WINONA - Nearly three days after a Winona teen-ager was shot to death, nobody has been charged with the crime.
The girl, Candace Williams, was 14, the daughter of Richard and Andrea Williams of Winona.
An eighth-grader at Winona Junior High School, she was participating in a benefit dance at Townsend's Restaurant on Middleton Road when she was shot in the chest about 10:26 p.m. Saturday.
Police Chief Johnny Hargrove said this morning nobody has been arrested for the homicide.
He does not believe, however, that her killer targeted the girl.
Hargrove said the event was crowded. Nobody else was hurt.
Henry Townsend leases the establishment formerly known as the Hitching Post Restaurant for private parties and dances such as the event over the weekend. Townsend said he was there when the killing occurred but didn't see what happened.
Townsend estimated the room where the benefit was taking place could hold about 75. Parents of 10th-graders at Winona Public Schools had rented the place for a fund-raising dance, he said.
Hargrove said the weapon, which has not been retrieved, was a handgun. Experts at the Mississippi Crime Lab are examining the bullet.
Montgomery County Coroner Karl Oliver said he received a call about the shooting about 10:30 p.m. Saturday. He went to Tyler Holmes Memorial Hospital, where he pronounced the girl dead of a single gunshot wound to the chest.
Sanders and Sanders Funeral Home is in charge of burial arrangements.
