Suspect in Biloxi officer’s murder assaulted staff, refused treatment & asked for the CIA
A judge Tuesday ordered Darian Atkinson’s commitment to the Mississippi State Mental Hospital at Whitfield for the foreseeable future after at least six mental health evaluations showed he remains incompetent to stand trial in the shooting death of Biloxi Police Officer Robert McKeithen.
In addition, Judge Christopher Schmidt ordered that Atkinson, now 24, undergo an annual assessment by a forensic psychologist to determine whether his competency has been restored so that he could stand trial for capital murder in the May 5, 2019, ambush-style killing. The murder happened at the Police Department on Porter Avenue.
Though psychologists initially found Atkinson competent to stand trial in 2020, his condition deteriorated by around October 2021, when his attorney, Angela Broun, said she started having problems communicating with him for his defense.
During Tuesday’s hearing, a forensic psychologist and the medical director of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health testified that Atkinson has been receiving continuous restorative treatment for competency since March 2023.
Over the course of his treatment, Atkinson has received a variety of anti-psychotic medical treatment, even through forced injections because of his inability to cooperate with doctors and nurses at the state hospital, according to forensic psychologist, Dr. Richard Storer.
In addition, Atkinson has undergone individual and group therapy sessions, and extensive testing designed to uncover mental illness to determine if he is fabricating or exaggerating his symptoms, which confirmed his incompetence. Those symptoms, Storer said, are “extremely hard to fake or exaggerate.”
In addition, Dr. Tom Recore, the medical director at the Mississippi State Department of Mental Health, testified about the way in which Atkinson is housed at the state hospital.
While at Whitfield, he said, Atkinson is classified as a high security risk and is confined to the maximum security unit on the property. As such, he is confined to his room, or individual cell with metal doors, for 12 hours a day, eats his meals in his cell and does not leave the facility with the exception of any need for emergency hospital treatment.
District Attorney Crosby Parker said he and his office have maintained constant contact with Biloxi Police Chief John Miller and McKeithen’s widow and family, to keep them abreast of everything that has happened since the killing .
“Although we are extremely disappointed that we are prohibited by law from prosecuting this defendant at this time, we want to make clear that this case is not dismissed,” Parker said.
Meanwhile, Parker reiterated that Atkinson will “remain jailed in a maximum-security setting,” something Parker said he personally went to check out himself to ensure the secure nature of incarceration at the state hospital. He described the area where Atkinson will be held as one similar to a prison.
Assaulting staff, and requests to call CIA
Atkinson’s condition started to deteriorate over the course of the COVID-19 lockdown, and has continued to spiral downward since then, the doctor testified.
For example, Dr. Storer said, Atkinson has become combative with staff at the state hospital by physically assaulting them and has displayed other “alarming behavior,” which included a refusal to maintain personal hygiene that ultimately led him to suffer from some type of facial infection.
At other times, Atkinson claimed to be a part of some “matrix” and thought the charges against him had been dismissed, Storer said. He told state hospital staff that he wanted to call the CIA to report that he was being held in Mississippi against his will because he erroneously theorized that his charges had been summarily dismissed.
Despite the decision for Atkinson to remain at the state hospital at Whitfield for the foreseeable future, his capital murder charge remains intact in the event he can one day stand trial.
Atkinson is facing a possible death sentence or life in prison without parole if he goes to trial one day and is convicted of McKeithen capital murder.
A brutal, planned attack
Atkinson has been in custody since his arrest on May 6, 2019. He was 19 years old at the time of the killing.
He is not eligible for a bond because he is charged with capital murder.
Capital murder is a murder committed during the commission of a felony offense. However, a person charged with killing a police officer, prosecutor, or the like automatically faces a capital offense. An underlying felony offense is not required when someone is accused of a police officer’s killing.
In other testimony by doctors since then, Atkinson has made other claims about the police officer’s murder.
At one point, he told a doctor in 2020 that he committed the crime because of the systematic oppression of Black people and his right to bear arms.
Atkinson even said he felt a jury would understand his reasoning for the action he took against Officer McKeithen.
Atkinson’s family said they first started noticing changes in Darian Atkinson’s behavior after he returned from a trip to Texas shortly after his high school graduation. At that time, his family said he started making odd comments, like saying his family needed to turn off the television because people were listening.
Atkinson has had other issues as well.
In 2018, for example, Atkinson was suspended from Biloxi High School after reportedly making threats involving guns in the aftermath of a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a gunman opened fire, killing 14 students and three teachers and injuring 17 others.
In that case, two Biloxi High students were talking about the Parkland shooting when Atkinson reportedly told a female student, “I’m thinking about doing the same thing here, and I’m going to start with you.’”
An officer’s murder
According to investigators, Atkinson had a preconceived plan to kill a member of law enforcement in 2019.
On the night of McKeithen’s slaying, authorities said Atkinson had walked eight miles from Gulfport to the Biloxi police department with one goal in mind — to kill a police officer.
The shooting, dubbed an ambush-style slaying by authorities, occurred in the parking lot outside the police department.
Authorities took Atkinson into custody after a 24-hour manhunt that ended when an off-duty Biloxi police officer spotted Atkinson in Wiggins and called the local agency to make the arrest.
Surveillance footage from the Biloxi police department showed Atkinson within arm’s length of McKeithen when the shooting occurred.
The gunman fired nine rounds, with three bullets hitting McKeithen’s bulletproof vest, another grazing his head, and another hitting him in the body.
McKeithen had just returned to the police department on Porter Avenue because of a flat tire at the time of his slaying. McKeithen was a beloved father, family man, mentor and dedicated law enforcement officer, having served 24 years at the Biloxi police department.
This story was originally published March 25, 2025 at 12:25 PM.
