Mississippi 3rd Chancery District Court Judge Percy L. Lynchard Jr. celebrated his debut novel, a fiction book titled “Guilty in Mississippi” late last month.
Lynchard, who assumed the role of the 3rd Chancery District Court Judge in 1995, has always had an interest in serial killers.
“I can’t tell you how many documentaries I’ve watched and how many books I’ve read on Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and all those men like that,” Lynchard said. “Their mentality and their logic, just fascinate me. I read a book about a serial killer down in Louisiana and I thought, ‘This is a good book, I bet I could do something like this.’”
Using his knowledge from his legal background, Lynchard took a pen to paper in 2019, and over a span of about 30 days wrote his first novel.
“Not knowing anything about the book publishing industry and the way all of that works, this book took me about four years to get published,” Lynchard said.
The book takes readers back to life in the Mississippi Delta 1969. Paul Lane, a young lawyer turned investigator for the local district attorney, was educated, personable and back home where he grew up. Importantly at that time, he happened to be white. When a young girl and then another is murdered in the small community of Interstate in very rural Bolivar County, the investigation falls on him. The likely suspect to the sheriff is Tyrone Braid, a young former high school football star and parolee, who lived in close proximity to the victims. Notably Tyrone was black. Though nothing, but circumstantial evidence points to him, the sheriff is convinced of Tyrone’s guilt and so is the local Citizen’s Council, an offshoot of the Klan, which takes matters into its own hands and orders a hit on him. Paul is then faced with the unenviable task of bringing the killer to justice, be it Tyrone or someone else, while protecting Tyrone in the meantime from the vigilante Citizen’s Council and its contract killer.
“This book was fun to write,” Lynchard said. “Even though it is a fictional story, most places that you will see mentioned are real places from that time. It could be a restaurant or a business, but it was good to add some real history to the story as well.”
“Guilty in Mississippi” was released on Jan. 20, and can be purchased at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Google Play and Apple iTunes.
“I look forward to seeing just how well this book does,” Lynchard concluded. “Who knows if this is my first and only, or will this start up something big for me. You won’t find out who the killer is until late in the book. I am real proud of the last chapter. Just don’t read the last chapter first or you’ll ruin the rest of it.”
