Vicksburg man shot, wife questioned
A Vicksburg man was found dead of a gunshot wound in his bedroom after his wife flagged police down from her front yard.
Vicksburg Police Chief Walter Armstrong said police received a call of an incident at the residence on Smedes Street and arrived to find Alfred Harris, 61, shot in the head. His wife Becky Harris, 46, was taken in for questioning, but no charges have been filed.
"She was cooperative, and she did make some statements I can't discuss at the moment," said Armstrong. "She made some statements about an ongoing situation, but if there's no record of it, of course, we'll have to proceed with what we've got on the scene and go from there."
Armstrong said police are looking into both spouses' backgrounds.
"There are indications there may have been some problems with that relationship, but I'm not sure it's been reported," he said. "We're still looking into everything. We're still in the pretty early stages of trying to determine exactly what happened and who, if anyone, will be charged."
Coroner Doug Huskey said he believes the initial call came in around 10:02 p.m. He was called to the scene at 10:22 p.m. and pronounced Harris dead at 10:50 p.m.
Authorities would not say where in the head Alfred Harris was shot. Armstrong wouldn't comment on a motive either, but he did bring up that Mississippi is fifth in the nation in domestic violence.
"A lot of times they don't report it for the fear that the outcome of reporting it may be worse than not doing anything at all, and they hope it may get better because the repercussions may be worse if they say something," he said. "That's never the right thing to do, but if you're not in their shoes or in their minds, you can't see it from their point of view."
Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.