Joseph Cupit, 41, was shot and killed on the evening of March 17, 2019, outside a Benbrook Road residence in Natchez, Mississippi. The shooting followed an argument with his longtime girlfriend, Jessica Aldridge; as Cupit was attempting to leave, Aldridge fired two shots from the house and one struck him in the chest. First responders found him beside his vehicle and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Aldridge, 31 at the time of the killing, was arrested and charged with murder. She told investigators the argument had become physical and that Cupit had choked her, but eyewitnesses to the verbal dispute did not corroborate that claim and said she fired while he was trying to leave. The case proceeded through pretrial custody, release on house arrest with electronic monitoring, and re-incarceration after alleged violations of release terms. In April 2022 Aldridge entered an open guilty plea to manslaughter and being a felon in possession of a firearm; in May 2022 she was sentenced to 20 years for manslaughter, with a 10-year supervised-release term for the firearm conviction.

Cupit’s mother and daughter gave victim impact statements at sentencing and Aldridge offered a brief apology. Does anyone have information about the events that led up to the argument that night or who else was present?