This year Starkville saw the first ever arrest in one of its oldest and most infamous cold cases.
Betty Jones, 65, and Kathryn Crigler, 81, were attacked in Crigler’s home on Highway 82 East on Sept. 3, 1990 — an attack which left Jones dead and Crigler so injured that she died several months later.
On Oct. 6 of this year, Starkville Police Department had the man believed to be responsible in custody.
Michael Devaughn, 51, of Rienzi, was charged with capital murder and sexual battery in the case after investigators matched DNA taken from one of his cigarette butts to the DNA profile from Crigler’s rape kit. It was the first break in the 28-year-old case, which SPD Sgt. Bill Lott had predicted before the arrest would be cracked because of advances in forensic technology made since the murders.
Lott said Monday that the case was not only an important milestone in his long career, but for the Starkville Police Department.
“It’s probably the most important case in the history of our department,” Lott said. “For me personally, long before I was involved in the case, it was something that really motivated me. For something like that to happen in our community, it really drove me to get as much training as I could get and be the best I could be even though at the time of this crime I was just starting out and not with the (SPD).”
Lott was honored as a Hometown Hero by fraternal financial benefit organization Modern Woodmen in November for the 14 years he spent investigating the case for free during his time off. Lott began working on the case in 1998, taking a break for four years starting in 2009 when he served in Afghanistan, and getting back to it when he returned home in 2013.
Before the case was solved, it was the subject of Knock Knock podcast set up by Jones’ grandsons, Jason B. Jones and Simon Jones. The brothers began the true crime podcast in the hopes of getting more attention for the Labor Day murders.
District Attorney Scott Colom said at the time of Devaughn’s arrest that the case would be his office’s No. 1 priority moving forward into the new year.
The case is slated to go before a grand jury in January, according to previous reporting from The Dispatch. Devaughn is currently being held in Oktibbeha County Jail on $11 million bond.
Dispatch reporter Slim Smith contributed to this report.
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