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NATCHEZ — After an Adams County jury deliberated for at least four hours Thursday, no verdict was reached for now 20-year-old Jordan Caston, who is charged with the murder of 16-year-old Marquez Brown.

Caston is also serving a 10-year sentence for setting a fire in the Adams County Jail after his arrest for the murder in February 2022. Caston was 18 years old at the time.

Then Natchez Police Chief Joseph Daughtry said Brown was gunned down in February 2022 in “cold blood” in a “senseless” act of violence at 103 Jackson St. near Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

Within an hour of the shooting, police officers assisted by Adams County Sheriff’s Office deputies surrounded a house directly across the street from the crime scene, where they took Caston into custody for questioning.

“I can’t get into specifics (of the trial),” said District Attorney Tim Cotton on Friday. “The state has to look at it as still a pending case subject to retrial. I don’t want to taint any potential jurors reading more into something than it was.”

Cotton said the process of trying Caston’s case would have to start over at “square one” with a new jury selected.

“We’ll make a decision about retrying Jordan Caston very soon,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to have a hung jury, especially in cases almost three years old.”

Back in January, at the very beginning of Cotton’s term as District Attorney, Cotton said he’d made the decision to separate Caston’s arson charge for setting fire to the Adams County Jail from the murder charge and try it separately.

“He is serving 10 years on that now,” Cotton said.