Top Stories – Page 112 – The Mississippi Link

Pastor indicted for sexual battery of child

A 71-year-old Mississippi pastor has been indicted by a Tate County grand jury on 18 felony counts related to the sexual battery of a child.

Sheriff Brad Lance says in a news release that Larry Gene Singleton was on two counts of fondling, six counts of sexual battery and 10 counts of child pornography.

Singleton, the former pastor of Bay Springs Baptist Church in Abbeville, Miss., was arrested in December after sheriff’s investigators received a complaint from the victim, who accused Singleton of forcing him to have sex. […]

Murder-suicide confirmed in deaths of couple and child in Lee County

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A coroner has confirmed that two adults and a 13-year-old girl found shot to death in a home in Lee County Tuesday were the victims of a murder-suicide. The bodies of 55-year-old Wiley Young, 46-year-old Danica McCord and her daughter, Destiny McCord were discovered around 8:30 a.m. March 26.

Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson said an officer with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks arrived at the residence on County Road 49 and found the victims after efforts to contact them had failed.

Unconfirmed reports said the officer was Young’s adult son. […]

Escaped inmate found dead in jail cell

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An escaped Rankin County inmate was discovered dead in his jail cell one day after being found in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Officials with the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) said 27-year-old Bryan Owens was found hanging from his cell late Tuesday afternoon.

MDOC Spokesperson Tara Booth said officers were serving dinner when they found Owens hanging from a sheet in his cell.

Owens was housed alone, Booth said, and he was pronounced dead at 5:09 p.m.

Owens escaped on Sunday, March 24. […]

Condoleezza Rice: Democracy requires responsibility

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Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Mississippi State University audience that a mature democracy requires individual citizens understand not only their rights, but also their responsibilities.

Rice spoke about current world events, saying the United States and the world are facing some very difficult times, yet with great opportunities that suggest optimism.

“Whenever I visit a place like this, a great university where our best and brightest are studying, I am indeed optimistic,” she said. […]

Medgar Evers’ exhibit coming to Dept. of Archives and History

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In observance of the 50th anniversary of his death, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) will commemorate the life of civil rights leader Medgar Evers with exhibits and programs.

Evers was the Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP from 1954 until his assassination in the driveway of his family’s home in Jackson on June 11, 1963.

On May 1, a History Is Lunch lecture by Myrlie Evers-Williams, former director of the NAACP and Medgar Evers’s widow, will open the exhibit “This is Home”: Medgar Evers, Mississippi, and the Movement.

Evers-Williams is now a distinguished scholar-in-residence at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Miss. […]

Lillie Ayers, key figure in historic lawsuit, dies at 85

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Lillie B. Ayers, who became the lead plaintiff in Mississippi’s college desegregation lawsuit after the death of her husband, Jake Ayers, died Sunday at her home in Glen Allan in Washington County. She was 85.

Henry Ayers, Lillie Ayers’ son, said his mother died of complications from bone cancer.

Funeral services are pending. […]

Escaped inmate caught in Wal-Mart parking lot in Ark.

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A state inmate who escaped from a community work center in Yazoo City was arrested Monday in Pine Bluff, Ark.

Tara Booth, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, said in a news release that authorities had been looking for the 27-year-old Bryan Owens since he went missing from the Yazoo County Community Work Center on Sunday.

Owens was serving a 12-year sentence for burglary, vehicle theft and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon from Harrison County. […]

Feds, Miss. school reach deal over punishment

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) The U.S. Justice Department said Friday that it has reached a deal with a Mississippi school district to end discriminatory disciplinary practices in which black students face harsher punishment than whites for similar misbehavior.

The agreement comes after a lengthy federal investigation that found that black public school students in Meridian are five times more likely than whites to be suspended from classes and often got longer suspensions for comparable misbehavior. […]

State Rep. Jessica Upshaw dead of apparent suicide

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Simpson County Coroner Terry Tutor said state Rep. Jessica Upshaw has died.

Tutor said the Diamondhead Republican died Sunday.

Mississippi Bureau of Investigation spokesman Warren Strain says the crime scene unit is at a home in Mendenhall, investigating her death.

Simpson County Sheriff Kenneth Lewis told WLOX that Upshaw appeared to have shot herself in the head in an apparent suicide.

“It appeared she had a gunshot wound to her head; it appeared to be self-inflicted,” he said. […]

Brandon Middle School teacher suspended

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A Brandon Middle School teacher is on suspension after what school district officials are referring to as a “disciplinary issue.”

Angela Smith told The Clarion-Ledger her eighth grade son was shoved on March 19 by information and communication technology teacher Terry Williams after he was caught tossing a piece of candy across the room.

Smith said Williams told her son to go to the principal’s office. She said her son stopped at the water fountain on the way to the principal’s office, and the teacher came out and started yelling at him. The teacher then grabbed him by the shirt and bumped him with his chest. […]