On a Friday evening in Bogue Chitto, Mississippi, the life of 22-year-old LaCurtis Hackett was brought to a violent and sudden end. It was August 19, 2022, and Hackett was inside a music studio on Mill Creek Road with two other individuals when the door was forcefully kicked in. Two assailants entered and shot Hackett multiple times in what authorities described as a targeted killing.
He was rushed to King's Daughters Medical Center but succumbed to his injuries.
The investigation into the homicide moved swiftly. Within a day, Lincoln County Sheriff's deputies, with assistance from the Pike County Sheriff's Office and McComb Police Department, had their first suspect in custody. Dantez J. Frith, a 22-year-old from Pike County, was arrested on Saturday. The following day, the second suspect, 19-year-old Camron Cardell Stewart of Magnolia, turned himself in to authorities. Both men were subsequently charged with first-degree murder for their alleged roles in the shooting death of Hackett.
During their initial court appearance on Tuesday, August 23, both Frith and Stewart were denied bond, ensuring they would remain in jail as the legal process moved forward. The case remains an ongoing investigation, leaving a community to grapple with the violent loss of a young man. Just three weeks before his own death, Hackett had been cleared by a Pike County grand jury, which declined to indict him in the 2020 shooting death of Austin Wanzo.
