Hattiesburg man to serve 60 years for 2021 double-murder

FORREST COUNTY, Miss. (WDAM) - A Hattiesburg man will serve 60 years of an 80-year sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree murder.

According to 12th Circuit Court District Attorney Lin Carter, 19-year-old Frederick T. Allen was sentenced Thursday morning in Forrest County Circuit Court. Judge Bob Helfrich presided over the case.

Allen was sentenced to 40 years to serve on the first count of second-degree murder and 40 years with 20 years to serve on the second count of second-degree murder. They are to run consecutively to each other.

The district attorney’s office said Allen will have to serve his 60-year sentence day-for-day without eligibility for parole.

“Allen is a violent offender and will spend the next six decades in prison,” said Carter. “That’s exactly where he needs to be. I would like to thank the Hattiesburg Police Department for their excellent investigation and Assistant District Attorney Clay Cranford for prosecuting the case.

Getting violent offenders off the street will work in continuing to make Hattiesburg a safer place to live, work and raise our families.”

On December 16, 2021, the Hattiesburg Police Department responded to a report of a shooting near the intersection of Sixth Street and Rawls Avenue around 5 a.m.

When officers arrived, two victims were found in the middle of the road, suffering from gunshot wounds. The victims were later identified as Joseph Lee Thames Jr., 46, and Nakieta Lashawn McCarty, 29.

According to the Forrest County Coroner’s Office, the victims were father and daughter.

During the course and scope of the investigation, it was determined that there was an altercation between Thames, McCarthy and Allen over Thames’s 13-year-old daughter that led to the shooting, according to the district attorney’s office.

The U.S. Marshall Task Force arrested Allen on January 6, 2022.

The suspect was indicted by a Forrest County grand Jury, and he pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder on July 27.

“It will not bring these two individuals back,” Carter said. “I hope that it will give the family some sense that they did receive justice for their murders.”

“You know, you get tired of seeing this. A young man committed a crime, a family loses two loved ones, (and) his family is going to lose him for the remainder of his life. So I’d ask that parents and the community come together and try to fix all this young gang gun violence before it reaches us.”

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