Man accused in '12 death of Madison MSU student pleads guilty

The trigger man in the March 2012 homicide of a Madison County Mississippi State University student pleaded guilty to murder on Thursday.

Mason Perry Jones, of Jackson, is one of three men accused in the shooting death of John Sanderson, 21, inside a dormitory at MSU. He pleaded guilty to first degree murder in Oktibbeha County circuit court Thursday afternoon, after being previously charged with capital murder.

Assistant District Attorney Katie Moulds said the DA's office was ready to go to trial on Monday if something had changed in court Thursday, but Jones pleaded guilty to first degree murder, which affords him the possibility of parole at age 65.

Sanderson was shot twice in a dormitory on the Starkville campus. Police quickly rounded up Jones and Duntae Harvey and Trent Deundra Crump, both of Rankin County. The suspects were all 21 at the time of the shooting.

The other two have not yet been tried. Moulds said prosecutors expect Harvey and Crump to take plea deals as well, but that she would be in touch with their attorneys in the next few weeks.

"Mason Perry Jones was the shooter in this case, so that's why he was the one we were most concerned with," Moulds said.

Sanderson's family had a part in deciding whether to accept the plea or not, Moulds said.

"When we try a case like this, we allow the victim's family to make the calls, and they allowed him to plead guilty and get life in prison," she said. "If he had gone to trial, we would absolutely have gone for the death penalty."

Though things are still unfinished with Crump and Harvey, the family can now rest a little, Moulds said.

"They are relieved. This is some closure for them," she said, adding that the other two say they had no idea Jones was going to shoot Sanderson.

"They're pleased with the outcome," she said.

Authorities have suggested the sale of drugs was involved in the MSU shooting, but they have shed no further light on the motive for the killing on the first floor of Evans Hall near a dorm room. Sanderson lived in a different dorm.

The case, if it were to go to trial, would have been the first ever tried under the Mississippi law that makes it a capital offense to kill on educational property. Lawmakers enacted the law in the wake of Pearl High School rampage in 1997.