Therese Apel

The Clarion-Ledger

BROOKHAVEN, Miss. — 18-year-old Jordan Blackwell shielded his 15-year-old cousin from bullets when a suspect now accused of killing eight people, including a sheriff's deputy, came into their home, Blackwell's father said.

The home was the second stop of three in a mass murder spree that began late Saturday and ended Sunday morning with the arrest of Willie Cory Godbolt, 35, of Bogue Chitto, Miss.

The problem at Blackwell's house started when his mother, Tiffany Blackwell, received a call from her best friend in the middle of the night. The woman, who is not being identified because she is a domestic-violence victim, said that her estranged husband had come over.

"When she called me she told me something had happened and somebody had gotten shot, I told my husband and my sister and my other friend who was here, 'I need to go be with (her),' " said Tiffany Blackwell, adding that she really hadn't processed what her friend was telling her late Saturday.

So Tiffany Blackwell; her husband, Shon Blackwell; the cousin's mother; and another friend left to go to Bogue Chitto, Miss., about 10 miles south. The four adults never thought leaving several grown children at home in the middle of the night would be unsafe.

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After they left, shots were fired at the Blackwells' door lock.

Jordan Blackwell was walking down the hall, talking on FaceTime with his girlfriend. Cousins Caleb Edwards, 15, and Austin Edwards, 11, were in the living room, and Caleb dove behind a large chair.

Bullets caused pieces of the door, walls, floor and an aquarium stand to spray all over the room. Someone kept shooting until he could kick the door in.

Then Caleb recognized Godbolt. When the man got inside, Caleb said he looked at Jordan Blackwell.

"Where's your mama and daddy?" Godbolt asked.

"They're in Bogue Chitto," the 18-year-old said.

Then Godbolt shot him, Caleb said. Jordan Blackwell was protecting Caleb with his body; Caleb guessed that Austin got scared.

"I guess he (Austin) popped up, and he shot him," Caleb said.

Austin also was killed. Caleb's eye was cut — he doesn't know if a piece of the shrapnel grazed him or a bullet — but at one point he said he thought that a bullet had hit him in the head. It was the impact of Jordan's head hitting his.

The boys had been playing video games with their friend Xavier Lilly in a house where family members said about 12 kids had gathered. Godbolt then left with Xavier, at gunpoint, telling the 16-year-old that he was going to drive him to another Brookhaven address.

"I tried to wake them up and they wouldn’t answer," Caleb said. "Then I went to my brother and tried to wake him up and he wouldn’t wake up."

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Caleb was covered in his cousin's blood and shaken to the core. The youth in the house were all ages, from 3 to 21, and their parents had just been there.

"I never would have thought in a million years that he would hurt the kids," Shon Blackwell said of Godbolt. "He mentored both of them. They looked up to him. ... That's the part that hurts. That the part that penetrates you."

"I want him to wake up every morning and know what he's done, first thing in the morning," Shon Blackwell said. "I just want to ask him, 'Why my son, why Austin?' I want to look him in his face and say, 'Why the two kids, what purpose?' "

Jordan Blackwell was going to be a high school senior in the fall. A talented linebacker, he had started receiving interest from colleges, and his family was particularly excited about a letter he'd received from Jackson State University.

Trace Clopton, who played football with Jordan Blackwell, recalled his friend's character.

"He was always thinking of others," Clopton said. "He was selfless."

Godbolt was either related to or an acquaintance of each victim but one, the deputy who responded to a domestic disturbance call at about 11:30 p.m. CT Saturday, authorities said.

William Durr, 36, a Lincoln County deputy sheriff, died at Godbolt's first stop in Bogue Chitto. Also dead at that house were Goldbolt's mother-in-law, Barbara Mitchell, 55; her daughter, Toccarra May, 35; and Mitchell's sister, Brenda May, 53.

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Godbolt's wife and their two children had been staying at Mitchell's Bogue Chitto home for about three weeks after she left her husband, said Vincent Mitchell, the stepfather-in-law of the suspect. When the sheriff's deputy arrived at the house, Godbolt looked as if he were about to leave, then reached into his back pocket, pulled a gun and opened fire.

"I'm devastated. It don't seem like it's real," Mitchell said. He and Godbolt's estranged wife were able to flee without getting shot.

At the third house, Ferral Burage, 45; and Shelia Burage, 46, were killed. Godbolt set Xavier free when they arrived at the house.

Godbolt, who was arrested Sunday morning in Brookhaven, about seven hours after the rampage began, remains hospitalized at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. He is being treated for a gunshot wound.

Authorities plan to charge him with one count of capital murder in Durr's death and seven counts on first-degree murder in the others. Mississippi Bureau of Investigation spokesman Warren Strain said those charges could change as the investigation continues.

His first appearance in court will be decided when he is released from the hospital.

As deputies held Godbolt on the ground following his arrest, Godbolt talked freely to a Clarion-Ledger reporter. He said he just wanted to "live and let live, and they wouldn't let me do that."

"My pain wasn't designed for him. He was just there," Godbolt said of the deputy. "We was talking about me trying to take the children home. ... Somebody called the officer. ... That's what they do. They intervene. It cost him his life. I'm sorry."

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Even before authorities decided to make this a death-penalty case, Godbolt said his next step is death.

"Suicide by cop was my intention," he said Sunday. "I ain't fit to live, not after what I've done."

Durr, married and the father of an 11-year-old son, was a two-year veteran of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department and a four-year veteran of the Brookhaven Police Department.

"It's a small community, and everybody's hurting in one way or another," said Sheriff Steve Rushing of Lincoln County, which has a population of about 34,000 about 70 miles south of Jackson. "To me, he died a hero doing his job."Durr’s family is still in distress.

“He was a good Christian man,” Debbie Durr, the deputy's mother, said at her rural home near Brookhaven. “He was a youth minister and a pastor before going into law enforcement.”

Caleb said he already misses his brother Austin and his cousin Jordan Blackwell.

"I really don’t have anything to say to Corey. We used to be cool but we’re not cool now," Caleb said. "You killed my brother and my cousin in front of me — all these innocent people for a situation with him and his wife. He should have dealt with it like a man instead of going out and killing people."

Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Therese Apel on Twitter: @TRex21