‘A tough pill to swallow.’ Family speaks out after Coast man killed while picking up son.
A suspect in the domestic violence-related shooting death of a Hancock County man waived his preliminary hearing Monday, which bounds the case over to a grand jury for indictment.
Christopher Jerome Brown, 28, is being held on a charge of murder in the July 24 killing of 36-year-old Nicholas Pittman. Brown remains jailed in Jackson County on a $500,000 bond.
Brown is accused of shooting Pittman multiple times at a Latimer home on Theriot Avenue, where Brown lived with the mother of one of Pittman’s children.
Pittman’s brother, Codero Pittman, said his brother rode over to the home with one of his sisters and a niece to pick up his son from the child’s mother.
While he was there, his brother said, Pittman was talking to the child’s mother and allegedly telling her that she needed to make sure Brown didn’t “lay a hand” on the child. Brown, he said, apparently overheard the conversation.
Pittman’s brother said the suspect allegedly swung open the front door, pulled a gun out of his pocket, and shot Pittman. Nicholas Pittman died at the scene.
Jackson County sheriff’s deputies said the two men had argued prior to the shooting.
Brown fled the home after the shooting but later surrendered to authorities.
Codero Pittman said it’s been very hard on his family to lose their loved one the way they did.
“This has affected us in a major way,” his brother said. “It’s different when you lose someone if they are sick, but an unexpected death like this is just a tough pill to swallow.”
Nicholas Pittman graduated from Harrison Central High School and was working as a security guard and living in Hancock County at the time of his death.
“He was a great man,” his brother said. “He was an amazing father. He loved to play basketball with his children. I mean, he just loved spending quality time with them. Anything he needed to do as a father, he did it.”
Codero Pittman, who works at a funeral home and is a pastor at Prophetic & Deliverance Ministries in Gulfport, said he has thought about the suspect often since the killing. Pittman went to court Monday to attend the court proceeding.
“I am praying for him,” he said. “I pray this has changed him.”
This story was originally published October 11, 2021 at 2:30 PM.
