Mississippi Today
A mother of two disappeared 45 years ago. She’s been found, buried under the name Jane Doe.
A mother of two disappeared 45 years ago. She’s been found, buried under the name Jane Doe.
Tammie Mullins last saw her mother 45 years ago when she was 3 years old. Family members told her and her younger sister Christi that Tonya Mullins was missing and, if she were able to come home to them, she would.
Over the years, Tammie held on to happy memories of her mother from when they lived in Simpson County. She always wondered what happened to her or where she was.
Earlier this year, investigators from the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department answered at least one of her questions: For 45 years, Tonya Mullins had been an unidentified homicide victim buried in Pearlunder the name “Jane Doe”. Investigators identified her remains using DNA testing and genealogy.
“That led her back to me and Christi,” said Tammie Mullins, who is 49.
In 1978, Tonya Mullins was 22 and married to her high school sweetheart, James. They moved from Texas to Mississippi with their young daughters in search of work.
The couple couldn’t find jobs, so James went back to Texas to find a place to stay for his family, but when he returned to Simpson County, Tonya and the girls were gone.
That September, Rankin County investigators found the body of a woman – now identified as Tonya – wrapped in carpet in an illegal dumping site near the old Byram Swinging Bridge. The bridge spans the Pearl River and separates Hinds and Rankin counties.
The woman had been dead for several days. Based on the blunt force head injuries, the coroner ruled her death a homicide.
Her body was sent to the state forensics lab for an autopsy, and the woman’s fingerprints were recorded and sent to the FBI. Information about her and a composite sketch were released to the public, but nobody came forward.
Tammie said memories of her mother are limited, such as images of her parents sitting next to each other on the couch as Tonya sewed Tammie’s dress, or jumping on the trampoline together.
With the help of her grandparents and father, Tammie has been able to retell what happened when her mother went missing.
Three months after Tonya and the girls were last seen, Tammie’s grandmother received a call saying their uncle would bring them to Texas if she and her father met him at the airport. The uncle brought Tammie and Christi and told their father that Tonya would reach out at a later time, but she never did.
Tammie said her father returned to Mississippi several times to try and find his wife, but was not successful.
Her uncle had told her father she saw Tonya leave with someone to go to Mexico. The uncle later said Tonya was in Florida. There was supposedly a letter James received from Tonya – which Tammie now knows could not have been possible – but she doesn’t know what it said.
Tammie said growing up without her mother was an emotional rollercoaster.
She didn’t like Mother’s Day and still doesn’t enjoy it now that she is a mother. At times she felt angry at her mother for leaving. Other times Tammie wished she was there, and that felt like a betrayal of her stepmother who helped raise her.
“I think those feelings just never go away,” Tammie said.
Years passed. Tammie and Christi started their own families. Tammie told her children about her mother. She became a grandmother.
In 2021, Rankin County Coroner David Ruth was reminded about the 1978 Jane Doe case after a detective from Ohio working on an unidentified missing person case reached out.
Ruth filed a petition with the circuit court to exhume Jane Doe’s body with the hopes of using modern forensic tools to identify her. Once the request was approved, he and Deputy Coroner Clifton Dunlap collected bones to send out for testing.
Ruth tried three laboratories to help identify Mullins, and one that was successful was Texas-based Othram.
“There are a lot of homicides that are unsolved because people don’t know who they are … finding out the identity of them is a start,” he said. “If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.”
Carla Davis, a Mississippi native and Othram’s chief genetic genealogist, used DNA from Jane Done’s bones to build a family tree.
Davis found the woman had a genetic match with a person who was adopted, and she had to find who that person’s family was. Davis identified a possible close relative who agreed to take a DNA test.
More testing and work by investigators led to the positive identification of Jane Doe as Tonya Mullins.
“It’s rewarding beyond measure,” Davis said about her genealogy work for Othram. “It’s proof that, with funding, this works.”
Davis, who is also a philanthropist, funded the costs to exhume Mullins’ body. She has also helped fund analyses for other unsolved cases in Mississippi and previously did genealogy work for Othram as a volunteer.
Ruth, the coroner, said Mullins’ death is an open homicide investigation. Now that investigators know who she is, they can go back and find out with whom she was last seen and follow leads, he said.
Sheriff Bryan Bailey did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Learning what happened to her mother has given her and her family some closure, Tammie said, but she wants to know who is responsible for her death.
Next week, Tammie, Christi and other family members will travel to the Floral Hills Memory Gardens to have a funeral service for Tonya, which is where funeral home staff laid her to rest as Jane Doe in 1978.
Tammie said two of her sons who are ordained ministers will lead the service.
“It’s the respect my mother deserves, and I wish we could have done this 45 years ago,” she said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Jackson’s performing arts venue Thalia Mara Hall is now open
After more than 10 months closed due to mold, asbestos and issues with the air conditioning system, Thalia Mara Hall has officially reopened.
Outgoing Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba announced the reopening of Thalia Mara Hall during his final press conference held Monday on the arts venue’s steps.
“Today marks what we view as a full circle moment, rejoicing in the iconic space where community has come together for decades in the city of Jackson,” Lumumba said. “Thalia Mara has always been more than a venue. It has been a gathering place for people in the city of Jackson. From its first class ballet performances to gospel concerts, Thalia Mara Hall has been the backdrop for our city’s rich cultural history.”
Thalia Mara Hall closed last August after mold was found in parts of the building. The issues compounded from there, with malfunctioning HVAC systems and asbestos remediation. On June 6, the Mississippi State Fire Marshal’s Office announced that Thalia Mara Hall had finally passed inspection.
“We’re not only excited to have overcome many of the challenges that led to it being shuttered for a period of time,” Lumumba said. “We are hopeful for the future of this auditorium, that it may be able to provide a more up-to-date experience for residents, inviting shows that people are able to see across the world, bringing them here to Jackson. So this is an investment in the future.”
In total, Emad Al-Turk, a city contracted engineer and owner of Al-Turk Planning, estimates that $5 million in city and state funds went into bringing Thalia Mara Hall up to code.
The venue still has work to be completed, including reinstalling the fire curtain. The beam in which the fire curtain will be anchored has asbestos in it, so it will have to be remediated. In addition, a second air-conditioning chiller needs to be installed to properly cool the building. Until it’s installed, which could take months, Thalia Mara Hall will be operating at a lower seating capacity of about 800.
“Primarily because of the heat,” Al-Turk said. “The air conditioning would not be sufficient to actually accommodate the 2,000 people at full capacity, but starting in the fall, that should not be a problem.”
Al-Turk said the calendar is open for the city to begin booking events, though none have been scheduled for July.
“We’re very proud,” he said. “This took a little bit longer than what we anticipated, but we had probably seven or eight different contractors we had to coordinate with and all of them did a superb job to get us where we are today.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Jackson’s performing arts venue Thalia Mara Hall is now open appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The article presents a straightforward report on the reopening of Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson, focusing on facts and statements from city officials without promoting any ideological viewpoint. The tone is neutral and positive, emphasizing the community and cultural significance of the venue while detailing the challenges overcome during renovations. The coverage centers on public investment and future prospects, without partisan framing or editorializing. While quotes from Mayor Lumumba and a city engineer highlight optimism and civic pride, the article maintains balanced, factual reporting rather than advancing a political agenda.
Mississippi Today
‘Hurdles waiting in the shadows’: Lumumba reflects on challenges and triumphs on final day as Jackson mayor
On his last day as mayor of Jackson, Chokwe Antar Lumumba recounted accomplishments, praised his executive team and said he has no plans to seek office again.
He spoke during a press conference outside of the city’s Thalia Mara Hall, which was recently cleared for reopening after nearly a year of remediation. The briefing, meant to give media members a peek inside the downtown theater, marked one of Lumumba’s final forays as mayor.
Longtime state Sen. John Horhn — who defeated Lumumba in the Democratic primary runoff — will be inaugurated as mayor Tuesday, but Lumumba won’t be present. Not for any contentious reason, the 42-year-old mayor noted, but because he returns to his private law practice Tuesday.
“I’ve got to work now, y’all,” Lumumba said. “I’ve got a job.”
Thalia Mara Hall’s presumptive comeback was a fitting end for Lumumba, who pledged to make Jackson the most radical city in America but instead spent much of his eight years in office parrying one emergency after another. The auditorium was built in 1968 and closed nearly 11 months ago after workers found mold caused by a faulty HVAC system – on top of broken elevators, fire safety concerns and vandalism.
“This job is a fast-pitched sport,” Lumumba said. “There’s an abundance of challenges that have to be addressed, and it seems like the moment that you’ve gotten over one hurdle, there’s another one that is waiting in the shadows.”
Outside the theater Monday, Lumumba reflected on the high points of his leadership instead of the many crises — some seemingly self-inflicted — he faced as mayor.
He presided over the city during the coronavirus pandemic and the rise in crime it brought, but also the one-two punch of the 2021 and 2022 water crises, exacerbated by the city’s mismanagement of its water plants, and the 18-day pause in trash pickup spurred by Lumumba’s contentious negotiations with the city council in 2023.
Then in 2024, Lumumba was indicted alongside other city and county officials in a sweeping federal corruption probe targeting the proposed development of a hotel across from the city’s convention center, a project that has remained stalled in a 20-year saga of failed bids and political consternation.
Slated for trial next year, Lumumba has repeatedly maintained his innocence.
The city’s youngest mayor also brought some victories to Jackson, particularly in his first year in office. In 2017, he ended a furlough of city employees and worked with then-Gov. Phil Bryant to avoid a state takeover of Jackson Public Schools. In 2019, the city successfully sued German engineering firm Siemens and its local contractors for $89 million over botched work installing the city’s water-sewer billing infrastructure.
“I think that that was a pivotal moment to say that this city is going to hold people responsible for the work that they do,” Lumumba said.
Lumumba had more time than any other mayor to usher in the 1% sales tax, which residents approved in 2014 to fund infrastructure improvements.
“We paved 144 streets,” he said. “There are residents that still are waiting on their roads to be repaved. And you don’t really feel it until it’s your street that gets repaved, but that is a significant undertaking.”
And under his administration, crime has fallen dramatically recently, with homicides cut by a third and shootings cut in half in the last year.
Lumumba was first elected in 2017 after defeating Tony Yarber, a business-friendly mayor who faced his own scandals as mayor. A criminal justice attorney, Lumumba said he never planned to seek office until the stunning death of his father, Chokwe Lumumba Sr., eight months into his first term as mayor in 2014.
“I can say without reservation, and unequivocally, we remember where we started. We are in a much better position than we started,” Lumumba said.
Lumumba said he has sat down with Horhn in recent months, answered questions “as extensively as I could,” and promised to remain reachable to the new mayor.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post 'Hurdles waiting in the shadows': Lumumba reflects on challenges and triumphs on final day as Jackson mayor appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
The article reports on outgoing Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s reflections without overt editorializing but subtly frames his tenure within progressive contexts, emphasizing his self-described goal to make Jackson “the most radical city in America.” The piece highlights his accomplishments alongside challenges, including public crises and a federal indictment, maintaining a factual tone yet noting contentious moments like labor disputes and governance issues. While it avoids partisan rhetoric, the focus on social justice efforts, infrastructure investment, and crime reduction, as well as positive framing of Lumumba’s achievements, aligns with a center-left perspective that values progressive governance and accountability.
Mississippi Today
Feds unfreeze $137 million in Mississippi education money
The federal government is restoring $137 million in education funds to Mississippi schools.
The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week that it would reinstate pandemic relief funds. The decision comes less than three months after the federal government revoked billions nationwide as part of Trump administration efforts to cut government spending.
State education agencies and school districts originally had until March 2026 to spend the money, but the federal government claimed that because the pandemic was over, they had no use for the money.
That March 2026 deadline has been reinstated following a series of injunctive orders.
A coalition of Democratic-led states sued the federal government in April over the decision to withhold the money. Then, a federal judge granted plaintiff states injunctive orders in the case, which meant those states could continue spending their COVID-relief dollars while other states remained restricted.
But the education department decided that wasn’t fair, wrote Secretary Linda McMahon in a letter dated June 26, so the agency was restoring the money to all states, not just the ones involved in the lawsuit.
“The original intent of the policy announced on March 28 was to treat all states consistently with regards to safeguarding and refocusing their remaining COVID-era grant funding on students,” she wrote. “The ongoing litigation has created basic fairness and uniformity problems.”
The Mississippi Department of Education notified school districts about the decision on Friday.
In the meantime, schools and states have been requesting exemptions for individual projects, though many from across the country have been denied.
Eleven Mississippi school districts had submitted requests to use the money to fund services such as tutoring and counseling, according to records requested by Mississippi Today, though those are now void because of the federal government’s decision.
Starting immediately, school districts can submit new requests to the state education department to draw down their federal allocation.
Mississippi Today previously reported that about 70 school districts were relying on the federal funds to pay for a range of initiatives, including construction projects, mental health services and literacy programs.
In 2023, almost half of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, pandemic relief money allocated to schools across the country, went to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs. A third went to operational and staff costs, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education.
Though Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said that legislative leaders might consider helping agencies that were impacted by federal funding cuts, House Speaker Jason White said Monday that he did not have an appetite for directing state funds to pandemic-era programs.
Small school districts were already feeling the impact of the federal government’s decision to rescind the money. In May, Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School Board voted to terminate a contract on a school construction project funded with federal dollars.
The litigation is ongoing, so the funding could again be rescinded.
Clarification: A previous version of this article misstated the status of school districts’ pandemic relief money.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Feds unfreeze $137 million in Mississippi education money appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This article primarily reports on the federal government’s decision to restore $137 million in education funds to Mississippi schools after a temporary freeze. It presents factual information about the timeline, legal actions, and responses from various state officials without adopting a partisan tone. The piece mentions the involvement of Democratic-led states suing the federal government and notes Republican-aligned efforts to cut spending, but does so in a balanced way focused on reporting events and statements rather than promoting a political viewpoint. The language remains neutral and factual, avoiding loaded or biased framing, making it a straightforward news report with centrist bias.
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