{"id":153872,"date":"2025-12-01T17:41:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T23:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=153872"},"modified":"2025-12-01T17:41:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T23:41:45","slug":"timothy-herrington-pleads-guilty-to-the-murder-of-jimmie-jay-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/timothy-herrington-pleads-guilty-to-the-murder-of-jimmie-jay-lee\/","title":{"rendered":"Timothy Herrington Pleads Guilty to the Murder of Jimmie “Jay” Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Timothy Herrington Jr.<\/strong> plead guilty on Monday, December 1, 2025, to second-degree murder and tampering charges as he faced a second trial for the killing of Jimmie “Jay” Lee<\/strong>, a University of Mississippi<\/strong> graduate prominent in the LGBTQ+ community of Oxford<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jury selection was halted not long after it started in Madison County<\/strong> after Herrington\u00a0entered his guilty plea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jury selection started at 9 am Monday. Shortly before 10 am, approximately 550 individuals were reportedly summoned, and about 145 people were seated as potential jurors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 10:30 am Lafayette County Circuit Court Judge<\/strong> Kelly Luther<\/strong>\u00a0introduced himself. The judge then stated that serving on a jury is a privilege because in other countries around the world, justice belongs to those who have money or power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“All around the world, there are people who would love to sit in your chair today,” Judge Luther said. “I like to think of this not as jury duty but as jury right.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee, a 20-year-old beloved member of the Oxford LGBTQ+ community and a Jackson <\/strong>native, disappeared on July 8, 2022.<\/a> Dozens of search warrants were executed in Oxford as K9 Units<\/a> searched specific areas in Lafayette County. \u00a0Family members plead for his safe return<\/a> and the FBI and Mississippi Attorney General joined the case<\/a> to find Lee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks after Lee’s disappearance, Herrington was arrested and\u00a0charged with killing Lee<\/a>, allegedly to conceal a\u00a0romantic relationship\u00a0between the two. Herrington was a 22-year-old\u00a0Ole Miss<\/strong> graduate\u00a0from Grenada at the time of the alleged offense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrington was\u00a0tried for capital murder\u00a0in December 2024. That trial\u00a0ended in a mistrial. After a new indictment in the case was returned against Herrington, a\u00a0second trial was set\u00a0for 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whereabouts of Lee’s body were previously unknown at that time, with a judge previously\u00a0declaring Lee legally dead<\/a>\u00a0in October 2024 \u2014 a couple of months before Herrington’s first trial in December 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 1, 2025,\u00a0human remains found by deer hunters<\/a>\u00a0off a dirt road and down by a gully in Carroll County<\/strong> were confirmed by the Mississippi Crime Lab<\/strong> to belong to Lee. A new indictment was then returned to try Herrington again.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee’s remains were found<\/a> about 90 minutes south of Oxford and about 35 minutes south of Grenada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrington is set to be sentenced at 10 am on Tuesday, December 2, 2025 in Oxford, Mississippi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more articles about Jimmie “Jay” Lee here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Jimmie “Jay” Lee.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"University<\/a>
University of Mississippi graduate Sheldon \u201cTimothy\u201d Harrington is accused of killing Jimmie \u201cJay\u201d Lee, a fellow UM student, in 2022. Harrington\u2019s trial is set for Dec. 2, 2024, in Lafayette County Circuit Court. Photo by Grace Marion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Timothy<\/a>
Timothy Herrington will once again stand trial for the murder of Ole Miss student Jimmie “Jay” Lee, but this time won’t be in Oxford, Mississippi.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/a>
The family of Jimmie \u201cJay\u201d Lee looked on in court as the bond hearing and preliminary trial of the man accused of killing him unfolded in the Lafayette County Courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022. Lee\u2019s parents, Jimmie and Stephanie Lee, and sister, left, sat beside Oxford Police Department Police Chief Jeff McCutchen, right, in the front row of the courtroom.\u00a0 Photo by Grace Marion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Timothy Herrington Jr. plead guilty on Monday, December 1, 2025, to second-degree murder and tampering charges as he<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":153883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10397],"tags":[31189,8183,366,21921,23185,256,8429,23561,5,33202,4,21946,28952],"class_list":["post-153872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","tag-carroll-county","tag-circuit-court","tag-jackson","tag-jimmie-jay-lee","tag-kelly-luther","tag-lafayette-county","tag-lgbtq","tag-madison-county","tag-mississippi","tag-mississippi-crime-lab","tag-oxford","tag-sheldon-timothy-herrington-jr","tag-timothy-herrington-jr"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-12-01-JimmieJayLee-TimHerrington.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153884,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153872\/revisions\/153884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}