The Pike County Sheriff’s office is investigating the assault of an Express Cash employee who was severely injured early Saturday during what authorities believe was a robbery of the business on River Ridge Road.
Sheriff Mark Shepherd said deputies received a call about 1:30 a.m. Saturday from McComb Police central dispatch. The caller reported that a woman was injured inside the business.
A responding deputy found Peggy Sue Wilkinson Carter, 57, 1045 Bill Bacot Road, lying on the floor of the business severely injured and unconscious, Shepherd said.
Express Cash is located across the road from the main entrance of the Sanderson Farms processing plant and is frequently used by the poultry company’s employees to cash their paychecks.
The business is located in a small, corrugated metal building with two small windows in the front and a door on its north side.
Express Cash did not keep set hours, Shepherd said.
“It closed at various times, depending on how business was going,” he said.
Carter went by AAA Ambulance to Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center and was airlifted to University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, where she was listed in critical condition Saturday night.
Shepherd said members of Carter’s family were with her in Jackson.
“We are treating this as a major case,” Shepherd said. “And we are going to be as diligent and as careful as we can be. I have four detectives and a crime scene analyst — all of them have been working on this since we got the call.”
Shepherd was mum on details of Carter’s injuries, declining to say if she had been shot, beaten or stabbed.
Officials also declined to say how much, if any, money was missing from the business.
“We are looking at this from all directions,” Rushing said. “We are going to get all the facts in this case.”
Besides sheriff’s deputies, Shepherd said the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, Highway Patrol, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, the state crime lab and the Southwest Mississippi Narcotics Enforcement unit were assisting on the case.
He said anyone with information should call the sheriff’s department at 783-2323 or Crime Stoppers at 684-0033.
