Missing Mississippi Family Found Dead, Suspect in Murder Arrested

A man has been arrested in connection to the family of three that went missing after a car wreck over the weekend in Mississippi.

The bodies of the three people were discovered Tuesday morning in an abandon house 40 miles southwest of Jackson and just a few miles from the car crash. Police identified the bodies as Atira Hill, 30, her 7-year-old son, Jaidon, and her husband, Laterry Smith, 34, reports ABCNews.com. Police said that all three were shot and had been dead a few days.

The suspect was identified as Timothy Lydell Burns, 42, of Jackson, Miss., Copiah County Sheriff Harold Jones told ABC's affiliate WAPT-TV.

"We have recovered three bodies," Coroner Ellis Stewart said on Tuesday, according to USA Today. "We believe it to be the three people that have been missing. We don't have a positive ID yet. The bodies are being sent to the Mississippi medical examiners office for an autopsy."

The family members had last been seen them driving in their car on Friday before their abandoned SUV was found upside down in a ditch in Hermanville, Miss., Saturday morning. The last time that Judy Hughes heard from her daughter, Atira, was in a phone call right after midnight Saturday saying she was going out of town for a few days. The call was cut off but when Hughes tried to call back, the call went to voice mail. She continued to be unreachable, so relatives called police.

Burns led investigators to an secluded home near the rural area where the family's overturned car had been found. Inside the home, law enforcement officials found the bodies of the three family members. However, it is unclear if there is a connection between Burns and the family.