A 24-year-old woman riding in a white Toyota Camry was shot and killed on Highway 61 South in Vicksburg in the early hours of Friday, November 6, after a white SUV pulled up on the car and opened fire — then, after the Camry pulled over, circled back and fired on it a second time, Vicksburg police said. The car's 20-year-old driver was not injured.
Source: Vicksburg Daily News, updated report with the police identification of the victim
The Vicksburg Warren 911 call centre took the shooting call at about 2:10 a.m., Police Chief Larry Burns said in the department's first account. The shooting happened on the northbound side of Highway 61 South near Grange Hall, and the woman died at the scene, where Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey confirmed her death as numerous police units, the chief among them, worked the scene, according to the Vicksburg Daily News.
Source: Vicksburg Daily News, initial report quoting Police Chief Larry Burns
What police say happened on Highway 61 South
In the updated account, police said the Camry was travelling north on Highway 61 South with the woman in the passenger seat when a white SUV approached the vehicle from behind and began firing shots. The 20-year-old driver pulled to the side of the roadway after the first gunfire. The SUV then reportedly circled back and opened fire on the vehicle a second time, police said. The woman sustained fatal gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene; the driver was not injured, according to the updated report carried by the Vicksburg Daily News and reflected in WJTV's television coverage.
Source: Vicksburg Daily News, updated report with the police identification of the victim
Police closed the northbound lane of Highway 61 South while investigators worked the scene, the first report said. Investigators have not announced any arrest, named any suspect, or released a fuller description of the white SUV — no make, model or plate details were in the reports available on Friday — and no motive has been suggested by police.
Source: Vicksburg Daily News, initial report quoting Police Chief Larry Burns
Anyone with information about the Highway 61 South shooting is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 601-355-TIPS (8477) or the Vicksburg Police Department at 601-636-2511, police said. Dashcam or doorbell video from the Grange Hall area around 2:10 a.m. on Friday, November 6 — especially any recording of a white SUV — is the kind of evidence investigators in a highway shooting ask for first.
A note on the victim's name
Police have identified the woman who was killed, and Awaaz Punjab is reporting her age and the circumstances confirmed by two accounts rather than printing a name here, because the local reports available on Friday spelled her name two different ways. What is consistent across every report is the outline her family is now living with: a 24-year-old passenger, a 20-year-old driver who survived unhurt, and a shooter who has not been found.
Source: Vicksburg Daily News, updated report with the police identification of the victim
The road this happened on
Highway 61 is the old Mississippi River corridor — the route generations of Delta families have driven between Vicksburg, the Delta towns and Memphis — and its South Vicksburg stretch past Grange Hall is a working local road as much as a highway, carrying shift workers and river-industry traffic through the night hours. A shooting at 2 a.m. on that stretch, with a second pass by the same vehicle, is the detail that has unsettled the city most: police accounts describe a driver who escaped the first burst unharmed, stopped — and was fired on again.
Source: Vicksburg Daily News, initial report quoting Police Chief Larry Burns
What happens next
The Vicksburg Police Department says the investigation continues, with investigators working to establish the circumstances around the shooting and to identify the white SUV and whoever was in it. The next facts that matter are the ones police have not yet released: a fuller vehicle description, any camera footage from the corridor, and whether the Camry was targeted or caught in a case of mistaken identity — two possibilities the reports so far do not distinguish between, and which Awaaz Punjab will not guess at. Anyone who was on Highway 61 South near Grange Hall in the early hours of Friday holds the piece detectives are asking for.
Source: Vicksburg Daily News, updated report with the police identification of the victim