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More than two years after Jimmie “Jay” Lee disappeared, sparking fear in Oxford’s small LGBTQ+ community, a University of Mississippi graduate will stand trial on capital murder charges this week. 

Sheldon Timothy Herrington, Jr., is accused of killing Lee, a fellow Ole Miss graduate who was pursuing a master’s degree in social work, in an effort to keep their casual relationship a secret, according to arguments prosecutors made during Herrington’s preliminary hearing two years ago. 

Herrington is charged with capital murder for allegedly kidnapping Lee, then killing him, according to the indictment. If convicted, Herrington faces the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The 24-year-old was indicted by a Lafayette County grand jury last year. He is being represented by state Rep. Kevin Horan. In interviews with Mississippi Today and other media outlets, members of Herrington’s family, who lead a prominent church in Grenada, have vociferously defended his innocence. 

Herrington is charged with capital murder for allegedly kidnapping, then killing, Lee. If convicted, he faces the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“We’re all in shock, we’re all devastated, and we are all looking forward to proving his innocence,” Herrington’s half-brother, Tevin Coleman, said two years ago. 

Dozens of people from Herrington’s hometown, including the then-superintendent and Grenada County Sheriff, have written letters to the court on his behalf before evidence was presented during 2022’s preliminary hearing. 

In Oxford, Lee’s disappearance and death led his friends to organize a local movement, called Justice for Jay Lee, in an effort to remember Lee’s life. They have protested outside the Lafayette County Courthouse so loudly their chants could be heard during proceedings. They have tailgated in the Grove and tabled during local drag shows where Lee performed.

“It doesn’t feel real, especially since they haven’t found his body,” Braylyn Johnson, one of Justice for Jay Lee’s main organizers, told Mississippi Today two years ago. A fellow Ole Miss student, Johnson lived with Lee during the pandemic. 

The trial will be presided over by Judge Kelly Luther. It was originally slated for earlier this fall but was postponed due to a lack of hotel availability for jurors during football season. 

Anticipating the coverage, Luther ruled earlier this fall that jurors will be brought in from outside the county after denying a joint motion to seal all pre-trial filings in the case.

The jury is being selected in Forrest County, but there is nothing in the case file to indicate from which county jurors were being chosen.

Last week, Luther ordered that any public demonstrations in relation to the case will occur in the park next to City Hall. The potentially lengthy proceedings at the Lafayette County Courthouse are expected to bring significant media attention to the small north Mississippi college town.

Lafayette County District Attorney Ben Creekmore did not respond to a request for comment from Mississippi Today. A special prosecutor has been appointed to assist him.

Herrington has been out on bond since December 2022. Lee was declared legally dead earlier this month, but police have not recovered his body. The public has received little information about Lee’s potential whereabouts, or what efforts police have undertaken to find him.

Lee went missing on July 8, 2022, and Herrington was arrested a few weeks later. During the preliminary hearing, an Oxford Police Department detective testified to a plethora of evidence, including Snapchat and text messages, Google searches and video surveillance.

According to cellphone location data, Lee’s last location was in the vicinity of Herrington’s apartment on July 8. 

Earlier that morning, the two exchanged messages about a fight they’d had. Herrington asked Lee to come back to his apartment, and Lee responded that he thought Herrington was “just tryna lure me over there to beat my ass or something.”

At 5:56 a.m., minutes after Lee messaged Herrington he was on his way, Herrington searched “how long does it take to strangle someone gabby petito,” then “does pre workout boost testosterone.” 

Less than an hour later, video surveillance shows Herrington buying duct tape at Walmart and, later that day, retrieving a long-handle shovel and wheelbarrow from his parent’s house in Grenada and putting it in the back of a box truck that he used for a moving business. 

During the police investigation, DeSoto County Sheriff’s Department “cadaver dogs” — K-9s that are trained to identify the smell of a dead body – “alerted” three times in Herrington’s bedroom, once in his living room and in his car. 

During the preliminary hearing, Horan repeatedly questioned if the police had reviewed the dogs’ training or checked if the dogs had ever before correctly identified the smell of a dead body. 

Last week, the prosecution agreed to withdraw evidence stemming from “the K-9s searches or purported detection of human remains” after Horan filed a motion to exclude it. 

Horan has also filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on technical grounds.

Read Mississippi Today’s previous reporting on the case here.

Justice Reporter Mina Corpuz contributed to this report.

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The winner of Tuesday’s runoff election between Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens and Jenifer Branning likely won’t be declared until next week, according to an official with the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office.

Elizabeth Jonson, a spokesperson for the agency tasked with administering Mississippi’s elections, told Mississippi Today on Wednesday that there are currently more outstanding ballots than the current vote spread between Kitchens and Branning, who are vying for a seat on the state’s highest court.

“So voters probably won’t know the result until next week,” Jonson said. 

With 97% of the vote reported on Wednesday morning, the Associated Press reported Branning narrowly led the race with 50.5%, and Kitchens trailed with 49.5%. About 1,200 votes currently separate the two candidates in the unofficial tabulations.

The tight race could come down to absentee and affidavit ballots, some of which are still flowing into local election offices. State law currently allows for election workers to process mail-in absentee ballots for up to five days after Election Day, as long as the ballot was postmarked by the date of the election.

READ MORE: Supreme Court race remains too close to call, final result could hinge on absentee and affidavit ballots

Gov. Tate Reeves declared Thursday and Friday state holidays because of Thanksgiving, so state and most county employees, which includes local election workers, are not required to work on those days.

Both Branning and Kitchens in separate social media posts seemed to acknowledge that the close vote margin will likely lead to several additional days of vote counting. 

“Thank you to everyone who helped our campaign in yesterday’s runoff election,” Branning wrote. “While we are still waiting on the remaining votes to be counted, I’m grateful and appreciative of your support.” 

Kitchens similarly said the race was too close to call and that his supporters may not have an answer until next week. 

“There are thousands of votes left to count, but we remain hopeful and prayerful,” Kitchens wrote. 

This year’s delayed result is similar to a 2020 election for another central district seat on the Supreme Court. After 16 days of vote-counting in a close race, then-appointed Supreme Court Justice Kenny Griffis was declared the winner over state Court of Appeals Judge Latrice Westbrooks.

Kitchens, a Crystal Springs native, was first elected to the court in 2008. He is a former district attorney and private practice lawyer. He is largely considered one of two centrist members of the court. 

Branning, a Philadelphia resident, is a private practice attorney who was first elected to the Legislature in 2015. She is challenging Kitchens and pledging to ensure that “conservative values” are always represented in the judiciary, but she stopped short of endorsing policy positions, which Mississippi judicial candidates are prohibited from doing.

Counties have until Dec. 6 to certify election results and transmit them to the Secretary of State’s office.

Live election results: Mississippi Supreme Court, Court of Appeals runoffs

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Ole Miss is a whopping 26-point favorite. A State victory likely would be the biggest upset in Egg Bowl history. As the Clevelands discuss, despite the old saying that you can throw the records out in a rivalry game, the better team almost always wins. The most memorable Egg Bowls are discussed at length.

Stream all episodes here.

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The Mississippi Supreme Court runoff election between incumbent Justice Jim Kitchens and Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning remained too close to call Tuesday night, with political prognosticators signaling a careful counting of ballots that could take days.

With 91% of the total votes reported, the Associated Press reported that Branning received 50.2% of the vote, while Kitchens had 49.8%. The reported margin of votes at 10:45 p.m. was about 500 in favor of Branning.

The tightly contested race could come down to absentee and affidavit ballots, which are not counted in AP’s election night tabulation. State law currently allows for election workers to process mail-in absentee ballots for up to five days after Election Day, as long as the ballot was postmarked by the date of the election.

The Mississippi Republican Party worked hard for months to oust Kitchens, one of the dwindling number of centrist jurists on the high court, consolidating its infrastructure behind Branning. Conservative leaders are keenly aware that Kitchens is next in line to lead the court as chief justice, a job with administrative powers, should current Chief Justice Mike Randolph step down.

Though candidates for judicial offices in Mississippi are technically nonpartisan, political parties and trade associations often contribute money to candidates and cut ads for them, which has increasingly made them effectively as partisan as traditional campaigns. 

Kitchens is one of two centrist members of the high court and is widely viewed as the preferred candidate of Democrats, though the Mississippi Democratic Party has not endorsed his candidacy. The GOP has directly endorsed Branning. 

Kitchens, a resident of Crystal Springs, was first elected to the court in 2008. He is a former district attorney and private practice lawyer. On the campaign trail, he has pointed to his experience as an attorney and judge, particularly his years prosecuting criminals and his rulings on criminal cases.

Branning, also private practice attorney, was first elected to the Legislature in 2015. She has led the Senate Elections and Transportation committees. During her time at the Capitol, she has been one of the more conservative members of the Senate, voting against changing the state flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem, voting against expanding Medicaid to the working poor and equal pay for women, and supporting mandatory and increased minimum sentences for crime.

While campaigning for the judicial seat, she pledged to ensure that “conservative values” are always represented in the judiciary, but she stopped short of endorsing policy positions, which Mississippi judicial candidates are prohibited from doing.

The two candidates have collectively raised around $187,000 and spent $182,000 during the final stretch of the campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State’s office. 

Counties must certify the election results and send them to the Secretary of State’s office by Dec. 6, meaning a counting effort could continue through the Thanksgiving holiday and into the first part of December.

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Amy St. Pé , an attorney from Jackson County, defeated Jennifer Schloegel, a chancery judge, on Tuesday night for an open seat on the Mississippi Court of Appeals. 

With 94% of the vote reported, the Associated Press projected that St. Pé, who led with 61.5% of the vote, would defeat Schloegel, who trailed at 38.5%. The runoff election pitted two prominent Gulf Coast names against one another and saw hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars spent in the race. 

St. Pé is a municipal judge in Gautier. Schloegel is a chancery court judge in Hancock, Harrison and Stone counties.

Whenever St. Pé is installed as the judge replacing outgoing Judge Joel Smith, she will be one of five women serving on the 10-member Court of Appeals, the highest number of women who have ever served on the court at one time.

Election results: Mississippi Court of Appeals runoff

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It’s Egg Bowl Week in the Magnolia State, as integral a part of Thanksgiving weekend in Mississippi as turkey, oyster dressing and casseroles.

So, without further adieu, and in no particular order, my five most memorable Egg Bowls of the nearly 50 I have witnessed:

1) The Immaculate Deflection: Ole Miss led 24-23 at Mississippi Memorial Stadium in 1983 when Artie Cosby, one of the best place-kickers in Mississippi history, lined up for a 27-yard, chip shot field goal. I was standing under the goal posts at the south end of the stadium amid gusting winds that threatened my balance. Cosby’s kick appeared perfect and then one of those 60 mph gusts blew the ball straight up into the air and then backward. Today, you would swear the scene was created by artificial intelligence. So it was that Billy Brewer’s first Ole Miss team went to a bowl game. So it was that State coach Emory Bellard told me postgame, “God just decided that Mississippi State wasn’t going to win that game.”

2) Back to Veterans Memorial Stadium and back to 1981. Ole Miss trailed State 17-14 with just 13 seconds to play. John Fourcade aimed a pass toward his crackerjack receiver Michael Harmon in the end zone. What happened next is Egg Bowl lore. State fans will tell you Harmon pushed off. The back judge, Dick Pace, instead ruled that State defensive back Kenneth Johnson, who intercepted the pass, was guilty of pass interference. With first down from the one, Fourcade faked a handoff and circled right end for the game-winning touchdown and then proceeded to wave the ball at State fans on his way back to the sidelines. For years, I had a running joke with Harmon. “You know you pushed off, Michael,” I’d tell him, to which he’d reply with a smile, “That’s not what the official said…”

3) Back to Scott Field for the 1997 Egg Bowl and another thrilling finish. Stewart Patridge, a clutch quarterback if there ever was one, drove Ole Miss on a last-minute drive for a touchdown and winning two-point conversion in a 15-14 Rebel victory. As exciting as the finish was, the pregame fireworks were just as memorable. A pregame brawl broke out, which, of course, State blamed on Ole Miss and Ole Miss blamed on State. I remember this: Mississippi Highway Patrolmen watched, seemingly amused, until it became apparent that somebody was going to get maimed, if not killed. It took officers a while, but they stopped it.

4) This happened in 2007 at Starkville, two days after I had written a column saying it was time for Ole Miss to find a new football coach, that the Ed Orgeron experiment has failed. Ole Miss, winless in the SEC and last in the league in every major statistical category, led 14-0 in the fourth quarter and faced fourth and one at midfield. State had gained only four first downs the entire game. Nevertheless, Orgeron decided to go for a first down instead of punting. State stuffed BenJarvus Green-Ellis for a two-yard loss. Suddenly, the Scott Field crowd was back in the game and so was State. To make a long story short, the final score: State 17, Ole Miss 14. Orgeron was fired the next day.

5) The Piss and Miss: Nobody who saw it will forget what happened at Scott Field in 2019. Ole Miss wide receiver Elijah Moore, who has become a terrific pro, snagged a short touchdown pass with four seconds remaining to cut State’s lead to 21-20. Moore celebrated on his hands and knees, hiking a leg as if he were a dog peeing in the State end zone. Officials did not appreciate Moore’s taste in humor and flagged him 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct. Ole Miss missed the ensuing PAT and State won 21-20, costing Ole Miss coach Matt Luke his job and earning a $75,000 bonus for State coach Joe Moorhead, who was subsequently fired. Interestingly, State received a Music City Bowl bid as a result of the victory, which added $2.75 million to the SEC’s bowl pool. So Ole Miss received an extra $100,000 or so in its SEC bowl share because of Moore’s antics. What’s more, Ole Miss hired Lane Kiffin to replace Luke and State hired Mike Leach to replace Moorhead. You could not make all this up if you tried.

Here are five Egg Bowls I wish I had seen:

1) The first one ever in 1901: The opening kickoff was delayed 45 minutes because — believe it or not — there was a heated dispute. Ole Miss accused State of playing non-students, including one who had played for Ole Miss the year before. Finally, the game began and State won 17-0 in a game called for darkness in the third quarter.

2) In 1907, the Rebels and the Bulldogs sloshed onto the field on a cold, gray day at the State Fairgrounds in Jackson after several days of relentless rain. Much of the field was underwater, some of it knee-deep according to newspaper reports. The State men proved better mudders, winning 15-0, in part because Ole Miss coach Frank Mason provided an urn of coffee spiked with whiskey to warm his players. When asked about his team’s travel plans afterward, Mason said the team would leave for Oxford that night, but that he would not. And, he added, “I hope I never see them again.” He likely never did. He was fired shortly thereafter.

3) In 1918, the teams played not once but twice. State won 34-0 at Starkville and then two weeks later 13-0 at Oxford. The Rebels were coached by none other than Dudy R. Noble, a State graduate who later would become State’s beloved athletic director. “I know what hell is like,” Noble would tell folks. “I once coached at Ole Miss.”

4) In 1926 at Starkville, Ole Miss won 7-6 ending a 13-game losing streak to its bitter rival. Rebels fans and players celebrated, intending to tear down the goal posts. A melee ensured during which State fans reportedly attacked the Ole Miss celebrants with wooden chairs. As a result, a football-shaped trophy — the Golden Egg — was created to be awarded each year to the winning team (in lieu of goal posts). Thus, the Battle for the Golden Egg, later shortened to Egg Bowl. As noted, the trophy has done little to curb fighting, before games or after.

5) In 1941 at Oxford, State and Ole Miss played for the SEC championship for the only time in history. State won 6-0 to claim the only outright SEC title in Bulldog history. The late, great William Winter, a future governor, covered that game as an Ole Miss student reporter. More than seven decades later, he recounted the game, remembering even the most minute details. When an interviewer, this one, expressed amazement at Winter’s keen memory for something that happened 73 years before, he replied, “Well, you have to understand it was the most important thing in my life at the time.”

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Polls will close at 7 p.m. today as voters in central Mississippi choose a state Supreme Court justice and those in south Mississippi choose a state Court of Appeals judge in runoff elections.

In the Jackson Metro area and parts of central Mississippi, incumbent Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens faces Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County. In areas on the Gulf Coast, Jennifer Schloegel and Amy St. Pé square off for an open seat on the Mississippi Court of Appeals.

READ MORE: Meet the candidates for Mississippi Supreme Court’s Nov. 26 runoff election

Below are the results compiled by The Associated Press. Results will begin automatically updating after polls close at 7 p.m.

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Attorney General Lynn Fitch is asking the Supreme Court to set an execution date for Charles Ray Crawford, who has been on death row for over 30 years. 

“Crawford’s death sentence is final and he has exhausted all state and federal remedies,” the attorney general’s office wrote in its Nov. 22 filing.  

Fitch’s office requests the execution date to be set within the next 30 days, which could fall sometime around Christmas. But that 30 days can be extended if other court motions are filed or if other action is taken. 

Since last year, Fitch’s office has also asked for execution dates to be set for three other death row inmates: Willie Jerome Manning, Robert Simon Jr. and Richard Jordan.  

Crawford’s attorneys are asking for the court to hold off because he has not yet exhausted his remedies in federal court. They cited a divided decision that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued last week denying him habeas relief challenging a previous rape conviction that is not tied to his death sentence. 

The appeal court’s decision came the same day the attorney general’s office asked for an execution to be set. 

For his death sentence, Craword, now 58, was convicted of the rape and murder of North Mississippi Community College student Kristy Ray in 1993. 

Four days before a separate trial on aggravated assault and rape charges, Crawford kidnapped 20-year-old Ray from her parents’ home in Tippah County. He left ransom notes for her family and took her to an abandoned barn and stabbed her. Crawford’s DNA was also found on Ray, indicating he sexually assaulted her, according to court records. 

Crawford, also a student at North Mississippi Community College, told investigators he was going hunting and had a knife and firearm. He said he was worried about “an upcoming event” and had been stockpiling food in the barn where he killed Ray, according to court records.

Crawford said he had blackouts, remembering only being inside the Ray home, hearing someone crying, finding Ray handcuffed and then putting her in a car and driving away. After another blackout, Crawford woke up in the woods with Ray dead and her hands handcuffed behind her back.

He admitted “he must have killed her, but did not remember doing so,” according to court records. Crawford also led police to Ray’s body in the woods. 

At his 1994 trial, Crawford presented an insanity defense, with a prison psychiatrist who treated him testifying that he suffered from depression and periods of time lapse without memory. The psychiatrist also testified about Crawford’s past medication treatment, previous psychiatric hospitalization and bipolar disorder diagnosis in 1989. 

A clinical psychologist who provided rebuttal testimony didn’t see evidence of Crawford suffering from bipolar illness, and said he showed premeditation and was able to distinguish right from wrong. Another rebuttal witness, a forensic psychiatrist, said Crawford was improperly diagnosed with having psychogenic amnesia. 

Crawford was convicted in Lafayette County as a habitual offender for burglary, rape, sexual battery and capital murder. 

The Mississippi Supreme Court denied his appeal, and several times the U.S. Supreme Court denied him a petition for writ of certiorari. 

Crawford has also pursued post-conviction relief. In 2017, the court denied a motion for an execution to be set because he was still challenging his rape and aggravated assault conviction and sentence. 

In those cases, he was convicted for raping a 17-year-old and hitting her friend over the head with a hammer, according to court records. Similarly, he claimed insanity and said he didn’t remember because of blackouts. 

The Nov. 22 5th Circuit Court dissent said the trial court repeatedly declined to provide Crawford with a psychiatrist or mental health professional, other than a state expert, to evaluate him and help with his defense, a violation of his rights. The justices also said his appellate counsel was ineffective. 

The dissent mentions how Crawford was eventually evaluated by qualified mental experts and diagnosed with severe brain injury and partial epilepsy, which explains his spells and periods of blackouts, and how on the day of the 17-year-old’s rape he was in a state of repetitive seizures. 

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The Pearl Police Department fired patrol officer Taylor Lofton for reportedly stealing $32,000 from a dying woman’s house. It’s the second officer dismissed for alleged criminal conduct in less than a year.

On the morning of Nov. 18, Jason Kelly’s mother, Jackie, collapsed unexpectedly, and his father called 911.

Ambulance workers arrived. So did four or five Pearl police officers, including Lofton, Kelly said.

His 80-year-old mother never recovered and may have died of a blood clot, he said. “It was unexpected.”

She had just inherited $32,000 and received the money in cash, which she put in an envelope in her drawer in the bedroom, he said.

After ambulance workers and police left, Kelly said his father determined the cash had been stolen and called Pearl police, who returned to the home.

After arriving, Lofton admitted that he had opened the drawer and seen the money, but he insisted he closed it right back, Kelly said. “He turned off his camera and stole $32,000.”

Kelly praised Pearl police’s swift response and said, “I hope they press charges.”

He said he doesn’t know if the city is going to pay the family back.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is investigating, but spokesperson Bailey Martin said the agency could not comment further. Lofton could not be reached for comment.

Kelly believes there must have been thefts on previous occasions as well. “This ain’t his first time doing this,” he said.

Pearl Police Chief Nick McLendon said he’s not aware of any previous incidents.

Asked about possible criminal prosecution, he said he could not comment further because the case is under investigation.

He said in a statement made public that the officer hasn’t been charged with any crime and should be presumed innocent. But the department, he said, “must be concerned with even the slightest appearance of impropriety — and especially in the area of law enforcement.”

Two days before Christmas 2023, Pearl police officer Michael Christian Green forced a man he arrested to lick urine from a holding cell floor.

The 26-year-old officer took the man into custody after a family disturbance call to Sam’s Club in Pearl. After he booked the man into a holding cell, footage showed the man telling Green he needed to urinate, but when Green failed to respond, the man urinated in a corner, according to the federal bill of information.

When Green found out what the man had done, Green berated him, “Let me tell you something. You see this phone? I will beat your f—ing ass with it. You’re fixin’ to go in there, and you’re gonna lick that p— up. Do you understand me? … Go suck it up right now.”

Green filmed the man as he licked the urine from the floor, and when the man gagged, Green said, “Don’t spit it out.” When the man gagged, Green responded, “Lick that s— up. Drink your f—in’ p—.”

When the man was allowed to leave the booking area, he vomited in a garbage can.

On June 13, Green was sentenced to a year in federal prison and a $1,500 fine. He told the judge he regrets what he did.

At a press conference after Green’s guilty plea, Pearl Mayor Jake Windham told reporters, “God created us in his image. Treating someone like this is despicable.”

“If you’re going to operate as a police officer,” said Windham, who served in law enforcement for 16 years, “you’ve got to do things right.”

He apologized to the man and his family for “the horrible treatment by an officer of the law.”

At the time, Windham declared, “We hold our officers to a higher standard.”

Four days after the incident, Windham confronted Green and told him to resign, which he did.

The city handles matters swiftly, Windham said. “I think there’s a stark contrast between the Pearl Police Department and this incident [and the handling of] the ‘Goon Squad.’”

Six Rankin County officers were involved in the January 2023 torture of two Black men and the shooting of one of them, but it wasn’t until six months later that those involved were fired. The six officers pleaded guilty and are now serving between 10 and 40 years in federal prison.

Green had been on the force six months when this incident occurred. “His certificate was clean when he came to the Pearl Police Department,” Windham said. “We strive to do an extensive background check on people.”

He said he hopes law enforcement agencies would report any problems with officers to the Mississippi Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training.

A new law, passed in the wake of the Goon Squad’s acts, beefs up the board’s ability to investigate allegations against officers.

As for Lofton, McLendon put the officer on administrative leave after investigating the matter. On Thursday, the Pearl Board of Aldermen fired the officer on McLendon’s recommendation.

“We acted on it immediately,” Windham said. “We don’t put up with it.”

It’s a bad situation when “you have to terminate officers,” he said, “but we’re going to make sure that if they screw up, we’re going to send them down the road.”

Asked about getting the $32,000 back to the family, the mayor replied, “Our goal is to make the family whole as soon as possible.”

Lofton was hired by Dean Scott, who resigned as Pearl police chief in January after an investigation into possible misuse of tax dollars. A WLBT investigation revealed that Scott claimed to work for Rankin County as a homestead fraud investigator while on city business at law enforcement conferences on the Coast. He now works as a lieutenant for Capitol Police. 

Lofton worked at a series of jobs in law enforcement. He worked at the Greenwood, Flowood and Brandon police departments before starting at Pearl Police Department, where he had worked since 2023.

Lofton completed 480 hours at the Mississippi Delta Community College Law Enforcement Training Academy. He is married and has a newborn son, according to his Facebook page.

“He threw his whole life away,” Kelly said. “You risk your whole family for $32,000?”

UPDATE 11/26/24: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the accused police officer’s last name and his education.

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