A story from Mississippi deserves everyone’s attention.
One month ago, a motor vehicle operator struck 57 year old Jan Morgan from behind as she pedaled her bike on a road south of Tupelo, Mississippi. According to the police dispatch log, Morgan was thrown up onto the windshield and then catapulted onto the ground after the driver realized what had happened.
Then, after the initial contact, the police log reads, “The driver exited the vehicle and observed the cyclist while talking on the phone. Then re-entered her vehicle and ran the cyclist over again before being forced from her vehicle by witnesses.”
Morgan sustained multiple fractures, significant head injuries, collapsed lungs and road rash over most of her body. She spent four weeks in the ICU and is just now beginning her recovery.
“…my wife’s life is only worth $500 or 6 months… If you happen to be run down by a car, it appears to me that Mississippi law says you are no different than road kill.”
— David Morgan
Morgan is a well-known bike shop owner from Starkville Mississippi. She owns the shop with her husband David.
As if the tragedy of the crash wasn’t enough, David is now struggling to comprehend how the Mississippi legal system has failed him. Writing on his “Get Well Jan” blog yesterday, David posted that the driver of the car will only face misdemeanor charges:
I was informed today that there is nothing in Mississippi law that allows for felony charges against the woman that ran over my wife with her automobile… I was also told there is no Mississippi law that allows felony charges for the woman getting back in her car and running over her again while she lay there on the ground severely traumatized…
The District Attorney tells me if anyone can produce written Mississippi law that would apply to this he would certainly use it, but his hands are otherwise tied…
According to the Sun Herald newspaper, DA Allgood says there was no felony because, “the motorist didn’t leave the scene, wasn’t impaired, and didn’t intentionally or negligently hit Morgan.” (Note that witnesses had to surround the driver and reportedly “dragged her” from her car to prevent her from fleeing.) The only state law that applies is Mississippi’s 3-foot passing law, which is a misdemeanor.
David Morgan suspects the woman that struck his wife was on the phone when the collision occurred, but Mississippi law prevents looking at cell phone records in this case because using one while driving is not against the law.
Adding insult to injury is that some local residents feel that people like Jan Morgan shouldn’t even be on the road at all.
Friends of the Morgans now hope to get more national attention on this story. Yesterday a post was made on Reddit looking for anyone with connections to national TV networks.
Morgan is understandably frustrated and angry at the legal situation. “I used to tell people all over the world that Mississippi was a good place to live…” he writes on his blog, “I no longer have any confidence in the judicial system of this state.”
“By Mississippi law,” he continues, “my wife’s life is only worth $500 or 6 months. So much for being an educated, productive, tax paying citizen in this state. Be careful out there. If you happen to be run down by a car, it appears to me that Mississippi law says you are no different than road kill.”
In an update just posted by Morgan, a Mississippi state legislator is drafting an amendment to the 3-foot passing law. “The most important thing every one must do now is flood/call their own representative and tell them to support this bill.”
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
What I don’t understand is why they don’t interpret the second “running over” as the woman’s attempt to leave the scene. Witnesses had to forcibly remove her from her car. So she was either trying to leave or she deliberately ran over that poor woman a second time. That’s a pretty extreme interpretation of the three-foot rule, isn’t it?
I can absolutely empathize with Mr. Morgan. Several years ago, an unlicensed teenager drove his mother’s SUV up over the top of my friend’s car as she sat at a red light. She died and he got a ticket for driving without a license and for careless driving.
It makes no sense at all.
what I don’t understand is how running her over the second time doesn’t count as intentionally hitting her.
Burr — exactly.
i was thinking the same thing. wtf?
She claimed she was in such a panic to move her car off the road after the initial hit she didn’t see her. A very low traffic road. No reason to have to panic to move your car out of the way even if that was true
If that is the explanation this driver has NO BUSINESS driving, it is a privilege not a right after all!
Yep it’s her explanation. The DA won’t do anything since it was done in a state of “panic”..some law applies so no felony all she’ll get is 500$ fine or 6 months in jail. Misdemeanor charges only.
http://getwelljan.blogspot.com/ Check this out for info/accident report, etc. I just saw where Dr. Morgan posted on FB that the DA has agreed to listen to taped testimony from a witness at the scene that may help get criminal charges filed. Let’s hope.
Attempted Vehicular Homicide? Is there not a law in Miss. for that?
Wow! You mean the DA cannot see that the second running over is attempted vehicular manslaughter? Sounds like someone thinks very little of bicyclists if you ask me. Sad does not cover this injustice.
MS & LA have been in 49th and 50th place for educational results for decades, it may also apply to the MS Bar Assc.
Why isn’t getting back in the car and running over her again intentional? She knew she was there and got in the car and drove over her? If that isn’t intentional or negligent I don’t know what is.
If she didn’t do it intentionally it was at least negligent to move the car with an injured cyclist so close to it.
If you read the latest update by David Morgan, he is being told by legal experts that the second running over was done in a state of panic so it’s not considered negligent.
Doesn’t that “state of panic” imply at least an attempt to leave the scene, making it a hit and run? Is she going to escape hit and run charges because the witnesses stopped her?
I guess I can just murder anyone I want, as long as I’m in a “state of panic”.
…and the new Twinkie defense is born!
no, you can just murder anyone as long its with an automobile.
An action taken in panic would rule out premeditation.
The defintion of ““negligence” at the legal section of Freedictionary.com suggests to me that almost any crimnal act can be classified as negligent.
At what point does intent enter in to determining severity of the crime and the accompanying punishment?
Even if the auto operator’s lawyer floats a “temporary insanity” defense there was still the complicated act of getting back in the auto, closing the door, putting the car back in to gear and finnally comitting the negligent act of vehicular assulut with INTENT to kill.
I’m a lawyer, but one who only occasionally brushes up against criminal law. Nevertheless it defies legal logic and centuries old concepts of negligence to say that a “state of panic” nullifies negligence. Especially when it was an initial act of negligence, driving while distracted by a cell phone, that led to the alleged state of panic in the first place. As another poster said, it is highly unlikely if you shot someone during the commission of a robbery because you were in a state of panic when the shopkeeper pulled a gun on you, that would be a defense to attempted muder or murder. The DA obviously thinks he will get more votes in the next election if he doesn’t procescute this case. It is some consolation that at least the Morgans should be able to get a helluva a civil judgment that should hopefully bankrupt the driver for life.
that’s a question for the jury. charge her and let the jury decide.
It’s high time for some kind of “aggravated” clause on traffic violations. Maybe that’s not the right descriptor, but some kind of increased severity must be implemented for cases where severe bodily injury or death was caused during the commission of another traffic infraction/violation/misdemeanor/felony. Run a stop sign, get a $250 ticket. Run a stop sign and kill somebody as a result, get a $15,000 fine, a revoked driver’s license, and some jail time. Get caught talking on your phone while driving (ha!), get a (what is it, $190?) ticket. Run over somebody or cause an accident while talking on your cell phone while driving–hands-free or not–get a vastly increased ticket, a suspended/revoked license, and some hefty community service. Run over somebody once as a result of not paying attention, get a hefty fine, a suspended/revoked license, etc. Run over somebody TWICE, the second time in an apparent attempt to flee the scene, get a heftier fine, automatic license revocation, and jail time. How is it possible that running over someone you have obviously seen in front of your car–because you put them there by already running into them–is not considered at the very least to be assault, if not attempted manslaughter/murder?
It seems we have these kinds of severity adjustments for other violations of the law, why not for traffic violations? Oh, that’s right, because NOBODY can get along without their car, and implementing laws like this threatens too many people who currently enjoy the privilege of driving without a care.
Auto operator observered injured & immobilized PERSON that they just hit.
Auto operator then DECIDED that they best course of action was not: to stop and wait for authorities or flee the scene BUT to ASSUALT the VICTIM with a deadly weapon.
This action was taken with INTENT and AWARENESS.
The applicable charge is MURDER 1 with a plead to no less than MURDER 2 on the grounds the the auto operator may have paniced in to trying to kill the victim to destroy testimony/evidence.
Sorry Attempted MURDER 1
How is reentering the vehicle and hitting her a second time neither intentional nor negligent? By getting back in the drivers seat, the driver was attempting to flee the scene.
Just so everyone knows, apparently the lawyers are saying that the woman in the car was in a state of panic and that’s why she ran over Jan Morgan the second time. Being in a state of panic therefore means she wasn’t being willfully negligent. sick I know.
This is at the DAs discretion. It isn’t a point of fact.
THIS is the other half of the equation of America’s dangerous driver problem: the goverment is all too willing to ignore it despite more than suffient laws on the books to effectively procescute.
He’s either incompetent or malicious and dragging his feet.
I’d say incompetent people can’t become DAs, but you have to consider our last ‘president’.
I live in this county, and can tell you that the DA is an excellent, intelligent man. It seems his hands are tied by the idiotic state laws. I’m sure that, were he able to justifiably punish this motorist, he would certainly have done so.
In the 1960’s there was a spate of lurid motorcycle gang movies that portrayed bikers as violent sociopaths who would burn down your house as your kids slept if you ran down someone in their club colors. I was told by non-outlaw motorcyclists that drivers started treating them much better after these flicks became popular–the average driver was perhaps starting to fear motorcycle riders rather than viewing them as an annoyance. Any filmmakers out there? Can’t we get some outlaw bicyclist movies made, even if that kind of cyclist doesn’t really exist?
We might fare better on the road if we, as a group, were feared rather than ridiculed–let’s have that movie with the slo-mo shots of a cell phoning driver being U-lock-whipped across the face and the blood flying.
Dave… As a person who can remember the early 60’s to mid 70’s ,and has known three close motorcycling friends once killed or attacked by automobile drivers, I would have to say that that idea, along with the myth that those films dissuaded peoples fears of motorcyclists is a bit off.
Does the family have civil recourse at least? This person should be paying somehow.
From what I read from Mississippi cyclists posting on reddit last night, the driver/assailant seems to be someone of ehhh… limited financial means. (Much more derogatory terms are being used by the locals) Those posts indicate that, even if a civil case was won, there is little expectation that the victims family would ever actually see much compensation.
Yeah if the person who committed the crime has no money, suing them will do little good.
When my mother was pregnant with my sister, a lady ran a stop sign and t-boned my mom, who then had to have an emergency c-section to save my sister who was born premature as a result.
While the auto insurance company covered much of the hospital bills, I understand that no legal actions were taken against the women because she was of “limited means” and would not have been able to pay any damages, if they were awarded.
I waill make sure that when I want someone dead to make sure I am flustered and in a “state of panic” when I run them over the second time.
Isn’t the real problem that apparently hitting a cyclist, or presumably a pedestrian, isn’t negligence to begin with? If there is no legal difference between running into a cyclist and missing by only two feet, there is a problem.
The funny thing is that if she hit a car from behind it would be worse for her. And no-one would tolerate her hitting the driver of the first vehicle while trying to escape.
Sending best wishes for Jan’s recovery.
It IS Mississippi after all.
Please do not confuse one person’s ignorance and lack of responsibility for the entire state.
This is the fault of more than one person. Did you not read the part about the failures of the state’s legal system?
No doubt. That says it all.
http://bikeportland.org/2011/04/05/grand-jury-no-criminal-charges-for-woman-in-sw-multnomah-blvd-crash-50826
I live in Starkville where Jan and David live and know them personally. Being an active cyclist/triathlete myself, the situation here is disturbing. Although (and rightly so) a LOT of people are disturbed by what happened, a good majority of “natives” here feel that it’s her fault because she shouldn’t have been on the road on a bicycle (even though it’s the law that cyclist are allowed on the road!). Mississippi is a third world country, and I’m glad to say that I’m not from here. Just happen to be stuck here for the time being. This state is an embarrassment to the country.
There are any number of examples where the police use deadly force against a driver who panics and attempts to leave the scene by driving towards the officer or police car. The fact that the driver is in a panic is not considered relevant when the safety of an officer is on the line. Too bad the justice system doesn’t feel that civilian lives have the same value. I guess some animals are more equal than others.
Maybe panic will be a convincing defense, especially in MS, but let the jury (Grand, or otherwise) hear the case first.
Shameful. A quick search of DA Allgood turns up some unflattering news, such as disregarding the results of a DNA test. As in the Colorado hit and run case, this DA seems to view the law as his to define and rewrite.
Was he elected or did he have to show any skill to get the job?
seems like an easy case for attempted murder…
if it was me it’d be vigilante justice and I’d simply kill the driver myself…
Couple things here from someone who spent a large part of their life in MS, and Starkville specifically:
1. I wish Jan a speedy recovery. I did not know her personally, but the opening of their shop (the 2nd in town, and the 1st had a reputation for being incredibly rude to its customers) helped get a lot more folks on bikes there. I hated to hear about this. I hope this doesn’t undo all the great things they did for cycling in that area.
2. The fact that witnesses had the wherewithal to stop the driver shows that this is not the typical thought process of a citizen of that state. As terrible as the situation is, saying that a majority of natives agree with the actions of this driver is complete bull. Blanket statements get us nowhere. I have gotten similar reactions from drivers while riding on busy streets in SW Portland as i did when i was riding in and around Starkville. Earlier this year, a car struck a cyclist, a parked car, and a house within the city limits of Portland, and got no criminal charges. MS has a long way to go, but so does the rest of the world.
3. I am incredibly upset with the DA on this one. Taking a second run at a downed person should be considered attempted murder. I think there is definitely more that can be done on that front. I hope that this at least spurs the citizens of MS to push for stronger laws regarding street safety.
Read all the comments to a recent article on the Clarion Ledger online and then tell me it’s complete bull.
the comments section on the clarion ledger is not a good place to get your info on the outlook of the majority. the comments on any Oregonian article on biking would make you believe the same about Portland.
I know there are a lot of people that think bikes don’t belong on the road there, but the majority of people don’t want to hurt anyone.
Comments on the Oregonian website do not represent all of Oregon residents sentiments, I would suspect the same of the CL.
#3: as incompetent as this DA is for not being able to do his job he at least isn’t filling random charges that will get dropped thus insuring double jeopardy immunity for the driver when a concrete offensive lawsuit is formulated.
Running her over the second time, per the police report, is attempted murder. Any rational person can see that. It’s shameful and unbelievable if the law or a D.A. cannot.
The second worst case nightmare for me is after being hit by a car is not getting justice. This can happen to any of us, anywhere.
You can always get your own justice.
So… no kids have ever been run over in Mississippi? No little old ladies?
Seems kinda hard to believe they have zero legal recourse for something like this… Why is this different?
Seems to me any time this has happened to an officer, the assaulting driver gets a windshield full of
police rounds, and the cop gets “Cleared” by the grand jury by weeks end, defending there self from…… A Deadly Threat .
Applies to a great many things:
Who you are
Who you know
How much money you have
99.9% of the public would agree the officer acted in self defense if the driver too a 2nd shot at the police victim. Thanks to the propaganda of bike hate spread by newspapers, we have little reporting of this driver taking a 2nd shot at her victim.
My thoughts are with Jan, her husband, family and supportive community during this unbelievably difficult time. Wishing you all peace in the knowledge that positive change must come from this horrific event. May the Mississippi judicial system adjust it’s laws to protect and respect cyclists as fully recognized road users.
We wonder why some ppl don’t want to bike.
R.I.P bike friend. “positive change” yes Jocey
almost did yesterday as a huge SUV rolled up on me with force, and made eye contact.. I kiss my wife and kids everyday before I leave, and say I love you guys.
Ugh, I hate to think about it, but I always call my wife before I leave work for the same reason — and so she’ll know to call the cops/hospital/morgue if I’m not home in an hour or so. If you think about it, it’s infuriating that we have to do that.
In this case, while the driver sounds like an irresponsible fool, the newspaper accounts do seem to indicate there was no intent…not that that helps the victim any. If the victim’s husband runs down the perp in a parking lot as she walks to her car, can he then claim it was an accident and escape prosecution?
Google Latitude is good for this too.
Thanks for pointing that out — it looks like it would be perfect, and I didn’t know about it. Unfortunately, I’m still a dumbphone owner, but when I upgrade, I will definitely make use of that service.
Thank you for posting this, BikePortland. We cyclists in Mississippi want more attention to this outrageous event and don’t want this crime swept under the rug.
It’s stories like this one, and the countless number of close calls we’ve experienced that I say “to hell” with all forms of motor vehicles. They are a cancer on the environment and society.
Not suing a driver because they are too poor has the same outcome as not calling animal control after years of maulings: you are just waiting for a messy death scene that you could have prevented.
Why would you spend possibly thousands of dollars on a lawyer when the probability of getting any money to even pay back your legal fees, let alone pain and suffering compensation is minimal at best?
If you can get a pro-bono lawyer, then great. But that isn’t an option for everyone.
The point is not to get money but to have publicly accessible record of hazardous actions and tendencies.
If a person commits an act of vehicular mischief once it is commonly passed off as a one time occurrence: “it could happen to any one” as if the party responsible for the crime was the true victim of the crime. The person injured or killed was just a bothersome decimal point to be rounded off.
If that same driver has done this before, however, it would be safe to assume that, unchecked, they will continue to kill indiscriminately with their auto. For that reason there needs to be a record of conviction even if the judge/jury awards no damages due to financial insolvency.
In other words: the dirt poor should be no more exempt from the consequences of breaking the law than the obscenely rich.
“here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of, Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of”
Phil Ochs
Get dangerous drivers off the roads of all states, by federal mandate. It’s too important and too urgent to leave it up to each individual state. Ordinary, lawful drivers would benefit at least as much as vulnerable road users.
Sheesh, Mississippi even has a law prohibiting local jurisdictions from banning cell phones while driving!
until people are held responsible for what they do in their vehicle, this will continue. why are people not held responsible? someone somewhere will rationalize the driver not being held responsible, because they don’t want to be in an accident. if people can’t be responsible for driving a car, should anyone be driving a car?
Glad I don’t live down there…
This is attempted murder. Maybe the first hit was violation of the 3 foot law, but how’s this for a charge for the second one… Assault with a deadly weapon?
Couldn’t the second time she ran her over be viewed as attempted murder? that sure is hell is a felony.
Please remember that a news article is not going to give the entire legal story about what can and cannot be done. Allgood is an intelligent and responsible man who I am sure will do everything in his power within the law to make sure justice is served. He should not be put at fault for the idiotic laws of our state.
Al, “disbar” might be a bit jumping the gun (bar complaint, perhaps?) but if half this story is true there must be at least an assault or attempted manslaughter law in the state. On the one hand, armchair quaterbacking could certainly get the story wrong, but on the other hand this family doesn’t really have much in its arsenal right now besides whipping up a public outcry.
I’ve been living in Starkville for 5 years and I bike to work. I really hate it when I go to conferences out of state and “educated” people tell me that “Mississippi can just fall into the ocean for all I care.” All of us, everything and everyone here is worthless, no? Well, there are some fine things about MS, but the prevailing attitude among drivers is not one of them. I think the comments in the Clarion Ledger article are reflective–a few people defending bicyclists and a majority who believe bicyclists “deserve what they get.” We need a massive education campaign in a state resistant to education overall. If I’m not mistaken, driver’s ed is not required here. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s what my students tell me. It would make sense, given what I have observed. My students also tell me that they have no problems texting while driving. (They don’t say that they are 10 feet tall and made of Teflon, but that can be inferred.) I would not bike out in the country here. Now I know I’m probably crazy for biking in town. I think this issue needs national exposure. Many Mississippians do not like that, but it’s good for them. MS is actually part of the US. Portland, sing it loud!
Does anyone have a written statement from the DA? If this quote is correct, the DA should be the target of a lawsuit. If the victim was Rep Gabrielle Giffords on a bike you know the whole country would be outraged by the DA and the person who took a 2nd shot at the victim.
is this a quote? –> if anyone can produce written Mississippi law that would apply to this he would certainly use it, but his hands are otherwise tied
The bike community is just waking up to the fact that rural high poverty communities are lacking in many basic human rights. There’s no such thing as the choice of abortion for most poor and rural people, no such thing as a fair education, no such thing as fair treatment police. Back country cops read the law in their own way. If Ms. Morgan was dead, she would be facing a small minded coroner. It happened to Michael Jordan’s dad.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/post-mortem/real-csi/
Here’s the note posted on Jan’s FB page by her husband, David: https://www.facebook.com/notes/jan-morgan/no-protection-by-mississippi-law/2142057157895
The quote above comes from his description of his talk with the DA, when the DA told him that no felony charges apply. In the comments below Carol Vagner Livingston posted notes from an email to her from a friend who had spoken to the DA, Forrest Allgood, on the phone and received more info from him as to his reasoning. The DA’s number is 662-329-5911.
Allgood kept a mentally disabled man in prison for six years after the actual murderer confessed and the DNA evidence proved it. He does not actually have a stellar record.Here’s that article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/us/08dna.html?scp=2&sq=forrest+allgood&st=cse
This is so terrible for Jan and her husband, for Mississippi, and honestly for the state of our nation’s judicial system when it comes to bike/car accidents.
How could it be that this woman’s punishment for hitting a human – then running her over AGAIN with intent – be no greater than what someone would get for stealing an apple from a grocery store?
As far as I can tell the reason people are more outraged by the second incident is that they can imagine themselves having the first accident. They can’t imagine themselves accidentally running over the victim a second time. But in both cases a “deadly weapon” was involved and, apparently, in both cases it is was an “accident”.
The problem here is not that there isn’t a penalty for the second hit, its not even that there isn’t a suitable penalty for accidentally hitting a bicyclist in the first place. Its that there is no expectation that motor vehicles will be operated safely. We accept thousands of deaths and millions of injuries every year as normal.
Feel free to give DA Forrest Allgood a call or shoot him an email (yes that have that in Mississippi) to let him know that the cycling community at large will not stand for this nonsense!
662-329-5911
OR
fallgood@msda16.com
I wonder what the outcome would have been if Morgan was driving a car and was knocked out during the initial accident. Then the driver after getting a good look at where she lay on the road, runs her over just to make sure. There must be laws against that. Hopefully from travesty comes change and bad judgment may be prosecuted appropriately.
I don’t get it. You can’t charge the driver with attempted murder? I would assume that is not a misdemeanor.
Sorry, very long post which arises out of the assault with a deadly camera site below and which puts another viewpoint of this “excellent, intelligent man”:
http://www.theagitator.com/2007/10/16/forrest-allgood/
http://www.theagitator.com/2007/10/16/assault-with-a-deadly-camera/
One name that keeps coming up over and over again in this Hayne saga is that of Mississippi District Attorney Forrest Allgood, whose district covers Clay, Lowndes, Noxubee, and Oktibbeha counties
Allgood was the prosecutor who put Dr. Hayne on the stand in the Tyler Edmonds case, where Hayne offered up his outrageous testimony supporting the “two shooter theory.”
Allgood was also the prosecutor in the Kennedy Brewer case. Actually, Hayne performed the autopsy in the Brewer case. He then, as he often does, called in his pal Dr. Michael West to offer up some bite mark quackery. If what I’ve learned about other cases in Mississippi applies in this one, West “found” his bite marks on the little girl only after consulting with Allgood, and ascertaining his theory about how the crime occurred.
Allgood then ran with West’s bite mark testimony, and got his conviction. If it weren’t for the prescience of one of Kennedy Brewer’s attorneys in getting a court order preserving the DNA from the rape kit, the state of Mississippi may well have already executed Kennedy Brewer. But she did manage to get it preserved, and in 2002, more advanced DNA testing revealed the semen of two men in the little girl Brewer was convicted of killing. Neither sample belonged to Kennedy Brewer.
Now here, I’d like to think an honest prosecutor would be rather alarmed. Here it is, 15 years after the murder, and not only do the two semen samples taken from the victim not match the man Allgood has put on death row for more than a decade, two other men who almost certainly did rape this little girl have yet to be identified, and could well still be free.
Moreover, in the years between the conviction and the DNA test, Allgood’s star witness in the case, Dr. West, has been discredited by several professional organizations, and exposed as a fraud by several national media outlets.
None of this seemed to faze Allgood. He simply went about protecting his conviction. After the state supreme court ordered Brewer a new trial, Allgood announced that he planned to try Brewer again. The Innocence Project’s Peter Neufeld says it’s the only time he can remember that a prosecutor has actually retried a defendant after DNA tests revealed semen on the victim that matched someone other than the accused.
Allgood also announced he planned to again use the discredited Dr. West in the new trial, making him one of a very, very select few prosecutors left in the state who still have the temerity to use the disreputable dentist. I’ve been told by defense attorneys that Allgood still occasionally uses Dr. West in other cases, too.
It gets worse. Allgood still believed Kennedy Brewer was guilty of the little girl’s murder, even if he didn’t rape her. So he ran DNA tests on two men who visited Brewer the night of the murder, on the theory that Brewer helped them with the rape and murder. Neither of those men matched the semen samples, either.
One thing Allgood didn’t do was run the semen samples against the state database of convicted felons. According to the New York Times, Allgood says that’s because the state has no such database. This apparently came as a surprise to the state official who has been running said database for several years. Which raises a important question: Was Allgood lying, or is he really ignorant of the fact that the state of Mississippi has has a DNA database of convicted felons, and has had one for a number of years?
It’s one or the other. And both prospects are rather frightening.
The same article says that while Allgood notified the local sheriff of the DNA result, the local sheriff also says Allgood has made no request to reopen the case, stating definitively and (somewhat colloquially) that, “The case is already solved, far as the murder.”
All of which suggests that Forrest Allgood doesn’t care much about the fact that the identity of the two men who raped and likely murdered the little girl in the Brewer case is still unknown. He’s got his man, and he’s sticking to his story.
Allgood was finally taken off the Brewer case, and it was assigned to a different DA (who still plans to retry Brewer, and still plans to use Dr. West). But in one last weird attempt to preserve his conviction, Allgood actually objected to Brewers’ attorneys’ request that the semen samples be tested against the DNA of a man convicted of a very similar rape and murder 18 months prior to and very near where the murder Brewer is accused of took place. By that time, Allgood had been removed from the case, and no longer had standing to object. But that he would try to object anyway is awfully telling. What possible harm could such a test do, other than to raise legitimate doubts about Kennedy Brewer’s guilt and possibly catch the actual killer?
anyone else bother by the comment Johnathan linked to by Annette Loe … that it was her own fault for being out riding?
Adding insult to injury is that some local residents feel that people like Jan Morgan shouldn’t even be on the road at all.
Could let her know how uninformed her opion is…
Annette Loe
117 Kings Ridge Dr, Brandon, MS 39047
(601) 992-1310
Thank you Google