What happened to Jimmie "Jay" Lee? Judge denies bond for suspect in University of Mississippi student murder case

Timothy Herrington Jr., the 22-year-old man accused of murdering University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee, has been denied bail bond.

After nearly six hours of testimony hearings on Tuesday, August 9, the sole suspect in the missing-person case of 20-year-old Lee was denied bond by Lafayette County Circuit Judge Grady Tolliso.

On July 22, Herrington Jr. was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lee, whose body is yet to be found.

Herrington was arrested after police procured surveillance video that showed him driving Lee's car to the Molly Barr Trails Apartments and leaving it there. That apart, his Google search history also revealed that on the morning of July 8, he had looked up how much time it took to strangle someone.

Following the arrest, when detectives used squad dogs to search Herrington’s apartment for any distinctive smells, the dogs alerted the authorities thrice about a body in the area.

Authorities were also successful in identifying and obtaining a social media conversation between Lee and Herrington that took place on the morning of July 8, when Jimmie "Jay" Lee was last seen.

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Jimmie "Jay" Lee had visited Timothy Herrington before his disappearance

Jimmie Jay Lee was last seen on July 8.

The social media conversation between the two shows an argument that resulted in Lee blocking Herrington. However, the two seemed to have resolved it and at around 6 am on the morning of July 8, Lee sent a text to Herrington, asking him to open the door because he had arrived.

Prior to Lee's arrival, Herrington is believed to have googled, “How long does it take to strangle someone?”

According to authorities, the chat histories of Lee and Herrington also prove that that they had hooked up in the past.

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Jimmie "Jay" Lee had previously dreamt that he was being attacked

Jimmie "Jay" Lee was a student at the University of Mississippi where he was majoring in Social Work. He was also quite active on Tiktok and often posted makeup tutorials as well as personal life updates on the platform.

In a TikTok video posted on January 25, 2022, Lee recounted a dream in which he was being attacked. Though it went unnoticed when posted, it went viral after Lee's disappearance, with people posting condolence messages in the comments section.

Stephanie Lee, Jimmie's mother, who was also present in court during the hearing, told the judge that she spoke with him on a daily basis and claimed that Lee texted her around 2 am on July 8 to wish her for her birthday, after which, she could not trace him anymore.

Stephanie further told the judge that Oxford Police had informed her that a police dog had detected a decomposition scent.

Herrington had a moving company in Grenada, Mississippi, the investigators told the judge. They claimed that he transported a box truck to Oxford before returning it to Grenada the same day.

Although human fluids were discovered in blankets inside the box van, the defense contended that since the evidence was discovered a month after Lee vanished and the van could have been used by anyone during the period in between, the evidence was not conclusive.

Authorities also alleged that Herrington reportedly visited his parents' house and took gardening tools from there.

At the time of writing this article, Jimmie "Jay" Lee's body had not yet been found. However, investigators believed him to be dead.