Terrance Glover is a member of Locust Grove Baptist Church, a yard man for elderly people in his neighborhood and a 21-year-old who has never had problems with anyone, says Diana Glover, his mother.
“I’m not sitting here telling you he’s a perfect angel, but he’s a sweet kid. I mean that,” she said Friday evening. “He never has been into all that gang-banging and all that.”
Glover, of 1503 Leflore Ave., has been charged with murder in the Thursday night shooting of Erica Duncan, an 18-year-old Greenwood High School senior who died Friday afternoon at Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
Erica’s body has been taken to the state Crime Lab in Jackson, where an autopsy will be performed. Great Southern Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
If convicted, Glover faces life in prison.
Already a convicted felon, Glover has also been charged with illegal possession of firearms, according to acting Greenwood Police Chief Henry Purnell.
The shooting took place at the intersection of Dewey and Henry streets. According to police, Glover – armed with a .380 handgun and a 12-gauge pump shotgun – fired nine shots from the handgun into a car Duncan was riding in. Witnesses say the first shot fired struck Duncan, who was riding on the passenger side of the front seat, in the back of the head. The other two passengers in the car were uninjured.
Diana Glover said when she visited her son Friday in the Leflore County Jail, he told her he acted in self-defense.
“He was scared. He told me their car had stopped or stalled right in front of him and he was scared for his life,” she said, saying Glover was alone in his car at the time of the incident. “He told me he had no idea that girl was in the car. All he thought was that he was fixing to die.”
She said one of the men in the car had threatened her son had her son earlier Thursday. After the car carrying the man stopped in front of him at the intersection Thursday night, Glover feared someone was going to shoot him.
Her son ran from the scene, carrying the shotgun and handgun, for the same reason, she said: “He was running for his life. He thought they were going to shoot him.”
Police officers apprehended Glover near Leflore Avenue and City Park shortly after the shooting.
Diana Glover said that when she visited her son in jail Friday, he had a black eye, bruises down his back and a swollen face. She said he was “upset and crying.”
“I don’t know why everyone’s saying he did that,” she said. “He’s not a cold-blooded killer. That’s not my son. He can go anywhere in this town and not have a problem with anybody. There’s a lot of people who can’t do that. I just don’t understand it.”
According to his mother, Glover was planning to go to Mexico with a friend at the time of the shooting. The friend, a driver of an 18-wheeler, was going to let Glover ride with him on the trip.
Glover – nicknamed “Cheeseburger,” his mother said, because he loved eating cheeseburgers in his youth – was not a violent person, his mother said.
“He usually would be in the house that time of night,” she said. “He wasn’t a troublemaker at all.”
Purnell said Glover will be arraigned on Monday on the murder and weapon charges.
Two other GHS students have died of gunshot wounds in recent years.
Antonio Granger was shot May 17, 2004 in a case of mistaken identity. A senior at Greenwood, Antonio was voted “Senior Class Favorite” and “Senior with the Best Personality” by his classmates.
On Aug. 18, 2004 Greenwood High freshman Travis Miller was fatally shot in Whittington Park after a “Meet the Bulldogs” rally.
The chief said Erica’s death has hit the department hard.
“Our hearts go out to Miss Duncan and the family, he said. “Most of the longtime members of the Police Department know the Duncan family.”
Purnell said Glover’s family has also been touched by the incident. “Our hearts go out to all of them.”
n Commonwealth Staff Writer Bob Darden contributed to this report.
