If you’re curious about the facts surrounding the number of murders in Mississippi by year, several law enforcement agencies’ websites provide archived and current reports and statistics, most commonly available on their website. In addition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation prepares and publishes a Uniform Crime Report each year that details the types of crimes, crime rates, and crime locations in each state, county, and city across the United States.
In addition to law enforcement, Project: Cold Case is a nonprofit that has prepared and shared a public database of nearly 25,000 unsolved homicides across the United States, along with a page dedicated to the number of unsolved homicides and the homicide clearance rate in each state. According to Project: Cold Case’s unsolved homicide statistics page, there were around 10,051 murders in Mississippi between 1980 and 2019. Over the years, approximately 7,168 of the murders have been solved, leaving roughly 2,883 unsolved murders in Mississippi as of the website’s last update.
Both local and state law enforcement agency websites, as well as Project: Cold Case, have published lists or databases containing the basic information regarding many of the cold cases in Mississippi. Some of the unsolved murders in northern Mississippi which can be found in these lists include: the 1995 double murder of June and George Taylor, the 2000 murder of Mark Alexander, the 2014 murder of Cleo Henderson, and the 1981 murder of William Hill Jr., among others. Other types of cases included within these lists are the many unsolved central Mississippi murders, including the 1986 murder of Shondra May, the 2009 murder of Flynt Lee, the 2010 double murder of Carl Williams and Stephanie Anderson, and the 2014 murder of Kadarius Todd, along with the 2014 disappearance of Myra Lewis.
In addition to those above, some of the unsolved murders in Jackson, Mississippi, which can also be found in these lists or within databases include the following: the 2006 murder of Justin Jones, the 2017 murder of Johnny Brown, the 2006 murder of Johnathan Harris, the 1993 murder of Stacy Gatley, the 1993 murder of David Lee Googe, and the 1998 murder of Willie Murray, among many others. Finally, a few of the many unsolved murders in Hinds County, Mississippi, include: the 1998 murder of Edward Allen, the 2000 murder of Erica Hardy, the 2001 murder of Janeka Stovoll, and the 2013 murder of William Nachlinger, among others.