Regina Simpson can still recall Jamie Iverson’s smile when she would walk into Paul’s Jewelry.
The Indianola Police Department investigator had been a frequent customer of the Front Street business in downtown Indianola over the course of her life.
“To walk in her store and she greets you with a smile. You go to talking to her, and you’re like, ‘What did I come in this store for?’” Simpson told The Enterprise-Tocsin a few days after the third suspect in Iverson’s April 23, 2021 murder was taken into custody in Kennesaw, Ga.
Phillip Eugene Harris was arrested this past Saturday morning during a routine traffic stop where it was revealed he had a warrant out for his arrest for capital murder in Indianola.
Simpson said she was in Madison when she got the initial call about the apparent robbery and murder, which took place in broad daylight at around 11 a.m. on that Friday morning.
When Simpson finally arrived at the crime scene in Indianola, the reality sank in that her friend had been killed. She then went to work.
“I just went to work on it at that time, even the next day I went from city to city, wherever my investigation led me to, that’s where I went,” she said.
It only took a few days for authorities to track down the first two suspects. It was almost a year ago that Simpson made the journey to the Madison County Detention Center to transport brothers Daquarius and Kenterius Wright back to Indianola, each on a charge of capital murder in connection with Iverson’s death.
At the time, they were listed as “armed and dangerous,” she said.
“I can remember my mom saying, ‘No, you have to let men transport them because I think those boys are crazy,’” Simpson said. “I said, ‘You know what, I think I’m a little more crazier than them.’”
Simpson said her family was worried for most of that night. Her phone was bombarded with texts and calls, but she had a job to do and could not answer those calls and texts.
She transported one of the brothers, while the Sunflower County Sheriff’s Department dispatched a unit to transfer the other.
“I didn’t want them in the same unit,” she said.
She was up until the early hours of the next morning, trying to get as much information out of the brothers as she could.
Both eventually asked for lawyers, she said, and her attention turned back to find Harris.
“I’ve worked a lot of cases in the last five years, and for some reason, this one seemed like it was getting the best of me,” Simpson said. “I guess because of who she was. She’s in her place of business, minding her own business, and I know she would have given you the shirt off her back if that’s what it took.”
Most people in Indianola are hearing Harris’ name for the first time this week, but Simpson and IPD’s partners with the U.S. Marshals and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation knew exactly who Harris was last April.
“It seems like we’ve been looking for him for 12 years and it has not been a year,” Simpson said. “Just knowing he was out there and did what he did.”
Simpson said both outside agencies were crucial in solving the case.
The tip that led to the arrest of the Wright brothers came through the U.S. Marshals Service.
Simpson praised agent Dewayne Stewart, in particular, for his tenacity in the case.
Simpson said the agencies had made contact with Harris’ parents right after the shooting, but he was nowhere to be found. He simply fell off the radar until last weekend.
“For me, as a local officer, it’s a needle in a haystack, and I tell anybody, I thank God for the outside agencies,” she said. “(Stewart) never stopped trying to clean that haystack out. When I thought it was a needle in a haystack, he was taking it apart piece-by-piece until he could get him.”
Simpson said she knew that eventually Harris would slip up or those outside agencies would track him down.
This past Saturday, he slipped up.
“It seems like I’m coming down off of a high,” she said. “The night I got that call that they had him in custody, I literally came to tears, because I think Mrs. Iverson deserves that.”
Aside from getting a dangerous fugitive off the street, Simpson said Harris’ arrest was also important to the entire case.
“The DA, along with myself, the U.S. Marshals, and MBI all said, ‘We have to have this guy in custody before we go to grand jury,’” Simpson said. “We were adamant about getting him before we go to grand jury. I think Jamie’s family needed that closure, and we were adamant about finding him.”
Harris had a firearm in his possession at the time of his arrest. Simpson plans to get a warrant for that gun to see if it has any link to the Iverson case.
When he gets to Mississippi, he will face a capital murder charge, just as his alleged accomplices.
Harris has outstanding charges in Kennesaw, and he must bond out on those charges before he can be released into Simpson’s custody.
And Simpson plans to bring him back to Indianola herself.
“If he was in Washington D.C. I was going to go get him,” Simpson said. “I’m just waiting on them, and I’m going to go pick him up.”
Simpson said she plans to present the entire body of evidence to the grand jury during the next session, and she said she is confident in the outcome.
“I’m going to get an indictment,” she said. “I think Mrs. Iverson deserves that.”
