An 18-year-old high school senior was found shot to death in a wooded area behind a Robinsonville apartment complex, more than half a day after deputies first responded to a shots-fired call at the same property. Justin Davis, who was entering his senior year at Lake Cormorant High School, was pronounced dead by the Tunica County coroner after he was discovered unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds near Lakeside Vintage Apartments. No one has been taken into custody, and investigators are asking anyone with information to come forward.
According to WREG.com, deputies were first called to Lakeside Vintage Apartments in the middle of the night for a report of shots fired. When they arrived, a vehicle fled the scene, and deputies gave chase before the driver got out and ran on foot, leaving the car behind. Deputies seized that vehicle and found a firearm inside it, but it was not until deputies returned to the complex for a second, shooting-related call later that day that they found Davis lying in the woods nearby. Per Mississippi's Hometown News, the initial shots-fired call came in at 2:27 a.m. on Sunday, while the second 911 call that led deputies to Davis did not come until 2:15 p.m. that same day — a gap of nearly twelve hours between the first sign of trouble and the discovery of his body.
A Nearly Twelve-Hour Gap Between Calls
That timeline leaves a stretch of hours during which Davis's shooting apparently went unreported, even as deputies were on scene chasing a fleeing vehicle and recovering a weapon from it. It remains unclear whether that seized firearm is connected to Davis's death; the report notes only that deputies found it inside the vehicle abandoned by the driver who ran. Tunica County authorities have identified Davis as the victim, and the coroner declared him dead at the scene.
Davis lived in Walls, in DeSoto County, roughly 15 miles north of the Tunica County apartment complex where he was killed, per Mississippi's Hometown News. He was entering his senior year at Lake Cormorant High School, which serves nearly 1,000 students in grades 9 through 12 as part of the DeSoto County School District — the largest public school district in the state, according to the district. Lakeside Vintage Apartments itself is a 160-unit complex of 10 two-story buildings built in 1998 and managed by Beztak Properties, according to RentCafe.
Sheriff's Office and Crime Stoppers Seek Tips
Authorities are asking anyone with information about the shooting to contact the Tunica County Sheriff's Office at 662-363-1411. Tunica County Crime Stoppers is separately offering a cash reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest, and tips can be submitted anonymously through the Crime Stoppers line at 662-910-0400.
This is not the first violent shooting deputies have investigated in Robinsonville this year. In March, the Tunica County Sheriff's Office investigated a shooting on Fitzgerald Boulevard that wounded an 18-year-old victim and led to attempted murder charges against four suspects in what authorities described as suspected gang retaliation. That same month, Hoodline reported on a wild casino-corridor chase that ended with a K9 apprehending a suspect who was already out on bond for capital murder tied to an earlier Robinsonville triple homicide.
A Pattern of Violence at Tunica County Complexes
The violence at residential complexes in the county has drawn federal attention before. In August 2025, federal authorities sentenced a repeat offender to 15 years in prison on federal ammunition charges connected to a fatal shooting at Kirby Estates, another Tunica County apartment complex, as Hoodline reported at the time. Mississippi has historically recorded among the highest per-capita homicide rates in the country, a trend that has prompted multi-agency task force operations involving the Tunica County Sheriff's Office, the DeSoto County Sheriff's Office, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, and the ATF, according to the Tunica County Sheriff's Office.
Under Mississippi law, a first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, while a capital murder conviction can bring life without parole or the death penalty, per Mississippi Code Annotated Section 97-3-21 as cited by FindLaw. No charges have been announced in Davis's death, and it remains unknown whether the firearm recovered from the fleeing vehicle is linked to the shooting that killed him.
