One Night in Mhoon Valley ...Middle East

Two weeks before Halloween in 2009, Tameshia Shelton dialed 911 and stepped into the darkness outside her trailer in rural Clay County.

Under a towering oak, her sister’s 21-year-old boyfriend lay face down, a gunshot wound through his chest.

How Danelle Young died that night is a question that courts have wrestled with since 2015, when a judge sentenced Shelton, a mother of four with no previous criminal record, to life in prison for murder.

That answer holds the key to her freedom.

[00:00:00] 911 dispatch: [Call dialing sounds] Hey, 911, where’s your emergency?

[00:00:03] Shelton: There’s an accidental shooting. Could you please hurry up?

[00:00:06] 911 dispatch: Hold on, ma’am. Hold on.

[00:00:08] Shelton: Oh my God! Danelle!

[00:00:10] 911 dispatch: What’s going on?

[00:00:10] Shelton: OK, he’s still breathing. I haven’t rolled him over. I’m too scared.

[00:00:15] Shelton: He saw a raccoon, and he was fixing to shoot it.

[00:00:18] Shelton: I don’t know if he tripped when he got ready to shoot it.

[00:00:20] Shelton: I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know where the gun is. I just heard a shot.

[00:00:24] Shelton: I came outside, and he was down on the ground under the tree.

[00:00:31] 911 dispatch: He is still breathing though.

[00:00:33] 911 dispatch: How can that happen?

[00:00:34] Shelton: Danelle.

[00:00:36] 911 dispatch: She’s not real sure.

[00:00:36] Shelton: Danelle. He’s not breathing.

[00:00:38] 911 dispatch: He’s not breathing?

[00:00:40] Shelton: Hold on, slowly, Danelle. OK, Danelle.

[00:00:44] Shelton: Could y’all please hurry up? I got my daughter.

[00:00:49] Shelton: She’s only 5 months. She’s out here in the cold.

[00:00:53] Shelton: Come. Please hurry up.

[00:00:54] 911 dispatch: It was not assault. He tripped on the gun. He needs to see you ASAP. He has slow breathing.[00:01:00]

[00:01:01] Shelton: Come on before this boy die! Lord, have mercy!

Jurors convicted Tameshia Shelton of murder without seeing the victim’s apparent suicide note. If freed, her case would mark a state record: seven exonerations in the same judicial district.

By Jerry Mitchell, Madeline Nguyen and Ilyssa Daly

WEST POINT — Tameshia Shelton remains in prison for life for murder — a conviction contradicted by much of the evidence, including an apparent suicide note never presented to the jury, a four-year investigation by Mississippi Today has found.

Mississippi Today retraced Shelton’s path through the criminal justice system from the beginning, attending multiple court hearings, examining hundreds of pages of transcripts, exhibits and other court records, and conducting dozens of interviews.

The reporting revealed law enforcement concluded 21-year-old Danelle Young’s death was a homicide even though much of the evidence pointed to suicide, creating a cloud of suspicion that landed Shelton behind bars.

This narrative went unchallenged through Mississippi’s justice system until it hardened into a murder conviction through discrepancies in officers’ testimony, a since recanted deputy state medical examiner’s homicide ruling and a defense attorney so ineffective that an appeals court later ruled he violated Shelton’s constitutional rights.

Not long after arriving at Young’s fatal shooting on Oct. 16, 2009, Clay County sheriff’s deputies concluded his death was a homicide. Shelton, who has maintained her innocence, became the prime suspect because she was the last known person to see Young alive. 

Current Sheriff Eddie Scott, then the chief deputy, told a local reporter he’d ruled out the possibility that Young died from suicide or an accident because the 21-year-old had been shot in the chest from 30 feet away.

Only the gun was actually fired from less than an inch away. That’s what a State Crime Lab expert concluded after finding gunfire burns in Young’s jacket.

Studies show this finding is far more consistent with suicide. 

The deputy state medical examiner officially ruled Young’s death a homicide — a determination the pathologist has since called an “error.”

A grand jury indicted Shelton for murder, and a jury convicted her in 2015.

After five years behind bars, Shelton was granted an opportunity that could lead to freedom: The Mississippi Supreme Court ordered Clay County to hold a hearing to determine if she deserved a new trial. But after hearing new testimony, the trial judge denied her request in 2024.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals recently ruled in her favor, but it will be up to the Mississippi Supreme Court to decide by July if she gets a new trial.

“I’m trying to fight for my innocence,” Shelton said in a phone interview from prison. “I’m trying to fight for my life. I’m trying to fight for my freedom.”

Regardless of the outcome, her case illustrates how each step of Mississippi’s criminal justice system failed her. “It was easy for them to sit there and just throw me up behind the system,” she said of Clay County authorities. “Now it’s hard for me to get out from under the system.”

‘Y’all took too long! He’s dead!’

Shelton’s journey through Mississippi’s justice system begins with the night of Young’s death: Oct. 16, 2009.

Tameshia Shelton told the 911 dispatcher there had been an accidental shooting and shrieked, “Oh, my God! Danelle!”

“What’s going on?” the dispatcher asked.

Shelton paused before replying, “OK, he’s still breathing.”

The dispatcher told an ambulance and deputies to head to Mhoon Valley, a Clay County community that arose on the fertile soil of the Black Belt. The land grew gobs of cotton and became even busier when the Georgia Pacific Railroad set up a station in the late 19th century, but the place had long since fallen on hard times.

For Shelton and her family, the anchor became the Mhoon Valley Missionary Baptist Church, where they spent much of their time. Shelton sang in the choir and taught the girls in the congregation to mime dance.

After graduating from the nearby Mary Holmes College with an associate degree in cosmetology, she cut hair and did other work until the 2000s, when she began to suffer health issues, including seizures, that prevented her from working. But she continued to cook, making the family’s meals.

Left: Danelle Young was found fatally shot on the night of October 16, 2009, outside Tameshia Shelton’s trailer home in Mhoon Valley under an oak tree, pictured 17 years later on May 17, 2026. Credit: Jerry Mitchell/Mississippi Today

Right: The oak, pictured May 17, 2026, was a favorite of Tameshia Shelton’s grandfather. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today

Shelton breathed hard and told the dispatcher, “Could you please hurry up?”

She shared that Young told her he saw a raccoon in a nearby oak — the same one her late grandfather loved to sit beneath and regale her and other children with stories.

Young asked for a gun to shoot the raccoon, and she handed him her grandfather’s .22-caliber pistol, she said. “I was in the house. Next thing I know, I heard a shot. I came outside. He’s down on the ground on the tree.”

Shelton, barefoot and in pajamas, walked to the middle of the street so the first responders could see her. The chilly wind gusted as she clutched her 5-month-old daughter, Treasure, in a baby blanket.

“She’s out here in the cold,” Shelton told the dispatcher. “Please hurry up.”

Her youngest sister, Ketina Tutton, arrived and saw her boyfriend on the ground. She began to scream, pull her hair and stomp the ground. 

When the first sheriff’s deputies — Sgt. Cassandra Smith and an auxiliary officer — arrived at the scene 17 minutes after Shelton called 911, she later testified that Shelton screamed, “Y’all took too long! He’s dead!”

Neither of the deputies were investigators. But testimony shows that Smith, a patrol officer, told her partner to let the chief investigator know she thought this was no accident — this was murder.

Qualifications: The state of Mississippi doesn’t require any homicide training for homicide investigators. Coroners aren’t required to have any medical experience. They simply must be 21 and have a high school diploma or its equivalent, but they must take a 40-hour course in death investigations and receive 24 hours of continuing education each year. 

Under Mississippi law, sheriffs aren’t required to have law enforcement experience. The only requirement? 

They can’t be atheists.

Young’s last week alive

Four days before his death, Young surprised Tutton by showing up at her home for her 22nd birthday and flashing his “Kool-Aid smile,” as his family called it.

The two had met in 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee, where Young was studying to become an auto mechanic while Tutton attended art school for graphic design.

After Young graduated in 2008, they began living together. When Tutton’s classes ended in April 2009, they moved to Mhoon Valley. A month later, they went together to the hospital to welcome Shelton’s new baby.

But the couple’s romance grew rocky. Family members recalled Tutton throwing Young’s clothes onto the lawn when the couple broke up that May.

Before Young left for his family’s home in Forest, Shelton’s middle sister, Shenikia, recalled him saying, “I’m tired of her leaving me, but she’ll see. Just wait. Just wait.”

In the months that followed in 2009, the couple began a long-distance relationship and eventually agreed to reunite. Starting in January, they planned to live together in Meridian, more than an hour and a half from Mhoon Valley.

Young dreamed about their future together, including marriage. The week he died, he gave Tutton a necklace and a birthday card addressed to “My Wife Mrs. Katina Young,” complete with a doodle of the couple holding hands.

He signed the card as “Yo Man, Yo Husband, Yo Hero, Yo Soulmate.”

“I’m giving You my life, You T, because I wanna spend mine with u,” he wrote Tutton, whom he called “T.” “I hate being away from u. It’s not fair 2 me & especially you.”

The couple spent the night together at Shelton’s trailer. But Tutton didn’t want to get married. She had gotten a full-time job nearby and no longer wanted to move away and live with Young.

Shenikia spent much of Young’s last week with him. “He was like my baby brother,” she told Mississippi Today. “My kids called him uncle.”

She said he talked about a change in plans, saying Tutton didn’t want to live together anymore.

On the morning of the day he died, Young babysat Shenikia’s son. Later that day, Young worked on Shelton’s car, and she cooked supper for him and the rest of the family.

That evening, Shenikia went to her mother’s red Ford Expedition to find her work schedule. She noticed Tutton and Young inside. 

They didn’t look happy, she said. The couple sat apart — Tutton remained in the middle of the back seat while Young rested on the floor with his legs hanging out the SUV’s open door.

Shenikia grabbed her schedule, went inside and returned later, asking the couple to go to Walmart to buy her some baby wipes.

By the time the couple returned at about 8 p.m., dreams of a new life together had deteriorated into a verbal spat that lasted 15 to 20 minutes. “I had just told him that we were not – that I was not going to move in January like we had planned,” Tutton later told deputies. “This was something we had planned … until I got the job.”

The argument ended with the couple parting ways. She said she walked inside her mother’s house, and Young headed to Shelton’s trailer. 

It was dark when Shelton said Young knocked on the bedroom window of her trailer. She was already in bed with her two daughters.

There was no way to open the window, which had an air-conditioner, so she headed for the front door. When she opened it, she said Young told her there was a raccoon in the tree and that he needed Shelton’s revolver and only one bullet to kill it.

She said she replied that he might need more than one bullet, so she loaded the .22 pistol and handed it to Young.

She heard a shot, and when Young didn’t return, she said she went outside to check on him, only to find him face down beneath the towering oak her grandfather loved.

Drawing Conclusions: Renowned criminologist and former detective Kim Rossmo said the biggest problem with law enforcement making a conclusion before the majority of the evidence is collected is, “It’s hard to walk back that decision, even if you later realize it’s the wrong decision.”

A 1999 National Institute of Justice study compared DNA of suspects in more than 21,000 cases with DNA from the crime scene. DNA tests exonerated the prime suspect in 23% of the cases.

“If DNA excluded the prime suspect 23% of the time, that means authorities were looking at the wrong person in almost 1 out of every 4 cases,” said Lucian Dervan, law professor and director of Criminal Justice Studies at Belmont University College of Law. “One has to wonder what these results mean for the vast majority of cases where there is no DNA evidence to test.” 

In 2014, Rossmo and a fellow professor at Texas State University examined 43 wrongful convictions. They found that a rush to judgment was a significant factor.

“Wrongful convictions are a form of criminal investigative failure,” Rossmo said. Such failures harm society, cause people to lose faith in the criminal justice system and signal structural weakness in that system, he said.

The investigator never considered suicide

Clay County sheriff’s deputies discovered the .22 pistol in the grass near Young’s feet. It became one of the most important pieces of evidence in their death investigation.

They sent it to the State Crime Lab but didn’t ask for the pistol to be tested for fingerprints. If Young’s fingerprints had been present, that would have cast doubt that Shelton shot him.

Neither Sheriff Scott nor the Clay County Sheriff’s Department responded to repeated requests for an interview with Mississippi Today.

Chief Investigator Ramirez Williams rejected Shelton’s explanation of the moments leading up to Young’s shooting. The chief investigator testified he believed that because Young was wearing camouflage, the victim knew how to hunt. If Young truly had to shoot a raccoon, Williams reasoned, he would have asked for Shelton’s shotgun, not a pistol.

Shelton’s current lawyers, Sandra Levick and Tucker Carrington of the Mississippi Innocence Project, pointed out on appeal that “the reasonable inference is that Mr. Young asked for one bullet in the handgun rather than for the shotgun because he intended to turn the gun on himself. He used the ruse that there was a raccoon in the tree as a reason to ask for the gun.”

Deputies discovered a banana hair clip, a rubber band with hair in it and “badly disturbed” gravel at the scene. After learning Young and Tutton had argued that night, officers concluded a physical altercation had taken place in Shelton’s driveway. That speculation led them to conclude without any additional proof that Shelton had killed Young to protect her sister.

Officers from the Clay County Sheriff’s Department testified at Shelton’s 2015 murder trial that they found three pieces of evidence near Danelle Young’s body that made them conclude an “altercation” occurred before he died: “badly disturbed” gravel, a hair clip and a rubber band containing hair, as pictured in crime scene photographs from October 2009. Credit: Mississippi Supreme Court records

By his own admission, Williams never considered suicide as a possibility — even after deputies obtained a surveillance video that contradicted elements of the officers’ theory of an altercation. Tutton didn’t have a hair clip or rubber band in her hair when she and Young bought baby wipes earlier that night at Walmart.

Deputies shared their findings with the coroner, who wrote that “statements given to investigators at the scene indicate that there might have been some type of altercation or argument between Mr. Young and his girlfriend prior to the incident.”

Tunnel Vision and Confirmation Bias: Tunnel vision is the tendency for actors in the legal system to lock in on a crime and a suspect and build their investigation and prosecution around finding evidence to prove guilt, said Keith Findley, who co-founded the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences. “Confirmation bias is one of the psychological processes that can drive tunnel vision.”

He said confirmation bias takes place when anything that backs the conclusion is considered relevant and important while any contrary information is considered irrelevant or unreliable. 

For instance, if there is a mistaken eyewitness identification, officers may continue to “build a case” against that suspect, he said. Or if police interpret a piece of evidence as proof of a crime, they continue to believe a crime took place even when other information contradicts it, he said.

In 2000, then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan put a moratorium on executions, and his Commission on Capital Punishment concluded that tunnel vision played a significant role in most cases that wrongly sent 13 innocent people to death row.

The 2014 Texas State University study that examined 43 wrongful convictions found that confirmation bias played a role in four out of five cases where innocent people were sent to prison.

‘Gunshot wounds in the heart are frequent suicidal injuries’

A gun fired from less than an inch away, as in Young’s case, nearly always points to suicide. A study of 1,450 handgun deaths found that 96% of close-contact wounds were suicides and 3% were homicides. 

But that’s not what the deputy chief medical examiner for Mississippi at the time, Dr. Lisa Funte, who now goes by “Liam,” determined. Instead, the pathologist ruled it a homicide.

Funte did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mississippi Today.

The autopsy report made no reference to an argument — only an altercation, which police typically use to refer to a physical fight.: “This individual was reportedly shot following an altercation with his girlfriend.”

Funte based that determination on the bullet’s pathway. The bullet, fired through the left center of Young’s chest, had no significant deviation to the left or right, the pathologist said. “It was pretty much straight back and down.”

Funte, who had three years’ experience as a pathologist at the time of the death, testified later that he had never seen a suicide case where a bullet took this pathway. Over a decade later, he told a court that as he has gained more experience, he has since encountered such suicide cases. In 2018, Funte began serving as the deputy chief medical examiner for Maine.

While more suicides involve firing at the temple (36%), the left chest is a common location (15%), according to a 2002 study of 624 gunshot autopsies. “Gunshot wounds in the heart are frequent suicidal injuries, especially in men,” a 2005 study said.

Funte had told jurors the death was a homicide because, if Young was going to shoot himself in the chest, it would be difficult to turn his hand completely around. That would cause the bullet to deviate to the left or right.

But the pathologist’s conclusion seemed to ignore that you don’t have to turn your hand around; you just have to turn the gun around and pull the trigger with your thumbs.

Funte failed to take into account other factors, including the rise in suicides among young Black men. In 2009, the suicide rate for Black men between 15 and 24 was 9.78 per 100,000 people — more than twice as high as it was in 1960. That trend has continued, prompting a 2019 report, “Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America.”

At trial, the pathologist testified there was a lack of mental illness. But a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 54% of those who die by suicide suffer no such illness. 

The pathologist also mentioned the lack of previous suicide attempts. One study concluded that nearly two-thirds of men who commit suicide die on their first try.

At the time, Funte was unware of the upsetting argument Young had with his girlfriend or the apparent suicide note he wrote.

A study by the CDC with the University of Georgia found that 1 in 5 suicides is linked to intimate partner problems. For young adults, breakups are especially traumatic, resulting in a 25% increase in suicidal thoughts, according to another study.

In a 2022 hearing seeking a new trial for Shelton, Dr. Randall Frost, the medical examiner for Bexar County, Texas, testified he saw no evidence that would make him conclude Young’s death was a homicide. “It’s completely consistent with a self-inflicted wound,” he said.

Pathologists: Medical examiners must operate independently, “without any undue influence” from law enforcement agencies and prosecutors under National Association of Medical Examiners’ standards. Despite that, 70% of their members reported pressure to influence their findings. 

A 2025 editorial in “Forensic Science International” declared that forensic labs under law enforcement control “face pressure to support prosecution.” Independence is essential, but scientists who challenge “official narratives often experience professional retaliation,” the editorial says.

“When a medical examiner feels he or she is part of the prosecution team, that gives rise to a lot of wrong diagnoses,” said renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, one of the founding members.

“Forensic pathologists have to just say what the facts are and not be concerned if anyone is found guilty or innocent,” he said. “If they feel they work for police or their job depends on cooperating with police, then their opinions can be easily swayed.”

Shelton rejects plea bargain: ‘I’m not going to lie and go to hell’

After a grand jury indicted Shelton in 2011, she looked to hire a lawyer. Fearful a public defender might not represent her well, she visited former prosecutor Rod Ray, who agreed to take the case.

His fee was $50,000. According to a sworn statement from her family, they and their church managed to scrape together $43,000 to pay him.

After hearing her story and talking to authorities, Ray believed Shelton was innocent.

“Why would somebody call 911 and stay on the phone for, I think it was 17 minutes, begging people to come to the scene to talk to the one person in the world who could say who did or who did not do it?” he testified in the 2022 hearing.

In 2014, Shelton took a voice-stress test, which deputies turned into a two-hour questioning session on crime – all without her lawyer’s presence.

Her attorney told her that authorities had offered a plea bargain for manslaughter. She refused. Her position remained the same as when investigators first questioned her.

“I’ll tell the truth and go to jail,” Shelton recalled telling them. “But I’m not going to lie and go to hell.”

Prosecutors relied on erroneous testimony

Six years passed before prosecutors put Shelton on trial in 2015. When they finally did, they told the jury they didn’t have a motive for why she did it, and they didn’t need to provide one.

Instead, prosecutors hammered home that Young’s death was a homicide and used gunshot residue tests to support their case that Shelton shot him.

Gunshot residue tests were designed to determine if someone has fired a gun, handled a gun or been close to a weapon when it was fired, but experts say the tests can’t prove anything beyond that.

Prosecutors told jurors that gunpowder residue had been found on Shelton. One microscopic particle of residue was on the back of her hands and four particles were on her palms – a location that a defense expert said would match someone who handled a recently fired gun.

Shelton told deputies she had fired the gun earlier in the week to scare a bulldog chasing her nephew, but prosecutors said Shelton was just trying to cover up her crime.

Some deputies testified that from their recollection, Shelton repeatedly wiped her hands before they tested her hours later for gunshot residue at the station – a timeframe later proven wrong.

“She had hours, four hours to get rid of the evidence,” Assistant District Attorney Mark Jackson told the jury in 2015. “And man did she have the motive. She knows she shot him in cold blood. She has to get rid of whatever it is that Ramirez Williams is going to be looking for to pin this crime on her.”

Gunshot residue was also found on the back of Young’s hands. “Gunshot residue particles are typically found on the backs of the hands of the person who fired the weapon,” Bexar County forensic scientist Crystina Vachon testified in the 2022 hearing.

Prosecutors argued that because only five particles were found on Young, he didn’t fire the gun – a conclusion that defense experts questioned.

“You cannot make any determination about a shooter or a bystander or someone who just handled a weapon based on the number of particles,” Vachon said.

Gunshot residue tests: Experts say the public sometimes has a “CSI” view of gunshot residue — a test that definitively identifies the shooter or exonerates the innocent. But the truth is these tests fall short of such conclusions.

Residue generally reflects whether someone fired a gun, handled a gun or was close when a weapon was fired, but experts say problems exist with these tests. They can result in false positives because of contamination by officers or labs.

In many cases, tests fail to find residue even after someone fired a weapon. A study of 116 suicides determined that in half of these cases, no residue was found.

The FBI Lab stopped conducting these tests in 2006.

“Gunshot residue is notoriously unreliable,” said Chris Fabricant, author of “Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System.” “It’s hardly conclusive.”

Authorities ‘were grasping at straws’

After prosecutors in their opening statement accused Shelton of gunning down Young, defense lawyer Rod Ray delayed his opening statement until the defense presented its case.

When he later delivered his statement to jurors, he spoke fewer than 100 words, promising jurors they would “hear from the people that were in Mhoon Valley.”

The only witness they heard from was Tutton, who confirmed what she had told deputies.

Ray did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Mississippi Today.

The prosecution gave jurors no motive for why Shelton would have wanted to kill Young, but Ray helped them out by getting the chief investigator to share his theories on her motives.

Ray didn’t consult with or call experts on the manner of death or gunshot residue. He later testified in the 2022 hearing that his strategy was to focus on Shelton in the 911 call, when she hysterically pleaded for the ambulance to hurry.

“I knew from talking to the people involved that they (authorities) were grasping at straws. They didn’t know what had happened. They didn’t have a motive. She’d never been in trouble,” he testified. “It didn’t add up.”

Ray didn’t interview any experts or witnesses before the trial started, according to court records. 

But he later testified that he worked hard for his client. “I fought my guts out to win.”

‘These are my last words’

A month or so after Young’s death, Shelton found a note he wrote her, stuck inside her baby book. The note began, “Thank you for accepting me 4 who I was.” 

Not “who I am.” Who I was.

Shelton kept reading. Young thanked her for giving him advice and a place to lay his head. He asked her to keep watch over her baby sister.

“I love her 2 death. She’s my heart. I planned my life with her around her. I never planned 4 just me,” he wrote. “I have no life without her. These are my last words.”

He mentioned Shelton’s 5-month-old daughter, Treasure, and told Shelton to tell her oldest daughter, Trinity, “I said bye & be a good girl ok Tell Treasure about me one day. Bye Bye.”

Shelton shared the note with her family. They agreed it was a suicide note and sealed it in a plastic bag. When Shelton met with Ray, she shared the note, and he made a copy.

On the second day of the trial, Ray sent Shelton home to get the note. Nothing in the trial transcript indicates he ever tried to introduce it as evidence.

Lawyers who later represented Shelton on her post-conviction appeal accused Ray of a “complete lack of preparation. He had not prepared any witness who was familiar with Mr. Young’s handwriting to authenticate the note. … Mr. Ray had not retained a handwriting expert. He had not prepared Ms. Shelton to testify. He had not shared the note with counsel for the State in advance of the trial.”

Failure to share evidence prior to trial typically results in that evidence being excluded, legal experts say.

Ray later testified that he needed a witness to introduce the letter and that Shelton “chose not to testify.”

During the murder trial, Judge James T. Kitchens Jr. of Caledonia told Shelton it was her right as to whether she testified, but he urged her to “listen to what your attorney suggests.”

Shelton told Mississippi Today that Ray told her not to testify. She said she would have gladly testified if it meant the jury could read the note. 

As a result, jurors never knew about Young’s note to Shelton. 

“I have no life without her. These are my last words,” Young wrote. “Bye, bye.”

Mississippi Today shared the note with five jurors in Shelton’s murder trial. One of them, Robin Daniels, said that note would have absolutely made a difference in the deliberations.

A second juror, Patricia Glasson, said she believes the note creates reasonable doubt about Shelton’s guilt. A third juror, Chris Glover, said Shelton deserves a new trial. “And I would be willing to serve on the jury.”

Inadequate Legal Defense: Many defense lawyers represent their clients well, but some fall short. They may neglect to fully investigate a case. They may not challenge questionable evidence. Or worse, they may fail to call possible witnesses or introduce evidence that would help clear their clients.

In some cases, these lawyers are overworked, burned out or lack the funding or resources that district attorneys have. In still others, these lawyers may fail to do their jobs.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals concluded that Shelton’s defense lawyer committed errors so grievous it deprived her of a fair trial. 

Despite their doubts, jurors vote to convict 

Jurors struggled to reach a unanimous decision, at one point asking the judge in a note, “Is accidental shooting ruled out already? Could this be considered?”

Judges aren’t permitted to give new instructions, so Kitchens pointed them back to the instructions he had already given.

Some time after his response, the jury returned a “guilty” verdict. 

When the circuit clerk polled the jurors, one juror gave no response, according to the court transcript. She later said in a sworn statement that she wasn’t convinced Shelton was guilty. The juror has since died.

Young’s twin sister, Dominique, told the judge, “I know nothing will bring him back, but this woman needs to feel our pain. I feel that she should get life in prison or the electric chair. She took an innocent man’s life so her life should be taken away.”

Young’s mother, Edith, said to Kitchens, “I’m thinking of him every day, crying, not able to control it. I’m a mother who lost a part of me, my child. He didn’t deserve to be killed like a dog shot down in cold blood.”

Young’s family did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mississippi Today.

The judge sentenced Shelton to life in prison. When she turns 65 in 2043, she can petition the sentencing court for conditional release. It’s a request that lawyers say is rarely granted.

To the new DA, ‘The evidence sounded thin’

In the years following Shelton’s conviction, her family reached out to everyone they could, including to District Attorney Scott Colom in 2018. They told Colom that Young’s death was a suicide, not a homicide.

The wall of Colom’s office has a reminder to him about not rushing to judgment: a photo of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, two exonerated men who together spent a total of 30 years behind bars, including time on death row, for a murder they didn’t commit. 

Their prosecutor was Colom’s predecessor, Forrest Allgood, whose office saw six convicted people later have their convictions thrown out — the record for any district attorney in the state, according to a Mississippi Today analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations. 

Allgood said he did not recall the Shelton case, which other prosecutors tried. He said he and his staff never tried anyone they thought was innocent.

He defended Shelton’s defense lawyer, Ray, who previously worked for Allgood as a prosecutor. “He’s probably the premier defense lawyer in the district,” the former district attorney said. “There’s probably a very good reason he didn’t introduce the [apparent suicide] letter.”

Just because an appeals court dismisses a case doesn’t mean it’s right, he said. “Appeals courts are made up of fallible human beings.”

He said he disagreed with the term exoneration when a case is reversed because “there’s a bias toward the accused being innocent, even after a jury says otherwise.”

Colom said Brooks supported his campaign for district attorney and made him promise that if he ever had a case with questions about someone’s guilt, he would have people look into it.

After reading the 2017 Mississippi Supreme Court opinion upholding Shelton’s conviction, Colom began to have questions. “The evidence sounded thin,” he said. “There was not much motive.”

On top of that, he said, if Shelton were truly guilty of murder, “Why would she call 911?”

He reached out to the Mississippi Innocence Project to look into the case. And he later wrote a sworn statement in support of a hearing to determine if Shelton deserved a new trial.

In 2020, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously ordered such a hearing. The trial judge removed Colom from the case because of the statement he signed and had the attorney general’s office replace him.

Defense attorneys point to ‘false and misleading testimony from prosecution witnesses’

In 2021 and 2022, Judge Kitchens held three days of hearings.

At Shelton’s original trial, deputies testified that from their recollection, Shelton was wiping her hands to try and remove gunshot residue before they tested her at the station at about 1 a.m.

Her defense team, now including Jake Howard of the MacArthur Justice Center, slammed that testimony as false. A form from that night signed by chief investigator Ramirez Williams showed he had tested Shelton for gunshot residue at 9:51 p.m. — less than 30 minutes after Young was pronounced dead outside her trailer, and hours before she made it to the station.

But the jury never saw the form documenting the actual time.

This evidence “completely undermined the State’s theory that she had tried to rub away the evidence that she had fired the gun,” her new lawyers wrote. “The State secured its conviction against Tameshia Shelton by presenting, and failing to correct, false and misleading testimony from prosecution witnesses.”

After seeing additional materials regarding Young’s death during the hearings, Dr. Funte admitted in a sworn statement that his ruling that Young’s death was a homicide was an “error.” During a new hearing, Funte told the court that he lacked knowledge of any data or scientific studies that supported his original conclusion for Young’s manner of death — in fact, they contradicted it.

If Funte had the chance to rule again, the pathologist wrote to the court that he would deem the death undetermined but leaning toward suicide.

“Any bullet trajectory can occur in both homicides and suicides. I see no evidence at this point to support homicide,” Funte testified.

The judge told lawyers that cause of death in cases — gunshot, poisoning or otherwise — are more of an issue than manner of death, whether it be homicide, suicide or otherwise.

Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr., who was acquitted of bribery and tax evasion charges, said the cause of death in this case may be a gunshot wound, but the manner of death makes all the difference.

If the pathologist had ruled the manner of death a suicide or an accident, he asked, what proof would there be that a homicide took place? 

“If the manner of death didn’t matter,” Diaz said, “Tameshia Shelton wouldn’t be in prison.”

Phantom crimes: Nearly three-fourths of exonerated women were convicted of “phantom crimes” — crimes that never took place, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations.

Through reviews or court appeals, authorities determined that what they first thought were crimes were really accidents, suicides or other acts misinterpreted as wrongdoing.

Nationwide, more than 300 women have had their convictions overturned over the past three decades. Although the reasons vary, many of these cases involve faulty forensic methods and conclusions.

Shelton lost because of the evidence, state maintains

Judge Kitchens took so long to rule on Shelton’s case that the Mississippi Supreme Court scolded him.

Nearly two years after the hearings, the judge finally ruled. He denied Shelton a new trial in a 15-page order.

After her lawyers appealed to the Mississippi Court of Appeals, Special Assistant Attorney General Barbara Byrd wrote to the court that Shelton had failed to show why she should be granted a new trial. Byrd stated that the defense “failed to show that the State’s witnesses testified falsely or that the prosecution knowingly elicited false testimony or that the jury relied on the allegedly-false testimony in rendering its verdict.” 

Shelton lost because of the evidence, not her defense lawyer’s performance, Byrd wrote. “Trial counsel challenged the State’s evidence at all stages of this case by filing and arguing pre-trial motions, making strategic objections at trial, by thoroughly examining witnesses, and by making a persuasive (though unsuccessful) closing argument.”

She called the apparent suicide note irrelevant as evidence.

Left: Sisters Tameshia, left, and Shenikia Shelton smile for a last photo together in 2015 before Tameshia was imprisoned after a Clay County jury convicted her of murder in the 2009 death of their youngest sister’s boyfriend, Danelle Young. Right: Shenikia Shelton, bottom, visits Tameshia Shelton in prison. Tameshia Shelton is serving a life sentence in the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County. Credit: Courtesy of Shenikia Shelton

But the appeals court disagreed. The judges ruled 7-3 in favor of a new trial for Shelton, citing Dr. Funte’s reversal on manner of death and the defense lawyer’s failure to introduce an apparent suicide note as evidence. “We find it difficult to conclude that its absence did not prejudice Shelton’s defense,” the appeals judges wrote.

The appeals court did acknowledge discrepancies in the officers’ testimony. But it rejected the defense’s argument that the testimony was false, ruling that the defense failed to show the officers intentionally lied.

In appealing the decision to the Mississippi Supreme Court, Byrd said the same studies that supposedly support the deputy medical examiner’s reversal “quantitatively showed that Dr. Funte’s original opinion was still the most probable manner of death.”

She cited one study that said only 36.4% of suicidal gunshot wounds were to the left chest, “meaning 63.6% did not.” And a later study showed that less than 15% of suicides involve chest wounds.

Byrd declared the defense’s failure to admit the apparent suicide note into evidence “does not establish prejudice. At most, it shows a possibility — not the reasonable probability — of a different result. That is insufficient.” (The attorney general’s office declined to comment further on the case.)

Shelton’s lawyers responded that “no competent medical examiner would rely on statistical probabilities to determine, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the manner of death” since “‘any bullet trajectory can occur in both homicides and suicides.’”

They wrote that “Young’s ‘These are my last words’ note … was relevant to Young’s state of mind where the asserted defense was suicide, as the Court of Appeals correctly holds.”

Mississippi Supreme Court justices have until July to decide if they will consider the case. If they don’t, the case would return to Colom’s office.

“It’s my job,” Colom told Mississippi Today, “to look at what the facts show and do justice.”

Undoing Wrongful Convictions:Overturning a wrongful conviction in a murder case borders on impossible in Mississippi.

The Mississippi Supreme Court has upheld convictions in more than 86% of appeals decided on merits over the past decade. Getting a circuit court judge to order a new trial in a murder case is even more difficult. 

Since 2021, the Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered 38 circuit court judges to review murder or capital murder cases to determine if new trials are warranted, according to a Westlaw search. Not a single one of those judges ordered a new trial.

Jackson lawyer Graham Carner has been fighting for a new trial for his client, Jeffrey Havard, since 2008. His case involves allegations of sexual assault, which even the state’s experts agree never happened, and a “shaken baby” syndrome that scientists have disproven.

“The system values finality more than reaching the right result,” he said. “Once there is a conviction, the system wants to just move along. And it’s almost impossible for the innocent to get justice. We need to do better.”

‘We didn’t get to grieve Danelle. We loved him.’

In the 11 years since Tameshia Shelton went to prison, weeds and trees have overtaken her trailer. Her prized black Mustang sits nearby with the vanity tag, “Truely” – shorthand for her phrase, “I’m truly a walking miracle.”

Her sister, Shenikia, said the pain runs deep, not just for the loss of her sister, but for the loss of the young man her children called “uncle.” She said the lead investigator advised them against attending Young’s funeral or reaching out to his family.

Because deputies believed Shelton had killed Young, “we didn’t get to grieve Danelle,” she said. “We loved him. He was family.”

From prison, Shelton told Mississippi Today that despite being behind bars, she maintains “an optimistic outlook and a positive mindset. My trust and my faith is in God.”

Putting innocent people behind bars does more than hurt a single individual, she said. “My family is hurting, the community is hurting, my kids are hurting. It’s like a domino effect.”

Her children have grown up without her. Her now-17-year-old daughter, Treasure, has battled depression and suicidal thoughts in the past, Shelton said. “If I was there, my kids wouldn’t be going through counseling. If I was there, my sister wouldn’t have to sit there and play the mom role.”

Left: Tameshia Shelton’s black Mustang, pictured April 27, 2026, sits parked in Mhoon Valley by where her trailer once stood before she went to prison in 2015. Right: The forest has overtaken Tameshia Shelton’s abandoned trailer, pictured April 27, 2026, in Mhoon Valley over the 11 years that she’s been in prison on a murder conviction in the 2009 death of her sister’s boyfriend, Danelle Young. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi Today

If she is freed, she plans to spend the rest of her life helping those in similar circumstances, she said. “I don’t want this to happen to other people.”

Shelton said she would like for Young’s family to know that “we weren’t the ones that pulled the trigger. We did not do any harm to him. We never did anything to him besides treat him like family.”

She expressed sympathy to his family for their loss. “I know how his family feels because my daughter tried to kill herself,” she said. “I am truly sorry that they suffered that loss. Being in here, I feel the pain. I honestly feel the pain.”

Madeline Nguyen is a Roy Howard Fellow at Mississippi Today. Ilyssa Daly is an investigative reporter who previously worked with Mississippi Today to help investigate this case.

This story was published with the support of a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, in conjunction with Arnold Ventures.

Illustrations by Bethany Atkinson. Layout and interactive elements by Dennis Dean.

Hence then, the article about one night in mhoon valley was published today ( Monday 01/06/2026 - 03:17 PM ) and is available on Mississippi Today ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( One Night in Mhoon Valley )

Also on site :

• Euphoria season 3 ending explained: Who lived, who died, and who found salvation?
• John Oliver Derides Freedom 250 & Performer Cancellations: “Stacked Lineup Of People That You Haven’t Thought About Since 2009”
• ‘Being married is hard’: Graham Platner’s wife rips media reports of her husband’s sexual texts as ‘gossip’