Extracted from The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS)
Youth Held Here In Fatal Shooting Of His Mother
Held for the fatal shooting of his mother, Mrs. Minnie Puckett, who was shot in the back of the head as she walked to the front door of her home on McCluer road, 18-year-old Charles Edwin Puckett was arrested at the scene Monday night and confined in the Hinds county jail.
Puckett, at one time a member of the Rankin County Ramblers whose activities landed them in a juvenile court, had only recently been released from a term of confinement at the mental institution of Whitfield, officers said.
Hinds county deputies found Puckett in the bath room of the house and recovered the death weapon, a 32.20 colt pistol which had been fired once.
Other children witnessed the slaying, and the father, L. E. Puckett, a cab driver for the Grissett cab company, was also in the house at the time.
The youngest daughter, Kate Elizabeth, became hysterical and was taken to Baptist Hospital for treatment.
Witnesses said that Mrs. Puckett was just entering the front door of her home when she was felled by the fatal blast fired by her son, who was standing on the porch.
The Pucketts live exactly one mile west of Highway 51 South on the southside of McCluer road. Mrs. Puckett was 40 years old.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday at 3 p.m. at the Baldwin chapel with the Rev. R. L. Polk, of Clinton, pastor of the East Side Baptist Church, officiating. Interment will be at a Jackson cemetery. The body was taken to the Baldwin funeral home.
She is survived by her husband; two sons, Charles Edwin and Billy Colon; two daughters, Kate Elizabeth and Mrs. Roy Gates; her father, H. A. Fuller, of Brookhaven; four sisters, Mrs. Luther A. Jones, of Crystal Springs; Mrs. Walter Byrd, of Houston, Texas; Mrs. J. M. Williams, of Tuckerman, Ark.; and Miss Kate Turner, of Jackson; and five brothers, H. D. Fuller, of Jackson; Denver Fuller, of Brookhaven; Janeal Fuller, of Jackson; Delma Fuller, of McComb; and Robert Fuller, of Louisiana.
Tuesday, January 4, 1949