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North Mississippi 13-year-old charged with capital murder in burning death of another 13-year-old

Michael Lane Campbell is charged as an adult with the murder of Gaines Coker.
Credit: zef art - stock.adobe.com

COLDWATER, Miss — UPDATE 9/3/2021 - A 13-year-old Tate County boy is charged with capital murder in the burning death of another 13-year-old.

Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance said Michael Lane Campbell was arrested Friday and is being charged as an adult in the death of Gaines Coker.

Coker died after being severely burned in July while was playing with another boy in a workshop at a home at Arkabutla Lake near Coldwater, Mississippi. He was brought to a Memphis hospital, then to Little Rock, where he died.

Campbell is currently being held in the Tate County jail without bond.

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(AP) - 7/2/2021 - A boy has died after he was severely burned in north Mississippi. 

Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance tells local news outlets that the child was burned on Sunday and taken to a Memphis, Tennessee, hospital. 

He died later after being taken to a burn unit in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Family and friends identified the dead boy as 13-year-old Gaines Coker of Tunica. He was buried Thursday in Tunica.

The incident happened while Coker and another boy were playing in a workshop building at a house at Arkabutla Lake near Coldwater. 

Lance says it's unclear how the fire started or if one of the boys set it. 

No one has been arrested or charged.

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