Authorities believe McClendon was robbed and killed by his own neighbors and fellow students.
Lafayette County Investigator Alan Wilburn said Steven Matthew Wilbanks, 22, of Burnsville, N.C., Derick Richard Boone, 23, of Laurel, and Joseph Bryant Lyons, 20, of Houston, Texas, were arrested on charges of capital murder.
The Oxford Eagle first reported that Wilburn said the three men lived next door to McClendon. The University of Mississippi confirmed Wilbanks and Boone were enrolled in school. Wilbanks was majoring in French, and Boone was a banking and finance major. Lyons was a theater major who last attended Ole Miss in the spring of 2011.
Wilburn said the men robbed McClendon, 25, and then shot him in his duplex on County Road 140 just outside of Oxford. Wilburn said the men then took McClendon's white sport utility vehicle and parked it at the Chevron on Highway 6 at Thacker Heights Drive.If those facts aren't bizarre enough McClendon was also an all-star student and all-around nice guy - in other words, the least likely guy to be the victim of a murder.
Mike Tatum, assistant superintendent of the Gulfport School District: "Shocked. Just never thought something like this would happen to him. This is an individual who has touched so many different lives indirectly just by seeing him, not knowing him, but knowing who he is as a person. This is what I can't understand: I know things happen, but randomly for someone to do something like that. This kid was loved by just about everybody he came into contact with. ... He made you proud to be from Gulfport."I hope there's more to this story than three college kids who needed a little money deciding to kill their neighbor, rob him and take his car. Not only does it make them sound incredibly stupid, but extremely evil. But I guess evil should never surprise us.
This story gets even more peculiar. Joesph Lyons' own father may be one of the top witnesses against him after relaying a jailhouse conversation with his son to the press. Said former criminal justice profession Dr. Hoarce Lyons:
....his 20-year-old son, Joseph Lyons, was at home with him when sheriff deputies picked him up.
"They wouldn't tell us what was going on," said Lyons.
After the sheriff took Joseph, Dr. Lyons said his family searched the Internet and found out McClendon had been murdered.
"I started to hope and pray that there wasn't a connection, but I kind of thought there might be," he said. Dr. Lyons said the times just matched too perfectly with his son's whereabouts.
"I certainly didn't think my son would be involved in something like that," he said. During a visit to the jail Thursday, Dr. Lyons said Joseph talked about the night McClendon was murdered."He said, 'Mr. McClendon never saw it coming,' " said Dr. Lyons.It sounds like the investigator in this case needs to talk to Dr. Lyons.