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Days before the Mississippi Department of Human Services director was ousted from his job in 2019, he was testifying to Congress about one of the very initiatives that landed him with a felony conviction in a now-infamous welfare theft scandal.

As director of the agency tasked with helping some of the neediest people in one of the poorest states in the country, John Davis had secured contracts for his new friend, former WWE wrestler Ted “Teddy” DiBiase, in 2018 to deliver leadership development workshops to state employees. 

And the reaction to their efforts was swell.

While testifying Tuesday in the criminal trial against DiBiase, Davis said he met with a top official at the attorney general’s office at the time, and they discussed including the attorney’s staff on DiBiase’s circuit. 

Davis said a director at the federal office that oversees the national Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant, which funded the DiBiase training, recommended that Davis expand the program.

Even a representative in Congress remarked during Davis’ testimony, “It’s interesting how well your program is working.”

DiBiase is facing 13 counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, theft and money laundering. But his defense lawyer’s cross-examination of Davis, which began Tuesday, revealed how much of the alleged scheme was carried out in broad daylight.

“Would you agree that if you were trying to hide something, you were going about it in a terrible way?” defense attorney Scott Gilbert asked Davis.

Davis said he thought everybody was aware of what he was doing, but that he “evidently” didn’t go about it the right way.

It was after delivering this answer, on his third day on the stand, that Davis displayed the largest emotion so far, his face puckering and voice cracking. The defense briefly halted its questioning for him to compose himself.

“Hindsight is 20/20 and until someone told me what conspiracy was, I would have told you I did exactly right,” Davis said earlier in the day. “When someone told me what conspiracy was, I admitted I did what I was told I did, so I have to accept responsibility. But my intention would have been as legal as possible.”

Davis pleaded guilty to state and federal charges in 2022 and he is cooperating with the prosecution as he awaits sentencing. DiBiase’s defense counsel is expected to resume cross-examination of Davis Wednesday.

MORE TRIAL COVERAGE:

DAY 5: Welfare director texted wrestler who was his high-paid aide about ‘money bags,’ testimony shows

DAY 4: Feds ask disgraced former welfare director ‘million-dollar question’: Why? Loneliness and love

DAY 3: Wrestler’s multimillion dollar ‘self-help curriculum’ helped crack open a wider welfare scandal

DAY 2: Opening statements in welfare scandal trial paint former director as villain who doled out millions over infatuation

DAY 1: 83 witnesses could enter the ring in Mississippi welfare scandal trial

TRIAL PREVIEW: Ex-WWE wrestler faces feds in first – and potentially only – criminal trial in Mississippi welfare scandal

Much of the defense’s questioning of Davis Tuesday touched on the difficulties he faced at the Byzantine welfare agency, with its outdated technology and constant political pressure.

One might think an agency with billion-dollar federal spending power would have automated spreadsheets in its accounting division, Davis said, but instead, employees used pencils on paper ledgers. 

“Sometimes the pencil stroke would be so light or wrong,” Davis said, that he personally witnessed a scenario in which a $2 million deficit was mistaken as a $200 million shortfall.

In an agency with a budget made up primarily of federal funding, subject to a maze of everchanging federal regulations, Davis relied on his executive staff, roughly 70 staff attorneys and several assistant attorneys general who were assigned to his agency to keep him on track.

Davis testified he was steered wrong on several occasions, leading to an inappropriate course of action. “You always lived on the edge, scared to death,” Davis said.

He was also appointed by the governor and had no civil service protection.

“I was at the whim and pleasure. I said ‘whim and pleasure,’ and that’s what it was,” Davis said.

This made him more susceptible to politics. Davis said he would travel to Washington to meet with Mississippi’s delegation and would visit state lawmakers at the Capitol in Jackson several times a week. When Gilbert suggested powerful people must have constantly been asking Davis to do things for them, Davis said he received 1,000 emails a day.

“Everything I did was influenced by a political process,” Davis said. 

His direct supervisor was then-Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican who served from 2012 to 2020. Davis said he interacted with Bryant every day or most days.

“I learned that as an eligibility worker,” Davis said. “The only way things worked is to please your boss.”

It wasn’t about pleasing the people in need, the clients of the agency, Davis added.

“I know I’m saying something controversial,” he said.

When asked if he was able to carry out these directives, even the unpleasant ones, Davis responded, “No compunction about that. That was my job.”

Davis testified he was working under Bryant’s orders to outsource and consolidate functions of the agency when Davis authorized granting tens of millions of TANF dollars to just two nonprofits, one being Mississippi Community Education Center founded by Nancy New. 

New has also pleaded guilty in the scheme and is also awaiting sentencing.

Davis said Bryant and his wife had known New for years and would at times call New “rather than go through me.”

The subgrants with the two nonprofits, together dubbed Families First for Mississippi, presented the vehicle for officials to allegedly steer TANF money to their friends, family and celebrities without the kind of restrictions and oversight that would exist if the money came directly from the state agency.

This structure was underway by the time Davis met DiBiase, the defense pointed out Tuesday.  

Gilbert also strove to show that it would not be unusual for Families First to seek out celebrities like DiBiase to spread their message. Gilbert asked Davis to talk about the array of stars that Families First sought for endorsements, such as Oprah Winfrey or Morgan Freeman. Davis said he thought New had actually spoken with Winfrey “or her people.” 

Gilbert displayed reports of social media analytics showing that of MDHS-related posts, DiBiase’s tweet about his leadership development program received the most page views.

DiBiase called his training program, which he delivered to hundreds of employees until the Davis’ scheme collapsed under an auditor’s investigation, “Law of 16.”

“He had a fascination with the number 16,” Davis said.

The Law of 16 curriculum contains four types of self-help actions – love, yearn, fight, empower (LYFE) – among four areas of life – self, family, business, community – to create 16 different commands for living, according to an information packet.

Law 1, for example, is SELF+LOVE. 

Standing before a gospel choir in a banquet room at the Westin hotel in downtown Jackson during what the agency called the “Law of 16 celebration,”  Davis declared to the large crowd, “If we don’t know who we are, if we haven’t mastered self, we will never, ever master the master’s plan,” according to a video the welfare agency produced.

When Gilbert asked Davis if he ever offered, or if DiBiase ever requested, a “no work” contract, Davis said it was quite the opposite. If anything, he said, he probably invested too much of himself ensuring that DiBiase succeeded. 

Davis said he knew the situation was dysfunctional. Especially now, being on the other side of it, Davis said, “complicated, convoluted and crazy are terms that don’t even begin to describe it.”

Faced with internecine Republican opposition to “school-choice,” or spending tax dollars earmarked for public education on private schools, House Speaker Jason White broke out the biggest gun in Mississippi GOP politics: He invoked President Donald J. Trump.

“The @WhiteHouse is watching Mississippi and Education Freedom is gaining momentum!” White posted Monday on the social media site X. “HB 2 promotes the Make America Great Again Platform and @POTUS’s Executive Order to return power over education to families, instead of bureaucracies …”

White had retweeted a post from Trump Education Secretary Linda McMahon, endorsing the House’s proposed HB 2 as “ambitious school choice expansion” and adding, “Well done, @JasonWhiteMS.”

A key question that remains unanswered, though, is how far the Trump White House is willing to go to see a robust school-choice policy become reality in the Magnolia State, which remains a holdout in the Deep South.

A White House official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation told Mississippi Today that the Trump administration is “very closely monitoring” the school choice debate in the Legislature and wants strong school choice legislation to pass.

U.S. Department of Education officials traveled to Mississippi last year to visit with White’s staff and Gov. Tate Reeves’ office to discuss policy specifics.

Now, many took White’s trumpeting Trump’s support for his plan as a shot over the bow of his Republican Senate leadership colleagues, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. Senate leaders have vowed they will not consider any House proposal that includes vouchers or accounts for parents to spend public money on private schooling.

White and other proponents of expanded school choice and spending public money on private schooling appear to be trying to cast the issue as a referendum on Trump. And among the MSGOP, when Trump says jump, the answer appears to be, “How high?”

But with a House committee vote on White’s school-choice proposal happening as early as Wednesday, it would appear that his invocation of Trump was as much an effort to whip votes from his own still-reluctant or opposed House members as it was to try to sway the Senate. Some heavy-duty House whipping of Republican votes on school choice has been going on even before the Legislature gaveled in for the new session last week. Reluctance and opposition remain among some House Republicans.

Senate leaders, including Hosemann, appeared nonplussed by White’s warning that Trump is watching or by McMahon’s endorsement. When asked about McMahon’s backing of House Bill 2 on Supertalk radio this week, Hosemann replied that he’s surprised she’s read it all, a dig at the 553-page omnibus House education proposal that includes school choice vouchers.

Trump has endorsed school choice and included federal tax credits for donations to fund private school scholarships in his so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.” He’s called school choice “the civil rights issue of our time.”

But how involved would Trump and his administration get in Mississippi’s legislative wrangling over school choice? Might he come down for a visit to whip up votes? Might he or Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller start calling Mississippi GOP lawmakers and threaten to primary them next year, as the Capitol rumor mill was suggesting this week?

Trump appears to have many bigger fish to fry at the moment. He famously doesn’t like to lose battles, especially when he parachutes in on the state or local levels. Senate leaders have deemed spending tax dollars on private schools a non-starter. Local governments, including in some red areas, have adopted resolutions against school choice expansion, and local superintendents across the state are lobbying their lawmakers against it.

As politically stout as Trump is in the Magnolia State, some Republican lawmakers would likely still be hesitant to follow him against the wishes of their school leaders back home.

Several lawmakers who are, at best, hesitant to vote for a school choice bill told Mississippi Today they have not been on the receiving end of any lobbying efforts by the White House.

Stephen Spencer Pittman, the 19-year-old suspected of setting fire to Mississippi’s largest synagogue, uses his social media accounts to post about baseball, his friends, his commitment to physical fitness and his devotion to Christianity. 

That was until 12:52 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 10, when he posted an antisemitic video on Instagram.

“A Jew in my backyard, I can’t believe my Jew crow didn’t work,” an animated Disney-Princess-esque character says to a short yellow figure with a long nose. “You’re getting baptized right now.”

About two hours later, Pittman is alleged to have driven to a synagogue, the Beth Israel Congregation in northeast Jackson, where federal authorities say he used an ax to break through one of the windows. Once inside, Pittman is alleged to have doused the lobby with gasoline and set it on fire with a torch. 

The flames reduced the historic synagogue’s library and administrative offices to charred ruins — and burned his hands in the process. 

Federal authorities say Pittman laughed when he told his father what he did, boasting about finally getting “them.” 

Pittman is facing state and federal arson charges, including elevated hate crime charges at the state level. The federal criminal complaint says he admitted to law enforcement that he targeted the synagogue for its “Jewish ties.” 

Previous local news reports show Pittman, who goes by his middle name, was a multi-year honor roll student and varsity baseball player at St. Joseph Catholic School in Madison. After graduating in 2024, Pittman attended Coahoma Community College in the Mississippi Delta, where he played on the baseball team. 

The federal criminal complaint detailing Pittman’s alleged crime stands in stark contrast to the aspirational and seemingly comfortable life documented on social media by the suburban student-athlete from one of Mississippi’s wealthiest cities.  

Pittman has 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. 

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

“Maxxing” refers to a trend, popularized on sites like TikTok and Youtube, where people talk about maximizing certain aspects of their lives — most often physical appearance, health or wealth. 

Mississippi Today reviewed the site’s domain, which showed that the website was created on Dec. 5 and registered to a Stephen Pittman in Madison. 

A number listed under the domain name has been disconnected, and efforts to reach Pittman’s family and his court-appointed attorney on Tuesday were unsuccessful. His court-appointed federal public defenders did not immediately respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.

The site Pittman promoted days before he allegedly committed a shocking act of antisemitic violence offers a window into his beliefs. Court records, a review of Pittman’s online activity, and an interview with a longtime friend also paint a portrait of how he spent his time and his worldview, one that appears to have been informed by internet subcultures weaving between fitness, finance and Christian Identity. 

With reports showing an increase in antisemitic content and encounters on social media, researchers argue that a review of a suspect’s digital footprint can provide insight into their motive.

Sheep or Shepherd? 

The One Purpose website, which culminates with an offer of a $99 per month membership subscription, is a mishmash of pop self-improvement fads alongside religious references. 

A bar at the top of the site shows a number shifting back and forth between 240 and 245 “brothers building their temples right now,” a reference to the supposed number of paying subscribers.

The top of the site advertises 96 scripture lessons for free next to a beaming yellow button that asks users to begin their “transformation.” A click of that button opens a prompt that asks the user to select whether they are a Shepherd or a Sheep, a biblical metaphor that contrasts those who lead through divine guidance and those who are easily lost and dependent on others. 

“This is a pivotal moment,” the site says. “Will you follow the crowd or lead with purpose?”

The Shepherd button directs the user to answer questions about what ails them, such as a lack of confidence, discipline or energy. The user then selects from a list what “wordly methods” they’ve used to change, such as diets or workout routines. The user is prompted to imagine a transformed version of himself. Eventually, the prompt asks for the user’s information to create a personalized “temple plan.”

The user is directed to a “biblical nutrition” plan touting the “Seven Species of Israel,” including wheat, pomegranate and honey. 

Pittman’s emphasis on a puritanical diet extends to his broader online footprint, one that shows he was not simply a passive consumer of content but also encouraged others to engage with his corner of the internet. 

Stacks of cash, diet fads and ‘how to destroy a society’

Pittman appeared to have multiple social media pages, including duplicate accounts on various platforms.

Mississippi Today reviewed Pittman’s social media activity and interviewed one of Pittman’s longtime school friends. The person was granted anonymity to share details from Pittman’s social media activity and their personal interactions. To verify the person’s connection to Pittman, Mississippi Today cross-referenced screenshots of messages Pittman sent the person with other screenshots of Pittman’s Snapchat username. 

Of all his accounts, Pittman seemed to be most prolific on Snapchat. So much so, he even posted a photo of himself in the hospital with burnt hands, allegedly after setting fire to the synagogue.  

According to the friend, Pittman has “changed a lot” in recent years, living an extremely online existence. The friend said Pittman posts 10-15 Snapchats a day, often documenting his interest in diet trends, fitness, expensive cars and thousands of dollars in cash he claimed to have made through an artificial intelligence platform.

“He posts about either him eating the kind of food that’ll make him really ripped, or his money stuff, or him driving his Porsche or his dad’s Porsche,” the friend said. 

Pittman also frequently posted his fitness regimen, the friend said. He would post about “testosterone optimization” and videos of himself cracking raw eggs into his mouth. His physical regimen also included injecting himself with steroids, the person said.

“He was probably like, ‘OK, I’m gonna get jacked’ or whatever,” the friend said. “And he definitely did steroids, because he posts him putting needles into himself.” 

Themes such as diet, masculinity and fitness frequently co-occur in online spaces associated with the “manosphere” and Christian nationalist-adjacent subcultures, where physical strength, dietary “purity” and hormonal optimization are framed as markers of masculinity and discipline.

The friend said Pittman never talked much about politics, and that is supported by his Instagram page, which shows little engagement with notable political figures.

On Instagram, Pittman described himself as an entrepreneur, a follower of Christ and a “lawyer” of God. His bio includes an Italian flag and dove emojis.

He follows hundreds of accounts, suggesting he was an avid user, including baseball accounts, well-known rappers like Drake and Playboi Carti, President Donald Trump, an account devoted to “Catholic hopecore content,” several motivational accounts and pages about conspiracy theories. 

Pittman also posted photos on his Instagram account showing a Porsche, jewelry, stacks of dollar bills and a reference to an AI venture.

“Link in bio, start making passive income with less than 10 minutes a day, Crazy ROI, 300k views and you’ve already been repaid for the ai. Stop being lazy get started today,” Pittman wrote, linking to a now broken webpage. 

The content on Pittman’s Instagram shifted in the fall of 2025. Prior to that, Pittman would often go months between posting, and all of his photos were about baseball or his friends, such as pictures of him at bat or in the outfield.

“We have brotherly bonds that couldn’t be broken,” he wrote in May 2022 about his high school baseball team. 

But on Dec. 13, Pittman posted a slideshow of photos, the first one seemingly of him holding his middle finger up to multiple stacks of $100 bills. “Money is the root of all evil,” he wrote in the caption. “Hate hates growth.” 

More bizarre posts followed. A video of him driving with the hashtags “bullish,” “ecom,” “clipping,” and “dropshipping.” On Dec. 23, he posted a video of himself stuffing multiple $20 bills into a Salvation Army donation box. 

The next day, he uploaded a video of his hand on the steering wheel of a car, listening to a Chief Keef song, a post he captioned “How to destroy a society: Make discipline cringe. Make truth offensive. Make masculinity shameful. Make femininity weak. Make families unstable. Make loyalty rare. Make education manipulation.” 

Earlier this month, four days before he posted the antisemitic video, Pittman posted a bullet point list of recommendations for a “Christian Diet,” including raw milk, raw eggs, raw honey, raw oysters, raw nuts and “Only God-made fats,” such as olive oil, butter, lard and ghee. 

Influencers in online spaces popular with young men interested in masculinity, diet fads and faith can sometimes blend self-improvement content with ideological messaging, portraying modern society as decadent or feminized, some analysts have noted.  

Pittman also created a second Instagram account, with the first post in July 2025, to promote free fitness routines that he would create for clients if they DMed him the word “SHRED.” His videos included photos of him flexing in front of mirrors and frying red meat and eggs. 

But in between all of the newfangled fads Pittman seemed to embrace, a professed devotion to God seemed to remain at the center of his pursuits. 

‘Synagogue of Satan’ and Christian Identity 

After Pittman was arrested at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he had sought treatment for burns, investigators said he admitted to starting the fire at Beth Israel, which he called the “synagogue of Satan.”

It was not the first time the Jackson congregation had been targeted, and it was not the first time that phrase was directed at a Jewish house of worship in Mississippi. Jewish people make up a small percentage of Mississippi residents. Although Beth Israel is the state’s largest Jewish congregation, it has only about 150 families as members.

“Synagogue of Satan” is a phrase used by followers of Christian Identity, a white supremacist interpretation of Christianity, to refer to Jews. In Mississippi in the 1960s, it was also adopted by the Ku Klux Klan, which in 1967 bombed Beth Israel Synagogue over its rabbi’s support for civil rights.

Christian Identity is a white supremacist interpretation of Christianity that teaches that Adam and Eve were white, that non-whites were created on the Sixth Day with the animals and have no souls, and that Jews are the offspring of Satan. Christian Identity teaches that white people are the true Israelites and that Jews are impostors.

More recently, the phrase has been adopted by figures such as Candace Owens, the right-wing commentator who has used the phrase and suggested there are people “who are pretending to be Jews, but are in fact people that worship Satan.”

Pittman, who is scheduled to return to federal court for a preliminary hearing Jan. 20, first appeared on Monday afternoon via video conference from a hospital, accompanied by a public defender. 

Aside from answering the judge’s questions, the young man did not speak. At times during the proceedings, he appeared to be leaning back in his chair, gazing away from the camera. Both his hands were heavily bandaged. 

When the judge asked him if he understood his rights to an attorney, Pittman responded, “Yes sir, Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Reporters Katherine Lin and Jerry Mitchell contributed to this report.

Joe Max Higgins, a famed Mississippi economic development specialist who was abruptly fired from his Golden Triangle post last summer for “workplace behavior and speech,” is consulting for the Tate County Economic Development Foundation.

Higgins is the former CEO of the Golden Triangle LINK, the economic development agency for Clay, Lowndes, and Oktibbeha counties. Higgins had been featured in national news, including a big “60 Minutes” report and in The Atlantic for bringing in almost $10 billion in investments to the area over his over 20 year tenure. 

According to the announcement from the Tate County Board of Supervisors and the Tate County Economic Development Foundation, they hired Higgins through a contract with his consulting firm, 2EQLAST. They did not mention Higgins’ departure from the Golden Triangle organization in the announcement.

In court filings related to Higgins’ time as CEO of the Golden Triangle organization, an employee reported discrimination, retaliation and harassment from Higgins.

Higgins said in Tate County, he will evaluate the foundation’s organizational health and potential industrial sites to create a six-month plan to help the county grow. He believes there’s a lot of opportunity in the region, especially with the Legislature last year passing a bill creating a Northwest Regional Alliance across Tate, Panola, Lafayette and Yalobusha counties.

“I’m excited about it,” Higgins said.

In the announcement, the board and foundation credited Rep. Trey Lamar, a Republican from Senatobia, for introducing Higgins. Lamar said that he looks forward to bringing “world class jobs” to Tate County. When asked about Higgins’ departure from the Golden Triangle, Lamar said the board and foundation fully vetted Higgins before hiring his firm.

A Hinds County grand jury has indicted the Madison man accused of setting fire to Mississippi’s largest synagogue on a charge of first-degree arson against a place of worship, an offense the state accuses him of committing because of its “actual or perceived religion.” 

Stephen Spencer Pittman,19, who usually goes by his middle name, is charged with burning the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in northeast Jackson. He is alleged to have broken into the building before dawn Saturday and to have doused a lobby in gasoline before setting it on fire. The blaze charred parts of the building and left smoke damage throughout.

The Hinds County Circuit Court indictment was announced Tuesday, a day after Pittman’s federal arson charges were filed. While the federal government has not so far filed hate-crime charges against Pittman, the Hinds County indictment recommends that if he is convicted, his sentence be enhanced under a Mississippi law punishing “offenses committed for discriminatory reasons.” 

The state charges for arson of a place of worship carry a prison sentence of five to 30 years, as well as restitution for damages caused by the arson.

A Hinds County press release announcing the indictment says that because it “alleges the offence was motivated by hate,” Mississippi law allows enhanced punishment, including up to 60 years in prison, double the term otherwise permitted by law.

In an unusual move for local law enforcement, Pittman did not make an initial appearance in Jackson municipal court before his case was taken to a grand jury Monday.

The Hinds County indictment did not include a photograph of Pittman. Federal authorities also have not released a photo of him.

Pittman remained hospitalized Monday and his first appearance in federal court was done by video conference. He was accompanied by a federal public defender and at times appeared to be leaning back in a chair, gazing away from the camera. Both his hands were heavily bandaged. 

The prosecutor, Matt Allen, moved to have Pittman detained as he awaits trial. Pittman is scheduled to be released from the hospital Wednesday and to return to federal court for a preliminary hearing Jan. 20. 

If convicted on the federal charges, Pittman faces five to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. 

The predawn fire Saturday was set in the same part of the one-story brick building that Ku Klux Klan members bombed in 1967 because the congregation’s rabbi supported civil rights. 

Federal investigators alleged in an affidavit that Pittman sent text messages to his father in the course of setting the fire on 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.’” 

His father 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 Jackson. 

State leaders have condemned the attack, and the news also reverberated internationally. Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, wrote on 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. 

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi called on the FBI to investigate the incident as a federal hate crime.

In a news release Monday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the attack a “disgusting act of anti-Semitic violence,” but did not say whether federal prosecutors would seek to charge Pittman with a hate crime. 

“I have directed my prosecutors to seek severe penalties for this heinous act and remain deeply committed to protecting Jewish Americans from hatred,” Bondi said. 

Editor’s note: Federal and state authorities had not released a booking photograph of Stephen Spencer Pittman before publication of this article.

Editor’s note: This essay, which is republished with permission from Rooted magazine, is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

Fire is an important and sacred part of Judaism. We light candles at the beginning and the end of the sabbath and one for each night of Hanukkah. We burn Yartzheit candles to remember loved ones on the anniversary of their deaths. We hold our fingertips up to the light of the braided Havdalah candle as we recite the blessing over the flame. Just last month, at our temple’s Hanukkah celebration, I looked around the darkened social hall at no less than a dozen lit menorahs and felt chills go down my spine. It was a beautiful sight. When the email went out Saturday morning that there had been a fire at the synagogue, and that our religious school would need to be held off-site the next day, I truly wondered if someone had left a candle burning overnight.

That evening, I learned that the fire was not started by a candle or a random electrical fire; it was arson. A man we now know to be the pimply and hateful nineteen-year-old Madison resident Stephen Spencer Pittman broke into my synagogue with an ax and set it on fire. There’s a video of him online now, his face covered with a mask, dousing the Beth Israel lobby with gasoline. I’m not sure how Pittman came to believe our small congregation of 150 families was the “synagogue of Satan” or how he reconciled his actions with his Christian faith. From what I’ve read, he is a shallow, unserious and sloppy young man whose interests included weightlifting and hating Jews. But none of that matters. What matters is that he chose gasoline and a fire torch. The flame followed the path of the accelerant. Nobody blames the fire for what happened next. The fire did what fires do: it burned.

Flames devoured the lobby, where our religious school kids grab their slices of challah and cups of apple juice from a rolling cart. The air inside the lobby was so hot that it busted out the glass of the lobby’s circular skylight. Among the photos of the wreckage, this image of the skylight was almost beautiful in its contrast and composition: the bright circle of daylight against the charred background of the ceiling.

The flames burned the administrative offices where sometimes I’d find a student sneaking a piece of hard candy off Ms. Sheila’s desk. It couldn’t have taken much encouragement for the flames to make their way to the adjacent library, whose walls were lined with wood and books, aka fire starter. The books and two Torahs in the room would have have incinerated within seconds.

Just the week before, our rabbi-in-training Ben Russell had taught the Sunday school kids how to kiss a prayer book that falls to the ground. Accidents and drops happen, Ben explained, but any text that contains G-d’s name must be treated with tenderness. We hadn’t discussed what happens when a sacred book, let alone a Torah, burns. That violence would be unthinkable.

Even now, it’s clear how all this could have been so much worse. The fire department and law enforcement responses were swift and effective. Beth Israel’s leaders were on site within hours. And the sanctuary – though covered in a thick layer of black soot – was not burned down. After the flames were extinguished, a congregant was able to find his way the ark, through halls darkened with ash and without power, to wrap the smoke-damaged Torahs in plastic trash bags before transporting them home. The Torah that survived the Holocaust and was behind glass remained miraculously unscathed. The classrooms, the synagogue archives (which coincidentally I had just spent time with in October), and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life offices are smoky and sooty but mostly untouched by fire. A layer of black grime coated my students’ Hebrew workbooks, but was easily scrubbed away with damp paper towels. From the outset, the emphasis of our congregation has been on rebuilding, bolstered by support from the wider Jackson community and from Jewish congregations around the country.

What Spencer Pittman will never understand is how much harder, and how much more satisfying, it is to build than to destroy.

At Sunday school, we always start the morning with Havdalah. Typically practiced after nightfall on Saturday, Havdalah a ritual of separation, meant to mark the end of Shabbat and the beginning of the new week. This Sunday, instead of in our sanctuary, we were in the bright, sunlit room of a local museum, chairs facing one another in a circle. With Ben out of state at rabbinical school, there was some bickering among the children over who got to hold and light the Havdalah candle, but it was quickly decided that it would be Eli, who, after all, had been the one to run and cut a sprig of rosemary in place of the temple’s now soot-covered spice box. We sang the blessing over the fruit of the vine, we smelled the rosemary, we praised G-d for creating the lights of the fire. Then came everyone’s favorite part: the satisfying sizzle as Eli extinguished the candle’s flame in grape juice in the kiddush cup. After the proper amount of sizzle appreciation, we sang the last part of the Havdalah blessing, hamavdil bein kodesh l’chol, marking the separation of the sacred from the mundane, the light from the darkness.

For Jews, only the sabbath – starting Friday evening and ending Saturday evening – is considered sacred as far as days of the week go. But this Sunday felt anything but “mundane.” Our temple had burned and with it our naiveté that hatred couldn’t destroy the same building twice. But we were together, and it was a sacred togetherness.

After Havdalah, Rachel, our religious school leader and temple board member, showed us the photos she had taken from the wreckage. Some of the children were silent. Many clamored with questions. It looks like a haunted house, Emry said, referring to a photo of a charred hallway. Everyone agreed. Eli pointed, See this is where the couch was, and there was the Tree of Life on the wall. And that’s the skylight in the lobby, Evie added. Rachel asked the kids what they wanted in a newly rebuilt library. Comfier chairs! Pink and purple books! A cotton candy machine! She showed us pictures of the aftermath of the bombings of the temple and of Rabbi Perry Nussbaum’s house by the KKK in 1967. The part of the synagogue that the bigots destroyed then is the same part that we’ll be rebuilding again.

What should we do now? Rachel asked the kids. Be Jewish! Addie shouted. Be more Jewish than ever!

We all agreed that was a good plan.

—

Author’s postscript: Just want to add a final note of gratitude to all the friends and family (and friends of friends and friends of family!) who have checked in and showed support in small and large ways. The Jackson community has showed up strong, too. So grateful to live in this city. If you want to support, you can donate to the Beth Israel Re-Building Fund. More information is on the Beth Israel Congregation and the Institute of Southern Jewish Life’s websites.

Bio: Originally from Denver, Lauren Rhoades has served with AmeriCorps, started Mississippi’s first fermentation company and helmed the Eudora Welty House & Garden. In 2022, she founded Rooted Magazine, an online publication dedicated to telling unfiltered stories about what it means to call Mississippi home. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the Mississippi University for Women. Her debut memoir, Split the Baby: A Memoir in Pieces was published in June 2025.

Mississippi’s former welfare director and his former professional wrestler buddy sometimes discussed how their ideas – funded with millions of federal public safety-net funds – might help the lives of others. 

But they mostly talked about their own prosperity, exhibits read in federal court Monday demonstrated.

“Man you get me excited with all those money bags,” former Mississippi Human Services Department Director John Davis once texted former WWE star Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr.

DiBiase is standing trial for his alleged role in a broader welfare fraud scandal that auditors found resulted in the loss of roughly $100 million in federal funds meant to assist the needy from 2016 to 2020. And Davis, who pleaded guilty in 2022 and is cooperating with the prosecution as he awaits sentencing, finished his second day testifying against the wrestler Monday.

The trial deals specifically with the charges against DiBiase – 13 counts ranging from conspiracy, wire fraud, theft and money laundering. The trial could last weeks. But five days in, testimony and exhibits have at times touched on the broader network of people at play.

“I have seen first hand with my own eyes what a letter with the state seal & endorsement from the Governor himself can do,” DiBiase texted Davis, according to a government exhibit displayed in court. “What’s crazy is when you put that letter in a quazi (sic) educated quazi (sic) celebrity’s hands who genuinely and sincerely wants to change the world. The doors of the decision makers and gold brick shares fly open off the hinges. Like a Baptist church when their 60min Jesus fix is up and they got football and chicken waiting at home.”

Several inquiries begged to be explored, such as when the prosecutor asked Davis to identify the eight different agency employees or attorney general’s office lawyers who reviewed and authorized one of the agreements used as a vehicle to pay DiBiase. 

Or when Davis explained that a federal director from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services traveled to Mississippi “all the time because he liked what we were doing.” 

Davis is set to return to the witness stand for cross-examination by the defense Tuesday.

MORE TRIAL COVERAGE:

DAY 4: Feds ask disgraced former welfare director ‘million-dollar question’: Why? Loneliness and love

DAY 3: Wrestler’s multimillion dollar ‘self-help curriculum’ helped crack open a wider welfare scandal

DAY 2: Opening statements in welfare scandal trial paint former director as villain who doled out millions over infatuation

DAY 1: 83 witnesses could enter the ring in Mississippi welfare scandal trial

TRIAL PREVIEW: Ex-WWE wrestler faces feds in first – and potentially only – criminal trial in Mississippi welfare scandal

The first day of Davis testimony lingered on the bizarre and sentimental relationship between the two men, who bonded quickly and intensely over their shared religiosity and elaborate plans for their futures.

The second day, the prosecution kept pummeling the jury with text messages that suggested Davis and DiBiase aimed to use their access to the nation’s welfare delivery system to generate lifelong security for themselves and their families. 

While DiBiase was receiving large payments totaling more than $3 million from the state’s welfare and food assistance programs, the two men were discussing buying property and starting a compound together in order to “enjoy life the way it’s meant to be,” one text read.

Some seemed like passive fantasies, while others were more specific: Should Davis buy the orange Kubota or the green John Deere tractor? Had DiBiase seen this property for sale on Magnolia Drive? Davis said he’d give up the main house for a cottage in the lower 40.

Meanwhile, in one of the most poverty-stricken states in the nation, Davis’ department was denying up to 98% of people applying for cash assistance from the same pot of funds they were using. Out of the roughly $86.5 million Mississippi receives annually from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, it doles out about $4 million to families in need. 

Davis testified Monday that DiBiase was aware of the source of the funds he received.

Davis had worked for the department, starting out as a county-level eligibility worker assisting welfare applicants, for over two decades by the time DiBiase came along. When they met, Davis was also working as an adjunct professor and DiBiase was vice president of business development for a Christian insurance company called One Life America.

Both of their roles dealt with leadership development, Davis said. They texted about their desire to go into business together, combine the training concepts they’d devised and shop the product to businesses and other states as consultants. They pumped each other up.

“Your vision is so crystal clear and synergistic with mine that it’s got to be illegal,” DiBiase texted Davis.

When asked what DiBiase was doing alongside Davis on a day- to-day basis, Davis described him as “being a shadow and a person who could take notes and keep things straight.” 

“Taking meetings, going to things with the governor, the Governor’s Mansion, governor’s office,” Davis said. “… Anything I went to, he went to.”

While he was paid sporadically, DiBiase received an average of about $30,000 per week. 

Some employees at MDHS were earning annual salaries of $18,000, Davis testified Monday, about $350 a week.

Davis said his boss, then-Gov. Phil Bryant, had been receiving complaints about those workers delivering poor customer service, and that’s why Davis hired DiBiase to deliver talks to encourage them.

Bryant, a Republican, was in his second and final term when he nominated Davis to lead MDHS in January 2016, and Davis was later confirmed by the state Senate. Davis resigned in July 2019.

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.