Jury considers charges against man in killing of Ole Miss student

A judge urged jurors to keep deliberating Wednesday in the trial of a man charged in the killing of a University of Mississippi student who was well-known in the local LGBTQ+ community.

Sheldon “Timothy” Herrington Jr., 24, is charged with capital murder in the death of Jimmie “Jay” Lee, a gay man who disappeared July 8, 2022, in Oxford, where the university is located and the trial is being held.

Lee’s body has never been found, but a judge declared him dead. Herrington has maintained his innocence, and he did not testify.

Jurors deliberated about 3 1/2 hours before sending a note to Circuit Judge Kelly Luther, asking what happens if they could not reach a verdict. He told them to keep talking to each other.

Prosecutors said during closing arguments Wednesday that Herrington and Lee had a sexual encounter that ended badly and Lee left Herrington’s apartment. They said text messages showed that Herrington, who was not openly gay, persuaded Lee to return with the promise of more sex and that Lee was killed after going back.

“Tim Herrington lived a lie — lived a lie to his family,” District Attorney Ben Creekmore said. “He lied to Jay Lee to coax him over there, promising to do something with him.”

Herrington’s attorney, Kevin Horan, has said prosecutors cannot prove Lee is dead without having a body. He told jurors Wednesday that text messages showed Herrington did not lure Lee to his apartment.

“He’s the one that’s being dominant anchoring this particular conversation,” Horan said of Lee.

Lee, 20, has not contacted friends or family, and his financial transactions and once-prolific social media posts have stopped since the day he disappeared, investigators testified.

Police arrested Herrington two weeks after Lee went missing. Authorities interviewed Herington twice that day, and he gave conflicting information about the hours before Lee vanished, Oxford Police Chief Jeff McCutchen testified Tuesday.

Before officers interviewed Herrington, they had already obtained sexually explicit text messages exchanged between social media accounts belonging to Herrington and Lee during the final hours Lee was known to be alive, McCutchen said.

Google records obtained through a warrant showed that Herrington searched “how long does it take to strangle someone” at 5:56 a.m., University Police Department Sgt. Benjamin Douglas testified last week.

The final text message from Lee’s phone was sent to a social media account belonging to Herrington at 6:03 a.m. from a spot near Herrington’s apartment, McCutchen said Tuesday. A cellphone tower in another part of Oxford last located any signal from Lee’s phone shortly before 7:30 a.m., the police chief said. A security camera showed Herrington moments later jogging out of a parking lot where Lee’s car was abandoned, investigators testified earlier.

On the day Lee vanished, Herrington was also seen on security cameras buying duct tape in Oxford and driving to his hometown of Grenada about an hour south of Oxford, police have testified.

Herrington is from an affluent family in Grenada, Mississippi, about 52 miles (84 kilometers) southwest of Oxford, testified Ryan Baker, an Oxford Police Department intelligence officer who was a detective when he helped investigate the case.

Herrington’s grandfather is bishop of a church in Grenada, other family members work at the church and Herrington himself taught youth Sunday school classes there, Baker said. Herrington “was not portraying himself as gay” to family or friends, Baker said. During testimony Tuesday, Herrington’s father and grandfather both said Herrington had never spoken about having boyfriends.

Both Herrington and Lee had graduated from the University of Mississippi. Lee was pursuing a master’s degree. He was known for his creative expression through fashion and makeup and often performed in drag shows in Oxford, according to a support group called Justice for Jay Lee.

Prosecutors have announced they do not intend to pursue the death penalty, meaning Herrington could get a life sentence if convicted. Mississippi law defines capital murder as a killing committed along with another felony — in this case, kidnapping. The judge instructed jurors that they could consider lesser charges, including murder and manslaughter.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.