The trial of Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr. — who is charged with capital murder in the death of Jimmie “Jay” Lee — continued Thursday with further witness testimony from Mark Hodges, the lieutenant of investigation of the Oxford Police Department Criminal Investigations Division, and University Police Department Sgt. Benjamin Douglas.
Hodges was originally called Wednesday by the prosecution, but he was called back for further testimony Thursday.
Hodges confirmed that Lee’s car could be seen on July 8, 2022, heading eastbound on Jackson Avenue at 7:18 a.m. on video surveillance footage from Rainbow Cleaners, as well as at 7:21 a.m. on video footage from a UPD camera on Rebel Drive.
Hodges then confirmed that Lee’s car was seen heading north on Molly Barr Road at 7:23 a.m. on video surveillance from C.B. Webb and Rockette’s Quick Mart. Lee’s car was also confirmed by Hodges to be seen entering Molly Barr Trails on July 8, 2022, at 7:25 a.m. and leaving at 7:34 a.m.
Upon further review of the footage at Molly Barr Trails, Hodges pointed out an individual wearing a gray hoodie jogging out of the parking lot and turning right at 7:38 a.m. Footage of an individual running on Molly Barr Road past Rockette’s Quick Mart was presented to the court. Hodges said that the individual seen running on the footage appeared to be wearing the “exact same” clothing as the individual seen leaving Molly Barr Trails.
During the defense’s cross examination, Hodges testified that Jay Lee’s car was distinctive, citing the gold racing stripe on the hood, vanity plate, a sticker on the back that read “I love my pomeranian,” the rims, a gold sticker on the driver’s side door that read “Jay” and the window trim as distinctive features.
When shown Exhibit S-14, which was video surveillance showing Lee’s car driving past Rainbow Cleaners at 7:18 a.m. on July 8, 2022, Hodges stated that he was unable to identify any distinctive feature of Lee’s car “without having a photo to be able to show comparison.”
Douglas was among those from UPD involved in the initial investigation of Lee’s disappearance.
During the prosecution’s line of questioning, conducted by special prosecutor and Hinds County Assistant District Attorney Gwen Agho, Douglas was presented with an Excel spreadsheet detailing Lee and Herrington’s Snapchat communications between 5:17:09 and 6:03:15 a.m. the day Lee went missing.
These messages were obtained through a search warrant of the Snapchat account RedEye_24 — an account which has been confirmed by UPD to have belonged to Herrington, as the account was registered under the email dirt2diamondspodcast@gmail.com.
“Whenever we Googled ‘Dirt 2 Diamonds Podcast,’ we found a video of Sheldon Timothy Herrington interviewing somebody,” Douglas said.
The Snapchat account RedEye_24 was also confirmed by UPD to have belonged to Herrington through a subpoenaed Snapchat message in which Lee referred to the user by the name “Tim.”
The messages between the two confirmed that there had been previous sexual interactions between Herrington and Lee and that, on the night of July 8 when Lee went missing, Lee was going to see Herrington.
The RedEye_24 Snapchat account was deactivated on July 8, according to Douglas.
Douglas also said that there were Google searches — which were obtained through an exigency request made to Google — that were made from the dirt2diamondspodcast@gmail.com account for “How long does it take to strangle someone Gabby Petito,” which was made at 5:56 a.m. — approximately seven minutes before Lee sent his last Snapchat message to RedEye_24.
Douglas also confirmed that there was another Google search from the dirt2diamondspodcast@gmail.com account on July 10 for “Ole Miss student found in Lake.”
Douglas and UPD filed a search warrant for the Meta accounts — Facebook and Instagram — of Herrington, which was originally denied but later approved. UPD then downloaded search history data of Herrington’s Facebook from May 28, 2022 to July 22, 2022.
In this data, Douglas and UPD found that on July 10, 2022 at 4:37 p.m., there was a search for a “Tony Farese.” Douglas said that Farese was the attorney that represented the defendant in the Ally Kostial murder trial. Kostial was a former UM student who was killed by Brandon Theesfeld, who pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder charges.
Other Facebook searches from Herrington’s account include a July 11 search for “Oxford Police Department,” and “Ole Miss police,” a July 12 search for “Jimmie Lee,” and multiple July 13, 14 and 15 searches for “Oxford MS Police Department” and “Jimmie Lee.”
After Agho completed her questioning, Horan began his cross examination, focusing on a Berla report of Lee’s car. A Berla report is a forensic analysis of data from a vehicle’s infotainment and telematics system.
The portion of Berla report that Horan presented to the court shows the following:
Driver door was opened at 2022-07-08-03:25:59 .
Driver door was opened at 2022-07-08-04:12:26
Driver was opened at 2022-07-08-04:47:35
Driver door was closed at 2022-07-08-04:47:44
Driver door was closed at 2022-07-08-06:11:08
Passenger door opened at 2022-07-08-07:34:40
Passenger door closed at 2022-07-08-07:34:41
Driver door was closed at 2022-07-08:38:07
Douglas said that this report was not useful in the investigation of the disappearance of Lee because the information did not make sense when compared to other known information. He said that there were discrepancies in the report that made the data unusable — such as the driver door being reported to open repeatedly without closing.
