A late-night shooting at a Shell station on Highway 17 in Pickens, Mississippi, ended in two deaths on December 31, 2024. Nineteen-year-old Demarion Sly suffered critical gunshot wounds and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died. Twenty-one-year-old Brian Grisby Jr. was found dead near the convenience store’s front door. A woman was grazed by a bullet and survived.

The Holmes County Sheriff’s Department opened a double homicide investigation. In the days after the shooting, investigators identified and arrested four men: 19-year-old Amari Ward, 20-year-old Amante Ward, 23-year-old Jamal Sly, and 21-year-old Sendarius Craft. Authorities charged all four with two counts of murder; bond for three of the defendants was set at one million dollars each, at half a million per murder count. No motive has been publicly disclosed.