On the late afternoon of August 12, 2017, a dispute on Beasley Road in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, ended with the death of 37-year-old Jason Youngblood, a Black/African American man. Youngblood was found in the middle of the street with a single, close-range gunshot wound to the face that proved fatal.

The confrontation began when Youngblood, who had driven to the home of Oliver Brown Jr. with a passenger, approached the house over a disagreement about a pressure washer or a garbage bin and spoke with Brown’s wife. The argument escalated after Brown was called to the scene, and Brown arrived; following the altercation Youngblood was shot. Witness statements were used in the investigation led by the Hazlehurst police chief.

That evening Oliver Brown Jr., then 47, surrendered to the Hazlehurst Police Department and was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. At trial in Copiah County Circuit Court Brown was not convicted of first-degree murder but was found guilty of the lesser-included offense of manslaughter and later sentenced as a violent habitual offender to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Did anyone in Hazlehurst see or hear something that day that could shed more light on what happened?