Unholy Homicide, Part One

On the night of November 28, 2004, officers from the Pascagoula, Mississippi police department were summoned to Azalea Park Apartments on Eden Street to check on a reported disturbance.  Upon arrival at the scene, officers discovered 51-year-old Lena Hicks curled up in a fetal position on her bed.  Pools of blood surrounded her body.  She was unresponsive and paramedics were unable to detect a pulse.  Later that evening, county coroner Vicki Broadus arrived at the scene and took possession of the body. 

According to later reports in the Sun Herald, Mrs. Hicks had been stabbed three times, once in the heart, once in the chest and once in the thigh.  Broadus ruled the cause of death as internal hemorrhaging related to a stab wound of the chest.

Luckily, investigators had a witness to this heinous crime.  Mrs. Hicks was not alone at the time of her death and, as the details began to emerge, the entire community was left stunned and in shock.

Moss Point, MS

Present at the time of the brutal murder was a man named Darriel Wills.  Wills shocked investigators when he identified the murderer as Lena's husband, Amos Hicks Jr., a well-known and respected pastor of the Church of the Living God in Moss Point, Mississippi.  According to Wills, Lena's 20-year marriage was rocky and she had left her husband a few weeks earlier to rent the apartment in Azalea Park.  Wills told investigators he and Lena Hicks were in bed when she heard a strange noise and jumped out of bed to see what was going on.  "They had a struggle in the living room," Jenkins said. "She came back into the bedroom and said that he stabbed her."