From all accounts, 81-year-old Ethel Winstead Simpson of Clinton was simply trying to be a good person.

Police say she befriended a man at a health complex in Clinton, and they were seen walking together. Video footage showed the two at a Vicksburg casino. On either Sept. 13 or 14, authorities believe, she was beaten to death and dumped like a piece of trash on a hog farm on the north side of Edwards in Hinds County — a fate not suited for a sewer rat.

On Monday night, dental records confirmed that the badly decomposed body found was that of Simpson. James Cobb Hutto III, a 39-year-old convicted sex offender, was arrested in Alabama driving Simpson’s car. He had already been wanted in that state on charges of attempted murder and third-degree robbery, police in Lee County, Ala., said. He was being held on $250,000 bond.

Later in the week, Hinds County charged Hutto with capital murder in the gruesome killing of Mrs. Simpson.

But why the killing?

Friends and relatives believe Hutto approached Simpson on a walking track at the healthplex and told her he was hungry.

In Mississippi, when someone is in need usually someone steps to the plate and delivers. We are a trusting bunch of folks. It’s one of the things that makes living here special.

When that trust is shattered, so goes a bit of that special quality held so near and dear to those who live here.

The suspect, who told an Alabama court that he is known as “hit man Hutto,” is innocent until proven guilty. The justice system in both Alabama and Mississippi soon will decide his fate. Whatever those decisions are, they will pale in comparison to what happened to Mrs. Simpson.

Good people inhabit this state from the Gulf Coast to the far reaches of Northeast Mississippi. They will give the shirts off their backs if it is to help another human being not as fortunate.

“Our” Mississippi took a major hit with the senseless, cruel death of a woman simply trying to be what we pride ourselves on being — good human beings.