Originally posted on March 9, 2025 @ 3:46 pm
Murder Under the Friday Night Lights Recap for Nothing to Cheer About
This week’s Murder Under the Friday Night Lights is titled Nothing to Cheer About and covers the tragic murder of male cheerleader Joshua Missiledine of Gulfport, Mississippi.
On November 30th, 2001, one day before the State Cheer competition, Josh was missing from practice, which was unlike him.
Dianne Denley former cheer coach for Harrison Central High School, talks about the importance of the cheer competition in the school. She and former cheerleader Billy Bankester were worried because Josh was missing and no one could get in contact with him.
That morning, former investigator Kevin Fayard recalls getting a call about an abandoned vehicle registered to Brenda Palmer. She was called and said her son Josh was driving it that day. She says that Josh was living between her house and his father’s house.
Brenda had called the school and Josh’s dad, only to find out that he was missing. Everyone went crazy and a search party was formed to look for him.
Josh’s former girlfriend Michelle Gary talks about life in the Gulfport area, while reporter Michael Lacy talks about cheer culture in Harrison High. Billy also recalls how football and cheerleading were always a big deal. Cheerleading in particular was very important, for the school was always entering and winning big competitions.
Billy also talks about becoming friends with Billy and how he was such a friendly, amazing guy.
Nobody could figure out why Josh would disappear before such an important competition, making people worry even more that something sinister could have happened to him.
The car radio was discovered to be missing from the car, which made authorities wonder if this was a motive for his disappearance.
Josh’s father and uncle were the last to see him the night before reported missing. It is also learned that Josh had a bit of a rough past that including smoking pot. This took the case into a whole new direction.
Brenda says she was aware of this, and it caused a lot of problems in her house. She claims that cheerleading saved him, and he was willing to come home and follow her rules. She also credits Michelle for being a positive force in his life.
The night before Josh went missing, Michelle claims they were on the phone, but he kept getting other calls. She says someone named Chris wanted Josh to pick him up, but he was not interested in going out. However, he did make plans to meet with someone named Daniel Lance.
Daniel was questioned, but claimed he had no information regarding Josh’s whereabouts.
Josh was still missing the day of the competition, upsetting everyone, since they held onto hope that he would show up. His disappearance threw off their performances, causing them to lose the competition. Despite being worried, people were upset that Josh had failed to show up and cost them the competition win.
As the competition took place, a call about a dead body in a trailer came in to authorities. They went to go investigate and found the body of a teenage male believed to be Josh. Brenda was able to identify him via phone due to a distinguishing mark on his arm. The case officially went from a missing persons case to a homicide investigation.
Josh died of blunt force trauma to the head and hemorrhaging.
As the team got home from the competition, they got word about Josh’s death, leaving them in a state of shock.
Josh was said to have died on Thursday night. A young man named DeMarcus, who was 13 at the time, was the one who discovered his body and would tell police that he saw his own father at the trailer the night of the murder. His name was Chris Shields and was suspected of being the same Chris who as calling Josh that night.
However, nobody in Josh’s circle had ever heard of Chris.
Daniel and Chris are investigated via phone records obtained thanks to Josh’s father. The phone records showed that the number believed to belong to Chris actually belonged to someone named Kernnetta Maria McClendon. Her home is close to where Josh’s body was found.
Kernnetta claims that her brother Germaine Strickland and Chris were together that night and used her phone to call Josh.
Germaine was brought in for unrelated charges and was questioned about his connection to Chris. He admitted that he witnessed Chris assaulted Josh and that they had a cover story in place, where they would claim that Josh broke in and they assaulted him in self-defense.
Chris is also arrested and questioned. giving a conflicting story where Germaine got the blame.
Due to evidence and DeMarcus’s statement, it is believed that Chris committed the crime, leading to his arrest. Germaine was also arrested for his part of the crime. It is believed that Josh was lured in to be robbed and lost his life in the process.
Nobody could understand the connection between Chris, Germaine and Josh.
Chris took a plea deal and got 20 years, while Germaine got five years in prison. Brenda is not happy with this because she thinks Germaine got off too easy.
In February 2002, the cheerleading squad competed in Josh’s honor and won!
About the Author
