Lester Barnes Jr. of Itta Bena died doing something he loved.
During a trip with four other men to Delta National Forest in Sharkey County on Jan. 1, he called his wife, Linda, who was back at camp. She was fixing black-eyed peas for his group, and he wanted to make sure she made them just right.
“He said, ‘I'm having the best time of my life,'” she recalled Friday.
Soon after they spoke, he was dead.
The 47-year-old Barnes, who was hunting on horseback, was struck in the head by buckshot from a 12-gauge rifle. It is not known yet whose weapon it was. No arrests had been made as of Saturday.
Funeral services were held Jan. 6 in Belzoni. Linda Barnes said an autopsy has been done, and ballistics reports were being prepared, but she had been given no indication of when the results might be ready.
“They haven't contacted me about the autopsy report or the investigation yet,” she said.
She said her husband worked hard and stayed busy with many things at once, but he had also loved hunting as long she had known him.
“Most people don't go out doing what they enjoy doing,” she said.
Linda Barnes, 51, said she and her husband were together for 16 years and were married for 12. They have five children - two of them his, three hers - and 12 grandchildren. He was born in Louisiana and grew up in Belzoni; she was raised in Greenwood and has lived in Leflore County all her life.
Lester Barnes worked as a maintenance technician at Allen Canning and also did heating and air conditioning work on the side. Often, he would come home from his day job at 4 p.m. and then have to repair or put in a heating or air conditioning system later.
“He was a hard-working man, and he had an open-door heart,” his wife said, adding that he also loved his grandchildren.
The accident occurred in Holly Bluff near Rolling Fork. The men were part of Pin Oak camp, which is owned by Danny Mansell, a cousin of Lester Barnes.
Linda Barnes said she was putting cornbread in the oven on Jan. 1 when Mansell received a call, and she heard urgency in his voice.
At first he would tell her only that someone had been shot, but after some urging from her, he identified the victim as her husband. Later, her brother-in-law told her that her husband had been struck in the head. He died at Sharkey-Issaquena Hospital in Rolling Fork.
“I think he didn't know what hit him,” she said.
She said her family and her in-laws have been able to offer some support. He has many family members in Belzoni, and she was spending this weekend with a son in Cleveland.
“My children have been here, and I had a brother come in from Georgia,” she said.
She has been out of work since December 2006. She has been trying to get on disability since falling at her job at Big Star in Itta Bena.
Her son Paul Turner set up an account at Regions Bank for anyone who wants to help. They can bring contributions to any Regions branch and make the check out to “Benefit for Lester Barnes.”
Many people knew her husband through his work, she said.
“He was a good man,” she said. “Would do anything for anybody.”
