MEMPHIS, Tenn. — As 22-year-old Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr. walked into the Lafayette County Courthouse, the cries for justice poured behind him. Herrington is charged with murder in the disappearance of Ole Miss student Jimmie “Jay” Lee.
“It all started with Jay Lee missing,” said Braylyn Johnson, Lee’s friend and classmate. "I think everyone stayed pretty hopeful and optimistic until last Friday when they announced that he was murdered that he would still be able to come home safe. It has literally been a nightmare, I think for mostly jay lee’s parents and his sisters but literally everyone."
His friends said it is a nightmare now lasting weeks. Lee was last seen the morning of July 8 leaving the Campus Walk Apartments. Friends say the day he went missing he’d organized a drive to collect baby formula.
“He was just so compassionate and so willing to give to other people and to organize,” said Johnson. “Jay Lee was a gay man and he used he/him pronouns, but a lot of people don’t see him that way. A lot of people in Mississippi won’t see him that way.”
Johnson also knew Herrington.
“The black community here is very small, so it’s hard for us not to know each other and support each other,” said Johnson. “It was just a 360 moment to be like, ‘Wow.’ We didn’t think that he would be dead and we didn’t think someone that we knew and were in close quarters with would be responsible for his murder.”
Herrington’s lawyer requested his bond hearing to be postponed to a later date. Judge Grady F. Tollison, III granted that request dismissing both the Lee and Herrington’s families separately.
Meanwhile outside, LGBTQ+ community members from Ole Miss and Memphis rallied for justice for Lee.
“I have never felt safe in my entire life. I have never felt safe. None of my friends have ever felt safe. Being harmed by hatred, straight people, the tyranny of Christian fascism has terrorized the lives of queer people every single day in the south. Guess what. We were born here and we belong here and deserve to feel safe,” said Moth Moth Moth, Focus Center Foundation.
Moth said violence against the LGBTQ+ community happens far too often, and it’s important to remember Lee the way Lee would have wanted. “Jay Lee was irreplaceable. She was irreplaceable and her sisters miss her. She cannot come back, but we can celebrate her life and we can make sure that everything she did and the beauty that she brought into this world gets remembered and it gets talked about. So, show up and keep talking. Do not let this get buried in the fossil record,” said Moth.
The new hearing date has been scheduled for August 9th at 10am at the Lafayette County Courthouse.