Textual content messages and a video from a prisoner contained in the Mississippi State Penitentiary have raised questions on a murder there throughout a 2020 gang battle.
Throughout the battle, Denorris Howell was strangled to demise. Nobody was charged along with his killing.
Howell was one in all 42 individuals who died by murder in Mississippi prisons over the previous decade, a toll uncovered by a reporting staff that features Mississippi At this time, The Marshall Undertaking – Jackson, the Clarion Ledger, Hattiesburg American and The Mississippi Hyperlink. Whole convictions in these circumstances? Six.
“Oh, my God, there’s one thing incorrect with that image,” stated Howell’s nice aunt, Annie Moffitt, who runs Annie’s Residence Cooking in Holly Springs, the place he as soon as labored.
Parchman’s gang battle got here after years of neglect by state officers, who slashed tens of millions in funding and allowed situations on the jail to deteriorate after federal courts ended oversight of the ability in 2011, in keeping with an investigation by the Mississippi Heart for Investigative Reporting, now part of Mississippi At this time, and ProPublica.
The U.S. Division of Justice later blamed the battle and the violence main as much as it on insufficient staffing, cursory investigations, inadequate safety measures, unfettered entry to contraband and uncontrolled gang exercise.
“These systemic failures end in an setting rife with weapons, medication, gang exercise, extortion, and violence,” the report stated.
Mississippi Division of Corrections officers stated they referred solely one of many three homicides in three days to prosecutors. General, the company referred 15 of the 42 homicides to prosecutors over the previous decade, and stated in a current assertion that it “stays dedicated to making sure the protection of inmates in its custody.”
David Fathi, director of the ACLU Nationwide Jail Undertaking, known as these numbers inconceivably low. “I can’t think about some other regulation enforcement company failing to refer three-fourths of the homicides below its jurisdiction to prosecutors,” he stated. “These victims’ lives are usually not seen as sufficiently beneficial to warrant the trouble.”
After the gang battle, Gov. Tate Reeves employed the previous head of Angola, Louisiana’s most infamous jail, to scrub up Parchman and the opposite prisons. The Mississippi Legislature handed raises for correctional officers.
The Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman in April 2023.
However the violence that originally declined below Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain’s management is now again on the rise. With 5 killings already, 2025 marks Mississippi’s worst 12 months for jail homicides since 2021.
Deadly response to a dispute over cash
Denorris “Nod” Howell grew up within the Waterford group between Oxford and Holly Springs, the eldest of three kids.
“He was a great younger man who handled all of us with the last word respect,” recalled Moffitt, his nice aunt. “He cherished his grandmother, who was my sister.”
After the teenager shot as much as 6-foot-1, he performed energy ahead for Holly Springs Excessive Faculty and graduated in 2001.
“Denorris was a great child,” stated his mom, Janice Wilkins. “He was an obedient youngster. I didn’t have a lot issues out of him rising up, apart from him being a typical teenager.”
Not like others, he and his brother didn’t hand around in golf equipment, she stated. “When children develop up, they enterprise out and do their very own factor, however so long as you’re in my home, you have got guidelines.”
After graduating, Howell moved out and acquired married. He and his spouse had 4 kids. He labored a collection of strange jobs, first at a warehouse in Oxford after which at his nice aunt’s restaurant.
In 2010, Howell and a good friend have been at his house when LaKeith Jones arrived. Based on testimony, Howell had just lately offered a automobile to Jones, who nonetheless owed him cash. As soon as Jones paid the remaining steadiness, Howell would give him the keys.
The dialog between them grew heated. Howell shot Jones 5 instances.
Howell known as 911 and advised the dispatcher that he had shot Jones in self-defense as a result of he thought Jones was about to tug out a pistol. He later advised a deputy that he had not needed to shoot Jones, however that Jones was robbing him and had robbed him 4 instances prior to now.
Sheriff’s investigators didn’t discover a pistol on Jones’ physique, and not one of the witnesses who testified at Howell’s trial stated that Jones had a weapon.
In 2012, a jury convicted Howell of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 17 years and started serving that point at Parchman, one of many nation’s most notorious prisons.
The utmost safety jail holds as much as 2,542 males in seven buildings, surrounded by an 18,000-acre working farm. The jail’s lengthy historical past of violence and abuse has been documented by journalists, researchers, filmmakers and blues singers.
‘I used to be praying that he was protected’
After her son started serving his time in Parchman, two hours away, Wilkins started working domestically on the Marshall County Correctional Facility, the place she taught incarcerated males tips on how to give haircuts.
The entire time there, she considered her son, she stated. “I used to be praying that he was protected.”
By her courses, males realized all types of cuts, and she or he stated jail officers grew to understand her. “They name me ‘Boss Woman,’ the one that everyone loves,” she stated.
After a 12 months of instruction, the lads “know what they’re doing,” she stated. “They get a license identical to mine,” she stated, flashing her personal license from the state Board of Cosmetology and Barbering.
A lot of these she taught have left jail far behind. “They’re in barber retailers, and a few of them have ventured out and gotten their very own store,” she stated. “They’re simply doing actually good.”
Whereas she labored, she waited for her son’s launch. He had advised her that he would possibly come house as early as 2020, as a result of he could possibly be paroled after serving half his sentence.
She started to plan for an enormous household gathering to welcome him house, full with rooster, fish, frog legs, shrimp, crab legs and greens — all of the meals he cherished.
‘Ain’t nothing below management’
Within the waning days of 2019, a battle between the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples unfold throughout Mississippi prisons.
In hopes of stopping the violence from spreading, Parchman officers locked down the lads of their cells to stop their motion.
Regardless of this, Walter Gates, 25, who was serving a 10-year sentence for housebreaking from Coahoma County, was stabbed to demise on New Yr’s Day at Parchman. Roosevelt Holliman, 32, who was serving 12 years for armed theft and housebreaking out of Forrest County, met the identical destiny a day later. Two suspects within the Holliman killing are pending trial.
Reeves declared in a Jan. 3, 2020, tweet, “Grateful to these working to revive order and security. That’s the first precedence. Then we want solutions and justice on the individuals who perpetrated this violence.”
The Mississippi Heart for Investigative Reporting acquired a collection of textual content messages and movies throughout that battle from folks within the prisons and their family members.
A message despatched on Jan. 2 recognized a feminine correctional officer in Unit 29 “giving inmates keys proper now, and my brothers have nobody to alert.”
An analogous message adopted on a non-public Fb web page, accusing the identical officer of reducing off lights.
Images and movies confirmed males in red-and-white-striped uniforms, reserved for folks convicted of essentially the most violent crimes, strolling freely by means of Unit 29, with no correctional officers in sight.
The message from inside Parchman continued: “If MDOC thinks they’ve management, they’re very mistaken.”
In a video recorded through the unrest on a contraband cell phone, a cell sits in darkness whereas different components of the jail are lit.
Loud shouting might be heard as an incarcerated individual contained in the cell seems to be punching somebody. A prisoner recording the video narrates, “They’re straight up hitting the motherf—ers with knives and s—, beating them motherf—ers up.”
A person might be heard saying, “I’ve acquired him in a chokehold.”
One other voice cheers him on: “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Useless. Oh, yeah. Useless. Deaaaaad.”
Regardless of the loud shouting all through the incident captured on video, no officer might be seen responding.
A screengrab from a video filmed by an incarcerated individual on a contraband telephone in January 2020 reveals a cell in darkness, whereas the remainder of the unit is lit.
At 3 a.m. on Jan. 3, an officer known as extra employees to the Unit 29 constructing, the place they discovered Howell’s physique in his cell. His cellmate, who had been stabbed repeatedly and whose identify was blacked out on the incident report, was taken by ambulance to the hospital. At 4:22 a.m., the coroner pronounced Howell lifeless.
The coroner dominated that Howell’s cellmate had strangled him to demise in self-defense.
By the point the governor determined to close down Unit 29 on Jan. 28, 5 prisoners at Parchman had been killed, and dozens had been injured. Three others have been discovered hanging of their cells. MDOC dominated their deaths suicides.
Detrick Munford, who was a captain over Unit 29 then and later served as Parchman’s deputy warden, stated he heard on the night of Jan. 2 a few feminine officer allegedly sharing her keys with prisoners. He stated he confronted her and took her keys.
After that, he opened an investigation into the officer’s actions to find out if she had a relationship with a gang, he stated. “When she came upon, she give up.”
He despatched his findings to the jail’s investigators, he stated. “They take it from there.”
No prices have been ever introduced in opposition to the officer, who was by no means recognized in any division report. She stated in textual content messages just lately that prisoners lied about her, that she was by no means investigated by MDOC and that she wasn’t even at work that evening. MDOC has not responded to requests for her timesheets.
Nobody ever acquired her keys, she wrote. “I used to be the one lied on.”
She stated after Howell’s demise, Munford checked that she had her keys.
Munford stated he is aware of of some circumstances the place correctional officers did favors for gangs. He stated he additionally is aware of of a number of circumstances the place correctional officers enabled violence in opposition to these behind bars, however he doesn’t know of any circumstances the place officers have been prosecuted.
Munford stated officers can lower off the lights to a person cell.
Parchman is situated in a rural space the place there are few jobs, he stated. “Folks are likely to assume they will’t do no higher, so it’s a must to go together with the system.”
If folks refuse to “go together with the system, they’ll discover a approach to get you out of the best way,” he stated. “There’s a lot corruption.”
Inside weeks after Howell’s demise, two extra males have been killed at Parchman. Jail officers tried to reassure the general public that these have been remoted incidents.
“We have now been working across the clock with MDOC and DPS [the Department of Public Safety] to reply instantly and forestall this going ahead,” Reeves tweeted on Jan. 21, 2020.
Within the wake of the killings, Reeves appointed Cain as corrections commissioner to scrub up the prisons and restore security.
By the top of that 12 months, six folks had been killed at Parchman and three extra in different components of the state’s jail system. Nobody has been convicted in reference to any of the deaths.
‘He advised me that he feared for his life’
On Jan. 3, 2020, Wilkins acquired a name from the chaplain that her son was lifeless. Since then, she stated, she has acquired no different particulars about his demise and no post-mortem report.
Janice Wilkins holds a funeral program for Denorris Howell at her house.
“I simply felt empty,” she stated.
She paused. “Generally it feels prefer it simply occurred yesterday.”
She had simply talked to her son the evening earlier than, and he sounded nervous, she stated. “He advised me that he feared for his life.”
She stated her son advised her that the lights had been turned out and {that a} guard was letting males out of their cells.
Years later, she heard a rumor from the lads she labored with on the Marshall County Correctional Facility that her son’s cellmate had been killed in jail, however it provided her little solace. “I don’t want that on no person,” she stated. She later came upon that the rumor was false.
At this time, 5 years after his demise, Wilkins continues to have questions. Nobody from the jail has ever defined what occurred to her son, she stated.
“Justice must be served,” she stated. “My son had 4 kids who cherished him very dearly.”
