Thousands honor Sheriff Garry Welford’s life of service

July 26, 2010 By

Yes­ter­day evening approx­i­mately 2,000 peo­ple turned out for George County Sher­iff Garry Welford’s vis­i­ta­tion at Shady Grove Bap­tist Church.  Accord­ing to the arti­cle, about 1,500 bot­tles of water were handed out by 6:30 p.m. by the Amer­i­can Red Cross.  The wait was some­where around 90 min­utes to get into the church.  Here is a tes­ti­mony to the kind of man Garry Welford was:

The Rev. Bruce Mcken­zie, pas­tor of Shady Grove Bap­tist Church, said Welford was a ded­i­cated church member.

“I have talked to a lot of crim­i­nals in my tenure here. The crim­i­nals I’ve talked to, they respected Garry. When you have the respect of the crim­i­nals, the law­break­ers, the law abiders, that says a lot about the sher­iff,” Mcken­zie said.

His funeral is this morn­ing at 10:00 a.m.  Thou­sands are expected to attend.

Filed Under: Local, Sheriff Garry Welford Tagged With:

George County Sheriff dies in the line of duty; Update: Suspects denied bond

July 22, 2010 By
George County Sheriff Garry Welford

Update, 2:00 p.m. — Judge Nor­man C. How­ell denied bond for Brandi Williams and Christo­pher Bax­ter.  They both came into the court­room with no shoes on, still wear­ing the clothes they had been arrested in.  Reporters asked Bax­ter if he knew the sher­iff had been run over, he said, “No”.  Williams did not respond to ques­tions.  Brandi Williams was wear­ing a t-shirt that said, “Put your big girl panties on and deal with it.”  Well, let’s see her deal with life in prison or being placed on death row.

Update 1:33 p.m. - Williams and Bax­ter are sup­pos­edly enroute from Hat­ties­burg to Lucedale for arraign­ment on the charges of cap­i­tal mur­der of Sher­iff Garry Welford.  The charges carry the penalty of death or life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­ity of parole.

Yes­ter­day after­noon a ter­ri­ble tragedy struck my com­mu­nity.  George County Sher­iff Garry Welford was in the process of lay­ing out a spike strip to stop flee­ing crim­i­nals when the truck they were dri­ving struck him.  He was Life­flighted to the Uni­ver­sity of  South Alabama Med­ical Cen­ter, where he died.

Over 200 offi­cers from numer­ous agen­cies, such as:  Mis­sis­sippi Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion; George, Greene, Jack­son, and Har­ri­son County Sheriff’s Depart­ments; and the Mis­sis­sippi High­way Patrol searched all night for the losers.  The scum­bags, 18-year-old Brandi Nicole Williams and 24-year-old Christo­pher Bax­ter, were arrested at 6:20 this morn­ing by the MS High­way Patrol and are now in jail in Hat­ties­burg, MS, where they have both been charged with one count each of cap­i­tal mur­der.  The rea­son they were flee­ing?  This is it:

Bax­ter was wanted on a war­rant for fail­ure to appear for sen­tenc­ing in a meth man­u­fac­tur­ing case in which he pleaded guilty.

Williams had recently entered a pre-trial diver­sion pro­ba­tion pro­gram on grand lar­ceny charges in Jack­son and George counties.

Below the fold I’ve posted pic­tures of the crim­i­nals.  Let this be a les­son to those of you who like doing drugs or man­u­fac­tur­ing drugs.  God be with these crim­i­nals, for no one else will.

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Filed Under: Crime, Local Tagged With: , ,