On a summer day in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, a heated argument between two women over a shared romantic interest escalated to a fatal conclusion. The life of 31-year-old Talitha Mack was cut short on July 25, 2018, in the parking lot of the Merimac Apartments. The dispute, which had been ongoing throughout the day via various communications, culminated in Mack inviting Orean Samuel to confront her in person at the apartment complex on North 25th Avenue.
Neither Mack nor Samuel was a
resident of the apartments. Shortly after Samuel arrived in the middle of the afternoon, around 2:00 p.m., Mack came outside with other individuals. A brief physical altercation erupted between the two women. The confrontation took a deadly turn when Samuel produced a gun and shot Mack multiple times. The shooter then fled the scene on foot, leaving Mack to succumb to her injuries before investigators could arrive.
In the aftermath, the Hattiesburg Police Department swiftly identified Orean Samuel, then 26 years old, as the suspect. She was arrested and subsequently charged with the murder of Talitha Mack. Samuel later pleaded guilty to the crime and was taken into the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
Following his daughter's death, Perry Mack Sr. filed a civil lawsuit against the Merimac Apartments, its management company, and the owner, alleging negligence and that they had failed to provide a reasonably safe environment. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, with the court concluding that the deadly incident was not foreseeable by the property owners and that Mack had contributed to the dangerous situation by arranging the confrontation with Samuel at that location.
