Laurel teacher murdered (Mississippi)

Authorities are searching for a vehicle stolen from a Laurel home Sunday afternoon after a Mason Elementary School second grade teacher was found dead following a fire at her residence. Police said the case is being investigated as a murder.

Rebecca Pruitt, 29, 419 West Fifteenth St., was found dead in her home Sunday afternoon following a fire around 12:45 p.m. Laurel police investigator Michael Reaves said an autopsy was scheduled to be performed on the victim’s body Monday morning.

The State Fire Marshal’s office is joining in the investigation.

“Authorities have determined the death to be a homicide,” Reaves said. “Laurel police are currently seeking the whereabouts of the victim’s vehicle, described as a 2001 Honda CRV, silver in color, Mississippi tag number JPV-798.”

Anyone with information is asked to call the police department at 601-425-4711 or Jones County Crimestoppers at 601-428-STOP.

Laurel fire trucks were on the scene — just off Fifth Avenue — for several hours.

Authorities said they believe Pruitt may have been attacked before the fire was started.

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Police charge two with capital murder

Police charged two Laurel people Tuesday with capital murder in connection with the Sunday murder of 29-year-old school teacher Rebecca Pruitt. They are Rickey Joseph Gavin, 23, 1100 block of North First Avenue, and Kenya Evette Davis, 17, 1000 block of South Ninth Ave.

Gavin and Davis face a preliminary hearing in Laurel Municipal Court Wednesday at 2 p.m.

According to news reports, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom had gone on a date at a local restaurant on Saturday, January 6, 2007, but did not return home. During their night out, the couple was “hijacked, bound and blindfolded and taken back to Lemaricus Devall ‘Slim’ Davidson’s rented house on Chipman Street.”

Christian’s parents found her abandoned Toyota 4-Runner two blocks away from the Chipman Street house the following Monday with the help of her mobile phone provider. An envelope recovered from the vehicle yielded fingerprint evidence that led police to Lemaricus Davidson and 2316 Chipman Street. When police went to the address on Tuesday, January 9, they found the home unoccupied and Christian’s body in a trash can in the kitchen.

According to the testimony of the Knox County Acting Medical Examiner at the subsequent trial of Eric Boyd, Newsom was repeatedly raped and then blindfolded, gagged, arms and feet bound and his head covered. Barefoot, he was either led or dragged outside the house to a set of nearby railroad tracks, where a gun was placed to the back of his head and fired.

He was shot twice more, once in the neck and once in the back.

His body was then set afire.

Christian’s death would come only after hours of sexual torture, medical examiner Mileusnic-Polchan testified. Christian suffered horrific injuries to her vagina, anus and mouth. She was not only raped but savaged with “an object,” the doctor testified. She was beaten in the head. Some type of chemical was poured down her throat, and her body, including her bleeding and battered genital area, likely scrubbed with the same solution - all while Christian was alive, the forensic expert said. She was then “hog-tied,” with curtains and strips of bedding, her face covered tightly with a small trash bag and her body stashed inside five large trash bags before being placed inside a large trash can and covered with sheets. Christian died slowly, suffocating, the medical examiner said.

The national news media was criticized by some for not giving the crime adequate coverage because the victims were white and the suspects black, but one commentator explained that “as bad as this crime is, the apparent absence of any interest group involvement or any other ‘angle’ might also explain the lack of coverage.”

Laurel Police have charged two people with capital murder in connection with Sunday's brutal murder of an elementary school teacher.
This morning (Tuesday), Laurel police formally charged Ricky Gavin, 23, and Kenya Davis, 17, with Rebecca Pruitt's murder.
Police also said the victim and suspects had met before when they lived in the same neighborhood.
Sources close to the investigation said Pruitt was stabbed multiple times in the back. Also, her hands and feet were bound with duct tape. Gasoline was used to set the house on fire. Police have not released a motive for the killing.
Pruitt, 29, a second grade teacher at Mason elementary, was found dead in her 15th Avenue home Sunday.
Gavin and Davis will make their initial court appearance Wednesday afternoon.
WDAM

On Oct 21, 2008 Rickey Joseph Gavin was in the Laurel Jail for grand larceny, auto theft! Higher bail would seem to be in order! --- source

I remember reading about this shortly after it happened, but not on any MSM site. Of course it didn’t get much media attention, even though black-on-white crime far outweighs white-on-black crime (though most crime is perpetrated on members of the same race. Still, when it’s not, the numbers are weighted towards black-on-white). But just honestly covering crime the way it happens wouldn’t advance the “racist America, racist whites” meme.

And this was a particularly disgusting and heinous example, along with the Columbia journalist student who was tortured and raped. If these weren’t hate crimes (not that I believe in that concept), nothing is.

Just compare this with the coverage of the Duke lacrosse players, and the Tawana Brawley fiascos, which never even happened!

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Police charge two with capital murder

MISSISSIPPI PING!