It never occurred to the sanitation workers that they would be the ones to discover them on their daily Monday route along South Springdale Road. They stopped on the 1700 block of the rural roads on March 30, 2026, just after noon.
This area of Hinds County is situated between Jackson and the other villages. What they found would put a stop to a frantic search and start a double homicide investigation that has left the community in shock.
Terry Burrell Jr. and Khloe Hudson were both 16 years old. Both were students at Lanier High School in Jackson. Both had been reported missing to the Jackson Police Department within the previous 24 hours. When Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones arrived at the scene, he confirmed what the workers had already feared. The two teenagers had been shot multiple times. They were found together on the side of the road, their lives ended before they had barely begun.
The sheriff was quick to note that the killings did not appear random. The victims knew each other, he said, and investigators would be focusing on the circumstances that brought them to that remote location. But for the families who had spent the last day searching, for the classmates who had shared alerts on social media, for the teachers who had watched them walk the halls of Lanier High just days before, the randomness of the act mattered less than the simple, unbearable fact of their absence.
Terry and Khloe were 16. They were students, friends, children with futures that had not yet been written. Khloe was remembered by those who knew her as someone with a bright presence, a young woman who carried herself with a confidence that drew people in. Terry was described as a teenager with a warm spirit, someone who made the people around him feel seen. They were both gone, and the questions left behind were already piling up.
The scene on South Springdale Road was quickly secured. Deputies processed the area, marking evidence, documenting the roadway, trying to piece together what had happened in the hours before the sanitation workers made their discovery. Sheriff Jones urged anyone with information to come forward, emphasizing that even the smallest detail could help investigators understand how two teenagers ended up dead on a rural road in Hinds County.
At Lanier High School, the grief was immediate and overwhelming. Students gathered in hallways, in classrooms, in the parking lot where Terry and Khloe had walked just days before. Counselors were brought in to help those struggling to process the loss of two classmates. School officials released statements expressing sorrow and offering support to families who were now planning funerals instead of celebrating the end of a school year.
The Jackson community, already familiar with the weight of violence, absorbed another loss. Residents who had seen the missing person alerts, who had shared the posts, who had hoped for a different outcome, were left to grapple with the reality that two 16-year-olds were dead. Friends of the victims posted tributes online, sharing photos, memories, and the disbelief that comes when someone so young is taken.
No arrests have been announced. The investigation remains active, with detectives following leads and reviewing evidence from the scene. Sheriff Jones has stressed that the case is a priority and that authorities are working to bring those responsible to justice. But for the families of Terry Burrell Jr. and Khloe Hudson, justice will not bring them back.
They are left to bury their children, to grieve in a community that is grieving with them, and to wait for answers that may never fully explain why two teenagers ended up on the side of a rural road in Hinds County, shot and left to be found by sanitation workers on a Monday afternoon.