Police Officer Joey Tremayne Vincent

Officer Vincent had volunteered to help serve a mental inquest warrant on a cousin a week earlier. The MIW had been taken out by the subject's parents. Officer Vincent volunteered to serve it because he thought it would be easier on the cousin if he was involved. In the course of serving the warrant, the cousin repeatedly threatened the officers' lives -- including Officer Vincent's.

The following Saturday, after the subject had been released from his psychiatric evaluation, he took family members to dinner in an effort to "apologize" for his behavior -- including his parents, Officer Vincent, and Officer Vincent's wife, Amy. Later that night, he murdered his parents and mutilated their bodies. The following morning, he waited for Joey and Amy Vincent.

As the Vincent's exited their home early Sunday morning, the suspect shot Officer Vincent in the head. He fired the shot from a rifle out the window of his parents' home next door. He then walked over to the Vincent home, removed their two year old daughter, Brooklyn, from her mother's arms, then executed Amy Vincent. He then took Brooklyn to his parents' home. After a short standoff with police, he surrendered.

In February 2001, the suspect pled guilty in order to avoid the death penalty and was sentenced to four life terms without the possibility of parole.

Officer Vincent had been employed with the Greenville Police Dept for eight years. In addition to serving as a full time police officer, he was a volunteer firefighter and the pastor of the 100 member New Cypress Baptist Church.