Remembering ‘Ms. Val’ Garrett, a Mother and Grandmother Killed in Vicksburg

VICKSBURG, Mississippi — When Andre Moore spoke about his sister after her death, he remembered a woman who would help anyone, a mother and grandmother whose kindness extended into the community where she was known as “Ms. Val.”

Val-Tricia Garrett was 53 when officers found her dead in a vehicle behind the Vicksburg Convalescent Home on Friday, November 13, 2026.

Police Chief Larry Burns said investigators believe her husband, 40-year-old Cedric Garrett, fatally shot her before dying by suicide.

The news reached Moore through a phone call from a friend early Friday morning, before he had any clear picture of what had happened to his sister.

His friend told him Cedric was on Facebook Live saying he had killed her, Moore recalled in an interview with WLBT.

A friend’s warning was the first account Moore had of his sister’s death, and the words he heard over the phone came from someone who had seen her husband speaking online.

The livestream had begun earlier that morning, according to reports, and Cedric spoke from inside a vehicle.

Burns said officers were called at about 9 a.m. to check on the welfare of people inside a vehicle behind the Vicksburg Convalescent Home, near Cherry and Shannon streets.

The location was the area behind the nursing home, where officers found Cedric inside the car and secured the surroundings while they tried to speak with him.

Officers spent about 20 minutes trying to persuade Cedric to surrender, Burns told WLBT, and for a time the chief thought the conversation was moving toward a peaceful resolution.

Burns said Cedric died by suicide during the police response.

When officers were able to approach the vehicle, they found Val-Tricia dead in the front passenger seat, and the department’s criminal investigations unit began investigating the circumstances of the two deaths.

As the investigation continued, Moore told WLBT that, to his understanding, his sister had already left Cedric and was trying to move forward with her life.

That was how her brother described where she was in the period before her death, at a point when the couple had already gone their separate ways.

His account offers a glimpse of Val-Tricia making decisions about her own future, a part of her story that can easily get lost in coverage of the livestream.

Burns said police had documented a history of domestic violence involving the couple and had arrested Cedric in 2017 and again in 2018 in connection with domestic violence.

The chief also said another domestic violence report had been filed a couple of months before Val-Tricia’s death.

Those earlier contacts with police are part of the publicly reported history of the case, and the circumstances of Friday morning remain under investigation.

For Moore, Friday brought a second death in his immediate family in roughly a month.

He told WLBT that he and his relatives had buried their mother about 30 days earlier, and they were still living with that loss when they learned Val-Tricia was gone.

The woman Moore had just lost was someone who shared the family history behind that earlier grief, a sister who knew their mother and had her own memories of the life they had lived together.

Moore struggled to find words for the loss, but he could say plainly what he remembered about his sister.

“She was a loving person in the community,” he told WLBT, adding that she was the kind of person who would help anyone.

In a brief interview given while the news was still fresh, that was the quality he chose to share with people who had never had the chance to know her.

To her children and grandchildren, Val-Tricia held a place in the family that belonged to her alone.

The people closest to her carry the details that make a person familiar over a lifetime, from the sound of her voice on the phone to the way she spoke when she had something she wanted them to hear.

Some memories may be shared in the weeks ahead, and others will stay with the people who were there and know exactly what made those moments matter.

In Vicksburg, the name “Ms. Val” gives friends and neighbors a familiar way to speak about her.

There is an affection in a name like that, in the way people shorten a first name while keeping the small courtesy that comes before it.

For a reader encountering Val-Tricia Garrett’s name for the first time, hearing what people called her offers a starting point for understanding why her death is felt beyond her immediate family.

A public account of a death has a timeline, with a morning call, a police response and an update from the chief.

A family’s sense of time can be harder to describe, particularly when two losses come so close together that relatives are still talking about the first funeral when another loved one dies.

For Moore, the weeks between burying his mother and losing his sister were short enough that he measured them in days when he spoke about what had happened.

Amid the attention that follows a widely shared video, a family can be left answering questions from people who have only just learned their loved one’s name.

Friends and neighbors may have something different to offer, such as a private memory of Val-Tricia or a simple word to let her relatives know someone is thinking of them.

A person who received help from her may remember an encounter that her family has never heard about, and that small piece of her life can mean a great deal to the people who miss her.

Moore’s account of his sister trying to move forward also brings attention to the future she was making for herself.

He spoke about a woman who had already taken a step toward a different life, a decision that belonged to her and that deserves to be remembered in her own right.

Whatever plans she had shared with the people closest to her, the opportunity to carry them out was hers, and her death took that opportunity away.

The weeks ahead may bring more information from police and more memories from the people who knew Ms. Val.

For her loved ones, grief will also appear in ordinary moments, perhaps when someone thinks of something they would have called to tell her or hears her name in a family conversation.

Those are the moments when a loss can feel especially immediate, even as the public attention that surrounded the first days begins to fade.

The investigation belongs to the officers gathering the facts, while the work of remembering Val-Tricia will happen in many places and in the words of many people.

Her brother has already offered one memory for others to hold on to, describing someone he could count on to care about the people around her.

That is a personal thing to say about a sister, and it gives friends and neighbors a way to add their own memories of the woman they called Ms. Val.

Val-Tricia Garrett was a mother, a grandmother and a sister whose family had barely begun to grieve one loss when they were asked to bear another.

May the people who knew her find comfort in telling her stories, and may those who love them keep reaching out in the quieter weeks after the news has passed.

Rest in peace, Ms. Val.