The mother of Rasheem Ryelle Carter is still seeking answers after he went missing a year ago, and his remains were later found. Now, she’s requesting a federal investigation into his death from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Rasheem’s mother, Tiffany Carter, shared her son’s story with several outlets, recounting the necessary steps she had taken to find out more information about her son’s death. However, she told ABC News official investigators on the case have not shared details with the family in several months.
“If you [official investigators] have done everything you can,” Tiffany told the outlet. “Why I still don’t have an answer to what happened to my son?”
Blavity reported Rasheem sent his mother an alarming text on Oct. 1, 2022, from Taylorsville, Mississippi, where he worked. Tiffany said three white men were following her son in pickup trucks, and he feared for his life.
“He told me on the phone that it was three trucks of white men trying to kill him,” Tiffany Carter told ABC News. “As any citizen of this world, you’re going to try to get to a place of safety. And I thought telling him to go to a place of safety was the right thing to do as a mother because I wasn’t close enough to get him, myself.”
Laurel Police Department Chief Tommy Cox recalled Rasheem reporting the incident to the Taylorsville Police Department twice, stating he was concerned about his safety after the ordeal. He then asked police to give him a ride back to the Super 8 motel in Laurel, where he was living.
Police told HuffPost Rasheem asked for a ride, but they denied his request and said they were not a “taxi service.” However, Taylorsville Police Chief Gabe Horn said Rasheem filed a police report but did not press charges against those following him.
Horn also confirmed police couldn’t give him a ride because it was out of the department’s jurisdiction. Tiffany said she did not hear from her son after leaving the police station and filed a missing person’s report with the Laurel Police Department on Oct. 2, 2022.
“I called them and reported that my son was missing, I had not talked to him, and it was strange that we didn’t talk,” she said at the time, per HuffPost.
A month later, police found Rasheem’s remains in a wooded area south of Taylorsville, Mississippi. According to the family’s attorney, Ben Crump, the 25-year-old’s head was severed from his body, and his spinal cord was found in a separate location. The autopsy report later listed the official cause of death as undetermined.
On Feb. 23, the Mississippi Crime Lab told the family additional remains were recovered that matched Rasheem’s DNA. Since then, Tiffany said she has called the Mississippi Medical Examiner’s Office, which conducted the autopsy, multiple times for information and had not received a callback.
The grieving mother said she had not received her son’s remains. Tiffany still believes something “horrific” happened to Rasheem, but God will handle everything.
“I know this, something horrific was done to my son,” Tiffany said. “God knows and God will deal with everyone accordingly to what they have done.”
Despite what Tiffany has gone through, she often worries about Rasheem’s 7-year-old daughter, who still sends text messages to his cell phone.
“She texts that number, ‘Daddy, I love you. I love you,’ all the time,” Tiffany said. “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.”