Friends and family of victims of a homecoming shooting embrace in downtown Leland, Miss., Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Katie Adkins)
Republished October 19, 2025 - 9:52 AM
Original Publication Date October 19, 2025 - 7:46 AM
LELAND, Miss. (AP) — A frenzy of gunfire after a high school football game earlier this month in a small Mississippi Delta town has claimed a seventh victim, as a 25-year-old woman died of her wounds around a week later, medical officials said.
Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive for the shooting in Leland, but the FBI says it may have been “sparked by a disagreement among several individuals.” At least nine people have been arrested, several of them charged with capital murder.
The death of Ebanee Williams was reported Friday by the coroner's office in Hinds County, which encompasses the state capital, according to a news release Saturday from LaQuesha Watkins, the coroner in Washington County where Leland is located.
More than a dozen people were wounded in the shooting, which broke out late in the evening of Oct. 11 as people were gathered in Leland's tiny downtown to celebrate homecoming weekend. The town on the state’s western edge is home to fewer than 4,000 people, and the FBI’s Jackson Field Office has been posting pictures of suspects wanted for questioning.
Witnesses described a chaotic aftermath with people wounded and bleeding as four people lay dead on the ground. The next day, tattered yellow police tape lay tangled at the scene in front of a boarded-up storefront not far from City Hall.
News from © The Associated Press, 2025