(10/26/03)Last month’s fatal shooting of a 20-year-old former Vicksburg High School student will not be among cases presented to this week’s grand jury because police investigation is continuing.

About 71 other cases will be presented to the panel that considers evidence in criminal cases to determine if indictments will be returned, district attorney Gil Martin said.

The shooting, which happened at close range near the school’s stadium, left O’Dare Lee Earl Mims, 2807 Arcadia St., dead. Walter Jefferson, 20, 202 Cain Ridge Road, is charged with capital murder.

Jefferson, who was a junior at VHS, remains in the Warren County Jail without bond.

Vicksburg Police have interviewed about 30 witnesses, and some are being questioned again, Chief Tommy Moffett said.

The shooting happened about 2:30 p.m. Sept. 10 as many students headed to the area near Drummond and Lee streets for extracurricular activities.

Jefferson was arrested about 6 minutes after the shooting was reported. A .38-caliber pistol was recovered from his car.

Under state statute, because the shooting happened on property used for education, if found guilty Jefferson could get the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

Moffett said his department anticipates having the case ready for the next grand jury, which meets Jan. 26.

Among the 71 investigations to be presented this week, six involve charges of aggravated assault. One involves a Vicksburg man who is accused of setting his girlfriend on fire.

Bobby Taylor, 32, 1201 South St., Apt. 304, is accused of lighting with a cigarette lighter isopropyl alcohol that burned his live-in girlfriend, Doris Jackson, on July 16.

Martin said that Jackson has been reluctant to participate in the prosecution of the case, but he plans to pursue a conviction nevertheless.

“It’s really for her own protection, in our view,” Martin said. Two-thirds of the homicide cases in Warren County have involved domestic violence, he added.

“We will prosecute it in the name of the state, which we can do,” Martin said, adding that the case was unusual in that it involved “extreme violence.”

“This was a little more severe than the average,” he said.

Jackson was taken to The Burn Center at Delta Regional Medical Center in Greenville, where she was treated for two weeks. Burn scars could be seen on her face and neck and she was also burned on her chest, left arm and both legs.

Taylor remained free on $75,000 bond.

The grand jury, composed of 18 to 21 citizens chosen from voter rolls, is to convene Monday and expected to complete its work Thursday. Warren County Circuit Court Judge Frank Vollor will preside.

When at least 12 of 18 jurors vote that enough evidence has been presented in a case for it to go to trial, they return an indictment in that case.

Another case that will not be presented to this grand jury involves an early-August shootings of two men on Clay Street near First North Street.

Derrick Paige, 20, 1320 Second North St., is charged with two counts of aggravated assault. Roommates Clayton Trammell, 24, and David Hartzfield, 20, of 90 Givens Road, were injured in the shootings, which happened about 10 p.m. Aug. 3.

Police were awaiting results of crime-laboratory tests on forensic evidence, Moffett said. He said he also anticipated the investigative file for that case would be ready for presentation to the January grand jury.

Another high-profile crime that has happened since the last Warren County grand jury met, the week of July 14, was the July 28 robbery of a local bank.

Christopher S. Watson, 37, of Corsicana, Texas, was being charged federally in the case being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Jackson. A spokesman there said Watson had been indicted and was awaiting the setting of a trial date.