A Caledonia woman will serve 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder Thursday in Lowndes County Circuit Court.
Victoria Slayton entered the plea before Judge Lee Howard. Because the charge is murder, it is a day-for-day sentence, meaning she will have to serve the entire amount.
She, as well as co-defendant Malcolm Hill, had been charged with capital murder in the October 2018 murder of Markcus Maurice Pate, 34.
Pate’s body was found in his apartment in the 300 block of 11th Street South. At the time District Attorney Scott Colom said he had been shot in the back of the head. Slayton and Hill were arrested within days of the crime.
Investigators said Slayton and Hill knew the victim and conspired to steal drugs from him when the killing occurred, making it a capital offense.
At the time of her arrest, Slayton was on parole from the Mississippi Department of Corrections for charges of uttering forgery and sale of a controlled substance in Lowndes County.
Hill’s case is set for trial on May 16.
It was the second murder conviction of the court term. In a separate case, a jury found Donta Kirby guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of possession of a weapon by a felon in a trial that ended Feb. 25.
Kirby was charged with killing Lorenzo K. Halthon, Jr., 28, in 2020. Judge Howard sentenced him to life in prison for the murder charge and 10 years each on the weapon charges, to run consecutively.
Halthon’s body was discovered early the morning of July 2, 2020, after a passing driver spotted him in a ditch off of Burns Road north of Columbus.
Kirby, who had been identified as the last person seen with Halthon, fled the area and headed for Arkansas. A Mississippi Highway Patrol trooper pulled him over for a traffic violation in Webster County, and Kirby tried to flee on foot but was caught.
Two guns — one of which was the murder weapon — were found in the car.
Kirby was later extradited to Lowndes County to face the murder charge.
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