Richard DeShawn Barnes, 43, was found mortally wounded by gunfire after a pickup truck rolled into Forrest General Hospital’s emergency bay shortly before midnight on December 29, 2015. Medical staff pronounced him dead; the deputy coroner recorded multiple gunshot wounds as the cause of death and the case was ruled a homicide, Hattiesburg’s sixth of that year.

Investigators traced the shooting to the driveway of an abandoned wood‑paneled house at 929 Spencer, where Barnes and a woman had been sitting in a single‑cab pickup for several hours. The woman later told detectives she and Barnes fell asleep, were awakened by glass breaking and gunfire, and that she then drove him to the hospital. Crime scene teams recovered multiple spent shell casings and photographed broken glass consistent with shots fired from the street toward the truck. The woman was later identified as 53‑year‑old Latonya Anderson and charged with hindering prosecution; she was not accused of firing the shots and no one has been publicly charged with Barnes’s murder.

Police said the investigation lacked solid leads and by August 2016 had stalled while awaiting further crime lab work; the case remained open and unsolved. If anyone saw a person or vehicle near 929 Spencer on the night of December 29, 2015, contact Hattiesburg police or Crime Stoppers.