Sheriff: Man fatally shoots defendant waiting outside Mississippi courthouse; suspect arrested

CANTON, Miss. – A man fatally shot a defendant waiting outside a courthouse Monday morning, and a suspect is in custody, according to law enforcement officials.

Madison County Sheriff Randy Tucker and Madison County District Attorney Michael Guest said they don’t know why the suspect would have shot the victim, 37-year-old Kendrick Armond Brown. Brown was facing charges of selling cocaine and had been sentenced to prison time on past drug counts, according to an indictment dated Feb. 10.

Brown had been expected to appear in court Monday on the latest charges.

The suspect was identified as 24-year-old William B. Wells.

A relative of the suspect was wounded in a shooting just two days earlier, but officials didn’t know whether the two shootings were linked, Guest said.

In the courthouse shooting, the suspect got out of a car, walked up and shot the victim once in the chest with a semiautomatic handgun, Tucker said. The suspect laid down the handgun and was arrested without a struggle, Tucker said.

Guest said he thought there was little that deputies could have done to prevent the shooting. “There would have been, in my opinion, no way this could have been stopped,” Guest said.