A trial, scheduled for this week, for a Greenwood man accused of killing his brother has been postponed.
Tyrell Stigler, 25, has been charged with first-degree murder in the 2018 death of Jakarrius Thomas, who was 19.
According to authorities, Thomas was shot twice while sleeping in a mobile home on Sherman Street. A grand jury indicted Stigler last June.
The trial was scheduled for Monday, but a continuance was granted, pending the result of a mental health evaluation.
The request for evaluation, submitted on Dec. 28 by Stigler’s attorney, Arthur Calderon, says that “due to (Stigler’s) mental state at the time of the alleged offense and at the present time, he is unable to assist counsel in the preparation of a meritorious defense.”
Calderon and Amanda Langford, assistant district attorney for the Fourth District Circuit Court, signed the continuance.
Stigler also was charged in a mass shooting on Oct. 24, 2020, that resulted in the deaths of brother and sister Jonathan and Katrina Pitts, who were attending a wake for their deceased grandmother at a house on West Martin Luther King Drive.
The shooting also injured eight others.
When arrested in connection with this incident, Stigler allegedly told Greenwood police that he was hired to carry out the shooting and showed up to the wrong house.
He also allegedly confessed to killing Thomas as well as Larry Montgomery, William McGee Jr. and Cordarell Stanley, all in September 2020.
At a preliminary hearing in December 2020, Leflore County Sheriff’s Department investigator Bill Staten testified that his department considered Stigler the prime suspect in Thomas’s murder but lacked evidence at the time to charge him.
- Contact Kevin Edwards at 662-581-7233 or kedwards@gwcommonwealth.com.
