Podcast Will Bring New Focus On Henley, Jones Cases

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Ashley Henley. Michelle Jones. It’s been a while since we’ve heard those names.

Long enough that we probably need to start with a little refresher. It all started with an early-morning fire. On Dec. 26, 2020, the body of Kristina Michelle Jones was found inside a burned mobile home on Pat Drive in the Boat Landing community west of Water Valley. The case involved suspected arson, but her cause of death was never determined and it has not been officially ruled a homicide. The autopsy showed there was no smoke in her lungs, meaning she was dead before the fire. The autopsy could not conclusively show the cause of her death.

Six months later, on June 13, 2021, Ashley Henley was found shot to death at that same location while cutting grass. She probably never saw it coming, a single shot to the head. There were no witnesses, the bullet was never recovered, and few leads from the scene.

Now remember, Jones was Henley’s sister-in-law, and Henley, a former state representative, had been asking questions about Jones’ death. According to multiple reports, she believed she had uncovered something important shortly before she was killed.

That is the background, two deaths. Same place. Same family.

And the last time we wrote about it in the Herald in November 2023, it wasn’t because there were answers. It was because, once again, there weren’t. You may remember that Billy Brooks was charged with arson in connection with the Dec. 26 fire and first degree murder for Henley’s death. He was scheduled for trial that November. Then, just two weeks before it was set to begin, everything stopped. Prosecutors filed an order dismissing the cause without prejudice.

Dismissing the cause meant that the indictments were dropped, but the charges could be presented to a grand jury for a second time for reindictment. Brooks remains charged with these crimes, and although the terms “charged” and “indicted” are often used interchangeably, in legal terms there is a difference. Being charged means an individual is believed to have committed a crime. Being indicted means that a grand jury has found enough evidence to formally accuse a defendant in the charges, triggering court proceedings.

The case went cold after that. Almost two years would pass before the next court filing when Brooks’ attorney, Bradley Peeples, requested a bond modification.

That filing outlined that Brooks had been on bond since 2021, had appeared at every required court date, and had not been accused of any new crimes during that time. It also stated that he had been paying approximately $300 per month for an ankle monitor for more than four years, which his attorney argued had become a financial burden.

During a hearing on that motion, prosecutors indicated the case was still active and that investigators with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation continued working toward presenting it to a grand jury.

The court ultimately granted the request and removed the ankle monitor requirement as a condition of Brooks’ bond, while leaving all other bond conditions in place.

You may also recall that the case drew national, and even international coverage. 

And then it went quiet, completely quiet. 

That is until Larrison Campbell started working on a podcast last summer. Campbell, a Mississippi journalist and podcast host, has been quietly working on the story. She is best known for hosting the true-crime podcast Devil in the Ditch, where she went back to her hometown to investigate the decades-old, unsolved murder of her own grandmother.

I spent two hours with Larrison Thursday afternoon. I fully expected to be able to provide some background information about the cases from my notes.

It didn’t take long to realize she knew this case better than I ever did. She has done her research.

She has been working on this story since last summer and has done an amazing job tracking down people connected to it for interviews for a podcast set to be released in October by iHeart. She started by interviewing Billy Brooks and his wife, Melissa last year.

Since then, Campbell has talked to a long list of people tied to the case, and the podcast is expected to run eight episodes. 

And talking with her, it reminded me of something I had started keeping track of when I started working at the Herald in 2004.

Not just this case, but others.

Because as much attention as the Henley and Jones cases have received, they aren’t the only ones.

There are other families in this county still waiting on answers.

Some of those cases go back years. Some decades.

And that’s a list worth looking at on its own.