Rasheem Carter’s mother said that before he disappeared in October, he called in a panic to say white men were chasing him in trucks and hurling racial slurs.
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The family of a Black man who was found dead in Mississippi after he warned his mother that he was being chased by white men hurling racial slurs demanded a federal investigation Monday after local authorities said they had “no reason” to suspect foul play in the man’s death. Rasheem Carter, 25, was reported missing Oct. 2 after his mother said he had sought help from police and frantically called her to say white men in three trucks were pursuing him. That was the last day Carter’s family heard from him. On Nov. 2, authorities said they found his remains in a wooded area south of Taylorsville, Mississippi. In a statement on Facebook a day later, the Smith County Sheriff’s Department said it had “no reason to believe foul play was involved” though the case was under investigation.
On Monday, Carter’s loved ones and their attorney Ben Crump slammed local authorities for stonewalling them for more than four months and for the initial determination, saying they believe Carter was the victim of a brutal hate crime. “This was a nefarious act. This was an evil act,” Crump said at a news conference. “Somebody murdered Rasheem Carter, and we cannot let them get away with this.”
Crump urged the Justice Department on Monday to take over the investigation as a civil rights case as he revealed photographs of Carter’s skeletal remains, including his skull and some vertebrae. “This was not a natural death,” Crump said. “This represents a young man who was killed.” Crump told reporters that he believes Carter’s head was severed from his body and that his spinal cord was found in another location away from his head. “There is nothing natural about this. It screams out for justice,” Crump said. “What we have is a Mississippi lynching.” Carter’s front teeth were missing from the top and bottom rows, which Carter’s family said could indicate that he was assaulted before he died. It’s unclear what prompted authorities to search the wooded area or what led them to determine initially that foul play was not suspected. The Smith County Sheriff’s Department did not reply to requests for comment.
The Laurel Police Department, which put out Carter’s missing person’s report, worked on the case early on after Carter’s family asked for assistance, Chief Tommy Cox told NBC News. But Cox said that Carter had not contacted his department for help before he went missing, and that the Laurel Police Department handed its investigation over to Smith County once it was clear it was outside of its jurisdiction. Cox said his department pulled some phone records and may have interviewed some of Carter’s co-workers, but he declined to elaborate further. “We tried to put ourselves in their shoes. It didn’t hurt us to do a little bit of work on it,” Cox said. “We did what we considered to be the right thing. And then when it became obvious which jurisdiction would be the lead, we turned it over to them.” The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which is assisting the sheriff in its probe, said Carter’s autopsy was completed on Feb. 2 but declined to comment further, citing the “open and ongoing investigation.” The FBI is not currently involved in the case, an agency spokesperson said. Three members of Carter’s family said authorities told them wild animals may have torn his body apart.
“He was in so many different pieces,” said Yokena Anderson, a cousin to Carter’s mother, Tiffany Carter. “They wanted to tell us that he went there and fell dead and the animals were feeding off him.” But Carter’s mother said that her son was lucid about the threats he faced during their final phone calls, and that he was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol and had no history of mental illness. She had doubts her son’s death was an accident even before she saw where his remains were found. “When I went on the scene, the Holy Spirit hit me and said this is foul play,” she said. “I knew then somebody had done something to him.” Carter, a welder from Fayette, Mississippi, was in Taylorsville, about 100 miles away from home, working a short-term contracting gig. His mother said he was saving money to re-open his seafood restaurant, which closed during the pandemic and which was named after his 7‑year-old daughter, Cali.
“That was his goal,” she said. “That was why he went back out to work.” But while he was at the job site in October, Carter had a disagreement with at least one co-worker and fled, fearing for his life, his mother said. “He said, ‘I got these men trying to kill me,’ ” Carter’s mother recalled him saying. She advised Carter to go to the nearest police station for help but eventually lost contact with him. Carter’s family and friends led their own search parties until his remains were discovered. “I never imagined going on living without my child,” Tiffany Carter said. “When I lost my son, I lost a part of me.” Carter’s loved ones said he worked hard to provide for his daughter, paid for her private school tuition and made his friends and family proud. “He kept all his promises,” Cali’s mother, Justiss White, said. “He called every day. They stayed on the phone for hours like teenagers. Every day, she brings him up.” Tiffany Carter pledged to continue fighting for answers. “They thought this was going to be a child no one cared anything about,” she said. “They’re clearly mistaken. Because he was somebody.
After facing backlash, Mississippi sheriff now says he hasn’t ruled out foul play in Rasheem Carter’s death.
By Melissa
A Mississippi sheriff said Tuesday that he has not ruled out the possibility of murder in the case of Rasheem Carter, months after initially saying there was “no reason” to suspect foul play in the Black man’s death. Carter, 25, was found dead last fall after he warned his mother that he was being chased by white men hurling racial slurs. In an interview with NBC News, Smith County Sheriff Joel Houston defended his early determination, saying no evidence at the time pointed to homicide. But he said his department is still waiting on search warrants to rule more definitively. For the first time, the sheriff revealed key aspects of the investigation, including the department’s process of ruling out potential suspects. The interview came one day after Carter’s loved ones and their attorney Ben Crump slammed authorities for stonewalling them for more than four months and accused the police of covering up what they believe was a brutal hate crime. “Nothing is being swept under the rug,” Houston said Tuesday. “There’s nothing to hide.”
Carter was reported missing on Oct. 2, after his mother said he had sought help from police and frantically called her to say white men in three trucks were pursuing him. That was the last day Carter’s family heard from him. On Nov. 2, authorities said they found his remains in a wooded area south of Taylorsville, Mississippi. In a statement on Facebook a day later, the Smith County Sheriff’s Department said it had “no reason to believe foul play was involved,” though the case was under investigation. Carter’s loved ones and family attorney were dismayed by that swift decision by the sheriff and urged the Justice Department to take over the investigation as a civil rights case during a news conference Monday. “This was a nefarious act. This was an evil act,” Crump said. “Somebody murdered Rasheem Carter, and we cannot let them get away with this.” The sheriff said Tuesday that his department initially said that no foul play was suspected to ease public concern after finding no early evidence that Carter had been chased. “It was just letting the local or general public know that at this time no one else is believed to be involved,” he said. “It does seem to have caused unnecessary headache, but we only have what the evidence tells us. At that time, the evidence didn’t suggest anything.”
Carter, a welder from Fayette, Mississippi, was in Taylorsville, about 100 miles away from home, working a short-term contracting gig. His mother, Tiffany Carter, said he was saving money to reopen his seafood restaurant, which closed during the pandemic and which was named after his 7‑year-old daughter, Cali. “That was his goal,” she said. “That was why he went back out to work.” But while he was at the job site in October, Carter had a disagreement with at least one co-worker and fled, fearing for his life, his mother said. “He said, ‘I got these men trying to kill me,’” Carter’s mother recalled him saying. She advised Carter to go to the nearest police station for help but eventually lost contact with him. On Tuesday, the sheriff said his department interviewed “everybody involved” with Carter’s last job, including four to five people Carter had mentioned to his mother as possible threats. Houston said police “ruled them out” after determining through phone records and GPS coordinates that their devices were nearly 100 miles away from Taylorsville at another job site when Carter was last seen alive. The sheriff said Carter’s colleagues and supervisor mentioned in their interviews that Carter “had not been himself” for about a week before he went missing. “They said his whole demeanor had changed. They weren’t sure what was going on,” Houston said. “They just said he kept to himself more. He usually joked around, and in the last week or so they weren’t able to do that.”
Houston said Carter had “a couple of verbal altercations” with at least one co-worker. But the sheriff did not say what the disagreement was about or whether the altercation prompted Carter’s behavior change. Carter was last seen captured on a private landowner’s game camera out in the woods on Oct. 2 after 4:30 p.m., Houston said, adding that he was the only person spotted in the footage. The sheriff said the property owner passed the image along to police when he found out about it in mid-October. Houston said it took about two weeks to search several hundred acres, using cadaver dogs. Along with Carter’s scattered remains, authorities found inside his blue jeans some cash, bank cards, a driver’s license, a vape and a phone charger, though they never recovered his phone. The sheriff’s department has submitted a search warrant to Google to determine whether any devices pinged in the area where Carter’s remains were found around the time he went missing. “It’s a last-straw-type deal to determine if anyone else was with him or not,” he said. “It’s not uncommon to use this tool.” However, the process has been going on since mid-November, Houston said, and the department has had to revise, narrow down and resubmit their request several times, including most recently last week. Houston said that he welcomes the Justice Department’s involvement and that he wants justice for Carter’s family “just as much as the family does.” The Carters disagree. Three members of the family said authorities told them wild animals may have torn his body apart. “He was in so many different pieces,” said Yokena Anderson, a cousin to Carter’s mother. “They wanted to tell us that he went there and fell dead and the animals were feeding off him.” Carter’s mother said that her son was lucid about the threats he faced during their final phone calls and that he was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol and had no history of mental illness. “I just know what my son told me,” she said Tuesday. “I don’t believe anything they say. It’s lies after lies.”