DashJ

Pepper, Shelby plead guilty in shooting death

of third member in ‘throuple’ relationship at Ovett

The couple responsible for the shooting death of 30-year-old Iran Danyelle Little have no heart, but they may still have a path to heaven, her uncle told them in Jones County Circuit Court.

But first, David “DJ” Pepper and Daphnie Shelby, both 38, will have to spend some time in prison for the February 2021 shooting death of Little at the site of the former Camp Sister Spirit in Ovett.

Pepper was ordered to serve 18 years in the full-time custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections after pleading guilty to manslaughter and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and Shelby was ordered to serve eight years in MDOC custody after pleading guilty to accessory after the fact of manslaughter and possession of methamphetamine.

Both were about to go to trial for first-degree murder and face life sentences, if convicted, but the pair pleaded guilty to the lesser offenses on Wednesday afternoon. Pepper was set to go to trial the next day and Shelby was scheduled for trial next week.

Little had been part of a love triangle that was described as a “throuple” by some officials involved with the case, and she had a history of drug use and arrests. Family members acknowledged that in their comments, but her problems didn’t arise because of a lack of being loved, they said.

“She wasn’t perfect,” Wayne Thompson said of his niece, looking at the defendants, “but she was a human. If you can kill a human and leave them in the woods ... you have no heart at all.”

Little’s mother — Thompson’s older sister — hasn’t been the same since her daughter’s death, he said.

“It took the wind out of my sister, totally. You took her baby,” he said, looking at Pepper and Shelby. “If that happened to your kid, how would you feel? You left (Danyell’s) little daughter without her.”

Thompson went to the Jones County Sheriff’s Department and filed the

missing person report for Little after no one was able to contact her for a couple of weeks early last year. Capt. Vince Williams led the investigation and had a “gut feeling” something wasn’t right early on, he said at the time. He questioned Pepper and Shelby and later took them into custody. Soon after that, Little’s body was found buried near a pond on the Camp Sister Spirit property.

Pepper denied any involvement for months but recently came around to admitting what happened, said Assistant District Attorney Kristen Martin, who served as prosecutor in the case. Little “pulled a knife” and came at them, and Pepper shot her in the face, Martin said. Other statements and evidence supported that, she said, and Little helped him cover up the crime. The three had an earlier altercation, which led to Little contacting Elbie Mozingo and asking him to come pick her up on the road outside the camp.

The text message that she sent read: “Come get me or bring me your gun. DJ put hands on me and I want to blow his brains out.”

That message doesn’t confirm that what happened later was self-defense, but it would have been problematic for the prosecution when a jury heard that, Martin said.

“That was huge,” she said, in the decision to make the plea agreement instead of going to trial and trying to get a murder conviction and life sentence. That’s why the plea “was the right result based on the facts.”

Little’s family was satisfied with the punishment and didn’t want to go through the trauma of a trial, according to a signed court affidavit. Thompson thanked the DA’s office and the sheriff’s department, “especially Capt. Williams ... He went all out.”

Williams said he appreciated the family’s patience and Thompson’s kind words, but there were no winners.

“While the defendants’ admission of guilt and incarceration provide a form of justice for the victim’s loved ones and family, it won’t bring her back,” he said. “This sentence ensures that they won’t cause any more harm to others for a long time, though. I hope this will help give the victim’s family some closure.”

District Attorney Brad Thompson said the plea was a “good decision by all parties involved” and called it a “senseless crime.” He thanked the JCSD and also singled out Williams “for working countless hours to get to the bottom of it.” He also praised his assistant DA for all of her work on the case.

“She was preparing untold hours the last two weeks for a possible trial,” he said. No murder weapon was recovered, but Pepper “obviously had a gun,” Martin said of his charge for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was convicted in federal court in 2009 for possessing an unregistered firearm, which was his original felony. Pepper received a five- year sentence for that charge, which will run concurrently with the 18-year sentence for manslaughter. When Pepper gets out of prison, he will also have to serve three years of post-release supervision under MDOC, participate in the court’s community service program and pay court costs of $1,927.50.

He was represented by public defenders Cruz Gray and Matt Sherman. Shelby’s meth charge came from a June 2020 Laurel Police Department case, when she was one of four people at the Quality Inn to be caught with the drug in the hotel room. She received an eight-year sentence on that charge, too, and it will run concurrently with the accessory charge. She will have two years of post-release supervision after being released, plus community service and court costs of $1,355. She was represented by Jackson attorney Alton Peterson.

Both defendants also had a history of drug-related arrests.

“Danyell was caught up in drugs,” Little’s relative Yolanda Ratcliffe told the defendants in court, “but she meant something to her family, regardless of what you saw. Her desire to return to a life away from drugs ... was interrupted by the hand of man.

“I have no heaven or hell to put you in, but if I did, I would stand outside the gates of hell to make sure you had no trouble getting in. You made your choice in life. I pray that you will find remorse, because if you don’t have remorse, we already know that you will be consumed in hell.” Thompson told the defendants that he and his sister were raised right, and because of that, he has to forgive them.

“To get to the kingdom of heaven, if I don’t forgive y’all, I will never get there. I forgive y’all. I do. I forgive with you with my heart. In the time that you serve ... you still have time to repent and get right with the Lord.”

Judge Dal Williamson accepted the plea agreements after going through the usual sequence of questions with the defendants to make sure they understood everything about the proceeding, including the fact that the plea is final and can’t be appealed.

“It’s become pretty clear that drugs and other things were at the root of this, and that’s heartbreaking,” Williamson said. “I would say more, but I can’t say it any better than Mr. Wayne Thompson or Ms. Ratcliffe. They made very thoughtful statements full of grace.”

Pepper and Shelby declined the opportunity to make any statements to the court or Little’s family. In their initial court appearance, Pepper said he had been self-employed construction worker who was working for FEMA in Soso after the Easter 2020 tornado that devastated the area. He said that Shelby was his fiancée and that he had one child from a previous marriage.

Shelby said she has two children and she and Pepper were “helping keep the grounds” while they stayed at the property off Eastside Drive. Camp Sister Spirit made national news in the 1990s as a lesbian retreat that was experiencing bigotry from local businesses and residents and even faced a lawsuit trying to force it to relocate. A followup story 10 years later showed that the local community had learned to accept them.

The Camp Sister Spirit Facebook page now shows that it is “Permanently Closed.”

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