Samuel Roberts, a 73-year-old Black man from Meridian, Mississippi, was found dead from gunshot wounds on the shoulder of Highway 18 near Pachuta early on Sunday, September 6, 2020. Deputies located him near the intersection of Highway 18 and Highway 512 and opened a homicide investigation. Authorities initially described the victim only as an older person while seeking witnesses who had driven that stretch that morning.

Within days investigators identified Roberts and issued an alert for 30-year-old Delanney Kemon Ford of Meridian, who was believed to be driving a black Kia Sorento registered to Roberts. Ford was arrested in Meridian on the evening of September 9 and later held on kidnapping and capital murder charges; a judge denied him bond at a September 11 hearing. Ford remained in jail while the case proceeded, and he later died on October 21, 2021, before a reported trial, plea, or verdict resolving the charges.

Roberts’s death is recorded as a homicide; key questions remain about what happened to him and his vehicle in the hours before the shooting. Did anyone traveling Highway 18 that morning see something unusual or have information about Roberts’s final movements?