The Herald identified Jeannie Garner as Williamson’s mother, but neither the Herald nor BuzzFeed News could reach her. Miller told the paper that Vallum supposedly spent time near Theodore and he knew Williamson was transgender. Williamson reportedly slept on a couch in the front room. The Sun Herald reported that Williamson had been living with Jeanie Miller, 41, in a one-bedroom camper in Theodore, Alabama - about an hour southeast from where her body was found. “The fact that this person is transgender is an element in the case.” It is unknown if Williamson's gender identity was a factor in the killing.Įven if it was, Mississippi’s hate crime law does not apply to gender identity. After the father contacted police, officers surveyed the property and found a partially decomposed body in the woods. It was also unclear when the homicide occurred, but police first heard of the case on June 2.Īccording to an incident report released by the sheriff's office, Vallum told his father he'd "killed someone and the body was in the field" located behind his dad's house in the town of Lucedale. Police have heard the two knew each other before the homicide, she said, but it was not clear for how long or what the nature of their relationship was.
We are getting to the bottom of that," Pierce said. “Some say he did, and some say he didn’t.
“We don’t have a clear motive yet, and we are getting conflicting reports,” Shonna Pierce, a spokesperson for the George County Sheriff’s Office, told BuzzFeed News.Īmong the outstanding questions, Pierce said, was whether Vallum knew Williamson was transgender. The Mississippi Department of Corrections is holding Josh Brandon Vallum, 28, on $1 million bail, police told BuzzFeed News.Ī memorial page on Facebook said Williamson was stabbed. Police in George County, Mississippi, have charged a suspect with murder in the death of 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson, whose killing marks the ninth confirmed homicide of a transgender person in the United States this year.
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