Jimmie “Jay” Lee loved to shine. The 20-year-old Ole Miss Student was known for his love of flamboyant clothes, his Pomeranian ‘Lexie,’ and helping others.
In fact, the day his disappearance was discovered the soon-to-be social worker had missed attending a baby-formula drive and his friends and family knew something was wrong.
Jay Lee was last seen leaving his university-affiliated apartment early on the morning of Friday, July 8, 2022, wearing his gray slippers, silver robe and a gold bonnet.
Police discovered he was going to meet Timothy Herrington Jr., an Ole Miss graduate from a politically and religiously well-connected family who owned his own moving company.
The strait-laced entrepreneur had been secretly pursuing the energetic social butterfly, but he was hiding the affair from his family.
Police quickly focused on Herrington and said evidence showed he arranged for the last-minute bootie call when Jay Lee left that morning, but thought he was keeping the hook-up on the down low.
Instead, police say his internet search history clued them into to his true intentions. He searched for the phrase, “How long does it take strangle someone, Gabby Petito?” It was a true-crime case of one lover killing another that fascinated Herrington and led police to find more evidence that he was involved in Jay’s death.
Although Jay’s body was not found for over two years, he was declared dead. Prosecutors charged and tried Herrington for his murder, but it ended in a mistrial after one juror refused to convict, saying there was no body.
Now his body has been found. It had not been at the time we recorded this episode, but at the beginning of February, hunters found Jay Lee’s skeletal remains at a well-known Carroll County dumping site.
He was still wearing his favorite gold necklace that bore his name “JayLee.”
It looks like there will be another trial for Tim Herrington who claims he is innocent. Join us for more on the latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, “Ole Miss Murder Mystery: Did strait-laced Tim Herrington, Jr. kill his flamboyant hook-up, Jimmie ‘Jay’ Lee, over a bootie call?”
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