Judge declares mistrial after jury deadlocks over killing of gay University of Mississippi student

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the case of Sheldon “Timothy” Herrington Jr. in the 2022 killing of Jimmy “Jay” Lee, a gay man who was prominent in the LGBTQ+ community at the University of Mississippi.

Jurors said they were unable to reach a verdict after over nine and a half hours of deliberation.

Lee’s body has never been found, but a judge declared him dead.

Herrington, 24, showed little emotion as he left the courtroom with his attorneys and several relatives. He remains free on bond and is still charged with capital murder, which Mississippi law defines as a killing committed along with another felony — in this case, kidnapping. Prosecutors had said they would not seek the death penalty. He faces life in prison if he is tried again and convicted.

Jurors on Wednesday were told they could also consider lesser charges of first-degree murder, punishable by life in prison; second-degree murder, 20 years to life; or manslaughter, up to 20 years.

Circuit Judge Kelly Luther said he will consult with prosecutors and defense attorneys about setting another trial.

Both Herrington and Lee had graduated from the University of Mississippi. Lee, 20, 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.

Lee disappeared July 8, 2022, in Oxford, where the university is located and the trial was held.

Police arrested Herrington two weeks after Lee vanished. Investigators testified that they used warrants to obtain electronic records including explicit messages between social media accounts belonging to the two men and online searches conducted by Herrington, including one inquiring how long it takes to strangle someone.

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. Prosecutors said 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 explicit 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 own hometown of Grenada about an hour south of Oxford, police have testified.

Herrington's relatives sat behind him in the courtroom, and Lee's sat behind prosecutors. When Luther dismissed court after the mistrial, he instructed the two groups to leave separately.

Jurors were chosen from another county about 250 miles (402 kilometers) to the south. They heard eight days of arguments and testimony.

The judge twice urged jurors to continue deliberating when they said they were deadlocked. After the third such message, Luther declared the mistrial and thanked them for serving, adding: “I’ve asked a lot of you."

Sheldon "Timothy" Herrington Jr., foreground, who was on trial for the murder of University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, and his defense team leave court after a mistrial was declared, at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Miss. on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Bruce Newman/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, via AP, Pool)

Sheldon "Timothy" Herrington Jr., center, who was on trial for the murder of University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, and his defense team leave court after a mistrial was declared, at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Miss. on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Bruce Newman/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, via AP, Pool)

Sheldon "Timothy" Herrington Jr., center, who was on trial for the murder of University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, joins family as they leave court after a mistrial was declared, at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Miss. on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Bruce Newman/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, via AP, Pool)

Judge Kelly Luther presides over the case of Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., who is on trial for the murder of University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Miss., Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Bruce Newman/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP, Pool)

Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., center, who is on trial for the murder of University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, talks with his attorneys as the jury deliberates on the case, at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Miss. on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Bruce Newman/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP, Pool)

Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., who is on trial for the murder of University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, sits at the defense table as the jury decides the case, at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Miss., Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Bruce Newman/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP, Pool)

Sheldon "Timothy" Herrington Jr., who is on trial for the murder of University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, leaves the courtroom as the jury is sent back for further deliberations, at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Miss. on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Bruce Newman/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, via AP, Pool)

Sheldon "Timothy" Herrington Jr., who is on trial for the murder of University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, gets up from the defense table as the jury is sent back for further deliberations, at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Miss., on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (Bruce Newman/The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, via AP, Pool)

Stephanie Lee talks with family during the capital murder trial of Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., who is charged in the 2022 death of her son, Jimmie "Jay" Lee, in Oxford, Miss., on Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (Antonella Rescigno/The Daily Mississippian via AP, Pool)

Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., who is on trial in the 2022 death of University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, enters the Lafayette County Courthouse in Oxford, Miss., Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (Antonella Rescigno/The Daily Mississippian via AP, Pool)

Tornadoes and violent storms struck parts of the South and Midwest on Wednesday, killing at least one person, knocking down power lines and trees, ripping roofs off homes and shooting debris thousands of feet into the air.

A tornado emergency was briefly issued in northeast Arkansas, with the National Weather Service telling residents on social media: “This is a life threatening situation. Seek shelter now.”

Dozens of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings were issued in parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Mississippi as storms hit those and other states in the evening. Forecasters attributed the violent weather to daytime heating combining with an unstable atmosphere, strong wind shear and abundant moisture streaming into the nation's midsection from the Gulf.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol said at least one person was killed Wednesday in southeast Missouri, KFVS-TV reported.

The coming days were also forecast to bring the risk of potentially deadly flash flooding to the South and Midwest as severe thunderstorms blowing eastward become supercharged. The potent storm system will bring “significant, life-threatening flash flooding” each day through Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

With more than a foot (30 centimeters) of rain possible over the next four days, the prolonged deluge “is an event that happens once in a generation to once in a lifetime,” the weather service said. “Historic rainfall totals and impacts are possible.”

More than 90 million people were at some risk of severe weather in a huge part of the nation stretching from Texas to Minnesota and Maine, according to the Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center.

A tornado emergency was briefly declared around Blytheville, Arkansas, Wednesday evening, with debris lofted at least 25,000 feet (7.6 kilometers), according to Chelly Amin, a meteorologist with the weather service. That was the weather service’s highest alert, and rare. It was not immediately clear whether there were any injuries.

“It's definitely going to be a really horrible situation here come sunrise in the morning in those areas, coming out of Arkansas,” Amin said.

More than 2 miles (3 kilometers) of Highway 18 in the area was temporarily shut down due to a downed power line.

A tornado was also reported on the ground near Harrisburg, Arkansas, in the evening.

The Arkansas Division of Emergency Management reported that there was damage in 22 counties due to tornadoes, wind gusts, hail and flash flooding. At least four people were injured and there were no reports of fatalities as of Wednesday evening.

In Pilot Grove, Missouri, several structures were damaged, cars flipped over and power poles were snapped, the state emergency management agency said. Minor injuries were reported, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Meanwhile roads were closed because of storm debris and downed utility lines near the town of Potosi, southwest of St. Louis, according to the state transportation department.

Authorities in eastern Missouri were trying to determine whether it was a tornado that damaged buildings, overturned vehicles and tore down utility poles, tree limbs and business signs in the morning in and around the city of Nevada.

Another tornado touched down in the northeastern Oklahoma city of Owasso about 6:40 a.m., according to the weather service office in Tulsa. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but the twister heavily damaged the roofs of homes and knocked down power lines, trees, fences and sheds.

Forecasters at the National Weather Service office in the area of Paducah, Kentucky, took cover during a warning at night.

“We’re all good here at the office, the circulation JUST missed us to the south,” the agency said on social media.

Power was knocked out to nearly 90,000 customers in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide. As storms moved through Indiana on Wednesday night, more than 182,000 customers lost power.

News outlets reported part of a warehouse collapsed in Brownsburg, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis, temporarily trapping at least one person inside, while the police department told people to not travel through the city. Five semitrucks were blown over on Interstate 65 near Lowell, Indiana, state police reported.

The dangerous weather came nearly two years to the day after an EF-3 tornado struck Little Rock, Arkansas. No one was killed, but there was major destruction to neighborhoods and businesses that are still being rebuilt today.

About 2.5 million people were in a rarely called “high-risk” zone, covering parts of west Tennessee including Memphis; northeast Arkansas; the southeast corner of Missouri; and parts of western Kentucky and southern Illinois.

The Storm Prediction Center said “multiple long-track EF3+ tornadoes" were likely. Tornadoes of that magnitude are among the strongest on the Enhanced Fujita scale, used to rate their intensity.

At a slightly lower risk for severe weather was an area that included Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Louisville, Kentucky. Dallas, Detroit, Milwaukee and Nashville, Tennessee, were also at risk.

A line of thunderstorms dropped heavy rain through parts of Indiana on Wednesday night. At least one street was flooded in Indianapolis, with water nearly reaching the windows of several cars, according to the city's metropolitan police department. No one was in the vehicles.

Additional rounds of heavy rain were expected in parts of Texas, the lower Mississippi Valley and the Ohio Valley from midweek through Saturday. Forecasters warned that they could track over the same areas repeatedly, producing dangerous flash floods capable of sweeping cars away.

Middle Tennessee was looking at severe storms followed by four days of heavy rains as the front stalls out and sticks around through the weekend, according to NWS meteorologist Mark Rose.

“I don’t recall ever seeing one like this, and I’ve been here 30 years,” Rose said. “It’s not moving.”

Rain totaling up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) was forecast over the next seven days in northeastern Arkansas, the southeast corner of Missouri, western Kentucky and southern parts of Illinois and Indiana, the weather service warned, with some areas in Kentucky and Indiana at an especially high risk for flooding.

In Michigan, crews worked to restore power after a weekend ice storm. More than 122,000 customers were still without electricity on Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us.

The Mackinac Bridge connecting Michigan’s Lower and Upper Peninsulas was shut down because large chunks of ice were falling from cables and towers. It was the third consecutive day of bridge interruptions from the ice storm.

Associated Press writers Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Seth Borenstein in Washington; Isabella O'Malley in Philadelphia; Ed White in Detroit; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

Lightning strikes as storms move through the area Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Ashland City, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Lightning strikes as storms move through the area Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Ashland City, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A tree fell and knocked down power lines and blocked a street in a residential neighborhood during storms on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)

Gary Deripaska, left, cleans up storm damage at his home off 96th Street North just west of Garnett Road, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Owasso, Okla. (Mike Simons/Tulsa World via AP)

A car drives through a flooded section of road near Lions Park Beach Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in St. Joseph, Mich., after heavy storms moved through Southwest Michigan. (Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via AP)

Severe storm damage is shown off 96th Street North between Garnett Road and Mingo Road Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Owasso, Okla. (Mike Simons/Tulsa World via AP)

An early morning severe storm damaged homes, destroying the roofs and knocked down power lines, trees, and fences off 96th Street North near Garnett Road, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Owasso, Okla. (Mike Simons/Tulsa World via AP)

Ryland Mosley, 18, who was on the 2nd story of his home when the storm passed, stands outside of it observing the damage, Wednesday, April 2, 2025 in Owasso, Okla. (Mike Simons/Tulsa World via AP)

An aerial image of a barn that collapsed after a severe storm hit Sunday along 92nd Street SE in Gaines Twp., Mich., on Monday, March 31, 2025. (Joel Bissell/MLive.com/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP)

Weekend storms that toppled the steeple at Grace Baptist Church in Franklin, Ohio, is seen Monday, March 31, 2025. (Nick Graham/Dayton Daily News via AP)

A tree lies on top of a damaged home where authorities say a man was killed during a weekend storm in Stockbridge Township, Mich., seen on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (Jacob Hamilton/Ann Arbor News via AP)

An Antrim County Road Commission crew clears branches and trees hanging near Atwood Road from ice build up Tuesday, April 1, 2025, near Ellsworth, Mich., following weekend storms that deposited as much as one inch of ice over areas of northern lower Michigan. (Jan-Michael Stump/Traverse City Record-Eagle via AP)

Sgt. Tyler Midyett of the Emmet County Sheriff's Department works along with Sgt. Mitch Wallin, not pictured, to clear fallen trees from along Eppler Road in Petoskey, Mich., Tuesday, April 1, 2025, as cleanup from the weekend's ice storm continues. (Jan-Michael Stump/Traverse City Record-Eagle via AP)

Piper Kuzel, 5, watches her father, Jesse Kuzel of Charlevoix, Mich., fill gas containers at the Ellsworth Farmers Exchange Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Ellsworth, Mich., as his family has been using heat from their home's natural gas stove to keep warm with power outages widespread following the ice storm. (Jan-Michael Stump/Traverse City Record-Eagle via AP)

An uprooted tree leans on a home after a severe storm hit Sunday along Clear Lake in Barry County, Mich., on Monday, March 31, 2025. (Joel Bissell/MLive.com/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP)

Storm damage from severe weather on Sunday at a farm along 84th Street near Hanna Lake Avenue in Gaines Twp., Mich. on Monday, March 31, 2025. (Joel Bissell/MLive.com/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP)

A barn that collapsed from Sunday's severe storm along 92nd Street SE in Gaines Twp., Mich., on Monday, March 31, 2025. (Joel Bissell/MLive.com/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP)

A toppled tree with its roots showing on Woodworth Street in Linden, Mich., on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (Jacob Hamilton/Ann Arbor News via AP)

A tree lies on top of a damaged home where authorities say a man was killed during a weekend storm in Stockbridge Township, Mich., seen on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (Jacob Hamilton/Ann Arbor News via AP)