Hinds County escapee suspected of killing pastor believed dead after shooting Mississippi deputy

Hinds County escapee suspected of killing pastor believed dead after shooting Mississippi deputy

A 22-year-old man who police say escaped from a Mississippi prison and then killed a man to steal his truck is believed dead inside a home in Leake County.

WJTV reports Dylan Arrington had barricaded himself inside a home Wednesday morning and fired on law enforcement, striking one Leake County deputy in the leg.

By about 10:30 a.m., Leake County Sheriff Randy Atkinson said the home was engulfed in flames and the person inside, presumably Arrington, believed dead.

Arrington and three other men escaped over the weekend from the Hinds County Detention Center outside Mississippi’s capitol city of Jackson, according to the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office.

Monday night, a 61-year-old pastor was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds alongside Interstate 55 near the Byram community southwest of Jackson.

Investigators said the victim, Anthony Watts of Simpson County, had stopped alongside the interstate around 7 p.m. Monday to assist a man who appeared to have been involved in a motorcycle crash. The motorcycle, police would learn, had been stolen just a short time earlier.

Witnesses said the man, who fit Arrington’s description, shot Watts multiple times before fleeing the scene in Watts’ red Dodge Ram.

By Tuesday night, Arrington had been spotted in Leake County, northeast of Jackson. U.S. Marshals, Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI) and Mississippi Highway Patrol personnel joined the Leake County Sheriff’s Office in the manhunt for Arrington.

Arrington was located at a residence on Conway Road in Leake County early Tuesday morning. Just after 7 a.m., he fired the shot which struck the deputy, who Atkinson said was in stable condition at a local hospital.

The sheriff’s office said the standoff continued for roughly two hours before it was “resolved,” with the fire engulfing the home.