Miss. Judge Is Fatally Stabbed by Her Adult Son, Who Is Killed After Charging Police with Knife

Facebook Judge Sheila Osgood

A beloved Mississippi judge was fatally stabbed in her home Wednesday morning by her son, who was shot and killed after he charged officers with a knife, say police.

On Wednesday at about 11:30 a.m., officers in Moss Point on the Gulf Coast were called to a home on Davis Street to conduct a welfare check on Judge Sheila Osgood, 65, who hadn’t shown up for work.

The officers left when no one answered the door, but returned an hour later when they responded to a 911 call about a disturbance.

An officer heard gunshots and called for backup, according to a statement from the Moss Point Police Department.

The officer went inside and found Osgood on the floor, the victim of an apparent homicide.

While he called for medical assistance, a man later identified as the judge’s son, Gregory Jackson, 45, who was armed with a “large knife,” came at the officers who were securing the crime scene in the house, the statement says.

“The officers issued numerous commands for him to disarm himself, but he ignored them and continued to advance on them,” the statement says.

He continued his “rapid, aggressive advance on the officers,” who shot and killed him, the statement says.

A man officers had encountered on the front lawn with a handgun, who turned out to be a family member who’d come to check on the judge, was not charged for shots that were fired, the statement said.

The man complied with officers’ commands to lay down his weapon, the statement said.

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The judge's homicide is now under investigation by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Jackson County District Attorney’s Office are investigating the shooting involving the officers.

In accordance with department policy, the officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by outside agencies.

At a press conference on Friday, Osgood’s oldest son, Nubian Holmes, remembered his mother as someone who was always willing to help others.

"So many voices, so many faces that you may not see here that were touched by her life are part of her story," Holmes said, WLOX reports. “A story that shaped Sheila Osgood into a sister, a friend, a neighbor, a judge, and a mother.”

Holmes also asked everyone to pray for his brother who was killed when he allegedly charged officers with a knife.

“We ask God to have mercy on my brother’s soul,” said Holmes. “My brother’s soul. We do that because my mom would have done that.”

The community is also mourning.

“You could depend on Sheila," Union Baptist Church Rev. Larry G. Hawkins Sr. told WLOX. "She was a go-getter. If you gave her a task, she got it done and she met no strangers. She saw the best in all people. Just had that kind of quality of a very loving caring person.”

Moss Point Supervisor Melton Harris told WLOX, “You always knew where she stood.”

Calling her a “very vocal individual,” he said, “She would speak and she would always look to both sides of the story for whatever she was dealing with."