Officials with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI) are still investigating the death of 25-year-old Rasheem Carter nearly six months after his body was discovered in Taylorsville.
The Fayette native, who was working as a welder in Taylorsville at the time of his death, was last seen at a Super 9 hotel in Laurel on October 2, 2022.
One day before he went missing, Carter had reportedly told the Taylorsville Police Department that he was being followed and was afraid for his life.
According to Carter’s mother, Tiffany Carter, her son had also expressed fear for his life over text messages and phone calls to her the same day. She added that Carter had talked about “three truckloads of white guys” that were following him, saying that he suspected his manager was the reason he was being targeted.
The next day, Tiffany reported her son as missing to the Laurel Police Department.
Exactly one month later, Carter’s body was found in a wooded area on a property in Taylorsville, with his skeletal remains showing his head completely severed from his spinal cord.
Footage from a nearby deer trail camera took a snapshot of the 25-year-old walking through the area around 4:30 p.m. on October 2, showing Carter shirtless and carrying a large branch.
Since then, officials with the MBI and the Smith County Sheriff’s Department (SCSD) have begun investigating Carter’s death, with the SCSD stating that foul play was not suspected in the incident.
On Wednesday, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety stated that Carter’s cause of death could not be determined by the medical examiner’s office.
“Based solely upon the conditions of the remains, there was no means by which a cause of death could be reasonably determined by the medical examiner’s office,” the news release said.
The MBI and SCSD are currently investigating leads and evidence, such as Carter’s credit card being used by an unknown individual following his death.
