Sharonda L. BrownAuthorities remained tight-lipped this morning on the investigation into the killing of a 15-year-old Vicksburg girl during the weekend, but a convicted criminal believed held for questioning has not been charged, officials in Vicksburg and Yazoo County said.

Meanwhile, the family of Sharonda L. “Na-Na” Brown, whose body was found near the shoulder of Highway 433 in Yazoo County Tuesday three days after she went missing, set the Warren Central Junior High student’s funeral for noon Friday at W.H. Jefferson Funeral Home. Burial is to be at Cedar Hill Cemetery.

Vicksburg’s lead detective on the killing, Lt. Bobby Stewart, said this morning that he was meeting today with sheriff’s department officials in Yazoo County, where 46-year-old James Lumpkin was believed to be incarcerated for the second day.

A Vicksburg man was picked up at his workplace off Mississippi 3 Tuesday by Warren County Sheriff’s Department officers and turned over to Yazoo authorities, said Sheriff Martin Pace, but he, Vicksburg Police and Yazoo County Investigator Dennis Moulder have refused to identify that man.

It was Sharonda’s family members who reported that Lumpkin is the suspect because she was with him when last seen by family members Saturday afternoon. Lumpkin, they said, is also the father of one of Sharonda’s half-sisters.

“The body was found in Yazoo County, but right now we don’t know where the homicide took place,” Stewart said. “We just don’t know enough right now to charge anyone, but we’re doing everything we can to get there.”

Stewart said officials are awaiting final autopsy results from Dr. Steven Hayne with Mississippi State Crime Lab before charges are filed. He also said that not knowing where the crime took place has been a factor in the delay.

Stewart said a person can be held for 72 hours without being charged. That means if the man in custody is not charged by about 5 p.m. Friday, he will be released, Stewart said.

Lumpkin was released from the Mississippi Department of Corrections five years ago after serving 10 years for the manslaughter conviction in the death of a woman with whom he lived in 1992.

Sharonda’s family reported her missing to Vicksburg Police at 10:50 p.m. Sunday, and her body was found at about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday by a Mississippi Department of Transportation worker mowing grass.

“There’s no doubt he (Lumpkin) did it. He’s killed before,” said Sharonda’s 20-year-old sister Aleisha Brown, referring to Lumpkin’s 1993 manslaughter conviction in Warren County Circuit Court for the death of his live-in girlfriend.

On the day she disappeared, Sharonda and other sisters had been picked up by Lumpkin at Vicksburg’s municipal pool at City Park, the family said. They said Lumpkin dropped off the other siblings, but not Sharonda.