Graphic video reveals details about killing of Waffle House waitress

BILOXI -- One couple huddled under a table, afraid they would be shot, authorities said.

Four other customers sat helplessly in a booth while three employees ran to the kitchen of the Waffle House near Edgewater Mall where Johnny Max Mount, 45, is accused of fatally shooting server Julie Brightwell, 52, in the head, said Herman Cox, Harrison County's prosecuting attorney.

On Wednesday, Mount was sitting in a wheelchair in the downstairs courtroom at the Harrison County jail. He had been brought there from his cell for a preliminary hearing, but his attorney, Richard Smith, waived the hearing and the case was bound over to a grand jury for indictment.

Mount had shaved his head and wasn't wearing his prosthetic leg. He never spoke, though he nodded when his attorney leaned down and whispered something in his ear. It wasn't long before deputies were wheeling him back to his cell.

Justice Court Judge Albert Fountain kept Mount's bond at $2 million on a first-degree murder charge. He has been locked up since his arrest the morning of the Nov. 27 shooting.

After the hearing, Cox said the restaurant's surveillance cameras captured a clear image of Mount shooting Brightwell in the right side of the head. He said the footage is "one of the most graphic" and "clear" he's ever seen.

Records say Mount was seated at the counter when Brightwell started telling him he couldn't smoke in the restaurant.

He got angry, police said, and pulled a 9 mm handgun from his waist.

When Brightwell saw the gun, records say, she ducked behind the counter, but Mount stood up, leaned over the counter and shot her once in the head. She was pronounced dead at Merit Health Biloxi shortly after the 1 a.m. shooting.

After the shooting, police said, Mount walked outside, placed the handgun and a holster on the top of a Toyota pickup truck and walked back inside to use the restroom. While he was in the bathroom, the witnesses ran outside and started calling for help.

Mount was arrested after he walked out of the restaurant for a second time.

Brightwell had been working at Waffle House for eight years, and at that new Waffle House since June 2014. Waffle House officials had asked Brightwell to help open it because she was such a good employee who cared about the customers.

A friend of Mount's family said the man was not a "monster," and something must have "snapped" in him.

On Christmas Eve 2002, a car had hit Mount as he stood in the middle of U.S. 49 in Gulfport. He lost a leg and suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Mount had been a Biloxi firefighter for 10 years.

Andy Morgan knew Mount when they were kids in Diamondhead, though he said he'd lost touch him after they'd met for dinner in 1994 in Biloxi. He said they spent a lot of time at that dinner talking about their military service, including Mount's service during Operation Desert Storm.

Morgan said he was stunned to learn the boy he'd built tree forts with was jailed on a murder charge.

"I would have never in a million years think he could do something like that," Morgan said. "He was a real nice guy. We never got into any fights or shouting matches or anything. The last time I saw him, he was polite and very respectful. He wasn't just some crazy guy.

"Something happened to him because it's definitely not who he was."

Morgan said he's spent a lot of time thinking about Brightwell, Mount and his family since the shooting.

"It's just so sad for both families," he said.

Mount has no felony record, but he does have misdemeanor arrest records for two DUI offenses in Harrison County in August 2002 and St. Johns County, Fla., in November 2013. In November 2002, he was arrested in Gulfport on misdemeanor charges of leaving the scene of an accident, reckless driving and driving with a suspended license as a result of a DUI.

This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Graphic video reveals details about killing of Waffle House waitress ."