In the late hours of a Thursday evening in Brookhaven, Mississippi, a domestic dispute escalated into a tragic event that left a family shattered. On September 26, 2019, police were called to a home on Crooked Lane, where they discovered the bodies of 40-year-old Rebecca Scarborough Rhodes and her 44-year-old husband, Shannon Rhodes. Both had sustained fatal gunshot wounds from a handgun.
The preliminary investigation led authorities to believe the incident was a murder-suicide, stemming from a heated argument between the couple.
The couple's children were present in the home at the time of the shooting but were thankfully unharmed. Law enforcement officials did not disclose whether the children witnessed the events that led to their parents' deaths. The bodies of both Rebecca and Shannon Rhodes were sent to the state Crime Lab in Jackson for autopsies to be performed. In the wake of the tragedy, the local police chief urged the community to come together and support the children who had lost both of their parents in a single night.
As the suspect in the death of Rebecca Rhodes was also deceased, there were no arrests made in connection with the case. The investigation by the Brookhaven Police Department focused on confirming the sequence of events that led to the murder-suicide. Funeral services for Rebecca Shanta Scarborough Rhodes were held on October 5, 2019, at Alexander Jr. High School in Brookhaven, with her burial at Hillcrest Cemetery.
