Tonight on Dateline.
Jay's number one thing was people will know my name.
People will know me.
Jay Lee was one in a million at Ole Miss.
He was regularly on social media.
Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok.
All of a sudden that stopped.
We got the call from the University Police Department about, hey, Jay Lee's missing.
I didn't know what could have happened to him.
We start looking at who he's talking to on Snapchat.
We see this name, Red Eye 24.
What was it about those exchanges?
It seemed like Jay Lee was upset.
If you mess with those men, something bad could happen to you.
Because of the secret, he has it all to lose.
It's in the middle of the summer here in Mississippi.
Somebody wearing a hoodie caught our eye.
He looks at the trash can big enough to put a body in.
Lord, what type of punishment is this?
It's like emotional torture.
This humble, loving family, they were going to get everything that we had.
We started sifting through decaying leaves, and there was a piece of jewelry.
That was the only piece that we didn't have.
Now we've got it.
Let's go.
A victim whose life was an open book and a suspect whose life was a story of secrets.
I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
Here's Blaine Alexander with Bringing Jay Home.
By all appearances, it was just another piece of trash strewn amongst the tires and tossed junk in these forgotten woods of rural Mississippi.
And I'm just sifting it through my hands and a flashlight catches a glimpse of something shiny.
It was a most unlikely discovery.
The final piece of a tragic puzzle that began two and a half years earlier.
When I didn't get that call, I told my husband something's going on.
This story is about outrage.
Where is Jay?
Where is Jay?
And determination.
You start stacking those pebbles and all of a sudden, everything's starting to point in one direction.
It's about an extraordinary friendship.
You saw a family that was truly broken, that you felt so broken for them.
And a dormant truth awakened.
How did you find out what had happened?
I'm sorry.
But here in the heart of the Bible Belt, this story is also about faith and that eternal hope that what's done in the darkness will always come to light.
I know God's going to make a way.
Lord, I don't know what you want me to do at this point, but I'm going to keep saying Jay's coming home.
It was July 8th 2022 when Tayla Carey texted her 20-year-old brother, Jay Lee, a recent graduate of the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
She was just checking in, something she'd done daily since they were kids.
Where are you at?
What you eating today?
What you doing tomorrow?
You guys were literally walking each other through your days.
Step by step.
In real time.
In real time.
Jay loved his sister, but he was a mama's boy through and through.
As soon as he knew that mom was up and moving, he was going to call.
Jay's parents, Stephanie, a retail manager, and Jimmy, a truck driver and minister.
And it's not just one time, it's two or three times a day.
Miss Stephanie, there wasn't a day that went by that you didn't talk to him.
Not a day went by. until that hot summer day in July, which was strange, inexplicable, really.
It was my birthday.
And me knowing Jay, he would call me and sing happy birthday all night, long before two or three in the morning.
She did get a text from Jay at 2 a.m.
It's your birthday, lady, he wrote.
I love you.
But after that, silence.
As a mom, you knew in your heart Something was wrong.
I knew, yes.
Jay, the youngest of Stephanie's four children, had always shared his cell phone location with his mom.
It started back in high school.
So we were keeping tabs on each other, you know.
I can roll over in the bed at 2 o'clock in the morning and say, okay, he's at home.
Can I say, it is remarkable that once he went off to college, he kept that location on.
He did.
But now?
The location was turned off just like that.
You know, we just didn't know what to think.
Taylor reached out to Jay's college friend, Jose Reyes.
Which was odd because I had never had a conversation with Taylor.
And she kind of was just asking, hey boo, have you heard from Jay Lee?
He tried to call and text his friend, but none went through.
So now, almost a day since Jay had last texted his mom, Jose drove to his friend's campus apartment to check things out.
I went up and I knocked on his door.
No one opened the door.
I could hear his dog Lexi on the other side of the door.
Another red flag.
Jose knew Jay was obsessed with Lexi.
Everyone knew it.
He took her everywhere, to shops and museums, on road trips, even to class.
That boy, he would not leave Lexi like that alone.
Not for that long.
That's out of character.
Out of character for Jaylee, for sure.
Jay's mom knew it was time to call police.
She reached out to the University of Mississippi PD to request a welfare check.
The dispatcher notified Captain Jane Mahan, a 19-year veteran of the Ole Miss Police Force.
She was very insistent.
The mom called 6 am the next morning looking for an update expressing I have still not heard from my son.
This is very unusual type behavior for him.
Captain Mahan sent officers to Jay's apartment.
From their conversations with Jay's mom, police knew about the car Jay owned a black Ford Fusion with a distinctive gold racing stripe on its hood.
But they couldn't find it in the parking lot.
Upstairs, Jay's door was slightly open.
They knocked, no answer.
So they went inside.
He's not there.
Nobody's in the apartment.
Did it look like there were any signs of a struggle or anything like that?
No, the apartment looked like a college individual's apartment.
Food here and there on the counter, you know.
And Jay's things were in his room.
University police checked out the hospitals and jails in the area to see if somehow Jay had wound up in the ER or behind bars.
Nothing.
What's more, they learned, Jay hadn't shown up to work for the past two days.
Captain Mahan needed a lead, and she had a hunch.
We're looking for any clue at all, and there's a camera right here outside of Jay's apartment.
Looking right at his door?
Yes, ma'am.
It was tremendous in this investigation, being able to identify when Jay was leaving his apartment.
Not just when, but how.
The mystery of what happened to Jay would haunt an entire community.
I felt scared.
As a father, I just wanted to get him.
He said that the guy told him he was going to do something that he had never done before.
And reveal a most unlikely suspect.
He was giving me advice on how to stay out of trouble.
And this is what I found.
How long does it take to strangle someone?
All that before one final, stunning revelation.
I was like, okay, Lord, what type of punishment is this?
Jaylee's family was concerned on the day he went missing.
By day two, they were panicked.
I know I was doing at least 24 to 25 calls a minute.
Back to back, back to back, back to back, back to back, back to back, back to back, because it kept going to voicemail.
Jay's friend Jose monitored Jay's social media accounts.
For years, Jay had posted something almost daily.
But now, nothing.
He was always my mini little internet celebrity.
I always enjoyed seeing his posts, his stories, his tweets online.
He was very active on social media.
Very active.
Yes.
As Jay's family and friends became increasingly desperate, university police captain Jane Mahan was pursuing her first lead.
The security footage from that camera facing Jay's apartment.
She rewound it to 4.01 a.m. on July 8th, and there he was, Jay, leaving his apartment.
It was a strange sight.
Jay was wearing a robe, slippers and a gold bonnet, almost as if he'd gotten out of bed and just sleepwalked right out the door.
Wearing that outfit robe bonnet, slippers it appears maybe he's just running off campus for a minute or two and then coming back.
Like a quick errand.
Right, absolutely.
Tells me Jay intended on coming back, coming back home.
And she was right.
About 30 minutes later.
He comes back in, same clothing, goes in.
Okay.
Then around 5.58, the same morning, Jay comes back out of his apartment.
He gets into his car and then he leaves out of the parking lot and goes off campus.
But this time, Jay didn't return.
Jay Lee was definitely a night owl.
He had a very strange sleep schedule.
Braylon Johnson was one of Jay's best friends and his former roommate.
He definitely wasn't a casual person.
He didn't leave the house in his bathrobe very often.
He would get dressed.
He would get dressed, even if it was just to go check the mail or to walk his dog.
There were many times that I saw him leaving the house to walk his dog, to walk Lexi in heels.
Yep, heels.
Jay was out and proud.
And when it came to fashion, he loved to make a statement.
And I'm seeing catcalls on the street and stuff, I guess because I have on this revealing outfit.
He was the type of person, he can put on some blue pants, a purple shirt, and a red hat.
And some cheetah print heels if he wanted to put on some cheetah print heels.
And it was going to look good.
And if you didn't like it or well, he was still going to shred it.
When you close your eyes and think about your brother, what's the first thing that comes to mind?
Unapologetically happy.
Would you say that it takes a lot of courage to be openly gay here in Oxford, Mississippi?
A lot of courage.
Yes.
Especially if, like Jay, you decide to run for Ole Miss Homecoming King.
Hotel is a homecoming, hotel is a homecoming.
So go ahead, take risks, cross barriers, and be you.
He was campaigning every day and getting a lot of backlash.
Face to face?
Face to face, yes.
What were people saying?
Talking about him wearing heels and using the N-word?
Just saying his campaign didn't represent Ole Miss.
And even though he didn't win, he took that as an opportunity to advocate on campus for minority groups of hey.
This is what my experience is like doing something that I have a right as a student to do.
His goal I mean, I think from day one to be an impact on people's lives.
I can remember him being born.
You know, I was in the room.
The first thing that came out was his fist.
So I knew he was going to be a fighter.
You're a minister.
You all are a family of very deep faith living in the Deep South.
Yes.
A lot of kids in his situation may have been very afraid to be who they truly were and be open about their sexuality, for fear that their parents wouldn't accept them.
You know, you can't leave your child's life.
That's something that I think you, as a parent, should step back and let them know that, regardless of what route you take, I'm here for you.
I'm going to show you love and I'm going to have your back.
Jimmy says he tried to instill in his son the lessons his father taught him, especially this one.
Be who you are or nothing at all.
Another thing Jay was, a fantastic student.
He graduated top 10 in his high school class and when he set off to Ole Miss he left with a rather ambitious goal graduate in three years.
He said, y'all watch my smoke.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to get it done.
And he did it.
Literally.
He wasn't playing.
He was 100% serious about his education and his future.
Jay was just as serious about his faith.
He grew up in the church.
Each and every Sunday he would get up and have to do a testimony and he was going to thank God for what he'd done in his life.
So when people look at Jay, they see the confidence.
But you're saying really what's underneath?
It is faith.
Yes.
And he never swayed from it.
It was that faith that shaped Jay's plans for his future.
He was pursuing a master's degree in social work.
He interned at Oxford's Child Protective Services and he'd organized a baby formula drive for low-income families, scheduled for the very day he went missing.
That just further confirmed my fears that someone has done something to Jay Lee.
Because I knew if he organized an event like that, he wouldn't miss it.
He wouldn't bail on it before it was complete.
So where was Jay?
Two days after he vanished, the department put out a missing persons poster including Jay's graduation photo and a picture of his car.
Jay's disappearance was now public.
The headlines soon followed.
Lee was last seen here at the campus walk apartment.
And so did the fear.
Every day that we woke up and there were no updates from the police, it was a nightmare.
Not long after university police released Jay's missing persons poster, the calls started rolling in by the hundreds.
The most promising lead came from a tow truck driver.
He told police that hours after Jay went missing, he found Jay's car in an illegal parking spot.
We learned that his car was towed from Molly Bartrell's apartments molly bar trails, an apartment complex about two and a half miles from jay's place, but it was off campus and out of the jurisdiction of university police.
The car was here in spot 43.
First here 43, enter the oxford police department and detective ryan baker, who would lead the investigation from now on.
What did you find inside the car?
Found Jaylee's wallet with student ID, his driver's license, credit cards, stuff like that.
We couldn't find the car keys or Jaylee's phone was not in the car either.
Are you dusting for fingerprints?
Are you trying to get any sort of evidence from that car?
We actually had it towed to the Mississippi Crime Lab and they actually processed for fingerprints and so forth and only found Jaylee's fingerprints on the car.
So no other prints, no other DNA, nothing else that indicated anybody else had been inside that car?
Nothing from the car, no.
We had some officers come out here and do some knocking talks and we didn't find anybody that really knew Jay Lee or even knew he frequented here or was even here that day.
Investigators wondered, did Jay Lee abandon his car at Mollie Bar Trails, or did someone else?
They scrolled through the complex's security video.
It showed Jay's car entering Molly Bar Trails at 725 am, about an hour and a half after Jay left his apartment the second time.
Could you tell who was behind the wheel?
You could not.
The glare from the sun and so forth, the way that camera is viewed.
You could not tell who was driving the car.
Was it Jay?
His family and friends were desperately searching for him.
We pretty much searched almost all of Oxford and a little bit outside of Oxford as well.
Was there ever a thought that maybe he had harmed himself?
Never.
Never.
Jay was the type of person that loved his life so much and so truly he lived for himself.
So Jay harming himself or even thinking about harming himself, he would never, ever do that.
But would someone else harm Jay?
Maybe even kill him?
As he searched for his son, Jay's father says he couldn't stop that thought from creeping in.
One area I looked at, I saw tire marks near a wooded area.
I went in.
What were you thinking when you saw those tire marks?
That he may have been dumped in there.
And as a father, I just wanted to get him.
Yeah.
You know, I just wanted to bring him out of there.
I'm asking that if anyone knows anything about or sees anything, say something.
This is my plea that you help find my child.
Thank you.
Every day, you could see Mr. Lee carrying the weight for the family.
Oxford Police Chief Jeff McCutcheon updated Jay's family daily.
You saw a family that was truly broken, this humble, loving family that you felt so broken for them.
I think we took their burden and their hurt, and we put it inside of us to drive us.
That's why the chief made a promise, and it was personal.
I had committed one way or the other we were going to bring Jay home.
I would never have peace.
Our team would have never had peace.
Their family would have never had peace if we didn't bring Jay home.
What was the feeling within the LGBTQ community as these days were passing with no sign of Jay?
Fear.
Every day that we woke up and there were no updates from the police, it was a nightmare.
Mississippi has no hate crime laws protecting its LGBTQ residents, and advocacy groups have consistently ranked the state as one of the least safe places for queer people in the United States.
That was weighing heavily on the minds of Jay's friends, who believed he might be targeted not only because he was openly gay, he was also a well-known drag performer.
There were definitely a lot of hate and homophobia towards Jay and the way that he presented himself.
So I definitely was scared, because violence in the queer community is so prevalent that I didn't know what could have happened to him.
Within that year in the state of Mississippi there had been two transgender people who had been killed.
Of course, Jay wasn't transgender, but part of the queer community.
Did that heighten the fear?
Definitely.
And we started to think the worst, that maybe he was hate crime.
Maybe someone did something to him.
Was there ever any thought that this could possibly be some sort of a hate crime?
We're just trying to collect all the facts and piece all the puzzles together.
You consider every aspect of where the investigation can go. which right now was nowhere.
Captain Mahan, still on the case, poured over every detail in that security video.
And then she noticed something important.
It was the way Jay held his iPhone as he left the apartment.
You could tell it was like illuminated.
It was lit up.
And he just held it in his hand like this.
And he held it the whole way to his vehicle.
Typically, I don't think people carry their phones like that unless they're talking on their phone.
That's big.
Yes.
It shows there's somebody out there who was talking to him.
In the last known moments of where he was.
Yes, ma'am.
Who was it?
And did that person have anything to do with Jay's disappearance?
Turns out the first real break in the case was just a phone call away.
I'm like, who are you going to see at six o'clock in the morning?
In the college town of Oxford, Mississippi, news of a missing student had been spreading like crazy.
But the queer community was bracing for the possibility that police would do little or nothing about it.
I mean, no one's shocked when a queer person goes missing in the South, you know.
Blake Summers and Jay became friends after Jay started performing in drag shows at Code Pink.
An event space Blake founded.
You were not confident that, quite frankly, police would do their job when it came to trying to find him.
I'm not confident in the justice system to prosecute what needs to be done, you know?
I mean, our history with police isn't really that great.
Did you get a sense that there was this kind of general distrust in the community toward police as they were coming around asking questions, investigating?
I mean, I think it's natural with our community to have that distrust.
You don't know if a queer person, a black person will be treated the same as a sorority girl.
Some friends were worried about talking to police for fear of saying the wrong thing or anything that might diminish Jay.
I was scared to talk to the police.
I didn't want them to think like oh, if you say someone's annoying or young or boisterous, that they deserved it or they'd be any more worth investigating.
There was some reluctancy early on because of just fear of, can you be trusted?
Can I be vulnerable with you?
Am I safe to talk in this environment?
A lot of fear.
Will law enforcement take this seriously?
I know what policing means to me.
I know how passionate I am.
But for a group that may not believe that, your words don't matter, your actions do.
Oxford police would have to earn that trust, starting with Jay's best friend, Jose.
He was one of the first people police interviewed.
We were open to listening and open to learning.
I mean, it clicked in my head.
We're in the South.
Not many people know the lingo, or you know the terminology that comes within.
You know the queer space.
He kept his guard up, especially when they asked him for an alibi.
Were you concerned that they were looking at you?
I was concerned.
I'm like, I know we are getting, we're getting desperate.
We're trying to look underneath every stone, but...
I'm not the person y'all are looking for.
I'm Jalee's friend.
I would never hurt him.
Jose gave police his cell and detectives determined his alibi was solid.
He was nowhere near Jay when he disappeared.
I do recall kind of my trust being tested a little, but the questions that they asked I could tell that they definitely weren't giving up.
Mike, come check this out.
He was right.
Police were determined to figure out what happened to Jay Lee.
They hoped this person could help.
The one talking to Jay on a video call when he left his apartment for the last time.
Turns out, finding him wasn't hard at all.
He reached out to them.
His name is Khalid Fears.
He told police he and Jay Lee were close friends.
Our friendship consisted a lot of checking in with each other day to day.
And that's what Khalid was doing the day Jay disappeared.
Khalid had worked the night shift, and he remembers talking to Jay throughout the night.
Once I finished working, I proceeded to call him.
And I noticed that he was like leaving his apartment.
And my first impression was, where are you going?
I'm like, who are you going to see at 6 o'clock in the morning?
Jay told him he was going to hook up with someone, but he wouldn't give Khalid a name.
He told me he was going to see someone that he had saw earlier in the night.
He told me that that got into a huge argument and that he would tell me about it later.
Jay told Khalid he got so mad at the guy, he blocked him from his social media.
But the man found a way to reach him anyway.
I was like, well, what are you going over there to do?
He said that...
The guy told him he was going to do something that he had never done before.
I want to say it was like a three-minute phone call and he was just like okay, I'm here, I'm going to let you go.
And I was just like, okay, friend, have fun, you know, talk to you later.
For police, this was good, concrete information.
A three-minute drive from Campus Walk is still a good-sized area, but it kept us centered around where we needed to be.
Ryan, take a look at this.
Lieutenant Shane Fortner was in charge of Oxford Police's Criminal Investigations Unit.
So you knew wherever he was going, it was within three minutes of his home.
Yes.
Who was Jay going to see?
The search continued.
And a closer look at that security video from the apartment complex where Jay's car was found would point the case in a whole new direction.
Here's this individual running out of the complex.
A running man.
Was he somehow connected to Jay Lee's disappearance?
That's somebody that wants to get out of the area.
They don't want to be here.
Summertime Mississippi can be an unforgiving place.
A relentless heat that just kind of hangs there, stays with you, no relief.
Such was the pain for Jay Lee's friends and family, now seven days since his disappearance.
I started like losing faith.
I was like, okay, Lord, what type of punishment is this?
Investigators were trying to figure out who Jay met up with when he left his apartment that morning.
We were able to obtain Jay Lee's call detail records, who he talked to previously before he went missing.
One man stood out.
A restaurant worker, Jay texted shortly before Khalid called him the morning he disappeared.
Detectives found him and brought him in for questioning.
What was his demeanor?
It was kind of evasive at first, kind of didn't really want to give us a whole lot of information about what he was doing and where he was during the time frame and so forth.
The man said he worked that night and went straight home after.
Detective Baker said he appeared nervous, fidgety.
He denied having a relationship with Jay, but then admitted they had sex once.
His reason for not being honest at first?
He told detectives he wasn't openly gay and worried his family would find out.
That raised the detective's suspicion.
Jay's friend Khalid had told them about men who he described as being on the DL or the down low.
My definition of DL is just somebody who's living like a double life.
So it may be someone who has a family, have a wife, might even have kids, but on the outside they live their life as a heterosexual person.
But you know, in their spare time they're exploring all their fantasies.
And that Khalid told us can bring trouble.
The risk that you take when dealing with people who aren't comfortable with their sexuality.
Um, I remember telling Jay that a DL man will kill you before they let their dirty little secret get out.
I think that when it comes to down low men in the Black community, there's definitely a warning on them that if you mess with those men, something bad could happen to you.
So just inherently, the nature of that relationship was a risky one, a dangerous one for Jaylee.
Definitely.
And there was more.
The restaurant worker told them Jay had blocked him on social media.
He did, to a degree, fit the profile of the person that Khalid Fears told you about, right?
He did.
The man was adamant he had nothing to do with Jay's disappearance.
Detectives let him go, but they weren't done digging.
They got a search warrant for his cell phone to extract his data call detail records.
You know the whole nine yards.
They also worked to verify his alibi.
Could anybody confirm that he was at home?
No, there was nobody that we could really confirm.
Detectives pulled security video from the restaurant where the man worked and they learned something else.
He had left work a little early that night than he probably should have.
An hour early, in fact, a detail he left out during his interview.
Police wondered what else the man might be hiding.
He's a person of interest, definitely.
But for police, he was by no means the only person of interest.
Especially after a fellow investigator noticed something on the security video from the Molly Bar Trails apartments where Jay's car was found.
Something the others had missed right there.
A person running out of the apartment complex about nine and a half minutes after Jay's car pulled in.
What he was wearing really caught our eye.
It's July 8th.
It's in the middle of the summer here in Mississippi.
It gets warm.
Very hot.
Very hot.
Somebody wearing a hoodie, a pretty heavy heather gray hoodie, long sleeves, hood up.
They wanted to track this runner down.
How close are we to the apartments from where we are?
You're about a quarter mile from the apartments, that direction.
So when you start pulling surveillance video, what do you see?
The individual that ran out of Molly Bar Trails.
We see that individual actually start walking down the hill and come in front of the gas station here.
The mystery jogger.
He'd stopped jogging as soon as he exited Molly Bar Trails, and now, here he was, at a gas station up the road.
We see a car come beside him and that car actually slows down.
And then that same white car circles around the parking lot and pulls in by a gas pump.
They have a brief exchange, it appears, and that individual gets in the car and they drive off.
So it's very clear to you immediately that this wasn't somebody out for just a morning run or a morning jog.
No, it wasn't.
That's somebody that wants to get out of the area.
Detectives were convinced it was the jogger who had ditched Jay's car in the apartment complex before fleeing with the unknown driver.
We don't have any clue who the individual is that ran out or who's in the car.
We got to find that car.
We got to figure out who was in the passenger seat.
And whether they had any connection to Jay.
Could those answers be found in the direct messages in Jay's social media accounts?
Well, the police were having trouble finding out.
They wanted his Snapchat information.
He'd been using the app the very morning he went missing.
But they felt there wasn't time to file a search warrant and wait for Snapchat to respond.
So Detective Baker says they filed an emergency request with the company.
It was denied.
Desperate, Jay's father, Jimmy, called Apple with a personal plea.
Access to his son's iPhone data.
Literally, you know, asked them, this is a missing person under the age of 21.
This is my child.
And I'm trying to see if there's any way we can get login information.
Jimmy says the rep assured him they would send him the information, but a second rep told him no.
Apple didn't respond to our request for comment.
How frustrating was that for you?
Very.
It was like emotional torture to tell us you can get it and then get over there and say no, we can't.
Meanwhile, time is ticking.
Yes.
And you were still trying to find him.
Still trying to find him.
So investigators would have to find another way into Jay's social media accounts.
And once they did, what they uncovered was well worth the wait.
We see this name, Red Eye 24.
Oxford police had a tantalizing new nugget, that overdressed jogger.
Since you're trying to piece everything together, how significant is that?
I think it's very significant because you're talking about somebody that I want to get out of the area.
I don't want to be seen by anybody.
But as they tried to figure out who the jogger was, they did figure out who he wasn't.
That jittery restaurant worker.
He went home and he had sat in his driveway for a while playing on his phone before he actually went into his house.
If someone were preparing to commit a crime, they could easily leave their cell phone someplace and then go about and do whatever they meant to do.
Could that have been a possibility here?
No, because the phone was being interacted with.
So they cleared the restaurant worker and zeroed in on what Jay told his good friend Khalid Fears before he vanished.
He told Khalid that he was going somewhere, that he had previously been that night, and it was somebody that he had previously blocked on social media.
Since police still couldn't access Jay's social media accounts, a university officer fashioned a workaround.
He did a search warrant for Jay Lee's Apple iCloud account and he was able to find passwords and user accounts for social media and stuff like that.
The university granted access to Jay's college email account, so investigators could get his Snapchat data.
There's a function in Snapchat that you can download your own data. kind of a deep hidden thing.
Not a whole lot of people know about it, but you can.
And so we used his university email account that we now have control of, and sent his personal data Snapchat data to that email.
Finally, they were in.
Well, kind of.
The Snapchat log only showed the messages Jay received and the username of the sender.
The last message chain began at 5.25 a.m., That's the first time we see this name, RedEye24.
And that's a screen name.
That's a screen name.
RedEye texted, come back.
You coming or nah?
What was it about those exchanges with RedEye24 that caught your attention?
It appeared that he had met with them earlier.
Kind of seemed like Jay Lee was upset with this person based on the previous encounter that they had had.
To detectives.
Reading between the lines, it appeared Jay thought Red Eye wanted to break off contact with him.
Red Eye responded.
Then Red Eye seemed to give in to something.
Jay asked for texting.
Okay, I'll do it.
The detectives wondered if that meant something sexual.
Because we know a lot of things about Jay Lee.
And we learned throughout the investigation, Jay Lee would go meet other men and have sexual encounters.
At around 6 am, detectives believed Jay, chatting on the phone with Khalid, was driving to meet Red Eye.
Then, once he kind of got close to or what Khalid thought was appeared to be close, he kind of just ended the conversation and basically he had to go.
That's when detectives believe Jay showed up at Red Eye's front door.
We were confident that that was the last person that saw Jay Lee alive.
You got to figure out who this Red Eye underscore 24 is.
And I make a phone call to a friend at the U.S. attorney's office and just say, how can you help us?
The U.S. attorney filed a federal warrant and this time Snapchat delivered.
So that really was a turning point.
It was huge.
Now the detectives had Red Eye's email address and found it was the same email for a podcast called Dirt to Diamonds.
With another episode of Dirt to Diamonds podcast, today I have a special guest.
The host, a handsome 22-year-old man and fellow Ole Miss graduate.
Tim Harrington.
What do you learn about Tim Harrington?
Highly thought of on the Ole Miss campus.
I was a good student.
Jay's friend Braylon knew him well.
I definitely had leaned on Tim Harrington for help in the past.
He was giving me advice on.
You know how to stay out of trouble and what to do if your grades are bad.
I looked at Tim as a friend.
You have those people who kind of like take you under their wing.
Was Tim kind of like that?
Definitely.
Tim was very outgoing and he was definitely the life of the party type of person.
Detectives learned Tim was from Grenada, a small town about an hour from Oxford.
Like Jay, Tim was a preacher's kid, his grandfather an influential bishop.
Tim was active in his community too, as a youth counselor and a guitarist in the church band.
He was also an entrepreneur.
He started his own moving company while still in college.
He looked to be a young man that had a very bright future.
He was ambitious, whether that was going to be politically or in real estate.
And he projected confidence in an interview with the Ole Miss TV station.
My name is Tim Harrington.
I'm from the lovely city of Renata, Mississippi.
Here he was laying out his career path.
That's what I see myself doing, developing real estate.
Even casting himself as an entrepreneur influencer of sorts.
Don't worry about age or little things like that holding you back.
Get started.
You'll learn as you go.
Believed in himself, believed that he had a future.
He wanted greatness for himself and for his life.
This hardly sounds like the type of person that you would look at and say you are responsible for killing somebody.
Yeah, it did.
You just follow the evidence.
The detectives wanted to speak with Tim immediately.
They headed to his apartment, not knowing who or what they might find.
Two weeks after Jay Lee walked out of his campus apartment for the last time, the detectives, with body cameras rolling, followed the trail of Snapchat messages to the door of another Ole Miss graduate, Tim Harrington.
Tim opens the door.
We introduce ourselves.
We kind of tell Tim, hey, this is why we're here, all right?
Jay Lee's been missing.
Can we come in and talk to you and just see if you can help us out?
Yes, sir.
And he, you know, opened his door and allowed us to come in and speak with him.
So he's cooperating.
Oh, absolutely.
All right, Tim, do you know the family?
Yes, sir.
We were in Black Student Union together.
How well do you know them?
Oh, we were cool.
I wouldn't say we were like best friends, but we were like you know, just acquaintances, friends like that.
He was saying, yeah, we weren't that close.
We knew each other in passing, but It was obvious to us, based on the Snapchat messages, that they had more of a relationship than he led into.
We didn't know the nature of it, but we knew that there's more of a relationship than I knew him from school and passing.
Have you had any contact with him lately?
No, sir.
I haven't heard anything since he's been gone.
I haven't heard anything.
When was the last time you had any contact with him?
Um...
It was the night, or rather the very early morning, that Jay Lee went missing.
Tim told the officers he was getting ready to move to Dallas that he'd run into Jay while he was out looking to buy a drill, and Jay called him later.
And he was like, you know, Detectives then changed their line of questioning.
And Tim dismisses it.
Where does the conversation go from there?
The question that stood out to me the most was, what do you think happened to Jay Lee?
What do you think happened to him?
I don't know.
Tim goes on to say it's possible he went and had casual sex with someone and they kidnapped him.
Out of the blue.
Out of the blue.
It feels oddly specific.
It does.
All along in this conversation, you've got things on a simmer, let's say.
Yes.
At some point, you turn it up to a full boil.
Oh, absolutely.
We had to crank the heat up.
We detained him for further questioning.
So when you brought Tim down to headquarters, you were doing it right here in this room?
Yes.
Now it's starting to get real and let's start trying to figure out how we can get him to say I was lying to y'all.
So is it possible?
Tim, what you told us in the apartment was not as accurate as it was made out to be.
No, sir, it wasn't as accurate.
It was more in depth.
I didn't think so, Tim.
So tell me about this deeper relationship you and Jaylee have.
It was just like a sexual thing.
It wasn't that serious.
How many times have you and Jaylee had sexual intercourse?
I'm not sure.
Probably like maybe two or three.
Tim.
Tim. changes his story and he admits, yes, they did have a sexual relationship.
That's a big admission.
Absolutely.
But you know that he went back a second time.
Yes.
And Tim says, yes, it was for a sexual encounter that I was supposed to give Jaylee.
So this is in direct contrast to the story that he had just told you.
I was in direct contrast to everything he told us up to that point.
Okay.
How did he leave?
He was cool.
He was just like, he thought like I wasn't going to do it because I don't do it.
So he left the apartment walking?
Yeah.
Hmm.
And then what?
Did you leave the apartment?
Yes, sir.
Where'd you go?
I went to Walmart.
That was news we had no information about.
So he's the one who introduced that to you?
He introduced that he went to Walmart.
Okay.
What'd you do at Walmart?
The detectives wanted details.
Tim had a moving company, so he said it's what they wrap boxes in.
The detectives pressed Tim for more information about what he did that morning.
And that's when he asked if he needed a lawyer.
Tim had stopped cooperating, but the detectives felt they had their guy.
So at this point now, he's charged.
He's under arrest.
You've charged him with murder.
Yes.
So what happened next came as a big shock.
We were actually on the lawn of the courthouse just crying.
The needles were heavy.
I was confused.
I was disgusted.
News of Tim Harrington's arrest hit Jay's family and friends like one of Mississippi's merciless tornadoes.
Before, you're holding out hope.
You're searching for him.
Police are searching for him.
Now there's an arrest and somebody charged with his murder.
Yes.
It was hard.
I mean, the evidence was there to say something happened, but where he's by it, we didn't know.
Freeland, you knew Tim Harrington.
You were students together.
I was very angry when I saw his mugshot.
From that moment forward, I knew that Tim Harrington had something to do with it in some way.
People were shocked to learn that one that they had a relationship, and then two that Tim Harrington was being accused of murder.
Tim Harrington was in jail, and DA Ben Creekmore would make the case to keep him there.
But without Jay's body, that could be tricky.
Typically in a criminal case, you're going to have the body.
You're going to know what form of violence was used.
You're going to be able to call the medical examiner in to tell the jury the manner of death.
Cause of death.
And you had none of that.
I had none of that. so he needed to build a circumstantial case.
By now he had obtained Jay's side of his early morning Snapchat exchange with RedEye24, aka Tim Harrington.
At one point Jay seemed suspicious of Tim texting Yeah, now it seems like you're just trying to lure me over there to beat my ass, or something.
And he warned Tim against violence.
Jay at some point says, you know, if you try something fast, it won't end up good for you, right?
What does that mean?
It's saying that Jay Lee is kind of concerned or maybe a little fearful to come back over to Tim's apartment.
But then Jay messaged, I'm coming.
Even though Jay is suspicious, he still gets him to come over.
Yes.
Detectives believe Jay showed up at Tim's front door because he texted a single word, open.
So he's saying open, basically open the door, I'm here.
Yeah, I'm here, open the door.
It was the final text Jay sent, the last evidence he was still alive.
The prosecutor got Tim's phone and computer, which would turn up more clues.
And investigators also found security camera footage that captured Tim's movements in the minutes and hours after Jay went to see him.
Moments after Jay Lee enters the apartment, Tim is leaving the apartment, going to Walmart.
He looks at where all the trash cans are.
There's a trash can big enough to put a body in, is what he's looking at.
At Walmart.
That's right.
But he ends up just buying a roll of duct tape.
Duct tape, not clear packaging tape, as he told police.
We had found a roll of duct tape when we searched his apartment and took it as evidence.
After he left Walmart, a security camera captured Tim's company truck.
He goes and gets a box truck, and then he returns to his apartment.
About three and a half hours later, he drove the box truck to his parents' home in Grenada, where another camera picked up something suspicious.
From the neighbor's surveillance camera we're able to see Tim Harrington put a wheelbarrow and shovels in the back of that box truck.
As night closed in, Tim left his parents' house for about an hour, but his phone stayed.
Detectives had a theory.
Tim's going to get rid of Jay Lee.
Disposing of his body.
Yes.
But it was just a theory.
You have to prove that there's a murder.
Afram Sellers is a Harrington family friend.
He's also a criminal defense attorney.
How are you going to convict this man of murder and you don't know a manner or cause of death?
Or even that he's dead.
Or even that he's dead.
Police had searched Tim's apartment, his car and the box truck, but didn't find any incriminating evidence.
You know that Jaylee was at the apartment, but there's nothing that supports a violent act or a murder.
It was just speculation.
So you're saying, even with the best set of circumstantial evidence, without any sort of physical evidence?
It's just a theory.
That's the argument, yes.
Another argument, he says, murder was totally out of character for this young man.
For his family, it was impossible to imagine.
How do his parents respond to this?
This belief in that he's being charged, this belief that he could be involved in something like this.
That's a natural part of their response.
It's to be in shock, to be angry, to be fearful.
And they were all of those things.
They were all those things.
But they were also very prayerful.
Anything you'd like to say, Mr. Harrington?
Some of their prayers were answered.
About a month after Tim was arrested.
As Tim's lawyers prepared to argue for his release at a bond hearing, his supporters came out in droves.
These are people from church, from the community, people he knew growing up.
Yeah well, I think it was natural for them to give that support, because What he had put out in the community he was getting back, because the people are supporting someone that they just couldn't imagine being involved or charged with murder.
He had received over 70 letters from the Grenada Sheriff and other law enforcement officers in his church community basically campaigning for him to get out, before they had ever heard the evidence or knew what was going on, based on Tim Harrington being a good boy.
It upset us.
It enraged us.
We quickly organized to make sure that if Tim Harrington was being accused of doing something to Jay, that he wouldn't get bond.
That movement, Justice for Jay, started on social media and quickly grew to much more.
At this point, these are physical gatherings now.
Rallies, retabling, community projects, drives.
To raise awareness.
To raise awareness.
Justice for Jaylee!
Justice for Jaylee!
Justice for Jaylee!
The bond hearing got underway.
We weren't in the courtroom.
We were actually on the lawn of the courthouse just crying as we were getting the information from Twitter.
As they were releasing evidence in the courtroom and a new tweet would drop.
We would read it and then take a moment to just cry.
So this is the first time that you were learning the details of what prosecutors were saying happened.
Yes.
The details were heavy.
I was confused.
I was disgusted.
The judge initially denied Tim's motion for release, but about four months later, after his lawyers filed a civil suit, the prosecution agreed to release him.
Harrington was released from jail yesterday just before 3 o'clock.
And the judge let him out with an ankle monitor on a $250,000 bond.
I was like, why did they let him go when they know that they got these things on him?
It didn't seem fair or right.
It was crazy, and everyone was taking pictures of him.
So you're seeing him around town.
He was just walking free.
Just walking free.
All the while, Jay's father remained stoic.
It bothered me a little to see him walk, but I knew it was a part of the process.
And you had faith in the process?
Yes.
The investigation wasn't over, and Jay's father, Jimmy, had faith in Chief McCutcheon.
He was an honorable man.
Did you trust that he was doing everything that he could?
Absolutely.
To find your son?
Absolutely.
He's a pastor, a man of faith, as are you.
Would you all pray together, call on that faith together?
Oh, we did.
He and I got so close that I could just be honest and say, hey, I'm frustrated.
I'm worried about this.
And he would say, hey, let's just pray.
It felt like friends that came together that were on one mission together.
Nine months after Jaylee went missing, that mission entered a new phase.
A grand jury indicted Tim Harrington on upgraded charges of capital murder and kidnapping.
But as the case headed to trial, Jay's family and friends wondered if the evidence would be strong enough to convict.
Is it almost like you're walking in with one hand tied behind your back?
You're having to convince these people that someone is dead without even a body.
That's a huge reasonable doubt right there.
In December of 2024, two and a half years after Jay Lee disappeared, Tim Harrington went on trial for his murder.
Jay's father, Jimmy, was ready for it, but he was nervous.
Were you worried going in?
I think I was a little.
I even remember praying one night for the Lord to give me strength if he was to walk.
Gwen Ago, DA Ben Creekmore's co-counsel, led off the prosecution's case.
Did you have a concern that where we are in Mississippi, in the South, that it could make a jury less sympathetic to Jay?
100 because of people's just sort of ignorance and lack of understanding that Jay's just like you or me, that he was just a college kid whose parents supported him like anyone else's kid and their parents.
So Coop was gay.
He was vibrant.
He walked on his own feet.
If he wanted to wear heels, that's what he was going to wear.
But he was more than just that.
You can hear he's family-oriented.
He loved his mother more than he did his whole family.
And that's why Ago called Jay's mother, Stephanie, to the stand.
What did you want the jurors to take away from your words?
I wanted them to see that I was a mother that was for sure, that something had happened with my child and that he was no longer here with us.
Stephanie told the jury she knew something was wrong when she didn't get that birthday phone call.
Jay would call me every year on my birthday to sing happy birthday, no matter what time it was.
She also told the jury she had access to his credit card and bank accounts and all activities stopped on July 8 2022.
As you were up there, what gave you strength?
The support of my family.
Looking out at my children and my husband, knowing that they were there.
And who is it a picture of?
I apologize.
It's my son, Jaylee.
This was his first day in his first job when he first graduated high school.
Her heart was broken.
I've always said that I admire her strength to do it.
The strength that God gave her to just get up there and do that, I saw as a hero.
I knew I had to do this for Jay.
I had to be a voice for him.
Next, the prosecution had to prove that Tim Harrington murdered Jay to protect his own reputation.
Jay's friend, Khalid Fears, told the jury how he warned Jay not to hook up with a guy who was on the down low.
I said they would kill you before that dirty little secret gets exposed.
And that, prosecutors said, was precisely why Tim killed Jay.
Detective Ryan Baker told the jury about another message Jay sent Tim right after he left Tim's apartment in a huff.
It was 4.36 a.m.
Jay Lee sent it to Timothy Harington.
He says, I just wanted to be able to say I had GBDL.
Again, fun to have been the first guy experiment over.
The prosecution argued Tim took that message as a threat, that Jay was going to out him.
Chief McCutcheon said the motive came down to one word.
I wanted to say.
Say is a key word.
Because that is a verbal, someone's going to hear that.
To me, that was the trigger.
That was that hinge moment of, that's the out.
The prosecution argued Tim lured Jay back with a promise of sex and then murdered him.
To show Tim's true intention.
The prosecutor asked Detective Baker about a Google search he found on Tim's phone.
One the detective told us was a critical piece of evidence.
And this is what I found.
How long does it take to strangle someone?
This is something that he searched.
Yes, five minutes before Jay Lee got there.
How crucial was that?
Extremely crucial.
It helped us come up with intent to kill.
And if that wasn't incriminating enough, the prosecution had an ace in the hole.
Prosecutors showed jurors that video of the jogger running away from the Molly Bar Trails apartment complex where Jay's car was found and later getting into a white car at a gas station.
And then they heard from this man.
My name is Keziah Carter.
Keziah Carter told the jury he was driving the white car that morning and he picked up the jogger because he knew him.
It was Tim Harrington.
I seen it was him, and I blew the horn speaking, and he waved me down.
So I turned back around, looked around, got into the gas station.
He asked me for a ride to take him back home to Lafayette Place because he had been jogged.
The prosecutors showed jurors how Tim drove that box truck to his parents' house, loaded it with a wheelbarrow and shovel, then left his cell phone in his parents' home as he disappeared for almost an hour.
And they showed the jury Tim's conversation with police at his apartment, where he lied repeatedly.
And he was like, you know, I got you a deal, blah, blah, blah.
I was like, cool, you know.
We just chilled and talked and then he went back to his apartment.
Do you think he'll have a sexual relationship of any kind?
No, I'm not sure.
DA Ben Creekmore said that was the key to their case.
Even though we didn't have a confession.
Sometimes I'd much prefer lies in an interview over a confession.
He lied to his church, his family, his friends.
He lied to J.B. and gave him over that time because he had a problem that he had to fix.
Then he lied to the police about everything.
In order to protect that lie, he had to get it rejected.
And that's what he did.
But the defense had some ammunition of its own and it went right back to the prosecution's biggest problem.
With no body, where was the proof of first-degree murder?
There wasn't any death whatsoever.
Zero.
Zero.
The prosecution had presented a mountain of circumstantial evidence against Tim Harrington.
Now, defense attorney Kevin Horan was about to tell the jury what evidence prosecutors did not have.
Horan launched his attack on the prosecution's case, telling the jury there was no evidence in Tim's apartment that he murdered Jay.
He grilled Lieutenant Shane Fortner.
I asked you if you could find any fiber or any trace evidence of any of those items ever having been in his apartment or left in his apartment.
No fibers of any kind.
No blood?
No blood.
No DNA?
No DNA.
Horan made sure the jury knew investigators hadn't found anything in that moving truck or on the wheelbarrow and shovel.
You got a report of zero evidence showing that Mr. Lee's body was in that box truck, right?
Mr. Lee went missing on July the 8th.
We did not get the box truck until July 26th, I believe.
Okay. but you didn't find any evidence.
We also investigated whether or not the cleaning agents to scrub it down.
It appeared visually that any of those things had occurred to the box truck, right?
Not that I'm aware of, no, sir.
But there was one piece of evidence that was difficult to explain away the Google search on Tim's phone.
At 557 am, Mr Harrington searches in Google.
Does a Google search?
How long does it take to strangle someone?
Horan asked Jay's friend Khalid Fears about that, suggesting Tim was interested in choking because Jay was as a sexual thrill.
We pointed out that y'all had conversations about choking and things of that nature in that conversation.
That's not sexual preference, though.
Okay.
Horan had Khalid read from one of their text exchanges.
He says, ooh, you like to choke and to be choked?
And your response was?
Heavy on him.
I felt, stripped naked, that I was sharing my private, intimate conversations with my friend with everybody.
In fact, between the evidence and the testimony, the trial was full of sex talk.
A bit of a shock for the religious crowd.
So a lot of the stuff, I was just like, hmm, Lord have mercy.
Horan implied that Google search could have just been Tim researching a sex act.
He thought Jay wanted to try.
Maybe, but what about that message Jay sent Tim that the prosecution said Tim perceived to be a threat?
Horan cross-examined the Oxford police chief about that.
Do you see anything in there that Jay Lee had threatened my client that he was going to quote-unquote out him at all?
At 436...
Jay Lee states.
I just wanted to say say, which is outing that I had you on the DL again, which is the download.
Fun to have been your first guy experience.
Jay Lee says, I wanted to say, he wanted to out him.
But Horan told the jury Tim didn't worry about being outed.
Even his deeply religious minister father said it would have been OK with him.
So was Tim really so afraid of being outed that he murdered Jay?
According to the defense, that was a stretch.
And once again, Horan said, police still had no proof that Jay was even dead.
A painful reminder for the chief.
We've been looking for Jay Lee's body for two years, and we're not going to stop until we find him.
And I can guarantee you that.
But they had not found him and therefore Horan told the jury the prosecution had not proven its case.
Ladies and gentlemen, you've got to look at the burden of proof in this case.
The burden of proof is beyond the original doubt.
The most reasonable burden, and the one that's supported by the lack of evidence, is not guilt.
Thank you.
The case was headed to the jury, And the court was in for a surprise.
How did you find out what had happened?
It seemed so simple to the people who loved Jay Lee.
He was clearly dead and Tim Harrington most certainly killed him.
So as the case went to the jury, Jay's sister was counting on a quick verdict.
And they go back and they're deliberating.
How are you feeling?
I was feeling very confident.
When I tell you my confidence was up the roof, I felt like I was Jay that day.
But the jury had to weigh all the evidence and the defense had argued there was no blood, no DNA or fibers, not even a body that linked Harrington to murder.
After four hours, the jury sent a note to the judge.
We have a note from the jury that says we feel confident we are unable to reach a unanimous decision.
They were deadlocked.
He encouraged them to dig a little deeper.
I won't see you back.
I was like, okay, what in the...
The world is going on.
Like, why are y'all taking so long to just come to an agreement when it's there, it's clear?
The prosecution and defense knew it could go either way.
So as the jury deliberated, they were discussing a plea deal.
The number one thing that any plea offer is going to require, tell us what you did with Jaylene.
We wanted Mr. Jimmy, we wanted Miss Stephanie to be able to bury their son.
They deserve that.
But Harrington turned the deal down, and the jurors kept talking, to no avail.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, the jury.
I have received another note that says we are unable to reach an agreement.
I'm going to declare a mistrial.
After a total of nine and a half hours of deliberations, a mistrial.
Just sick, you know, just sick for the family, for your team, for justice.
One of the things that bothered me worse than anything was to watch Timothy get up and arrogantly tell his folks come on, let's go.
The arrogance of it, you know, but I had to go through a lot of praying behind that.
But it took a lot of prayer for you to stay calm.
Yes.
For you to not let that anger take over.
Yes, it did.
Yes, it did.
In that moment, Chief McCutcheon wanted to be there for the man he now called his friend.
He took Jimmy's hand.
He said, no, it ain't over.
So that, you know, that was the encouragement I really needed at that time.
I'll never forget.
We all left the courthouse.
We go back to the district attorney's office and it was, you know what?
Tomorrow's a new day.
Let's get back after it and let's go find Jay and let's bring this thing home for the Lee family.
And then, seven weeks later, as prosecutors were preparing for a second trial, Unbelievably it happened right here in this patch of forgotten woods, about 20 miles from the home of Tim Harrington's parents.
Jay Lee had been gone for about two and a half years when, on a cold February day, the property's owner happened upon what appeared to be remains.
Human remains.
He called 911.
I walked down the hill and made sure to watch where I walked to make sure I didn't step on any evidence.
Carroll County Sheriff's investigators Jerry Bankston and Tucker Banks were among the first on the scene.
I see what appears to be a human skull laying on the ground right over here.
There were a few other bones.
I believe there was a pelvis bone and an arm bone or another leg bone laying in close proximity to this tree also.
Some of the remains were found wrapped in a blanket.
It was laying here beside this stump.
It had duct tape on the outside of it.
I'm just picking up dirt, basically like this, and I'm just sifting it through my hands, and a flashlight catches a glimpse of something shiny, and I was able to see at that point that it was a piece of jewelry.
It was a gold necklace.
And when Chief McCutcheon got the photo on his phone, he knew.
As you're racing down to get here, what are you thinking?
A lot.
Is it real excitement that, of all the sadness that everyone had been through, that there was this real possibility that we were going to get to make that phone call that we had promised that we were going to get to make?
Talk to me about the moment when you called Jay's father.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
So it was such a cool moment.
I called him and I could tell he was in his truck.
You could just hear the wind noise.
And I said, hey, are you by yourself?
And he said, no, Stephanie's with me.
He said, can you pull over?
And I'm like, OK.
When he said pull over, I was like, OK, something's going on.
So we pulled over and he said, we found Jay.
What was it like to hear that?
Well, it was like the dream.
I mean, I've always dreamed up.
Take me to February 2025.
How did you find out what had happened?
I'm sorry.
It's okay.
I didn't know and expect that just came up.
Just thinking about that day.
Holy cow.
I can see it just impacts you still.
I was very, very relieved.
Yeah.
And in my mind I always felt that something was missing, even if we got a conviction, because we would never know where Jaylee was.
They'd finally fulfilled their promise.
They brought Jay home.
Chief McCutcheon had no doubt that it was Tim who got rid of Jay's body.
What do you believe happened that he just tossed here?
When we got here and was kind of explained what was found, initially you have to believe he pulled up in the box truck, pops the top and then just pitches him off into the woods.
But could they prove it?
They found a body that was, well, not a body.
They found a skeleton.
It got us the direct evidence that he was dead.
Now...
Was he killed?
That question still remained.
Jay Lee was finally home and it was time to say goodbye.
Two weeks after Jay's remains were found, hundreds of people came to his funeral to bid him a tearful farewell.
What stands out to you the most about that funeral?
The gold casket.
I know Jay would have been like, It was a sense of closure.
It was a sense of, okay, he came home.
Jay came home.
But prosecutors still had work to do.
I want to talk about the state that you found Jay Lee in.
His body was decomposed.
There was no DNA evidence to take from it.
The hyoid bones. which typically indicates strangulation if it's broken, that was still intact.
There were some things there that the defense could certainly poke holes in.
Finding the body, did that yield as much evidence as you expected it would?
Yeah.
I'll tell you about that.
Didn't really know.
But when the crime lab reported back, investigators realized they did have something, and it was big.
The prosecution knew it, and so did the defense.
Yes, absolutely.
And it was the tape that was found on that body.
The duct tape?
The duct tape, yes.
And I walk out of here... Defense attorney Afram Sellers had taken over Tim Harrington's case.
This is objectively a very damning piece of evidence for your client.
Very much so.
Now, why would that be?
Remember, investigators had found a roll of duct tape in Tim Harrington's apartment.
They sent that tape and the duct tape from the body site to the FBI.
And they were able to, I'm going to say perfectly match the tear pattern.
From that roll of duct tape out of Tim's apartment to an end that was wrapped around Jaylee's body match like puzzle pieces.
Like a puzzle piece.
Wow.
Given this new evidence, the defense attorney decided it was time to talk to Tim Harrington and his family.
I just walked it piece by piece from a standpoint of this is what they're about to try.
So you're giving him a reality check at this point?
Reality check.
Suddenly, Tim Harrington was very interested in a plea deal.
At this point, You all found Jay and now he's asking for a plea deal.
Were you thinking a little too late?
I was thinking in that sense but, more importantly, my thought was averting her from going through that.
To spare Stephanie the pain of testifying at yet another trial, the family was leaning toward a deal.
But prosecutors needed some convincing.
More than anything, they wanted Tim Harrington to admit to what he did.
I needed to know that he was going to say that he killed Jaylee, that this wasn't an accident.
Gwenago met with Harrington and his attorney, and that's when Harrington confessed to everything.
He told me, through a lot of tears, that he had strangled him.
Did he seem genuinely remorseful?
To me, he did.
And it wasn't just, you know, slow cry.
It was a lot of tears, and it was physical.
You could see the physical reactions in his body.
Did he give you details?
What did he tell you?
He confirmed that text message was a trigger for him.
The download message?
The download message, yeah.
Harrington told Ago that he'd intended to bury Jay, but when he looked into his dead face he panicked and dumped him.
He said that he couldn't call the police because he just knew that he had killed somebody and he just knew it was his fault.
So, on December 1st 2025, just as jurors were being selected for trial number two, Tim Harrington pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and tampering with a body.
At the sentencing hearing, Jay's father had a message for his son's killer.
I hadn't said much in this entire trial, but with my broken heart, I'm sending God's love to you.
I want to remind you of God's redemptive plan.
The judge sentenced Harrington to 40 years in prison.
He will be eligible for parole at the age of 58.
That's still enough time to get out of prison and live a whole second life.
Yeah, it is.
Are you okay with that possibility?
I am.
We can't talk about God's grace and not be completely understanding of how it works.
It's always been about the family.
I mean, if they felt like it was justice, then it was justice for me.
And once the Lees felt that that was justice, it gave me some relief and reprieve to know that they have that closure that they've been lacking for so long.
And through closure, action.
I'm asking for a bipartisan bill.
Jay's family is now pushing for a federal law that would require tech companies to share user data with police and parents when someone under 21 goes missing.
The Jay Lee Information Act.
I'm hoping that this bill will allow law enforcement to reach out to any social media communication giant, making it possible that they can get some leads much faster.
Jay's family is determined to keep his story and his spirit alive.
And that's what Tayla did as she led the Oxford Pride parade, holding Jay's almost life-sized picture.
For victims who are members of the LGBTQIA community, what do you hope this means for them?
I hope this means that there is some type of hope out there.
Keep fighting, because justice is right around the corner.
In an extraordinary statement at Tim Harrington's sentencing.
The judge had something to say about that.
The state of Mississippi does not have a good reputation in matters concerning this, quite frankly.
I may say more than I should say, but when I heard that we'd been getting national publicity over Mr Lee's death and the fact that he lived a lifestyle that was different from most people in Mississippi,
I assume that a lot of people in this country thought that there will not be justice in this case.
I want the world to know that Mississippi got it right this time.
Mississippi did get it right this time because they didn't give up on Jay.
They didn't stop fighting for Jay.
And that's a beautiful moment that they did not give up.
That's all for this edition of Dateline.
And don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast, in which we'll go behind the scenes of tonight's episode.
Available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts.
We're off for the next three weeks as NBC brings you coverage of the Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Cortina.
So we'll see you back here February 27th at 9, 8 central time.
I'm Lester Holt.
For all of us at NBC News, good night.
