JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – While shopping at Sam’s Club in Pearl back in 2022, Tameka McLaurin Hamlin ran into a man she had never met named Robert Bates, and he noticed the necklace Hamlin wore — one that bore a photo of her late mother.
The recognition led to a conversation.
Bates claimed to know members of her family, including her stepfather, who had reportedly worked with him on home repairs in the past. Conveniently, Hamlin and her family were planning to expand their Meadowview Drive home in Jackson and needed a contractor…