Talking Dateline: Bringing Jay Home

Dateline NBC

NBC News

True Crime, News, Society & Culture, Culture, Social

4.4 • 40.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2026

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Andrea Canning and Blayne Alexander sit down to discuss Blayne’s latest episode, "Bringing Jay Home." When 20-year-old Jimmie "Jay" Lee -- a proud gay man, Ole Miss student, and loving son -- went missing in 2022, police put together a painful theory: Jay’s former classmate Sheldon Timothy Herrington killed him out of fear that their relationship would be exposed. More than three years and one mistrial later, Herrington confessed to the murder. Blayne talks about the powerful legacy Jay Lee left behind and the passionate investigators who tackled his case. Plus, she shares a podcast-exclusive clip from her interview with Jay’s parents. Then, she and Andrea answer viewer and listener questions from social media. Have a question for Talking Dateline? DM us a video to @DatelineNBC or leave a voicemail at (212) 413-5252. Your question may be featured in an upcoming episode. Listen to the full episode “Bringing Jay Home” on Apple:https://apple.co/3ZcraI7Listen on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/episode/17AuUeUpFBQo31JfpB5J1B Dateline Premium subscribers can listen to the After the Verdict episode that featured retired detective Lisa Miller, whose comment was featured in the social media section of this episode. Listen on Apple: https://apple.co/3OkiL2S Listen on Spotify: https://dateline.supportingcast.fm/listen/dateline-nbc-premium/after-the-verdict-while-she-was-sleeping

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everyone, I'm Andrea Canning, and we are talking Dateline. Today, I'm here with Blaine
0:08.6	Alexander, who will be talking about her episode, Bringing Jay Home. If you haven't seen it,
0:15.1	you can find it in the Dateline podcast feed, so go there and listen to it or stream it on Peacock
0:19.9	and then come back here.
0:21.6	For this talking dateline, we have a podcast exclusive clip from Blaine's interview with Jay's
0:27.4	parents. Then we'll answer some of your questions that you had and comments from social
0:32.5	media. And there were a lot. Blaine, thank you for sharing Jay's story with the world.
0:39.9	Yeah. Of course. Of course. I really, really enjoyed telling the story and getting to know him while reporting on this. Yeah. I feel like we all
0:46.3	really got to know Jay from your story and then some. I mean, that was one of the best date lines I've
0:52.1	seen getting a glimpse into that person's life.
0:55.5	You know, it was very rich.
0:57.3	Could you just recap the story for us first?
1:00.3	Jay Lee was a young man from Jackson, Mississippi.
1:03.2	He went to Ole Miss.
1:04.0	He graduated in three years, and he was preparing to intergrad school.
1:07.9	And he was just, I don't even know if vibrant can capture who he was, but he's somebody
1:13.6	who lived life to the fullest. He was a out and proud gay man. I mean, he was very, very well
1:20.8	known in the LGBTQ community. He was just very vivacious, but also had this desire to give back to communities.
1:29.7	I mean, I think one of the details that really struck me was that on the day that he
1:34.3	disappeared, he was set to hold a baby formula drive.
1:39.2	It was something that he had organized, and then he went missing.
1:41.6	And that was one of the big clues that let his friends know, okay, something's going on because he would never miss this. So he goes missing. It was his mom's
	...

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