Hunters found the remains of Jimmie “Jay” Lee in Carroll County, Miss., over the weekend, ending a two-year search for the missing University of Mississippi student.
Lee’s body was in a patch of forest just off Highway 82 outside of the town of Winona at a well-known dumping ground for refuse and tires.
Carroll County Coroner Mark Stiles told the Mississippi Free Press in a Feb. 5 interview that the site was known to local law enforcement. “It’s used a lot,” he said. “The police are aware of it—they’ve had complaints from the landowners.” Business owners in the immediate area also expressed familiarity with the dumping ground.
After news first broke that hunters had found skeletal remains in Carroll County on Monday, Mississippi Today’s Molly Minta was the first to report that investigators believed the remains belonged to Lee. She reported that the remains included a gold necklace that formed the name “Jaylee,” like one that appeared in several of the missing UM graduate’s Instagram photos.
Investigators announced on Wednesday that DNA evidence confirmed the remains belonged to the missing UM student, who has long been presumed deceased. A judge pronounced him legally dead last November.
‘A Small Measure of Comfort’
Jay Lee, 20 at the time of his passing, was a student from Jackson who was gay and well-loved in the campus’s LGBTQ community in Oxford, Miss. Marches, gatherings and calls for justice followed Lee’s disappearance.
Breck Jones, the public information officer with the Oxford Police Department, confirmed that Lee’s body was in the custody of the Mississippi State Crime Lab, and shared a statement with the Mississippi Free Press.
“The Oxford Police Department and the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office have confirmed
the recovery of the remains of Jimmie “Jay” Lee,” the statement read in part. “The Oxford Police Department made a commitment to finding Jay, no matter how long it took. This case has remained an active investigation since July 8, 2022. We are grateful to the Lee family and Jay’s friends for their help and support throughout this process. We hope this confirmation brings them even a small measure of comfort.”
The Carroll County Sheriff’s Department, who first responded to the discovery, declined to comment, directing media to speak with the OPD.
The hunters found Lee only one day before the end of an extended hunting season in the Delta Management Units.
New Trial Date Still To Come
The recovery of Jay Lee’s remains recovery comes in the lull after the December 2024 mistrial of Timothy Herrington, who prosecutors said was not openly gay and accused of murdering Lee to conceal a relationship between the two. Oxford Police arrested Herrington on July 22, 2022, two weeks after Lee’s disappearance. Herrington denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty.
Police said they obtained footage of Herrington leaving an Oxford parking lot where Lee’s car was found abandoned. Prosecutors said Herrington then bought duct tape from Walmart and drove to his hometown of Grenada, Miss., retrieved a shovel and wheelbarrow from his parents’ house, and departed in his box truck.
Grenada is about 25 miles away from the dumping ground where the hunters found Lee’s remains.
At trial, Herington’s defense attorney, Republican Mississippi House Rep. Kevin Horan of Grenada, said prosecutors could not prove Lee was dead because they had not found a body.
The trial ended in a deadlock. WLBT reported that while 11 jurors voted repeatedly to convict Herrington, one holdout refused to budge. The news station reported that an anonymous juror said the lack of a body was a key reason the lone juror refused to convict.
Neither Horan nor District Attorney Ben Creekmore returned requests for interviews by press time. Even before the discovery of Jay Lee’s remains, however, Creekmore informed the Daily Mississippian that he intended to seek a new trial for Herrington.
“We’re going to proceed forward with trying to get with the court to set a new trial date,” Creekmore said on Dec. 11, 2024.
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