STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) - Prosecutors may pursue the death penalty in a decades-old attack that left two women dead in Starkville, Mississippi.
District Attorney Scott Colom tells The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that prosecutors haven’t decided on capital punishment or life without parole for 52-year-old Michael Wayne Devaughn. A grand jury indicted Devaughn this week for capital murder in the slaying of 65-year-old Betty Jones and sexual assault for the rape of 81-year-old Kathryn Crigler, who died from her injuries in the 1990 attack.
Starkville detective Lt. Bill Lott sent suspect DNA last year to Parabon, a private genetics company, which searched public genealogy databases for potential relatives. That led to Devaughn, who was sitting in the Tishomingo County Jail on an unrelated drug charge. Police obtained his DNA and got their match.
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Information from: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, http://djournal.com
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