In the early hours of January 27, 2015, a dispute between two men in a Gulfport, Mississippi, apartment complex escalated into a fatal encounter. Eddie L. Briggs, a 29-year-old male, was shot and killed in a courtyard at the Emerald Pines apartment complex. The altercation began inside an upstairs apartment, though the exact nature of the argument remains unclear.
After the initial conflict was broken up, Briggs left the apartment.
As Briggs was making his way downstairs to leave, he was followed by Henry Earl Harvey. A witness reported hearing a gunshot and then seeing Harvey approach Briggs with his arm extended before a second shot was fired. Responding to the incident at approximately 2:41 a.m., Gulfport police discovered Briggs on a sidewalk in front of one of the apartment buildings, suffering from gunshot wounds to his face and shoulder. Surveillance footage from the complex later showed someone dragging Briggs' body from the courtyard to the sidewalk.
Following the shooting, Henry Earl Harvey, then 23, fled the scene. A police K-9 unit tracked him to a wooded area about three blocks away, where he was found hiding and subsequently arrested. During the search of the area, officers located the murder weapon a short distance from where Harvey was apprehended, and the gun's magazine was found in a field along his escape route. At the time of the incident, Harvey was on parole for prior convictions of burglary of an occupied dwelling and possession with intent to distribute synthetic narcotics.
Henry Earl Harvey was charged with the murder of Eddie Briggs. His trial concluded in October 2016, with a Harrison County jury deliberating for about three and a half hours before finding him guilty of first-degree murder, rejecting the lesser option of manslaughter. Following the conviction, a judge sentenced Harvey to life in prison.
