Incident report

REPORTING OFFICER'S NARRATIVE(Brief narrative of the facts surrounding the offense and the arrest.)

At 7:31 p.m., Dispatch received a 911 call reporting an adult male not breathing in the guesthouse at 1198 Mimosa Road, Oxford MS. The caller identified himself as Kent Erdell.

Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Unit 209 (Officer P. Winston) was dispatched and arrived at the scene at 7:35 p.m. Upon confirmation that the victim was deceased, R/O notified Dispatch and requested backup.

Reporting Investigators (R/Is) Detectives T. Armstrong and S. Murphy were assigned and proceeded directly to the scene. At R/Is' request, Coroner’s Inspector L. Johnson and a CSU team were notified to respond to the scene. R/Is arrived at the scene at 8:03 p.m.

Upon arrival, R/Is found that R/O had secured the area. Environmental conditions at the scene upon arrival are as follows: Weather: Light rain; Ambient Exterior Temperature: 43°F/6°C; Relative Humidity: 89%; Ambient interior temperature: 74°F/23°C, Relative Humidity: 44%.

R/O Winston made the following verbal report, which is stated in summary and not verbatim.

Officer Winston was met in the driveway of the residence and directed to the guesthouse at the rear by an adult male who identified himself as Kent Erdell (Person 2), the 911 caller. Erdell led R/O into the recreation room of the guesthouse where an adult male, later identified as Blake Jenson (Person 1), was lying unresponsive on the floor.

Officer Winston said YCFD EMTs R. Peterson and J. Bilkey arrived at approximately 7:36 p.m. and, after confirming the victim was deceased, withdrew from the crime scene.

Officer Winston observed seven additional individuals present in the guesthouse and detained them at the scene pending R/Is' arrival. One of the females, Virginia Carr (Person 9) complained of feeling ill and subsequently vomited. After examining her at the scene, EMTs transported her to Baptist Memorial Hospital for diagnosis and treatment.

Officer Winston reported that, to the best of his knowledge, the following persons have entered the crime scene area and must be documented by CSU personnel: Kent Erdell, Madison Spires, Bree Paxton, Frederick Wallace, Gary Wilson, Kade Johnson, Jennifer Alexander, Virginia Carr, EMT Peterson, EMT Bilkey, and himself.

After receiving Officer Winston's verbal report, R/Is instructed him to have the witnesses transported to the sheriff's office for formal interviews.

R/Is then conducted a preliminary inspection of the scene. In the recreation room of the guesthouse, R/Is observed a lifeless human body, a male apparently in his early 20s, lying in a prone position on the floor with the head facing south.

The left arm was bent at the elbow at an approximate 90° angle so the left hand was adjacent to the face, palm down. The right arm was slightly bent at the elbow and extended alongside the body with the hand palm up. The left leg was bent at the knee at an approximate 70° angle. The right leg was extended.

Visual inspection indicated the victim was wearing a light gray t-shirt, gray pants, and sneakers. A guitar-style video game controller with black marks on it was on the floor west of the body.

At 8:21 p.m., Coroner's Inspector Luwinda Johnson arrived at the scene and joined R/Is at the body's location. Inspector Johnson pronounced the victim deceased at 8:25 p.m. by visual observation that the victim was not breathing and by tactile observation that the victim did not have a palpable carotid pulse. Inspector Johnson visually examined the body and observed no signs of trauma other than apparent burns on the left palm.

Inspector Johnson speculated the victim had been dead no more than two hours prior to examination, subject to revision pending a formal autopsy. Inspector Johnson indicated that further details would be available in the official autopsy report.

After Inspector Johnson completed her initial inspection of the body, she stayed with the CSU team to ensure the integrity of the body while the team took photographs of the scene and performed preliminary analyses until the body could be removed from the scene without affecting other evidence.

CSU arrived at the scene at approximately 8:32 p.m. R/Is instructed CSU to process the entire scene according to standard procedure.

R/Is left the scene at 8:45 p.m. Before leaving, R/I Murphy instructed CSU to seal the scene upon completion or end-of-day suspension of processing. CSU to notify R/Is of progress by the end of this date. As of this filing, CSU is still actively processing at the scene.

The body of the deceased was remanded into the custody of Coroner's Inspector Luwinda Johnson. The deceased was removed from the scene at 9:17 p.m. and transported to the coroner's office for autopsy.

Evidence was remanded into the custody of Forensics Officer T. R. Douglas for transport to the State Crime Lab for routine analysis. CSU is expected to submit an inventory of items taken into evidence within fourteen days of this report, with detailed report(s) of their findings to follow at a later date.

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