PINE BELT, Miss. (WDAM) – Just after 11 p.m. on Monday, May 20th, Wayne County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the scene of a deadly shooting on Levett Drive in Stateline.
Sheriff Jerry Mosley said Roderick Lafayette was shot and killed after trying to break into a neighbor’s home.
“He ripped the bars off the glass door,” Mosley said, “and then kicked the glass out of the door. Then they kicked the wooden door open and shot him.”
When news of the shooting reached Lafayette’s mother, Juanita Whigham, after a neighbor called 911, she said her worst fears were realized.
“I expected this to happen a long time ago,” Whigham said.
Whigham said she watched her son’s mental health deteriorate for nearly two decades, a pattern she saw reflected in the photographs hanging in his room.
“He had a drawing of a monster that came out at night,” Wiggum said. “He said the monster only came out at night.”
As a result, Whigham said she sought help but couldn’t find a long-term solution.
“They’ll probably put me in the hospital for a week or two,” she said. “That’s not enough. I’ve tried to find a long-term facility, but there are no facilities like that in the state of Mississippi.”
In the weeks following her son’s death, Whigham said she reached out to neighbors involved in the case – people she’d known since childhood.
“I made peace with Ken. He came to me to apologize,” Whigham said. “I told him to do what he had to do to protect his family.”
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