In the episode “Shattered: The Bodies Out Back” on Investigation Discovery, the story is told of how two girls and their younger cousin brother survived a home invasion in Shubuta, Mississippi, in April 1986, while Donald Thomas and his cousin Lamar Lafferty were killed in the same incident. In this episode, we see how the police were able to apprehend the perpetrators using a description provided by one of the people who managed to escape the massacre, Marty Thomas.
Brandon Lafferty
Who are Brandon Lafferty and Marty Thomas?
On April 26, 1986, Marty Thomas and his older sister, BB Beach, went to play in the ravine. Along the way, they stopped by the trailer that belonged to Marty’s brother, Donald Ellis “ET” Thomas, between 2 and 2:30 p.m. They encountered a short, skinny man in the driveway as they pulled into Shubuta Vossburg Road, about 11 miles west of Shubuta, Mississippi. He was armed with a revolver. Marty would later provide additional details about him, such as the fact that he had a shaved head, two missing front teeth, and wore a blue shirt and tennis shoes.
The two teenage girls were held at gunpoint and walked to the back of the trailer, where they observed the silver Ford pickup truck of Donald, another assailant with a shotgun who was described as a tall black man and a corpse lying on the ground. Marty quickly identified the body as that of her brother’s cousin, James Lamar Lafferty, and she knew beyond doubt that he had been murdered. The girls were taken to the mobile home, where they were horrified to find James’ son, Brandon Lafferty, was sitting on the sofa wearing bloody clothes. The girls were escorted out of the mobile home.
The attacker forced them to lie on the ground on their stomachs while he used hay twine to bind their hands and ankles behind their backs. Apart from that, he threatened to rape and kill them if they didn’t lie to the authorities and say the attackers were two black men. He demanded that they identify the suspects as black men. After that, he fetched a pitcher of tea from the fridge, while his companion still took weapons out of the bedroom. After a while, the two intruders got up and left, taking Donald’s truck with them.
The girls used their fingernails to cut the ties that were around their feet, then they used a knife found in the kitchen to remove the ties that were around their hands. When they were convinced no one was following them, the girls took Brandon and fled to a friend’s house, where Marty called the authorities and informed them of their whereabouts.
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Where are Brandon Lafferty and Marty Thomas today?
Both girls were terrified, so they initially lied to the police about the identity of the invaders and stuck to the story their attackers told them about two black men. However, when Marty discovered to her horror that her brother had also been shot and killed, she cooperated with the authorities by providing accurate descriptions of the invaders. Robert S. Minnick and James “Monkey” Dyess, who had escaped capture from Clarke County Jail the previous evening, were identified by police as the individuals responsible for the murders.
Ultimately, both offenders were apprehended and sentenced to life in prison; unfortunately, one of them passed away in 2018 while it was still out of date. Marty was always there for Brandon when he was growing up, but she waited to explain what happened to her father until he was old enough to fully understand it. Brandon had a nagging feeling, even as a small child, that there was more to his family than he was told about him. At this point, it’s highly likely that Brandon Lafferty and Marty Thomas are leading lives hidden from the public eye in the state of Mississippi.
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