Pleas Set In School Kidnapping

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Federal court records say five people intend to plead guilty in a scheme to kidnap a 6-year-old girl from an east Mississippi elementary school.

The woman authorities say orchestrated the plan, Jesse Mae Brown Pollard, and her son, a former basketball player at the University of Alabama, are not among those scheduled to plead guilty.

A change of plea hearing is scheduled Nov. 6 in U.S. District Court in Jackson for Shamarius Ruffin, Wanda Faye Dancy, Shaquayla Johnigan, Joyce Johnigan and James Shurmon Johnigan.

Authorities say Pollard came up with the plan to pressure the child’s mother, Pollard’s cousin, in a land dispute.

The child was taken from East Kemper Elementary School on April 30 and turned up unharmed on a rural road in Enterprise the next day.