Southwest Mississippi Community College is in mourning after a college official was found shot dead inside his ransacked home in Holmesville on Saturday.
Pike County Chief Deputy Brad Bellipanni said the wife of William Bryan Tucker, 62, had been out of town and arrived at the family’s McComb-Holmesville Road home around 5:30 p.m. and discovered the crime.
He said it appears someone forced their way into the home and rummaged through the family’s belongings. It’s unclear whether Tucker was home when that happened or if he walked in on a burglary.
“We’re looking at all angles of it,” Bellipanni said. “It’s just a tragedy. We just hope somebody knows something.”
Investigators have been working leads over the weekend but had yet to identify any suspects, Bellipanni said.
“We have had some phone calls about it,” he said. “We’re going to work the leads that we have. We would ask that if anyone knows anything in regards to this crime, please contact the Pike County Sheriff’s Office or CrimeStoppers. You can be anonymous. That goes with all of the crimes in the last week. We have a CrimeStoppers tip line where they can just leave the information.
“Sometimes the littlest thing that may be nothing to somebody is a big deal that can crack a case wide open. We need the public’s help.”
Officials hadn’t disclosed how many times Tucker had been shot, where or with what type of weapon, noting an autopsy still had to be completed.
White ribbons adorned SMCC’s campus on Monday, and a bouquet of flowers was left outside the administration building where his office was located.
“We’re all still in shock hearing of Dr. Tucker’s death and we’re experiencing a lot of emotions around campus, a lot of sorrow, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of anger, disbelief,” SMCC president Dr Steve Bishop said. “It’s just very sorrowful at this point in time.”
As SMCC’s vice president of physical resources, Tucker oversaw the campus’ buildings and grounds. He played an instrumental role in changing the footprint of the campus over the past decade. The new men’s dormitory, Alford-Conerly Hall, as well as the regional workforce training center were all built under his guidance.
Other notable projects he led included the renovation of the women’s dorm and countless improvements to various buildings.
College president Dr. Steve Bishop said Tucker was Southwest’s top official in the construction of a new women’s dorm, a project that is still in the early stages.
“We have two or three projects we are working on now he was the point person for,” Bishop said.
Bishop said a memorial service was being planned at the college, which would honor Tucker in other ways in the meantime.
“We’re going to have a moment of silence tonight before the women’s basketball game for him,” Bishop said. “Also, we’re planning to have a time of reflection and remembrance and prayer tomorrow afternoon. I will ask everybody to stop what they’re doing and pray for the family and pray for the community.
“Our BSU students have come by the office. They’ve had prayer with me,” Bishop said, referring to the Baptist Student Union. “They’ve had prayer in this office. There are bouquets of flowers outside this office.”
Bishop said the white ribbons “indicate a Christian person has passed away and he is rejoicing in heaven even though we’re here in a troubled society.”
Bishop said he considered Tucker a close personal friend. They both sang in the choir at Summit First Baptist Church, where Tucker also was a Sunday school teacher and a deacon.
“Dr. Tucker was a professional. He was an outstanding colleague. He also was a very close friend to me,” Bishop said. “He sang right in front of me almost every Sunday.”
Tucker was in his early 40s when he left his job as a professor at Mississippi State University to run his family’s Holmesville dairy farm.
A published author, Tucker received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MSU in dairy science and a Ph.D. in dairy cattle nutrition from the University of Kentucky. He began teaching in 1988 at Oklahoma State University, where he held a dual appointment in teaching and research. In 1992, he returned to MSU to teach.
“He was an intellectual gentleman,” Bishop said. “He was a scholar — very humble, very well-read in a lot of areas.”
In the eight years Tucker worked at MSU, he managed the university’s dairy farm and taught courses like physiology of lactation, dairy farm management and a graduate-level micronutrient course. He also became active in research at MSU.
Tucker was well aware of the pressures of farming, both from personal and professional experience.
“Dairy farming is very demanding on your time,” Tucker told the Enterprise-Journal in 2001. “It’s also both physically and mentally demanding.”
Tucker went to work with the college a few years later, starting in 2009 as a grant writer.
He also taught himself to play the guitar and enjoyed hiking the Appalachian Trail, Bishop said.
“Dr. Tucker has been a key person. He’s played a key role in advancing Southwest,” Bishop said. “We’re just heartbroken. I was honored to call him a close friend.”
Tucker’s survivors include his wife Linda, daughter Amanda and son Bryan.
