In the late hours of a January night in Gautier, Mississippi, the life of 27-year-old Taleya Guy was cut short by a burst of gunfire. A Black/African American female from Moss Point, Guy was a mother, a hairstylist, and a co-owner of a salon, known for her vibrant personality. On the evening of January 30, 2018, she accompanied four other women to the College Villa Apartments on Ladnier Road.
What began as a confrontation, with reports suggesting the group went to the apartment with the
intent to assault someone, tragically escalated. During the altercation, shots were fired, and Taleya Guy was fatally wounded. Instead of receiving immediate medical attention, she was taken from the scene to a vacant house on Westpark Drive. It was there that police, responding to a call about the shooting, discovered her body.
The investigation that followed led to the arrest of the four women who were with Guy that night: Jasmine Anderson, 26; Phyllis Williams, 29; Lamonica Boone, 23; and Tinisha Massey, 23. However, the charges brought against them were not for murder. Instead, each of the four women was charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated assault. Their bonds were set at $25,000 each.
Despite the arrests, a profound question lingered over the case: who fired the fatal shot? Authorities confirmed that Taleya Guy died from a gunshot wound, but no one has been charged with her homicide. The circumstances surrounding the shooting remained unclear, leaving a grieving family and a concerned community without answers. Police seized several weapons from the abandoned house where Guy's body was found, but the investigation into who was directly responsible for her death has, according to reports, been marked by a lack of definitive charges in the killing itself, leaving the case unresolved.
