In the early morning hours of October 16, 2014, a disturbance at a mobile home in Neshoba County would leave one man dead and another facing a lifetime of consequences. Billy Scott Bishop, a 34-year-old male from Carthage, Mississippi, was fatally shot at the residence of Jonathan Earl Herrington. The events of that night, as they would later unfold in a court of law, painted a grim picture of a confrontation that ended in tragedy.
According to the testimony of law enforcement, a call came in about a disturbance and a shooting at Herrington's home around 4 a.m., nearly two hours after the incident was said to have occurred. When a Neshoba County Sheriff's Deputy arrived, he found Herrington on his back porch, bleeding from a cut under his eye. Herrington recounted a version of events where Bishop had entered his bedroom and, after a brief exchange involving a phone call, attacked him. He claimed that Bishop began hitting him and then reached for a pistol, prompting Herrington to grab his own gun from under his pillow and fire in self-defense. He stated that he fired at Bishop twice, and then a third time as Bishop continued to come toward him.
However, the physical evidence and autopsy results told a slightly different story. Dr. John Davis, who performed the autopsy on Billy Scott Bishop, testified that Bishop had sustained two gunshot wounds to the back of his head and one to his chest. The two shots to the head were in such close proximity that they entered the skull through a common defect. This contradicted Herrington's claim of firing only one shot to the back of Bishop's head. Herrington himself testified that he feared for his life, claiming Bishop was reaching for a. 357 revolver. He admitted to firing twice at Bishop and then a third time to the back of his head, but could not explain the second wound found by the medical examiner.
Jonathan Earl Herrington was indicted for the deliberate-design murder of Billy Scott Bishop. Following a trial, a jury convicted him of the lesser charge of manslaughter. The Neshoba County Circuit Court sentenced Herrington to twenty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections for his role in the death of Billy Scott Bishop.
