‘The Most Heinous Crime’ — Beloved Teacher Lana Brown Bradley Found Dead And Dismembered, Son Charged With Shocking Murder
Lana Brown Bradley, a beloved member of the Natchez community, was killed in early April, and her youngest son, Zachary Lavel Jackson, Jr., has been charged with her murder. The post ‘The Most Heinous Crime’ — Beloved Teacher Lana Brown Bradley Found Dead And Dismembered, Son Charged With Shocking Murder appeared first on MadameNoire.
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Earlier this month, police officers in Natchez, Mississippi, were dispatched to a home for what they believed was a simple welfare check. What they found was possibly the most gruesome, horrific killing they could have imagined, one that took the life of a mother, retired educator, and beloved member of her community. What’s worse, the man arrested for the killing was her own son.
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New details about the violent crime were revealed to the public this week.
According to WJTV 12, on April 4, 2026, Natchez deputies were called to a home on Melanie Road to check on the well-being of Lana Brown Bradley, whose oldest son called for the welfare check after he was unable to reach her the day before. Bradley had two of her other sons living with her. Her middle child had been working when she was unreachable. Her older son reportedly told officers searching the home that it was unusual for the house to be as spotless as it was, with the smell of cleaning products filling the air.
“As soon as they walked in the house, they could just see where somebody had been cleaning up, and they could smell chemicals all throughout the house. The floor was extremely slippery,” Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten told WJTV. “And the older son said that this is just unusual for the youngest son to be cleaning up the house like that.”
That’s when the youngest son, Zachary Lavel Jackson, Jr., was found locked in a downstairs bathroom, where deputies could hear him, apparently, attempting to dispose of the evidence of his alleged crime.
“And the fact that when he opened that bathroom, deputies could see a black substance in the toilet that wasn’t described as anything that would come, you know, from your body in that way. They were disturbed at what they were seeing,” Patten said.
From there, Patten ordered a full search of the area, which included the two acres of land the home sits on and the wooded areas with a bayou and creeks that surround the property. Family members of Bradley began arriving at the home to assist with the ongoing search. One of them found what they were certainly hoping they would not find.
“Family members went to the left. My deputies went right,” Patten recalled. “Next thing you know, as both my deputies and the family were trekking through this wooded area, the deputies heard a scream. They heard somebody, someone yelling, ‘It’s a head! It’s a head!’ And of course, everything changed at that point. It was like they were frozen in time because nobody could believe what they were hearing.”
The post ‘The Most Heinous Crime’ — Beloved Teacher Lana Brown Bradley Found Dead And Dismembered, Son Charged With Shocking Murder appeared first on MadameNoire.
