‘My Heart Crushes Every Time’: Mother of Rasheem Carter Who Was Found Decapitated After Reporting He Was Being Harassed By White Men, Seeks Answers a Year Later
The mother of the 25-year-old Black man who went missing before parts of his body were discovered in a wooded area in Mississippi says even after a year, she still doesn’t know what happened to her son.
She is calling on the Department of Justice to step in and help find answers to what happened to her son after he was reported missing on Oct. 2, 2022. Tiffany Carter says her last communication with her son Rasheem Carter was when he texted her that he was being harassed by white men in Taylorsville, Mississippi.
Rasheem Carter
Rasheem Carter was found dead one month after asking for help from the Taylorsville Police Department in Taylorsville, Mississippi. (Photo: WJTV 12 News/Instagram)
“He told me the night before he was in danger,” she said, adding, “he told me it was three trucks of white men trying to harm him.” The men were allegedly hurling racial slurs at him.
According to Tommy Cox, chief of the Laurel Police Department, the young man also told local authorities. He contacted the Taylorsville Police Department on two separate occasions leading up to his disappearance and told them the men had threatened his safety.
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Weeks later, Tiffany Carter was told her son was found dead on Nov. 2, 2022. What made it worse was that his body was found mangled and dismembered.
Smith County Sheriff Joel Houston initially said there was “no reason” to suspect foul play in Carter’s death and “nothing is being swept under the rug,” despite his head being severed and his spinal cord being recovered in a separate area from his head.
Tiffany Carter and her lawyer, Ben Crump, never believed that for a minute, especially after more remains were found and a third set of skeletal remains was discovered in February 2023.
“His head was severed from his body,” Crump previously said. “His vertebrate, his spinal cord was in another spot they discovered away from his severed head. They have recently found remains that they believe are also Rasheem Carter at another part of where he went missing. What that tells us is this was a nefarious act, an evil act. Someone murdered Rasheem Carter, and we cannot let them get away with this.”
“I know this, something horrific was done to my son,” she said in an interview with ABC News.
She said that she and her family have contacted the Mississippi Medical Examiner’s Office, which received the remains for an autopsy. However, despite making multiple attempts to contact them, they have not received a response about what happened to her son.
The mother also said she has not received all of her son’s remains, adding to the trauma of his death and the open wound left by the family not getting any answers or closure.
One person who desperately needs closure is Carter’s 7-year-old daughter.
“She texts that number, ‘Daddy, I love you. I love you,’ all the time. She listens to the videos and stuff that he sent her all the time. When I get her, my heart crushes every time ’cause she look just like him,” Tiffany Carter said of her granddaughter, adding that she has become withdrawn and not her usual self.
In pursuit of justice, Tiffany Carter and her attorney have called on the Department of Justice to conduct a probe and work alongside the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, with officials there asserting they are continuing to investigate circumstances surrounding the death.
“God knows, and God will deal with everyone according to what they have done,” said Carter.