Carl Junior Miller

A native of Starkville, Mississippi, Carl Junior Miller was known to his loved ones as "Jr" or "JuneBug." The 41-year-old Black man was remembered as a funny, humble, and quiet family man who loved his family deeply. A father to six children, he had been living in Apple Valley, California, but decided to move back to his home state in October 2014, just a few months before his life was tragically taken. His return was, in part, a gesture of support for his extended family, who were dealing with a recent crisis.

In the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, February 28, 2015, that crisis would inexplicably and violently envelop him. Around 2:30 a.m., officers from the Columbus Police Department were dispatched to the 2600 block of Puckett Parkway in north Columbus following reports of a shooting. They arrived to find Carl Miller in the passenger seat of a pickup truck parked outside a residence. He had suffered catastrophic shotgun wounds to his face and neck. Miller was rushed to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle, but he was pronounced dead.

The home where Miller was found belonged to the family of his second cousin, 30-year-old Billy Lee “Boo Boo” Kennedy, who was living there with his brother. Kennedy was among several people at the scene when police arrived. He initially gave officers a false name, but they recognized him. In a tragic irony, Miller had been in town to support the Kennedy family because Billy Lee's brother, Arthur Kennedy, had been arrested for a separate, unrelated murder that occurred on New Year's Day 2015.

The Columbus Police Department’s investigation soon focused on Billy Lee Kennedy. Investigators, led by Captain Brent Swan of the detective division, were tight-lipped about a motive but confirmed that Miller and Kennedy were together at the scene. Kennedy initially claimed his cousin was the victim of a drive-by shooting. However, the evidence told a different story. Investigators found bloodstains on clothes Kennedy had changed out of after the shooting, and a crucial fingerprint on the murder weapon belonged to him. It later emerged that one of Miller's brothers, Jerry Lee, had been on the phone with both Carl and Billy Lee shortly before the killing took place.

Billy Lee Kennedy was arrested and charged with the murder of his cousin, Carl Junior Miller. A judge set his bond at $1 million. The case was complicated by the actions of his brother, Arthur, who, upon his arrest for the New Year's Day homicide, had given authorities Billy Lee's name, causing a brief period of intense confusion for law enforcement. Now, both brothers were incarcerated at the Lowndes County Jail on separate murder charges. Billy Lee Kennedy was indicted for murder in January 2016. After his bond was significantly reduced, he was released, but he later skipped a court hearing in December 2016. He was apprehended by a U.S. Marshal's task force in Clinton, Iowa, in early 2017 and returned to Mississippi.

The trial for first-degree murder was scheduled to begin in Lowndes County Circuit Court on February 20, 2018. On that same day, instead of proceeding to trial, Billy Lee Kennedy, then 33, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder. Judge Lee Howard sentenced him to the maximum term of 40 years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Assistant District Attorney Lindsay Clemons expressed relief that the plea spared Miller’s family from having to hear the "gruesome details" of his death in court testimony.

During the sentencing hearing, Carl Miller's family had the opportunity to speak. His brother, Robert Miller, expressed his anger at Kennedy for lying to the police during the investigation. "My brother will never get to see his grandkids," he said in court. Jerry Lee Miller spoke of the lasting pain of their final phone call. "(It) really hurt for me to just get off the phone with my brother and his life get taken," he said, adding, "I just want to know what made him do it." As of February 2018, the case was closed with Kennedy's conviction and sentencing, though the question of why he killed his cousin remains unanswered for the family he left behind.