Pawn shop neighbors mourn, police hunt suspects
Bill's Pawn Jewelry Coin/Stamp Exchange was closed Tuesday, but its front door was covered with flower memorials, candles and stuffed animals.
If you peered through the window, you'd see a light on inside that almost made it seem like Bill Mosley, Robert Ivy and Ted McLemore would be back at any point to reopen the store and regale customers with the history of a rare coin or some other story of a piece of unique equipment or jewelry. You could almost believe maybe they'd just stepped out.
But the reality is that all three men were fatally gunned down on Saturday night in a robbery. The Jackson Police Department denies having suspects in the case, but Pascagoula police believe their suspects in a coast jewelry shop robbery are connected to the deaths of Mosley, 81, Ivy, 60, and McLemore, 70.
The suspects
Investigative evidence links their deaths to a burglary on the coast, and the prime suspects in that burglary at Sam's Jewelry in Pascagoula are Jamison Layne Townsend, 35, and Joshua Garcia, 37, who were caught on surveillance camera.
In a photo obtained by The Clarion-Ledger, to some, Townshend and Garcia might resemble a 2016 version of Bonnie and Clyde.
The surveillance system was damaged and parts of it were stolen, but above the door and on it remain two cameras -- possibly providing the first link that could point to the killers. A red Dodge Charger was seen at the store on the day of their deaths.
Pascagoula Police Department Lt. Doug Adams said Tennessee Highway Patrol pulled over a red Dodge Charger with a paper tag around 11:30 p.m. As the trooper approached the vehicle, the driver fled. He pursued them and lost them on Highway 41, just off interstate 24 in Coffee County, which is between Chattanooga and Murfreesboro.
Family and friends say Garcia was from Mississippi and may have been born in Jackson. Garcia drives a red Dodge Charger, they confirmed. Police said the widely-circulated photo used along with surveillance photos of the two is simply a similar car. The vehicle they're looking for is a 2007 model with a black air scoop on the hood.
Garcia is not unknown to the Mississippi correctional system, having been to prison multiple times for offenses in Harrison County. According to prison records, he was convicted of robbery in 1999 and sentenced to five years probation. In 2000, he received three concurrent five year sentences for burglary, armed robbery, and receiving stolen property. In 2006, Garcia was sentenced to four years for burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, and in 2009 he was convicted of grand larceny and burglary of an unoccupied dwelling. He was released on parole in 2014 and was no longer under observation in January of 2015.
Garcia is also wanted in Missouri for unlawful use of a weapon and second degree burglary, according to the Green County Sheriff's Department website.
It's not clear how the former nurse and mother of two from Missouri met the convicted felon from Mississippi, but law enforcement sources say they showed up together first a few months ago when there was a traffic accident and Garcia was a passenger in Townsend's car. Townsend's license tag, registered to a BMW, was also on a red Dodge Charger with a black hood stripe that would not stop when a police car tried to pull them over in November. The pursuit was called off because of traffic congestion.
Court records show Garcia has lived in Byram and Vancleave at the times of his convictions. Townsend, a former nurse, let her license expire last year. They had been staying in the Springfield, Missouri area. Her LinkedIn account identifies her as having worked at St. Mary's Hospital Medical Center in Blue Springs.
The victims
Calvin Berry, the jeweler who owns Calvin Stones right down the road, said he'd worked with the men every day for a decade. They looked out for each other.
"I’m late for work this morning and Bill would have been calling me this morning because he drove by and didn’t see my car," he said.
He beats himself up for not sensing some kind of danger on Saturday when he stopped at the gas station across the street on the way home.
"I’ve been taking care of them for 10 years, I know they close at 3 and I close at 5, and I got distracted talking to someone and drove off," he said. "Other than that I would have looked over here and ran over here and asked, 'Why y’all’s cars still here?' But I got distracted and drove off."
The neighborhood loved the guys from Bill's Pawn, who loved the neighborhood back in turn. Stephanie Watkins had done business with them for years and said she was in the store one day when Mosley gave a reason.
"One guy came in there one time and he made a comment about, 'Why don’t you leave the neighborhood,' and they said, 'Why? I don’t have a reason to move, and we’ve been here for years,'" she said.
Around 8:50 Saturday night, the men were all found dead at the store located at 104 Wilmington St., shot at least once each, according to Jackson Police Department.
Berry said if the couple is connected to the death of his friends, he's even more angry for the many years they spent serving the people of Jackson only to lose their lives to some people just passing through.
"Hell has no fury. I’m hurt, I hear folks talking about robbery and killing, but my friends were executed," he said, his voice growing emotional. "I can’t cry another tear. But I’m probably fixing to cry two more times. I’m hurt."
Watkins felt the same shock and fury at the senseless tragedy.
"When I saw and it came through, the address, I knew it. Especially when I saw there was three dead, there were always three or four guys in there, to know it was them was so heartbreaking. Then that an icon in Jackson is gone, just wiped away because of a few idiots. That’s the most disturbing part.
Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
