The man accused of a New Year’s Day triple-homicide and robbery of a small-town Mississippi gas station will stand trial next year.
Drexler Johnson’s trial date has been set for May 26, 2026, according to the 19th Circuit Court District Attorney’s Office. Johnson is accused of killing Rhonda Denson, Jason Thornton, and Lester Campbell on Jan. 1, 2025, when robbing the Clark’s gas station in State Line, a roughly 820-person town near the Alabama border.
Law enforcement said Denson and her boyfriend, Campbell, were opening the station just before 6 a.m. Thornton, a customer, had come inside before a masked man entered the store and shot both him and Campbell. As the intruder grabbed Thornton’s wallet, Denson locked herself in a backroom. The suspect allegedly broke down the door and dragged her to the front to open the cash register and the store’s safe. Upon doing so, he shot her in the face and took the money.
The suspect, who was also wearing gloves at the time of the murders, stole a black Toyota Camry from the store’s parking lot before ditching it four miles away in the nearby Knobtown community.
Johnson, a 38-year-old from Leakesville, was arrested on Jan. 9 and originally charged with accessory after the fact, but those charges were upgraded as the investigation went on. He was indicted in September on three counts of capital murder and one count of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon. He has maintained his innocence thus far.