On the evening of New Year's Eve in 2016, a single gunshot shattered the quiet of a home in the Walters Community of Pelahatchie, Mississippi, ending the life of 42-year-old Amy Renee Stewart. Responders to a 911 call discovered her on a couch in her living room with a fatal shotgun wound to the chest. Despite the efforts of medical personnel to revive her, she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Initially, her roommate, John Preston Finch, claimed that the shooting was a tragic accident.
However, inconsistencies in his account quickly raised suspicions among the investigators from the Rankin County Sheriff's office. Finch, who was found at the scene intoxicated and covered in blood, was taken into custody for questioning. Under interrogation, the facade of an accidental death crumbled.
Finch eventually confessed to the investigators, revealing a mundane argument that had escalated to a fatal confrontation. The dispute, reportedly over the heating of a pizza, provoked Finch to a point of rage. He admitted to retrieving a single-barrel 12-gauge shotgun from a bedroom, returning to the living room, pointing it at Stewart, and firing the fatal shot.
Following his confession, John Preston Finch was arrested and charged with murder. He was held at the Rankin County Jail as the legal process unfolded. Ultimately, Finch was convicted of second-degree murder for the senseless killing of Amy Renee Stewart. For his crime, he was sentenced to serve thirty years in a Mississippi prison, a stark and somber end to a life taken over a trivial disagreement.
