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)

Microsoft has fired two employees who interrupted the company's 50th anniversary celebration to protest its work supplying artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli military, according to a group representing the workers.

Microsoft accused one of the workers in a termination letter Monday of misconduct "designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event.” Microsoft says the other worker had already announced her resignation, but on Monday it ordered her to leave five days early.

The protests began Friday when Microsoft software engineer Ibtihal Aboussad walked up toward a stage where an executive was announcing new product features and a long-term vision for Microsoft's AI ambitions.

“You claim that you care about using AI for good but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military," Aboussad shouted at Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. "Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.”

The protest forced Suleyman to pause his talk while it was being livestreamed from Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington. Among the participants at the 50th anniversary of Microsoft's founding were co-founder Bill Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft said Suleyman calmly tried to de-escalate the situation. “Thank you for your protest, I hear you,” he said. Aboussad continued, shouting that Suleyman and “all of Microsoft” had blood on their hands. She also threw onto the stage a keffiyeh scarf, which has become a symbol of support for Palestinian people, before being escorted out of the event.

A second protester, Microsoft employee Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted a later part of the event.

Aboussad, based at Microsoft's Canadian headquarters in Toronto, was invited on Monday to a call with a human resources representative at which she was told she was being fired immediately, according to the advocacy group No Azure for Apartheid, which has protested the sale of Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to Israel.

An investigation by The Associated Press revealed earlier this year that AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon. The story also contained details of an errant Israeli airstrike in 2023 that struck a vehicle carrying members of a Lebanese family, killing three young girls and their grandmother.

In its termination letter, Microsoft told Aboussad she could have raised her concerns confidentially to a manager. Instead, it said she made “hostile, unprovoked, and highly inappropriate accusations” against Suleyman and the company and that her “conduct was so aggressive and disruptive that you had to be escorted out of the room by security.”

Agrawal had already given her two weeks notice and was preparing to leave the company on April 11, but on Monday a manager emailed that Microsoft "has decided to make your resignation immediately effective today.”

It was the most public but not the first protest over Microsoft's work with Israel. In February, five Microsoft employees were ejected from a meeting with CEO Satya Nadella for protesting the contracts.

“We provide many avenues for all voices to be heard,” said a statement from the company Friday. “Importantly, we ask that this be done in a way that does not cause a business disruption. If that happens, we ask participants to relocate. We are committed to ensuring our business practices uphold the highest standards.”

Microsoft had declined to say Friday whether it was taking further action, but Aboussad and Agrawal expected it was coming after both lost access to their work accounts shortly after the protest.

Dozens of Google workers were fired last year after internal protests over a contract it also has with the Israeli government. Employee sit-ins at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California targeted a $1.2 billion deal known as Project Nimbus providing AI technology to the Israeli government.

The Google workers later filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in an attempt to get their jobs back.

CORRECTS DATE - A pro-Palestinian demonstrator, Ibtihal Aboussad, is escorted away by security as they interrupt Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during a presentation of the company's AI assistant, Copilot, ahead of a 50th Anniversary presentation at Microsoft headquarters, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Redmond, Wash. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond)