DNA connects suspect to 10-year-old murder case
In 2004, Lincoln County convenience store owner John Deere was found in the parking lot of his store, dead of three gunshot wounds.
Kenneth "Pete" Baggett spent the next three years in jail, wrongfully implicated as Deere's killer.
Deere's unsolved death in the parking lot of the Airport Pik 'n' Pack has haunted Lincoln County ever since. Baggett was released in 2007, but seven years later, a little bit of DNA from the scene was all it took to connect the cold case to a new suspect, officials said.
Early this month, an indictment was handed down by the Lincoln County Grand Jury for Arron Lyons, 32.
Lyons is currently in jail in Texas, held on unrelated charges. According to Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing, a detainer has been placed on him and he will be returned to Lincoln County to stand trial on charges of first degree murder, armed robbery, and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
The indictment against Lyons, handed down on Sept. 3, alleges that he planned and committed the armed robbery with other unindicted persons. Rushing and District Attorney Dee Bates could not comment on whether further arrests could be pending.
Mississippi Bureau of Investigation spokesman Warren Strain said the DNA hit came when Lyons was entered into the system in Texas.
Since 2004, Lyons has moved in and out of the state, being back in Brookhaven as recently as February, when he was in jail on a stalking-related charge. At that point, Harris County put a hold on him for a probation violation, and he was sent back to Texas.
Rushing said Tuesday morning that Lyons is not in any way connected to Baggett or William Hutson, both of whom were arrested and released previously in the case.
"They're not connected to him at all. They are not connected to Lyons," he said. "And the first information we had on him was at the first of the year."
It was January 16, 2004, and Deere, 55, had just opened his store at 4:30 a.m. when the sheriff's department received the anonymous 911 call that began a decade of searching for the culprit.
The store's cashbox was found burned two days later off I-55 near Dixie Springs. The murder weapon was never found, in spite of multiple searches throughout the county.
In June of that year, Baggett pleaded guilty to a robbery at a Lincoln County school, and on the same day, he was charged with capital murder in connection with the robbery at the Airport Pik 'n' Pack and Deere's death.
Hutson, 20 at the time, was arrested in 2005 as an accessory after the fact to capital murder. He was never convicted and formal charges were never pressed.
Meanwhile, then-Sheriff Wiley Calcote had several inmates press Baggett for information during his incarceration, and the court later found their testimony to be tainted. Baggett was released on a $75,000 bond in late 2006, and he was cleared of all charges in June 2007.
Baggett's attorney, Leslie Roussell, said he always felt Calcote did not have substantial reason to pin the charges on his client.
"I knew right off the bat the evidence they had didn't match up," Roussell said. "It feels good that they finally maybe got the right person, but at least Pete's innocence is proven more or less. It seems to me the people of Lincoln County do owe him an apology, and definitely the people in power at the time."
Bates said he couldn't say a lot until the case actually goes to trial, but that authorities have never quit searching for leads.
"Inside our district, inside of other districts, law enforcement is always reviewing these unsolved cases," Bates said. "There are quite a few we've discussed through the years. I commend the sheriff's department for continuing to work on it."
Strain said the case is a clear tribute to how technology can make the difference in fighting crime.
"The technology advancements and implementing the technology is important to law enforcement in accomplishing what has been accomplished in this case," he said. "And after such a long period of time, that you benefit from that is very rewarding to know."