Man charged with murder after 6 are killed in a shooting rampage in northeast Mississippi

A Friday night shooting rampage in separate Clay County locations has left six people dead, including a 7-year-old girl.

Daricka Moore, a 24-year-old man related to at least four of the victims, is in custody charged with first-degree murder. He is being held without bail in the Clay County Jail in West Point.

Clay County Sheriff Eddie Scott said at a news conference Saturday that a cadre of state and local law enforcement arrested Moore at a safety checkpoint about a half mile from the second crime scene. The search included local officers and those from Mississippi Highway Patrol, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics.

District Attorney Scott Colom said the charges could be upgraded to multiple counts of capital murder.

“I don’t know what kind of motive there could be to shoot a 7-year-old child,” Colom said.

The rampage began before 7 p.m. at a home on David Hill Road. Moore allegedly fatally shot his father, Glenn Moore, 67; uncle, Willie Guine, 55; and brother Quinten Moore, 33. Scott said each man was shot in the head.

Scott said the suspect stole Quinton Moore’s F150 truck and drove to the second crime scene, where he allegedly broke into the house and tried to sexually assault someone before killing the 7-year-old girl, whom the sheriff identified as the suspect’s second cousin.

WTVA-TV reported that her family identified her as Mikiylia Guines.

The child’s mother and two other children were in the home. After the girl was killed, Moore allegedly put a gun to the head of another child, believed to be even younger, Scott said.

Scott said Moore then drove to a home on Siloam-Griffith Road, where investigators found the aluminum-colored truck hidden behind the house. That’s where they discovered the bodies of Barry Bradley and Samuel Bradley, who also apparently had been shot in the head. One of them was the pastor of an Apostolic church.

Scott said the family is experiencing overwhelming grief.

“For this family to lose this many family members in one setting is just hard to imagine,” Scott said.

Colom said that when the sheriff briefed him on what happened, “it really shook me. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen. Six people’s lives taken.”

Moore is scheduled for his first court appearance Monday in Clay County while investigators search for answers and the state Crime Lab begins running ballistics tests. 

“This guy has not been on our radar. We don’t know what was going through his mind,” Scott said.

He said gun violence is happening all across the country. This mass shooting comes less than three months after seven people were killed and many others were wounded in multiple shootings in Mississippi following high school and a college homecoming games.

Colom said the death penalty would have to be considered in this case. “If it’s eligible, you have to seek to seek the highest punishment under Mississippi law,” he said.