In the early hours of May 31, 2020, a confrontation in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express in Columbus, Mississippi, ended with 48-year-old Odis Lee Latham fatally shot. The shooting occurred at about 4 a.m.; witnesses reported Latham had been seen checking car door handles and allegedly tried to open the door of a vehicle that was occupied. The person inside that vehicle shot Latham.

Columbus police arrested 33-year-old Michael Guyse and charged him with manslaughter. Bond was set at $75,000 and authorities said the two men did not know each other. A grand jury later declined to indict Guyse on the manslaughter charge. Guyse then filed a civil suit alleging unlawful arrest and claimed he acted in self-defense under Mississippi’s castle doctrine, saying he feared for his life after Latham entered his vehicle; that lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

Did anyone in Columbus see or hear anything that morning that could shed more light on what happened in the motel parking lot?