Joshua Ellis Tarver, 23, was shot to death on December 6, 2014, on rural land he rented off Gallatin Road near Crystal Springs, Copiah County, Mississippi. Deputies found him in the woods behind the 3000 block of Gallatin Road; medical personnel attributed his death to gunshot wounds. The property owner, William Ray “Bill” Parks of Crystal Springs, was taken into custody after what authorities described as a dispute or argument between the two men. Court filings later identified Tarver as a former employee of Parks and said the dispute involved missing tools that Parks claimed had been stolen and were being brought back on a truck and trailer.

Parks testified that he fired at the truck’s front wheel when he saw his tools stacked in the trailer, then fired a warning shot into the ground when Tarver appeared. Parks said the two struggled over a .45-caliber pistol, that the gun went off during the struggle, and that a trailer tire ran over Tarver as the truck pulled away. Parks was indicted for deliberate-design murder; a jury convicted him of heat-of-passion manslaughter and the trial judge imposed a twenty-year sentence with two years suspended and two years of post-release supervision. Have readers who knew Tarver or who were in that area on December 6, 2014, come forward with information?