The Greenwood Police Department is requesting the public’s assistance in the investigation of three recent homicides in which no one has been charged.
“We need anyone that has seen anybody or anything to call the detectives division,” Deputy Police Chief Marvin Hammond said in reference to the shooting deaths last month of Robert Love, Leroye Watkins and Marlon Edwards.
Love, a Greenwood resident, was shot and killed just before 5 p.m. May 21 in the 300 block of Broad Street. He was about 38, according to Leflore County Coroner Debra Sanders.
Around 11:30 p.m. May 22, three Greenwood men were shot at the intersection of Main and McGehee streets, near Crosstown Grocery. Two men — Marlon Edwards, 42, and Leroye Watkins, 39 — died early May 23, each from a single gunshot wound.
The third man survived.
Because the police have no direct leads on the killings of Love, Watkins and Edwards, Hammond is asking that the public call the department at 453-3311 or CrimeStoppers, an anonymous tip line, 1-800-222-8477, with information.
Police have leveled murder charges against Eaven B. Troutman, 22, in connection with the death of Tania Samone Harris, a 19-year-old Itta Bena resident who died early May 21 after being shot the night before at a graduation party held at the Confederate Memorial Building, and Sean Massey, 45, who authorities believe was responsible for killing Kassicy Fay Garrett, a 40-year-old Montgomery County woman, in her room at the Regency Inn May 27.
Hammond said that authorities do not believe that these five homicides are at all connected.
Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks had also said deputies believe the May 26 fatal shooting of Dai’lee Hammond, a 21-month-old toddler, in the Rising Sun subdivision, is not connected to any of the killings in the city.
Jakiran Fiffer, 19, and Milton Hancock, 20, were charged with murder in Dai’lee’s death.
To deter violent crime, Police Chief Terrence Craft has made the decision to deploy extra officers on patrol from 2 p.m. to midnight, Hammond said.
The department is continuing to have two officers stick to patrolling each of seven zones divided up by the department in order to reduce officers’ response time for emergency calls, he said.
The other goal of this strategy, which was implemented in early April, is to make officers more visible, Hammond said.
Hammond said it’s too early to assess the effectiveness of the new approach: “We’re really just kicking it off.”
- Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
