The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the first-degree murder conviction of a Lowndes County man found guilty of killing his girlfriend as she slept.
Phillip House, 39, was sentenced to life in prison in November 2024 following a three-day trial in which the prosecution argued he shot his then-girlfriend Summer Danielle Tennyson once in the head as she slept in a bed with one of their two sons.
Tennyson’s body was discovered the morning of June 20, 2023, when her two daughters returned to their Caledonia home from a sleepover to find an exterior door cracked open. Inside, one of the girls found Tennyson in her bed, along with one of the two sons she shared with House.
The day prior, House and Tennyson had argued about infidelity, exchanging several text messages throughout the evening that were presented in trial.
Tennyson, in one of the messages, told House to stop driving by her home after she saw him do so. Cell phone data presented during trial confirmed what Tennyson said she saw, pinging House’s phone just south of her residence.
According to the data presented, House returned to his home in Columbus after the text exchange. At about 12:30 a.m., he began traveling back to Caledonia. House’s phone stopped transmitting data about 20 minutes later, very close to Tennyson’s home.
The next morning, about four hours before Tennyson’s daughters arrived home to find her body, prosecutors said House texted Tennyson’s mother, telling her, “You need to go get the boys now,” referring to his two sons, ages 4 and 5, who were in the home with Tennyson.
After collecting evidence from Tennyson’s home, investigators started trying to locate House. They learned a police report had been filed against him in Ecru by his younger brother, who claimed House had threatened him with a gun the day after Tennyson’s murder and said, “I just shot my baby momma with my two boys laying beside her.”
The cell phone data, text messages, police report and all of the evidence collected from Tennyson’s home were presented at trial, along with testimony from Tennyson’s two daughters and 13 other witnesses.
In his appeal, House argued all of this evidence presented by the state was too insufficient to prove deliberate design, the burden of proof for first-degree murder.
He claimed the evidence was too circumstantial to prove he was fully aware of his actions and took means to plan them, specifically noting the lack of a murder weapon, fingerprints or gunshot residue tying him to the crime.
The court disagreed, ruling the evidence presented by the prosecution met the burden of proof.
“Perhaps most probative were the text messages to (Tennyson’s mother) the next morning and (his brother’s) testimony about House’s alleged confession and that House was carrying a .9mm gun,” the decision said. “Taking all the evidence in the light most favorable to the state, sufficient evidence supported the guilty verdict, and a rational trier of fact could find all the essential elements of first degree murder.”
House also challenged the weight of the evidence in his appeal, but the court’s ruling said it is the jury’s responsibility to weigh the evidence.
“The jury deliberated and determined that House was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt even absent physical evidence,” he said. “Given the amount of circumstantial evidence presented by the state, the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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