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  • Man accused of fatally shooting wife, 2 others indicted

    CARROLLTON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man who shot and killed his wife and two other people at her birthday party earlier this year after she tried to stop him from driving drunk has been indicted on charges of capital murder and aggravated assault.

    The Greenwood Commonwealth reports a grand jury handed up indictments Tuesday against Michael Barnhill.

    The victims were 39-year-old Brooks Hooker Harrell, her husband, 44-year-old Jim Harrell; and 27-year-old Marlee Jones Barnhill, the suspect’s wife.

    Carroll County Sheriff Clint Walker says the Barnhills had been invited to the Harrells’ home to celebrate Marlee Barnhill’s birthday. Walker says Barnhill became drunk during the course of the evening, then angry when the others discouraged his drunkenness.

    Walker says Barnhill then went to his truck, returned with a .40-caliber pistol and shot the victims.

  • Natchez aldermen working on new animal-control regulations

    NATCHEZ, Miss. – The Board of Aldermen is working on a new animal-control ordinance imposing tougher regulations and penalties to make sure Natchez pet owners spay and neuter their pets and also ensure they don’t inhumanely treat them. 

     
    The Natchez-Adams County Humane Society on Tuesday presented the board and Mayor Darryl Grennell with various proposals that will be further reviewed for aldermen to decide what to enact for dog and cat owners. They include making them get licenses and pay kennel fees to the city if they have three dogs and five cats. 
     
    Noting the city’s current animal-control ordinance does need to be “upgraded,” Grennell said he and aldermen will meet later to comb through the Humane Society’s proposals before deciding what to adopt.
     
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    In other matters at Tuesday’s meeting of the mayor and aldermen, they discussed allocating city funds to help get more movies and TV shows filmed in Natchez. Aldermen voted to get their attorney to look into the legalities of getting money now dedicated to the city’s economic development agency diverted specifically to attracting more filmmakers to Natchez. A new group – Film Natchez – is working to get more movies produced here. Film Natchez leaders include movie director Tate Taylor and producer John Norris, who this summer filmed Breaking News in Yuba County in Natchez.
     
    Film Natchez has asked the Board of Aldermen to help fund its efforts. Alderman Joyce Arceneaux-Mathis urged the city board to consider transferring funds currently earmarked for Natchez Inc. — the city’s business-recruitment agency — to promoting efforts to attract more filmmakers to Natchez. State law dictates how local funds for Natchez Inc. are to be used.
     
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    Arceneaux-Mathis also got the board Tuesday to seek a meeting with the owner of the now-closed Kmart building on John R. Junkin Drive. She said she wants to know who actually owns the large structure by the Natchez Market and if there are plans for using the vacant property. “It could possibly bring some jobs here if we do the right thing,” she said.
     
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    City attorney Bob Latham said a court appeal has been filed challenging Natchez officials’ prohibition of a proposed mental health facility in the old Elks Club that neighbors don’t want near their homes in the Lower Woodville Road area.
     
    The Board of Aldermen earlier this month voted against rezoning the property to allow mentally ill patients to be institutionalized there. The board’s denial of a psychiatric unit being located at the Lower Woodville Road site affirmed a Natchez Planning Commission decision made last month.
     
    Latham said the city officials’ decision has been challenged in Adams County Circuit Court by mental-health advocates. Converting the now-closed Natchez Elks Club building into a psychiatric facility is being pushed by Southwest Mississippi Behavioral Health, a nonprofit, public service agency.
     
    Aldermen cited concerns about emotionally unstable people being held in a building without security in a residential area. Concerns were also expressed about it bringing more traffic to Lower Woodville Road.
     
    In turning down pleas from mental health-care professionals and advocates, aldermen said the proposed crisis-stabilization unit could provide much-needed intensive psychiatric care but should be elsewhere in Natchez.

  • Mississippi man sentenced in boat crash that killed teenager

    LAKESHORE, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for fatally crashing his boat into a 19-year-old woman who was setting crab traps on a bayou.

    Judge Larry Bourgeois delivered 47-year-old Eugene Butler Jr.’s sentence on Monday for manslaughter in the 2016 boat crash that killed Vanessa Mauffray.

    Hancock County officials said Mauffray was crabbing with her boyfriend on Bayou Caddy when Butler sped around a curve and broadsided their 15-foot (5 meter) vessel. Witness testimony revealed Butler hadn’t been looking forward moments before the crash.

    The Biloxi Sun Herald previously reported that Mauffray’s boyfriend pulled her to shore as their boat sank. She later died from her injuries at a hospital.

    Bayou Caddy is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Gulfport, Mississippi.

  • Multistate lottery games start in Mississippi on Jan. 30

    JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The new Mississippi Lottery will start offering multistate games on Jan. 30.

    The state’s lottery corporation on Tuesday announced the date that Powerball and Mega Millions will be available in Mississippi.

    The corporation said last week that the sale of scratch-off tickets for single-state games in Mississippi will begin Nov. 25.

    Mississippi has been one of six states without a lottery, but lawmakers met in 2018 and authorized the games of chance. The first $80 million a year will go to highways, and revenue after that will go to education.

    Powerball and Mega Millions are overseen by the Multi-State Lottery Association.

  • Mississippi man dies after truck runs off Louisiana bridge

    PLAQUEMINE, La. (AP) — A Mississippi man has died after his truck ran off the road and underneath the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge in Louisiana.

    Shortly before 7:30 a.m. Monday, Louisiana State Police began investigating a single-vehicle crash on Interstate 10 westbound at the Whiskey Bay exit in Iberville Parish.

    WAFB-TV reports 50-year-old John Cloninger, of Pearl, died in the crash. Troopers say Cloninger was driving a 2001 Peterbilt tractor-trailer westbound on I-10. For reasons still under investigation, authorities say Cloninger ran off the road to the right and struck a concrete bridge rail. After hitting the railing, the truck fell to the ground underneath the bridge.

    Cloninger, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was pronounced dead at the scene.

    The crash remains under investigation.

  • Ex Lt. Gov. Tuck set to retire as university vice president

    STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — Former Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck is retiring Dec. 31 as vice president for campus services at Mississippi State University.

    The university said in a news release Tuesday that Tuck announced her plans this month, and President Mark Keenum will restructure some administrative jobs on the Starkville campus.

    Tuck, 56, is a Maben native and earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Mississippi State and a law degree from Mississippi College. She served in the Mississippi Senate from 1990 to 1996. She was defeated in the 1995 Democratic primary for secretary of state, then was hired as the top administrator for the state Senate.

    Tuck was elected lieutenant governor as a Democrat in 1999, switched to the Republican Party in 2002 and won a second term as lieutenant governor in 2003.

    After leaving office, she was hired by the university. The news release said Tuck led the Division of Campus Services, which included facilities management, parking and an office overseeing construction. Her current salary is $241,334.

    “Over a very distinguished career in public service that has spanned more than three decades, Amy Tuck has been a faithful advocate for the people of Mississippi,” Keenum said in the statement. “In the state Senate, as lieutenant governor, and most recently as a senior administrator at Mississippi State, Gov. Tuck has been an outstanding leader. She will be missed at her alma mater. I have appreciated her support and wise counsel.”

    The release said George Davis, the assistant vice president for campus services, is also retiring this fall. The university is returning to a previous structure that combines the finance and campus services divisions into a Division of Finance and Administration that will be led by the current university vice president for finance and chief financial officer, Don A. Zant. He has been at the university since 1997.

    “Don Zant’s career at MSU has provided him an exhaustive knowledge of our financial operations and our administrative structures,” Keenum said.

  • Driver killed in wreck with prison bus

    JACKSON, La. (AP) — One person is dead after a wreck involving a prison bus.

    It happened just before 6:30 a.m. Tuesday near the Dixon Correctional Institute in East Feliciana Parish.

    News outlets report a car crossed the center line of Highway 68 South and hit the bus head-on. Louisiana State Police Trooper Taylor Scrantz says the car’s driver, 19-year-old Austin Dixon, of Gloster, Mississippi, had on a seatbelt but suffered fatal injuries.

    Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections spokesman Ken Pastorick says 24 trusty inmates and six guards, including the bus driver, were on the bus. Three inmates and two officers were transported for treatment.

    Pastorick says the trusties were headed to Baton Rouge to work in the Capitol Complex government buildings to perform janitorial, lawn care, maintenance, and kitchen work.

  • Mississippi confirms 2 more lung illnesses from vaping

    JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Department of Health is confirming two more cases in the state of lung illness connected to vaping.

    The department says Tuesday that the new cases bring the state’s total to seven cases, which includes one person who died weeks ago.

    All seven have been in people between 18 and 34 years old.

    The department said that as of Oct. 15, the U.S. had seen 1,479 cases of lung illness in 49 states, the District of Columbia and one territory. Thirty-three deaths had been reported from 24 states.

  • Kobe Dillon of Ferriday High for the 2nd Time!

    Kobe Dillon of Ferriday High for the 2nd Time!

    [headerText widget_name=”Sango Automotive Player of the Week ” level=”h3″ url=”” el_class=””][vc_single_image image=”815″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_single_image image=”816″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”]Congratulations to our Sango Automotive Player of the Week for 10.21.19, Kobe Dillon of Ferriday High School.  His 264 yards of total offense and four touchdowns helped Ferriday top Vidalia 50-6 last Friday night.

  • Mississippi police: Officer broke policy in fatal shooting

    MOSS POINT, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi police officer recently cleared of criminal wrongdoing in a fatal shooting is facing internal discipline for failing to turn on his body camera’s audio.

    Moss Point police Chief Brandon Ashley says Sgt. Lancen Shipman violated policy when he didn’t turn his camera’s audio on until after he fatally shot 27-year-old suspect Toussaint Diamon Sims.

    Ashley says Shipman thought he’d hit the button, but hadn’t.

    The Biloxi Sun Herald reports Sims was fleeing officers pursuing him on multiple felony charges in August. Police officials and Shipman’s attorney have maintained Sims was armed and threatening officers.

    Ashley says a first-offense policy violation typically results in a citation in the officer’s file. The official penalty is pending. Shipman remains out on paid administrative leave.