Michael "Mike" Ventura was a former employee of Longitude Pharmaceuticals. He lived on a compound in Itta Bena, Mississippi, complete with a private dock on the Black Brake swamp. A former county sheriff and security director at Longitude Pharmaceuticals, Ventura was a strongly-built, sinewy man with receding hair. He was a wealthy sportsman, but also a bigot, well-known and respected by the regulars at Tiny’s Bait ’n’ Bar, widely recognized as “one of the last places where you didn’t have to look at jigaboos, faggots or Yankees."