Witnesses reveal details about kidnapping, torture of MS deputy found shot, bound
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Gulfport officers recovered retired deputy Mike Ouzts bound, shot, inside a container.
- Prosecutors say D’Elena and co-defendants drove from Louisiana to rob Ouzts for cash.
- Trial testimony details planning, robbery, and arrests; multiple defendants face charges.
Nearly 76 hours after a retired Warren County deputy was kidnapped, robbed, shot and tortured, Gulfport police found him locked inside an old storage container more than 200 miles from his home.
Officers discovered former Warren County Deputy Mike Ouzts, 66, several days after he was taken from his Vicksburg home on Jan. 23, 2023.
In a trial testimony this week in Harrison County Circuit Court, investigators and witnesses revealed details about the case that ended in eight arrests on various charges, including the arrest of Logan D’Elena, a Saucier native on trial for aggravated assault and kidnapping in the case.
His co-defendant in the kidnapping and assault, Blake Menefee, previously pleaded guilty to his role in the kidnapping and assault of the former deputy. He is among those and other co-defendants charged with lesser crimes who have testified at the trial in Gulfport.
District Attorney Crosby Parker and Assistant District Attorney Jasmine Magee are prosecuting the case before Judge Christopher Schmidt.
In trial testimony, witnesses painted a portrait of a plan by D’Elena and his longtime friend, Brent Menefee, to drive from Gonzales, Louisiana, to Vicksburg to steal cash from a man in Vicksburg.
A robbery and assault followed that eventually led authorities in Gulfport to find the retired law enforcement officer confined in an old Conex storage container dumped in a wooded area about 50 yards from Grace Temple Baptist Church.
$100K in cash and a plan to steal gone
The crime unfolded, according to Menefee, after an alleged prostitute in Louisiana told him and D’Elena about a man she identified as Ouzts who had a lot of cash at his Vicksburg home. Menefee said he and D’Elena then hatched a plan to drive from Louisiana to Vicksburg to steal the money.
The pair, he said, made drive to Vicksburg from Gonzales, Louisiana, in a truck that belonged to D’Elena’s grandfather.
Once they arrived, Menefee said he parked the truck near a meter box and orange traffic cone, then went to the door to ask for help to jump off the truck.
Menefee said he knocked on the door, and said D’Elena went around to the side of the house. He said they had walkie-talkies to communicate.
A short time later, he said Ouzts answered the door, then said he had a jump box to do the jump on Menefee’s truck. He said Ouzts followed him outside to try to help him.
After some conversation, the defendant said he was hungry, and Ouzts told him he’d go with him to show him where a nearby Wendy’s was for food.
While Ouzts was outside with Menefee, he said D’Elena managed to get in the house and remained there until he and Ouzts got back to the victim’s house.
Menefee described how the victim asked him if he wanted to come inside to eat, but said he declined.
After Ouzts went back inside his home, Menefee said he heard gunshots and that D’Elena had shot Ouzts. Menefee said he drove off, but then D’Elena called him back to the home.
There, he said, D’Elena placed the now-bound Ouzts in the back floorboard of his own truck, while Menefee drove the other truck, and the pair followed one another back from Vicksburg until they ended up in Gulfport.
Once they got back, Ouzts — still bound by duct tape and ropes and shot in the leg, was placed in the abandoned Conex container in the woods.
Menefee said he didn’t take part in any shooting, had no plans to do so, and that once he realized D’Elena had shot the victim, Menefee said he worried the victim might not survive.
The two men had a safe they had taken from Ouzts’ home to Gulfport. Eventually, he said they were able to get into it, and found some paperwork and about $100,000 in cash.
D’Elena gave him about $200, Menefee said, and D’Elena kept the rest.
Ouzts had been placed in the old Conex trailer by then.
Steel chains, rope and standing guard
The two friends would meet up with D’Elena’s friend and another co-defendant, Isaiah McDonald, at a gas station and convenience store in the Lyman community.
From there, McDonald said, he and D’Elena went to Academy Sports and then Walmart, where D’Elena bought some shoes for the witness along with other items that D’Elena wanted like steel chain, rope, a BB gun and other items.
McDonald said he assumed D’Elena needed the chain to help tow a motorcycle that D’Elena had asked him to do some work on, but said after he found out what all had happened, he assumed the chain and rope that D’Elena bought could have been used to tie up someone.
He said he parted ways with D’Elena that day, but then met up with him a day or so later near the property by the church where Ouzts was being held captive.
He said he was supposed to serve as a guard near the path leading to where the container was, though he didn’t know what was going on at the time.
He said he saw D’Elena and Menefee walk back into the woods to where he assumed Ouzts was being held captive.
Eventually, McDonald went on to share how he was asked to stand guard near the path to the wooded area where Ouzts was confined in the old container. He said he watched as D’Elena and Menefee walked back through the wooded area, but he didn’t see what they were doing.
Finding the victim bound, gagged and shot
Three days after the crime unfolded in Vicksburg, Gulfport police found Ouzts’ stolen truck abandoned on Old Highway 49. A short time later, another officer located an ATV in a wooded area about 50 yards from Grace Temple Baptist Church on that same road.
Not long after, Gulfport Police Sgt. Brian Farrar said officers followed a trail of evidence that led them to an old abandoned Conex container in a wooded area behind a parking lot at Grace Temple Baptist Church in Gulfport.
It was there that officers would find the law enforcement veteran shot in the leg, bloodied and bound with duct tape and rope.
“As we got closer, we heard someone inside,” Farrar testified Tuesday during the kidnapping and aggravated assault trial of Logan D’Elena in Harrison County Circuit Court. The case is being prosecuted by District Attorney Crosby Parker and Assistant District Attorney Jasmine Magee before Judge Christopher Schmidt.
Before opening the steel container, Farrar said an officer called out, asking the man to identify himself.
“I’m Mike, and I’m from Vicksburg,” Ouzts replied.
Then came the plea for help.
“Help me. Don’t leave me. I got shot in an armed robbery at my house. They just want me to die. Please don’t leave me. I’ve been an officer for 43 years.”
“OK, Mike, I’m with the Gulfport Police Department, and I’m here for you,” an officer told him.
At the scene, a crime scene investigator testified that she collected bloodied duct tape, a baseball bat, a steel chain, a mask, a tool bag, and a blanket that smelled of urine and some type of fuel, and other items.
Farrar said Ouzts’ truck was found roughly 50 yards from the church property and about half a mile from the area officers had been searching on four-wheelers.
A robbery, a missing man, and launching an investigation
The criminal investigation in the case began when one of Ouzts’ longtime friends and retired law-enforcement colleagues, Richard Dane Davenport, drove past Ouzts’ home and noticed something that didn’t look right—a garage door cracked open just a few inches. That was unusual for Ouzts.
Davenport pulled into the driveway with his son. As soon as they walked to the house, he noticed a door that appeared to have been kicked in, with the door frame splintered. Once inside, he immediately saw signs of a struggle—furniture shoved around and a television knocked off the wall.
Then he spotted what looked like a bullet hole in one wall and blood on the carpet. Davenport and his son went back outside and called authorities.
The investigation that followed led to seven arrests, including D’Elena and Menefee, and others charged with drug crimes and other crimes, like hindering prosecution for failing to share all they knew about the whereabouts of the suspects involved in the kidnapping.
Testimony in the trial is continuing this week.
This story was originally published November 19, 2025 at 4:57 PM.
