The Mississippi man who pleaded guilty to murdering a fellow student at the University of Mississippi to conceal their romantic relationship was sentenced Tuesday to 40 years in prison.

Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr. , 25, pleaded guilty Monday to murdering Jimmie “Jay” Lee in Oxford in 2022.

Lee disappeared on July 8, 2022, from the university’s campus in Oxford. Herrington was arrested a few weeks later and charged with murder .

But in Herrington’s first trial last year, one juror refused to convict him of capital murder because Lee’s body was never found, according to authorities. The judge declared a mistrial in the case.

Then in February 2025, deer hunters stumbled upon Lee’s skeletal remains in a wooded area of Carroll County. Herrington was again indicted for Lee’s murder

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