Mississippi let a double murderer go free. Twice.

Now he is dead, and an older couple is injured.

In May 2023, the Mississippi Parole Board released James Williams III — 18 years after he was convicted of fatally shooting his father, James Jr., and stepmother, Cindy Lassiter Mangum. Williams had previously tried to poison them to death.

His parole faced pushback from the victims’ family, community members and lawmakers. 

At the time, Zeno Magnum, whose mother was killed by Williams, decried the Parole Board’s decision. “He murdered ‘em, threw ‘em in trash bags, put them in Rubbermaid trash cans and threw ‘em out like the trash,” he said. “We are concerned not only for our personal safety, but also for the safety of anyone who may come in contact with this psychopath.”

Parole Board Chairman Jeffrey Belk defended the Parole Board’s decision, saying they received no objection from the family or others at the time — a claim that Magnum’s family disputed.

Less than five months after his parole, he got drunk and wrecked his car on Oct. 20, 2023, the same day of the Brandon-Pearl high school football game, Magnum said. “There were people everywhere. He’s very fortunate he didn’t kill anybody.”

Williams’ parole was revoked, and he returned to prison. 

A month later, the Parole Board found that by violating the law, he violated a condition of his parole. Three of four members voted to return him to prison for a year, according to court records, and Belk cast the lone “no” vote.

Hinds County Circuit Judge Debra Gibbs vacated the Parole Board’s decision to return Williams to prison for at least a year for violating parole. 

“Mr. Williams has already served more than ninety (90) days in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections,” the judge wrote. “Therefore – unless he is held pursuant to some other sentence or order – he SHALL BE RELEASED IMMEDIATELY from the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and returned to parole.” 

The judge agreed with Williams’ argument that his DUI misdemeanor constituted a technical violation of his parole, meaning that 90 days was the maximum period he could be imprisoned for a first-time technical violation. The judge’s decision matched a recent attorney general’s office opinion on the subject.

When word came that Williams might go free again, Cindy Mangum’s sister, Barbara Rankin, said her family set up a Sept. 16, 2024, meeting with Parole Board members, she said. “They let him out a week before we were set to go.”

Around noon Saturday, Williams met his death near Sanctuary Drive. The 39-year-old was driving his 2009 Honda Civic north on Will Stutely Drive when he collided with a 2019 GMC Sierra that contained Curtis Jones, 73, and his 72-year-old wife, Ruth, who were traveling east, according to the Mississippi Highway Patrol.

Williams was pronounced dead on the scene. Paramedics transported the couple to St. Dominic’s Hospital in Jackson. Their injuries remain unknown, and the patrol continues to investigate to determine if Williams had been intoxicated.

“The ironic thing,” Zeno Magnum said, “is if he was still in prison, he would be alive.”

The whole ordeal has been “cloaked in secrecy,” he said. “My mom was killed, and it was like pulling teeth to get information on it. It was tough even for me as her son to get information.”

Williams’ death has brought him a wide range of emotions. On one hand, he doesn’t want to celebrate the loss of a human being, he said, but on the other hand, the death “does bring my family and I a great deal of closure.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Southern Miss and Ole Miss got some welcomed news as both joined Mississippi State, giving the Magnolia State three teams in this week;s college baseball poll. Otherwise, the college basketball grind continues and the best high school basketball teams converge on Jackson for the annual MHSAA boys and girls state tournament.

Stream all episodes here.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

As Congress moves toward potential Medicaid cuts, expansion grows more unlikely in Mississippi

by Sophia Paffenroth, Mississippi Today
February 26, 2025

Hundreds of thousands of poor, disabled or pregnant Mississippians could lose health care coverage if Congress slashes funding for Medicaid. 

Although President Donald Trump has vowed Medicaid won’t be “touched,”  the U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget resolution Tuesday that instructs the committee that oversees Medicaid and Medicare to cut $880 billion over 10 years. The cuts will help pay for Trump’s agenda on tax cuts and border reform.

The talk of such dramatic changes to the federal-state program has Mississippi lawmakers concerned – and hesitant to push expansion this year.

Proposals for Medicaid budget cuts nationwide include lowering the rate at which states are reimbursed for Medicaid services, capping the amount of money states can get per enrollee, and imposing block grants – meaning states would receive a fixed dollar amount for the program, regardless of need. 

Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, could suffer the most under some of these proposals, according to health policy experts. 

Despite the state having some of the strictest eligibility requirements in the nation, pervasive poverty and poor social health determinants mean that more than 650,000 Mississippians – about half of whom are children – rely on the program for basic health care. More than half of births in Mississippi are funded by Medicaid. 

“Mississippi has a relatively small population, with the lowest per capita annual income in the country, rates of chronic conditions that are consistently higher than the national average, and with around 60% of Mississippians living with multiple chronic conditions,” explained John Dillon Harris, a health care systems and policy consultant at the Center for Mississippi Health Policy. “… The result is a large Medicaid population that is very expensive to treat.” 

Democratic lawmakers are also sounding the alarm about deep cuts to Medicaid. Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, said it’s something Mississippians “ought to really be afraid of.”  

“If they are talking about cutting $880 billion out of the budget, Mississippi is going to be on its knees,” she said at the Democrats’ legislative press conference Tuesday. 

However, since Mississippi is one of only 10 states not to expand Medicaid and draw down billions in additional federal funds, some proposed cuts wouldn’t directly affect the state’s current budget – though they would affect future enrollment. 

“Mississippi isn’t drawing down as much, so that’s not going to be a direct cut to your current budget, but it’s an opportunity cost,” said Joan Alker, Medicaid expert and executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. 

Threats to slash Medicaid spending have already scared away Mississippi lawmakers from attempting expansion this year – though they have passed “dummy bills,” void of details, to keep the issue alive “should something transpire,” House Speaker Jason White said. 

After a decade of squelching any debate on the issue, Mississippi House GOP leaders in 2024 pushed for legislation that would expand Medicaid to 200,000 low-income adults, as 40 other states have done. While the bills died after a saga of partisan politics, advocates were hopeful that the historic session created enough momentum to get the policy through the finish line in 2025. 

Now, lawmakers fear they may have bigger problems on their hands. 

“Unfortunately, we’re hearing more about what may be cuts or block grants to the Medicaid program in general that we will have to deal with as a state because there’s no denying we have a large Medicaid population – so I don’t know the chances,” White said when asked about the likelihood Medicaid expansion would be brought up this year.

Others are more certain the issue is dead this year.

“In a most practical sense, I’d say we probably won’t be doing anything this year,” Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell told Mississippi Today, though he added that if anything changes, lawmakers could suspend the legislative rules and bring a bill back to life late in the session. 

Click the dropdown to learn more about the specific proposals that would reduce Medicaid funding:

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said Mississippi lawmakers have “a leg up” since the state’s former Medicaid director recently landed a spot in Washington leading the federal Medicaid division under Trump. Hosemann has yet to say what, if anything, Snyder has told lawmakers so far, but said he expects to have “a direct commentary into the area of Medicaid” through Snyder.

Regardless of what action the federal government decides to take, cuts of this magnitude would affect millions of low-income people across the country, not just in Mississippi. 

“States will be forced to deeply cut eligibility, benefits and reduce provider rates,” Alker said in a statement published online in response to the House budget resolution outlining Medicaid costs. “These cuts will especially harm rural communities who are more reliant on Medicaid, and where hospitals are already operating on tighter margins.” 

Taylor Vance, Geoff Pender and Michael Goldberg contributed to this report.

Mississippi Today receives grant support from The Bower Foundation, as does the Center for Mississippi Health Policy.  Donors do not in any way influence our newsroom’s editorial decisions. For more on that policy or to view a list of our donors, click here.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.