A nine-week investigation that began as a missing person’s case has led to the arrest of a Grenada County teenager on one count of first-degree murder.
According to Grenada County Sheriff Rolando Fair, 17-year-old Janilia Wright is currently being held behind bars at the Grenada County Jail on a $500,000 bond for her role in the suspected death of her stepfather, Cleoda Mayweather, 72, also of Grenada County.
“This has been an ongoing investigation since August — first as a missing person case and then throughout the investigation it turned into a murder case when in September evidence led the sheriff’s office to the body,” Fair said Monday morning.
Tallahatchie County Sheriff Jimmy Fly told the Charleston-based “Sun Sentinel” last month that a fully-clothed body, gender unknown due to a state of decomposition, was discovered in a ditch along Black Bayou Road, off the west side of U.S. Highway 49, in Glendora. Fly said deputies from the Tallahatchie and Grenada sheriff’s offices located the body shortly after 8 a.m. on Sept. 26 after they “received some information that [the body] might possibly be there.”
Fair and GCSO investigators believe the body is that of Mayweather, but are still awaiting forensic results for positive identification.
Wright was arrested last Friday, Oct. 27, in Batesville.
Another first-degree murder warrant was issued based on evidence last Friday for a second suspect, 20-year-old Corderrius Williams of Tallahatchie County, who Wright was in a relationship with at the time of Mayweather’s disappearance. While agents with the United States Marshals Service were attempting to serve the warrant on Williams in Laurel, he turned a gun on himself and died from a self-inflected wound. Deputies with the Jones County Sheriff’s Office assisted.
No other charges or arrests have been made in the case at this time.
Fair said the GSCO has not established a motive at this time.
The case remains under investigation.
If you have any information about this case, contact the GCSO at (662) 227-2877.
