Phillip Lacking was a 54-year-old man with deep family roots in Pike County, Mississippi. He was from the McComb area, a community where his large, extended family had lived for generations. An obituary for his older brother, Henry “Pete” Lacking, who passed away in 2021, listed Phillip as one of twelve siblings residing in McComb. The Lacking family was well-established in the region, with relatives throughout McComb and the nearby towns of Summit and Magnolia.
Phillip was a part of this sprawling family network, connected by a shared history in southern Mississippi.
The morning of Monday, September 28, 2026, brought sudden and irreversible violence to a rural stretch of Pike County. At approximately 11 a.m., Phillip Lacking was on Gradyville Road, just outside the small town of Magnolia, which sits a few miles south of McComb. In circumstances that have not been fully detailed by authorities, a violent encounter occurred. Law enforcement and emergency services were dispatched to the scene, where they discovered Mr. Lacking lying in a yard. He had sustained a single, fatal gunshot wound. Pike County Coroner David Rashad Taylor was called to the location and officially pronounced Phillip Lacking dead.
The Pike County Sheriff’s Office immediately secured the area and launched a homicide investigation. A significant law enforcement presence descended on Gradyville Road as deputies began searching for a suspect. Investigators quickly identified Dalton Felder, a 55-year-old man whose last known address was 2149 Gradyville Road, in the immediate vicinity of the shooting. Sheriff Wally Jones confirmed that Felder was being sought in connection with Mr. Lacking’s death.
A manhunt ensued throughout the afternoon. Deputies conducted thorough searches of multiple residences along Gradyville Road, including the home of Felder and the houses of some of his relatives, but he was not found. The search expanded to the surrounding area, a landscape of homes, fields, and patches of dense Mississippi woods. Law enforcement remained on the scene for hours, methodically combing the neighborhood for any sign of the suspect.
Later that afternoon, the search came to an end. At around 4:30 p.m., approximately five and a half hours after the shooting, Pike County deputies located Dalton Felder. He was found hiding in a wooded area along Gradyville Road, not far from where the crime had occurred. Sheriff Jones reported that Felder was taken into custody without further incident and was subsequently accused of fatally shooting Phillip Lacking.
Following his arrest, Dalton Felder was charged in connection with the death of Phillip Lacking. The case was handed over to the Pike County judicial system for prosecution. Initial news reports did not specify a motive for the shooting or clarify the relationship between the two men. The key questions of what led to the fatal confrontation on that Monday morning remained part of the ongoing investigation and subsequent legal proceedings.
The case against Dalton Felder moved through the court system, marking the official resolution of the investigation into Phillip Lacking’s death. The community was left to grapple with the loss of a man from a well-known local family. As of the initial reports in September 2026, further details about memorials or statements from Mr. Lacking’s family had not been made public. The case is now considered closed by law enforcement, pending the outcome of the litigation against the accused.
