Body recovered from backyard at Southaven home as police investigate ‘shallow grave’

SOUTHAVEN, Miss. (WMC) - Police have recovered a body from a “shallow grave” in the backyard of a Southaven home.

Investigators made the discovery Tuesday afternoon at a home on Burton Lane, working off a tip in their search for missing man.

Southaven police have not identified the body nor have they named the person for whom they were searching. Police began excavating the backyard around 8 a.m. Tuesday. By mid-afternoon the body was being loaded into a coroner’s van.

“When I saw the coroner pull up I thought ‘oh my gosh’,” said Carol Johnson, neighbor.

Neighbors watched in disbelief as investigators combed the scene. It started Monday when police received a tip that the man, originally from the Paragould, Arkansas area, may have been buried in the backyard.

The man hasn’t been seen by his family in months. Police say he was living at the home on Burton Lane with several other people at the time of his disappearance.

It wasn’t until police arrested one of the missing man’s roommates on unrelated charges that the investigation led them to the backyard.

“We’ve been to Alabama, we’ve been to Arkansas, we’ve talked to people,” said Deputy Police Chief Mark Little. “We’ve interviewed multiple people and finally our interview with Mr. Guidry led us back here.”

Little says police arrested Michael Guidry for credit card fraud in an unrelated case. Guidry’s interview led investigators to the home on Burton Lane.

Little wouldn’t say if Guidry could face any additional charges.

“This is still an open investigation,” said Little. It’s still something that we’re going to have to look at and try to determine what happened."

Neighbors say they don’t know much about the people living there and were shocked to learn why police were digging up the backyard.

“That’s horrible,” said Gary Hoffman, neighbor. “Who in their right mind would do something like that? You have to be crazy to do something like that.”

Copyright 2019 WMC. All rights reserved.