CANTON, Miss. — A man got out of his pickup, walked up to the defendant in a drug-dealing case, fatally shot him in the chest, set down his gun, and surrendered as deputies confronted him outside a Mississippi courthouse Monday, law enforcement officials said.
Police and other officials said they weren’t sure why the suspect — 24-year-old William B. Wells, a former Canton firefighter with no history of trouble — would shoot Kendrick Armond Brown.
Brown was outside the Madison County Courthouse with his lawyer when he was shot, District Attorney Michael Guest said. Brown, 37, faced charges of selling cocaine and was a habitual offender who had been sentenced to prison time on past drug counts, according to an indictment.
The 1996 movie “A Time to Kill,” based on John Grisham’s novel, was filmed in part at the old Madison County courthouse. In the movie, a father kills two men on trial for the rape of his daughter. That courthouse and movie set are a few blocks from the new courthouse — the site of Monday’s shooting.
