The congregation does not have a count of individual members but says a family could be one person or multiple people. 

Two Torahs were destroyed and five were damaged in the flames that erupted during Shabbat, the weekly Jewish day of rest, according to temple leaders. One Torah that survived the Holocaust was in a glass case and was undamaged in the fire.

The day after the fire, Beth Israel held children’s Sunday school at a museum in Jackson. 

News of the fire drew international attention, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center is among several groups condemning the attack. 

“We owe gratitude to law enforcement for their swift response, and to civic and religious leaders from other faiths who made it clear that the Jewish community would not stand alone,” the center’s CEO, Jim Berk said in a statement Sunday. “Their leadership is a signal that hate will be met head-on, not met with silence.”

Mississippi Today reporter Allen Siegler contributed to this report.

1/12/2026: This story has been updated to add video clips from a Beth Israel Congregation synagogue security camera.

One variation of an old saying goes, “If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no work for tinkers,” and another goes, “If a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his backside when he jumps.”

Those sayings are meant to dissuade people from hypothesizing about an event that is not likely to happen.

They are adages for a reason. They hold elements of truth.

Despite the warnings established by those adages, it is still worth noting that if the Mississippi electorate follows the pattern established by voters in other states in recent elections – even in solidly Republican areas – the Mississippi contest for the U.S. Senate later this year could be closer than expected.

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a close ally of President Donald Trump, is a heavy favorite to win reelection this November and continue serving in the nation’s Capitol as Mississippi’s junior senator. Heck, a Democrat has not won a statewide election in Mississippi since Jim Hood garnered reelection as attorney general in 2015.

But in 10 special elections, granted district elections not state contests, held across the country since Dec. 9, Democrats have performed on average 13% better than they did in the previous elections in those same districts.

Even in statewide elections – gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia – the Democrat did better in 2025 than in the previous election in 2021– by 9.4% in Virginia and by 5.6% in New Jersey.

If (there is that word) the Democrat running against Hyde-Smith could do as well this November, the election would be exceedingly close and she could even lose.

In her last election in 2020, she defeated Democrat Mike Espy 54% to 44%. When the pair ran against each other in a special election in 2018 months after Hyde-Smith had been appointed to temporarily fill the Senate seat, Espy garnered 46.4% of the vote.

This time around, Lowndes District Attorney Scott Colom is the favorite to win the Democratic primary on March 10 and face Hyde-Smith in November. He faces opposition from Albert Littell and Priscilla W. Till. Hyde-Smith, for that matter, is being challenged in the Republican primary by Sarah Adlakha and Andrew Smith.

Ty Pinkins, who has run for statewide office in the past as a Democrat, will be vying in the Senate contest in the November general election as an independent, creating an additional headwind for the Democratic nominee. 

Democrats have exceeded their performances in recent elections presumably because of voter disenchantment with Republican President Trump.

A key question is whether voters in Mississippi, where Trump has historically been popular, feel the same disenchantment?

Trump faces various headwinds right now. Many voters are still struggling with economic woes. Plus, Trump still faces questions concerning his closeness to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice seems to be violating the law to slow-walk the release of files that perhaps could shed light on that relationship. Then, there are questions about Trump’s strange obsession with controlling or acquiring other countries, even making threats of military action against longtime allies.

And there is always the issue of his inappropriate comments regarding the deaths of people he did not like. 

Will all of those issues and others impact elections in Mississippi, like they have affected elections in other states?

Heck, even in Mississippi, there was at least one recent special election where the Democrat did much better than in past contests.

In a Nov.10  special election in state Senate District 19 in northwest Mississippi, incumbent Kevin Blackwell won by only 6.6%. In the 2023 regular election, Blackwell won by a sizable margin of 31.4%. Granted, Blackwell ran in 2025 in a new court-ordered district that increased the percentage of Black voters, who tend to vote Democratic, but the increase was minimal from 25.4% to 27.5%.

If (there is that word again) those election trends hold true, Hyde-Smith could be in for a challenge this November.

If frogs had wings…

A fire heavily damaged Mississippi’s largest synagogue before dawn Saturday – the same house of worship in northeast Jackson that the Ku Klux Klan bombed in 1967 because the rabbi supported civil rights.

The Jackson Fire Department, the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested a suspect Saturday night in the latest blaze after the fire department ruled it arson, according to chief fire investigator Charles Felton. Investigators did not immediately release the name of the suspect or the charges the person could face.

The fire was reported shortly after 3 a.m. at Beth Israel Congregation on Old Canton Road. No congregants were injured.

The library and administrative offices of Jackson’s only synagogue were reduced to charred ruins. Two Torahs were destroyed and five were damaged in the flames that erupted during Shabbat, the weekly Jewish day of rest, according to temple leaders. One Torah that survived the Holocaust was in a glass case and was undamaged in the fire.

Beth Israel has suspended services indefinitely. 

“We have already had outreach from other houses of worship in the Jackson area and greatly appreciate their support in this very difficult time,” the congregation president, Zach Shemper, said in a statement. 

Arson is a criminal act of intentionally setting fire to a structure, Felton, the JFD division fire chief, told Mississippi Today. 

Investigators did not immediately know a possible motive, such as whether it was a hate crime. Jewish congregations have been attacked in the U.S. in the past several years, including in Pittsburgh, the San Diego area and Colleyville, Texas.

The state Homeland Security Office is also assisting in the investigation, said Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bailey Martin Holloway.

Mayor John Horhn said he had spoken with Shemper and hoped for a “swift resolution as to the origin of these actions.”  

“I would hope that all Mississippians and all Jacksonians would commit themselves toward moving beyond such behavior and activity and find a way where we can all get together and get along,” Horhn said. 

Felton said firefighters had responded shortly after 3 a.m. in response to a report about a possible “church fire.” After they could not determine the origin of the flames, he said his arson investigators were called to the scene and began to collect video surveillance. He said he received calls Saturday morning from the FBI and the ATF, as a matter of course when a fire occurs at a religious institution. 

On Saturday evening, reporters could smell soot outside the temple and observed a melted camera on the northeast wing of the building and six windows covered in plywood. 

An FBI agent standing next to yellow caution tape began collecting pictures and videos from people in the parking lot. Congregants and synagogue leadership had been at the temple all day, assessing the damage. 

Some had gone inside the building, stepping over ash-filled puddles of water to retrieve sacred religious objects from the temple, including Torahs. One of the holiest objects in the Jewish religion, the scrolls typically weigh dozens of pounds and stand a couple feet tall.

The fire also burned the synagogue’s Tree of Life, a plaque that honors and records special occasions for congregants such as bar and bat mitzvahs. 

One congregant, David Edelstein, typically attends Saturday morning services. He did not know the synagogue had been burned when he arrived, but he immediately tried to figure out what had happened. 

Initially, congregants believed lightning from thunderstorms the night before had started the fire, so Edelstein said he flew a drone over the top of the synagogue and determined that had not happened. 

The hours moved by fast, he said. As Edelstein, wearing a protective breathing mask, helped measure one of the broken library windows, he looked inside and spotted a book lying face up. He stepped into the library to look closer. 

It was open to the Shema, one of the most important prayers in the Jewish faith that reads, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” 

“Everything’s charred and stuff but one of the books was on top, opened up right to that,” he said.

Similar to Saturday’s blaze, the 1967 bombing and fire heavily damaged the synagogue’s administrative offices and library but injured no congregants. The rabbi at the time, Perry Nussbaum, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “bigots” were responsible for the fire, and he believed they might have been inspired by anti-Semitic campaign materials used extensively in that year’s Democratic primary for governor.

Mayor Horhn, 70, said he has some recollection of the 1967 attack, when he was 12.

“I do remember that the Jewish community and the African American community in those days formed alliances and partnerships to fight racism, to fight injustice, to fight mistreatment of citizens for whatever reason,” Horhn said.

Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens filed hundreds of pages of documents in federal court Monday containing salacious quotes from undercover agents, an interview with a now-convicted felon, a transcript of a federal grand jury interview and a photograph of an undercover FBI agent smiling at an open fridge full of alcoholic drinks. 

The federal government swiftly filed an emergency request for the judge in Owens’ federal bribery case to permanently seal the motion and the attached exhibits, claiming it violated a protective order in the case and could “influence the jury pool.” 

Owens is charged with eight criminal counts, including conspiracy, bribery, racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements. He has pleaded not guilty, and his 68-page motion points to his likely defense — entrapment. 

“In its unrestrained zeal to ‘get something’ on Owens, the Government made material misrepresentations in the indictment; concealed evidence; lied to the Grand Jury; induced Owens after he rejected criminal overtures and exhibited reluctance; strategically used alcohol to target Owens, who is a diagnosed alcoholic, to break down his resistance, overcome his reluctance, and elicit incriminating statements,” the motion reads.

READ MORE: Yacht, strip club, bags of cash: The traveling FBI sting that set the stage for bribery charges against Jackson officials

Former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and former Jackson City Councilman Aaron Banks have also pleaded not guilty, and a trial is scheduled for July. 

The FBI sting began in 2023, when agents came to Jackson impersonating wealthy, out-of-state developers seeking to invest in downtown. 

In the course of their operation, Owens allegedly helped the developers bribe Lumumba by translating the agents’ cash into checks from multiple supposed campaign donors, and forking over the funds while on a yacht in south Florida. According to documents obtained by Mississippi Today, the fictitious developer group had invited Lumumba to Fort Lauderdale, just outside Miami, under the guise of a fundraising event, including a sunset cruise.

Lumumba then allegedly called his planning and development director in exchange for the money and asked him to move up a deadline in a bid for proposals, theoretically giving Owens’ new developer friends an advantage. Photos of Lumumba talking on the phone and Owens handling cash appear inside the indictment.

The federal government also accused Owens of bribing Banks with $10,000 for his future vote on the project.

The federal indictment is chock full of quotes from Owens, taken from hours of tape the undercover agents recorded during their conversations with the district attorney. Owens’ brow-raising remarks – which he described as “cherry-picked” and “drunken, locker room banter” – extend to topics far beyond the alleged bribery scheme. 

“We can take dope boy money,” Owens is quoted in the indictment as saying, “… but I need to clean it and spread it.”

The indictment alleges Owens told the agents he was mixing their cash with “dope money and drug money and more than a million dollars” and storing it at the district attorney’s office. 

But the indictment does not include charges related to these comments. This is another thing Owens’ motion challenges. 

“The Government intentionally used a ‘speaking indictment’ to foment public anger and acrimony toward Owens resulting in widespread conclusions of guilt with no regard for due process,” the motion reads.

Owens’ motion includes similarly detailed descriptions of the FBI’s attempts to learn about his activities, despite the government’s claims in grand jury testimony that Owens “inserted” himself into its investigation. 

Months before the real estate developers came to town, the motion claims, the FBI had set its sights on broaching Owens’ network by turning a law enforcement officer and former candidate for Hinds County Sheriff, Torrence Mayfield, who was also working as the district attorney’s bodyguard. 

With the help of a jailhouse informant and a convicted felon who runs a Jackson nightclub, Owens’ motion claims the feds indicted Mayfield on federal firearm charges in 2022 after he bought a rifle for the nightclub owner. In 2025, Mayfield pleaded guilty to one charge of making false statements to a gun dealer. 

Owens’ motion says the feds sat on the indictment until they got to town. Then, Owens claims they used it to pressure Mayfield, arranging a SWAT team to arrest the unsuspecting man in April 2023 as he was “leaving a health club wearing a plastic suit to help him lose weight.” 

For more than three hours, the motion says agents interviewed Mayfield as he “sat handcuffed in the backseat sweating profusely in his plastic suit.” He told them about his suspicions of corruption in city government and local law enforcement. 

“And you got to understand, we have heard all those things from the County, the City, like everything,” one of the agents told him. “We just are now hearing a position where you could get something.” 

The motion repeatedly cites this interaction, claiming it shows the government wanted to “get something” on Owens. The motion also alleges the federal government concealed this transcript from the defense. 

“To coerce Mayfield, the FBI agents repeatedly reminded him that prison was in his immediate future unless he could ‘come up with something,’” the motion reads.

Owens’ motion lingers on a paragraph from the indictment in which the government asserts the undercover agent initially made contact with the district attorney after casually happening on his lounge, Downtown Cigar Company. 

The government claimed a lobbyist the agent was meeting with while in town recommended the establishment. The inclusion of that detail puzzled some onlookers when the indictment was unsealed in November 2024.

And Owens alleged in his motion that it was a misrepresentation by the government. Instead, his lawyers assert that the informant knew what he was doing when he stepped into Owens’ establishment.

The motion claims the FBI began investigating Owens long before the cigar shop scene. Specifically, it pointed to a September 2022 email in which a local FBI agent discussed Owens’ businesses and wrote, “Also, we are getting Jody added as a subject to one of our investigations but that hasn’t happened yet.” 

But when a U.S. Department of Justice lawyer asked FBI special agent Lawrence Correll during an October 2024 federal grand jury proceeding whether Owens had been a target of the FBI “as somebody that had been previously mentioned as somebody who was taking bribes” at the launch of the investigation, Correll said Owens was not, according to the transcript reviewed by Mississippi Today. 

Correll answered affirmatively when the attorney asked whether the initial FBI agent had “just happened to kind of run into Owens.”

“And is it accurate to say that Owens kind of then inserted himself into this bribery scheme?” the attorney asked, and Correll responded, “That’s correct.”

The filing includes several images of Owens with a beverage in his hand, including one in which he appears slumped over, holding his head in his hand, and two with his face on the table. 

The undercover sting carried out in Jackson from 2022 to 2024 resembled FBI operations that ensnared public officials in other cities. The agents treated a councilman from Cincinnati to the same treatment, a yacht ride and an outing to a Miami cabaret club, according to news reports.

A 7-year-old girl who is one of the victims of a mass shooting in Clay County was the intended victim of sexual assault by the man accused of killing her and five adults.

Daricka Moore, 24, pleaded not guilty Monday to three counts of capital murder, three counts of first-degree murder and other charges in the Friday shootings, local TV stations reported. He has been held at the Clay County jail since the weekend and was denied bond. A judge also ordered a mental health evaluation.

Before the court hearing, family members identified the girl as Mikiylia Guines, who is Moore’s second cousin. He is also accused of killing three other family members. 

During a Saturday press conference, Clay County Sheriff Eddie Scott said Moore tried to sexually assault someone at the address where the girl was killed, but did not specify who. One of the court affidavits lists Mikiylia as the victim of Moore’s attempted sexual assault. The sheriff was not immediately available for comment Monday. 

The capital murder charges are for the deaths of the 7-year-old, Barry Bradley and Samuel Bradley. Barry Bradley was a pastor of Apostolic Church of The Lord Jesus in Cedarbluff, which is located near the home where the men died.

In addition to murder and attempted sexual battery charges, Moore is charged with attempted murder of a child, burglary and two counts of taking a motor vehicle. 

A motive for the shootings was not immediately known. 

Lashanna Guines, the girl’s mother, told WTVA-TV she saw her child die in front of her and the girl’s siblings. She is left to wonder if she could have done more to help. 

“And that’s weighing heavy on my heart, because, you know, it may have been more, what if I did this, and what if I did that?” Guines said. “It would have been, you know, a better outcome, but I just don’t know. I tried. I tried.”

Community members have come together to support families of the shooting victims. 

The United Way of the Golden Triangle Region established a Family Assistance Fund, and there is a GoFundMe to help Guines, Mikiylia’s mother. As of Monday, over $10,000 had been raised.

“Let’s rally as a community of families to support them through the loss of her baby girl,” Rene Guines-McMillian, who organized the fundraiser, wrote on the GoFundMe page. Guines-McMillian was not immediately available for comment Monday.

Scott, the sheriff, previously said his department had not dealt with Moore or responded to calls at the locations where the six people were killed.

Over the weekend, District Attorney Scott Colom said his office will consider the death penalty.

Friday evening, Moore allegedly shot his father Glenn Moore, 67; uncle Willie Guines, 55; and his brother Quinten Moore, 33, in the head at a home on David Hill Road, according to law enforcement. It’s the same home that is listed as Moore’s home address in court records. 

Moore took a Ford F150 belonging to his brother and drove it to the second scene on Blake Road where he broke into the house and tried to sexually assault the 7-year-old, according to authorities. He shot the girl in the head and tried to kill another child, according to the sheriff. 

From there, Moore allegedly went to a home on Siloam-Griffith Road, where investigators found the truck he had taken hidden behind the house. There, they found the bodies of Barry Bradley and Samuel Bradley, who also had been shot in the head, Scott said.  

Moore was arrested at a safety checkpoint about a half a mile from the second crime scene, Scott said.

This was the largest mass shooting in Mississippi since eight people were shot and killed in and near Brookhaven in 2017. Willie Godbolt, who was sentenced to death, shot his estranged wife and several of her family members and a Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy. 

Simeon Gates contributed reporting.

Dr. Adair Blackledge, a physician who practiced facial plastic surgery in the Jackson area for 22 years and was the subject of a five-month Mississippi Today investigation in September, surrendered his state medical license Dec. 31, according to an order accepting the surrender published by the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure. 

Blackledge was under investigation by the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure — the state agency that licenses and regulates physicians — for allegations of professional incompetency, unprofessional conduct and dishonorable or unethical behavior likely to deceive, defraud or harm the public, the order says. Board minutes show that the board approved an investigative subpoena for the case in March. 

Blackledge, of office-based facial plastic surgery practice Blackledge Face Center, denied wrongdoing and surrendered his license to retire from medicine and resolve the board’s investigation, the order writes. The signage for Blackledge Face Center had been removed from the building’s facade as of Sunday.

Blackledge did not respond to Mississippi Today’s request for comment by publication time Monday. Board of Medical Licensure spokesperson Cara Shirley declined to answer questions about the surrender, writing in an email that “the Board does not comment on matters related to Board business.” 

Mississippi Today’s reporting showed that Blackledge performed facelifts about three times more quickly than what other plastic surgeons considered average. He also employed some practices other doctors said were uncommon, such as instructing patients to remove their staples themselves after surgery and performing post-operative visits at hotel rooms for patients who traveled to Mississippi for surgery. 

Blackledge said in July he used a sleeping pill and a sedative, anti-anxiety medication to sedate most patients before surgery, a drug combination other doctors told Mississippi Today could make it difficult for patients to breathe during surgery. Blackledge also said he was trained using the regimen and has never had an adverse event related to anesthesia administration.

He also said there is no way to compare the amount of time a facelift takes to another because each one involves different techniques and areas of the face.

Mississippi Today’s investigation also showed Blackledge was not board certified in any specialty medical field, a credential that is not required to practice plastic surgery in Mississippi. Some experts, however, say certification improves patient safety by demonstrating that a doctor has trained extensively in a field and is capable of performing certain procedures. 

Patients interviewed by Mississippi Today last year described a range of complications, including nasal indentations and infections, prominent scarring, a cheek implant that burst through the skin and wounds that reopened and required medical attention. They recounted quick procedures, results that didn’t last and repeated revisions, or procedures to correct or improve past surgeries.

It is uncommon for a physician to surrender a medical license, and it is not typical for a doctor to surrender a license upon retirement, said Dr. Randy Easterling, a Vicksburg physician who previously served on the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure for 12 years. Easterling said he does not have knowledge of Blackledge’s case and cannot speak on behalf of the medical board. He also could not speak specifically about Blackledge’s license.

“Usually a surrender of license — generally speaking — is when there’s so much evidence against the physician that you don’t want to have a hearing,” he said. “Because if you go to a hearing, there will be stuff to come out that maybe you don’t want the public to know.” 

If an investigation is concluded without the initiation of disciplinary action, all records of the investigation and proceedings remain confidential, according to Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure policy. 

Blackedge’s surrender of his medical license will be reported to the Health Resources and Services Administration’s National Practitioner Data Bank, a registry used to collect and share disciplinary information about medical providers across state lines. 

“Generally speaking, you would have difficulty getting a license in any other state,” Easterling said. 

However, physicians whose licenses have been surrendered in Mississippi can reapply for licensure, beginning the process as if they have never held one before, according to Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure policy.

Blackledge’s former patients have greeted news of his departure from the field with mixed reactions. Vicky Pitts of Laurel underwent a necklift with Blackledge in 2020, followed by a series of revisions and touch-up surgeries that occurred for more than two years after she said the initial surgery failed. Pitts said the subsequent procedures resulted in complications. 

She said Friday she feels relieved that other patients may be spared similar experiences, but does not believe the outcome will bring her closure.

“It still does not heal some of the people he has really hurt in the long run, with the stress, the depression, the embarrassment,” she said. “… When I look in the mirror, I just want to cry.”

Scores of people who say they were patients of Blackledge have shared stories and photographs of their surgery experiences in a members-only Facebook group created by patients in 2023. 

Blackledge told Mississippi Today in emails from July to September that the complaints made by patients about his practice represented a small portion of his patient population and said he believes his complication rate is far below the national average. He said the complaints were the result of a “social media barrage” in which he, his family and his staff members were attacked and threatened by patients. 

“The past year has been an extremely frustrating one for me, and I really feel like I am being painted in a false light by patients who had apparently unreasonable expectations of the results that could be achieved,” he said to Mississippi Today in July.

Blackledge told Mississippi Today for months last year that he could not locate a transfer agreement he said he had with St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson. The agreement is a state requirement for surgeons who sedate patients in their offices, and is widely considered a critical patient safety measure for office-based surgery. 

Blackledge provided a written transfer agreement with St. Dominic to Mississippi Today the day before it published its article, signed that day, after Mississippi Today inquired about it for the third time in three months.

There was no indication Monday on the Blackledge Face Center website or social media pages that the business has closed. Appointments for aestheticians are listed as available beginning Jan. 19. Plastic surgery services are not listed. 

The man suspected of setting fire to Mississippi’s largest synagogue allegedly confessed his crimes to law enforcement and referred to the building in northeast Jackson as the “synagogue of Satan,” according to a federal court document filed Monday.

Stephen Spencer Pittman, 19, of Madison – who usually goes by his middle name – is facing federal charges for using fire to maliciously damage or destroy a building involved in interstate commerce, according to a probable cause affidavit in the U.S. Southern District of Mississippi.

The Beth Israel Congregation synagogue also houses the offices of the Institute for Southern Jewish Life, which provides school programs and traveling rabbinical services to Jewish congregations across the South. 

The predawn fire Saturday reduced the historic synagogue’s library and administrative offices to charred ruins and left smoke damage throughout the building, the same one the Ku Klux Klan bombed in 1967 for its rabbi’s support of civil rights. 

In a striking parallel, Pittman is alleged to have set fire to the same part of the octagonal building that burned in the 1967 attack – a wing facing a parking lot exit on Old Canton Road. 

Pittman appeared in federal court on Monday afternoon via video conference, accompanied by a public defender. He affirmed to the judge, Andrew Harris, that he was competent and sober. Pittman appeared to be leaning back in his chair, gazing away from the camera. When the judge asked him if he understood his rights to an attorney, Pittman responded, “Yes sir, Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Both of Pittman’s hands were wrapped in bandages, and he had no visible burns on his face. He is scheduled to be released from the hospital on Wednesday, his attorney told the judge before requesting a Jan. 20 hearing to determine bond. The prosecutor, Matt Allen, moved to have Pittman detained as he awaits trial.

If convicted, Pittman faces five to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Federal court documents did not list an attorney for him and did not include a booking photograph of him.

In a statement Monday, Beth Israel Congregation thanked investigators for swiftly apprehending a suspect and said it is noteworthy that Pittman “appears to have admitted to committing this heinous act out of hatred for the Jewish people.”

“This news puts a face and name to this tragedy, but does not change our resolve to proudly — even defiantly — continue Jewish life in Jackson in the face of hatred,” the congregation’s statement said. “The response and support from our community, both from local churches and from the worldwide Jewish community, has been overwhelming.”

Federal investigators quickly identified Pittman as a person of interest, according to the affidavit, which includes text messages he allegedly sent to his father in the course of setting the fire Saturday. The father pleaded for his son to return home, the affidavit says, but Pittman “replied back by saying he was due for a homerun and ‘I did my research.’” 

Pittman is alleged to have confessed to his father, who later contacted the FBI and provided GPS data showing Pittman was at the synagogue early Saturday morning. 

The son “laughed as he told his father what he did and said he finally got them,” says the affidavit from Nicholas Amiano, an FBI agent in the Jackson division. 

Amiano said Pittman purchased gasoline from Mac’s Gas in Ridgeland, where he also removed the license plate from his truck. Then he drove to the synagogue, used an ax to break through one of the windows, went inside, poured gasoline and lit it on fire with a torch lighter. 

Once at Beth Israel, Pittman also texted his father a photo of the back of the synagogue writing “there’s a furnace in the back,” “Btw my plate is off,” “Hoodie is on” and “and they have the best cameras.” 

Investigators recovered a burnt cell phone believed to be Pittman’s and a hand torch found at the synagogue by a member of the congregation, the affidavit says.  

Security camera video obtained by Mississippi Today shows a hooded person splashing liquid inside the lobby of the synagogue, spraying his legs in the process. A screengrab of the security footage is included in the FBI affidavit. 

Mayor John Horhn said Monday the suspect drove himself to a hospital after he was burned in the course of setting the fire. He added there is a possibility the suspect will be charged with a hate crime. The affidavit states that Pittman sustained burns on his ankles, hands and face. 

“We thought that Mississippi was beyond that sort of thing,” Horhn said on Mississippi Today’s podcast. 

By Monday, news of the arson had drawn an outpouring of local support for Beth Israel. The mayor, multiple city council members, religious institutions and elected officials condemned the attack, which has also caught the attention of top officials at the U.S. Department of Justice. 

In a statement to Mississippi Today, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, a Republican who has long lived near the synagogue, condemned the attack.

“The burning of Beth Israel Synagogue was an act of religious hatred against a place meant to offer prayerful peace and comfort,” Hosemann said. “This was not only an attack on a house of worship, but also an offense against the religious freedom protected by our Constitution. Such acts threaten all of us, regardless of faith. The perpetrator should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” 

Mississippi House Speaker Jason White said the fire was a “horrible act” that must be condemned.

“It’s awful and terrible,” White said Monday. “It’s also a reflection on where we are as a society. Intolerance finds its way in a lot of different places.”

News of the attack also reverberated internationally over the weekend. Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, wrote on the social media site X that she was “personally involved and my team is in touch with the US Attorney’s office locally.”

Other officials who publicly condemned the attack include the Democratic leaders in Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves issued a statement on Monday afternoon, writing, “this heinous act will never be tolerated, and the perpetrator should face the full and solemn weight of their actions.”

Gov. Reeves’ statement also noted that Pittman was admitted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center and that state charges will be pursued “at the appropriate time.”

Pittman was a multi-year honor roll student and varsity baseball player at St. Joseph Catholic School in Madison, according to previous local news reports. 

After graduating from St. Joseph in 2024, Pittman played baseball at Coahoma Community College. 

“I am blessed to announce I will be commuting to Coahoma Community College to play baseball,” Pittman posted on X in 2023. “Thank you God and everyone who has helped me along the way! Go tigers!”

St. Joseph and the Catholic Diocese of Jackson issued a joint statement Monday saying: “The actions attributed to the accused individual are senseless, reprehensible, and wholly incompatible with the values taught by the Catholic Church and upheld in our Catholic schools. …. We stand in solidarity with Beth Israel Congregation and with the Jewish community.”

The leader of the diocese, Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz also said in the statement: “We reaffirm our commitment to the teachings of Nostra aetate, which call the Church to  reject antisemitism, to honor our shared spiritual heritage, and to pursue mutual respect and  dialogue. In a world marked by rising tensions and hatred, we  recommit ourselves to building understanding and peace among people of all faiths.”

Pittman posted regularly on his X account, often about baseball and Christianity. Many posts pair videos of him practicing his swing in a batting cage with a captioned Bible verse.

Pittman’s most recent post, on Jan. 6, links to a webpage called One Purpose, which describes itself as a faith-based community for men focused on “​​Scripture-backed fitness. Brotherhood accountability. Life-expectancy maxxing.”

He was an outfielder and played in at least 10 games for Coahoma Community College, according to the Mississippi Association of Community Colleges Conference. 

Before law enforcement officials revealed Pittman’s name Monday, Pittman’s name and photograph no longer appeared on the Coahoma Community College’s online roster. The community college did not immediately respond to a phone call requesting comment on Monday.

A gathering of religious leaders across Jackson planned for later this week has shifted its focus to uplifting Beth Israel in the wake of the attack. The citywide prayer service will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at Thalia Mara Hall, according to a city press release. 

Beth Israel has established a donation fund for rebuilding, with a link on the congregation’s website.

Editor’s note 1/12/2026: This story has been updated with comments from Mississippi House Speaker Jason White.

Republican House and Senate leaders promptly fired the first rounds in a public education policy battle as the 2026 legislative session opened last week, then retreated behind their ramparts.

The Senate passed bills to provide a $2,000 teacher pay raise and only a mild nod to “school choice” — allowing students to more easily transfer between public schools — vowing to stand against more sweeping school-choice measures.

The House dropped such sweeping measures in a 553-page omnibus education bill, including a proposal to allow parents to use millions of tax dollars to pay for private schools, homeschooling or other alternatives to public education. The House has not yet proposed any across-the-board teacher raise.

Legislating is the art of compromise. Will the two sides find middle ground over the next three months of the session?

It’s likely the House’s fall-back position would be to negotiate on a teacher raise, in hopes the Senate would allow more expansive school choice — perhaps for tax credits for private schooling if not direct vouchers. Senate leaders already say they want to negotiate for a larger, more like $5,000, teacher raise. But so far they’ve left no daylight around their opposition to spending tax dollars on private schooling. And House Speaker Jason White has vowed not to use teacher pay as leverage for school choice.

Whatever bargaining or horse-trading is in the offing this year, public school educators and administrators will be closely watching, and perhaps drawn into, the political debate.

Quote of the Week

“I’m very troubled about what we have done. I’m very troubled about what we are doing. I’m very troubled about what we may do in the future.” — Sen. Hob Bryan, voicing his concern over a proposal to pump $1 billion in cash reserves into the state retirement system, without setting up a permanent revenue stream.

In Brief

State revenue up so far for FY’26

The state Legislative Budget Office report for December, the halfway point of fiscal 2026, shows state revenue collections are up $179 million, or 5% compared to the prior year-to-date.

As lawmakers begin their legislative session and prepare to set a more than $7 billion budget for the coming fiscal year, legislative leaders said last week that the state has about $1.5 billion in cash reserves. – Geoff Pender

Black Caucus, faith leaders promote ‘just and equitable’ policies

Members of the Legislative Black Caucus joined faith leaders on Thursday to outline their legislative agenda for the 2026 session, which includes prioritizing public funds for K-12 public education, reforming the criminal justice system, and increasing Mississippi’s workforce participation rate. 

The Rev. Reginald Buckley, pastor of Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Jackson, encouraged legislators to pass laws that care “for those who are the most vulnerable among us.” 

The caucus is also pushing lawmakers to prioritize policies that strengthen the social safety net, adequately fund historically Black colleges and expand access to affordable health care. – Taylor Vance

Lawmaker targets abortion pills — and speech

Mississippi played a central role in ending constitutional protections for abortion nationwide after the state prevailed in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed states to ban abortions.

A Mississippi House bill formed the basis for that lawsuit. Even though the state has a near total-abortion ban in effect, some lawmakers are still focused on the issue.

Rep. William Tracy Arnold, a Republican from Booneville, has filed a bill that would introduce harsher penalties on the manufacturing, marketing, mailing and delivery of medications that facilitate abortion. These drugs are already effectively illegal in Mississippi, but this bill would go a step further, criminalizing not just the distribution of these drugs, but even giving “information orally” about them. – Michael Goldberg

Bills would increase minimum wage, unemployment benefits

Among 12 bills referred to the House Workforce Development Committee so far, three would impact a large number of Mississippians.

Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader from Natchez, has again proposed a bill creating a state minimum wage starting at $10 an hour. Mississippi is one of only half-a-dozen states without its own minimum wage. The state follows the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour and has not changed since 2009.

Reps. John Hines, a Democrat from Greenville, and Donnie Bell, a Republican from Fulton and chairman of the Workforce Development Committee, each introduced bills to change weekly unemployment benefits. Bell is proposing to raise the weekly maximum from $235 to $250. Hines is proposing raising the minimum from $30 to $250 with higher earners having higher weekly minimum benefits.. – Katherine Lin 

Safeguards proposed as welfare scandal trial begins

The trial for Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr., the first and perhaps the only criminal case to be brought to jurors in the Mississippi welfare scandal that’s unfolded over the last six years, began last week.

In the Legislature, some lawmakers are still attempting to introduce new safeguards on Mississippi’s welfare spending.

Rep. Robert Johnson filed a bill this session that would direct the Legislature’s watchdog committee to conduct a review of subcontracts and subgrants of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds awarded by the state’s Department of Human Services at least once every two years. TANF money was at the center of Mississippi’s sprawling welfare scandal. – Michael Goldberg

Senate votes unanimously to pump $1 billion into PERS

The full Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a measure to funnel $1 billion of cash reserves into the state’s public pension system over the next decade. The proposal now heads to the House for consideration. 

The measure would put half-a-billion dollars of the state’s current surplus into Mississippi’s government pension system, then earmark $50 million a year over the next decade into the underfunded system. 

Sen. Daniel Sparks, a Republican from Belmont who authored the legislation, said giving the Public Employees’ Retirement System a large cash infusion is a necessary next step after the Legislature last year overhauled it. – Taylor Vance

By the Numbers

$132 million

Estimated annual cost of a pay raise approved by the Senate last week for public school teachers and assistants, and university and community college professors.

$87.5 million

The cost to provide private school vouchers for 12,500 students, in the House’s “school choice” proposal unveiled last week.

Full Legislative Coverage

What’s in the Mississippi House’s omnibus school-choice education bill?

The House on Wednesday filed a 553-page bill to reshape public education and provide more school choice, including spending taxpayer funds on private schools. The bill also would ease public school transfer regulations, make it easier to open charter schools statewide and expand the literacy act that helped lead Mississippi to nationally noted success in student literacy. Read the story.

Mississippi school-choice battle begins: House unveils omnibus plan. Senate wants teacher raise, opposes vouchers

The two chambers of the Legislature drew lines in the sand Wednesday, setting up a battle in the weeks or months ahead. While the Senate wants a tweak to allow more public-to-public school district transfers, the House is pushing for wide-ranging changes, including letting parents spend public money on private schools. Read the story.

House committee passes certificate of need bill, eyes further changes

The bill would make it easier for medical facilities to make improvements to buildings and equipment and require the University of Mississippi Medical Center to seek state approval for certain expansion plans. Read the story.

Senate panel passes $2,000 teacher raise

The Senate Education Committee on Tuesday, the first day of the 2026 legislative session, voted to raise teacher pay, make it easier for retirees to teach and loosen public school district transfer regulations.. Read the story.

Open government? Not if you’re the Mississippi House speaker

House Speaker Jason White and his staff made a bumble-headed decision by blocking a Mississippi Today reporter from attending White’s pre-legislative session Q&A on Monday – a decision that violates the principles of government transparency. Read the opinion column.

House Speaker Jason White bars Mississippi Today from Capitol press event

The decision by the speaker’s office followed a Mississippi Today exclusive report in April that White, his staff and some of their spouses were treated to a trip to the 2025 Super Bowl by a sports-gambling company. After that story was published, Mississippi Today was removed from the speaker’s press distribution list, and his office stopped responding to requests for comment. Read the story.

Committee approves $1 billion over next decade to shore up PERS

The Senate Appropriations Committee on the first day of the 2026 legislative session voted to put half-a-billion dollars of the state’s current surplus into Mississippi’s government pension system, in addition to putting $50 million a year over the next decade into the underfunded system. Read the story.

What issues will the Mississippi Legislature address in its 2026 session?

This will be the third year of the current Legislature’s four-year term. Over the next three months, lawmakers will likely file 3,000 or more bills, winnow them down to a few hundred that are passed into law, and also set an over $7 billion state budget. Read the story.