Former Meridian mayoral candidate found shot to death

Therese Apel | Mississippi Clarion Ledger

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A former mayoral candidate was found shot to death in the woods Monday, the Lauderdale County Coroner said.

Mariner Durant, 23, who identifies himself on his Twitter page as the Chairman of the Lauderdale County Libertarian Party, was found dead of an apparent gunshot wound Monday afternoon in the woods outside a home on 14th Avenue in Meridian, Clayton Cobler confirmed.

Signs point to the gunshot having been self-inflicted, Cobler said, but the investigation continues. Durant had told The Meridian Star's Whitney Downard early last month that he was dropping out of the mayoral race "for security reasons," saying, "at this point I'm just following what law enforcement tells me to do."

Meridian Police Chief Benny DuBose said it's not clear what law enforcement agency Durant had been referring to, but that Meridian police have called in the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to launch a probe into Durant's death.

"Because of that comment he made we're going to do our own report as far as what we found, what we saw and so forth, but so there won't be any controversy, we're calling MBI in to do an investigation," he said.

DuBose said officers had been dispatched to that address in reference to a subject who was threatening suicide, but that he does not know for certain who made the call.

"We're going to turn those tapes over to MBI," he said.

Cobler said he got the call around 4:55 p.m., but he puts the time of death at around 2 a.m.

On his official mayoral campaign page, Durant called himself a "long time civic and political volunteer."

"I have spent most of my life engaging in local volunteer work. I am dedicated to serving the less fortunate," he said. "In 2016 I was a campaign volunteer for the Libertarian Party's Presidential ticket Gov. Gary Johnson for President and Gov. Bill Weld for Vice-President."

Durant encouraged people to join the Libertarian Party as an alternative to Republican or Democrat.

"We always have a fun time and we try to put the 'Party' in Libertarian Party," he said on his website.