Rasheem Carter ran into a wooded area on the day he was reported missing while holding what looked like a large branch, showed a new trail camera image.
The 25-year-old Black Mississippi resident had gone went missing on 2 October last year soon after he said he was being chased by a group of white men in pickup trucks while they hurled racist abuse at him.
Carter’s remains were found in a wooded area south of Taylorsville a month later, while his family’s lawyer, citing an independent autopsy report, said Carter’s head was severed from his body.
His mother Tiffany Carter told Insider on Wednesday that the image was given to the family by investigators a week before his remains were found and that it showed “something was wrong” and that her son was “running for his life”.
Ms Carter earlier said he had sought help from the police and told her he was being chased.
The Smith County Sheriff’s Department’s take at the time was that there was “no reason to believe foul play was involved”.
But on Tuesday, Smith County sheriff Joel Houston said the possibility of murder had not been ruled out.
Mr Houston told NBC News that the early assessment of “no reason to believe foul play” had come at a time when there was no evidence that pointed to homicide.
“You could see there are bruises on him,” Ms Carter told the outlet. “When I see that picture, I know my son was somewhere struggling, somewhere running for his life,” she said, reiterating that she feels he was being “chased” there.
“The picture shows something is not right,” Ms Carter said.
“Something transpired.”
Carter’s cousin Tarsha Clark also felt he was “hiding” when the picture was shot. “I think it was a struggle and he was trying to protect himself. He was hiding.”
A day before his disappearance on 1 October, Carter sent an ominous text to his mother.
A welder by profession who lived in Fayette, Carter had a short-term job as a contractor around 100 miles away in Taylorsville.
Ms Carter said he was saving money to try to get his seafood restaurant back up and running after it was shuttered during the Covid pandemic.
But Carter reached out to his mother and told her in a detailed text message that he was having issues with his coworkers and feared for his life, Ms Carter said at a press conference on Monday.
“Me and the owner of this company are not seeing eye to eye,” the message read.
“If anything happens to me [he] is responsible for it… he got these guys wanting to kill me.”
Carter gave his mother the name of the individual he was fearful of and told her he was being targeted by a group of white men in three trucks.
“My son told me that it was three truckloads of white guys trying to kill him. And at the time that he told me, as a mother, you know, I had to think fast,” she said.
She said she urged him to go straight to a police station “because I felt in my heart they would serve and protect like they are obligated to do”.
Carter did visit the Taylorsville police department on two separate occasions prior to his disappearance, reported ABC News.
For a month, Carter’s friends and family conducted searches to try to track him down.
On 2 November – exactly a month after he was last seen alive – his skeletal remains were found.
In a statement announcing the discovery, the Smith County Sheriff’s Office had then said there was “no reason to believe foul play was involved”.
It is not clear what prompted law enforcement to issue the initial statement or what led to the discovery of Carter’s remains.
No charges have been brought and his cause of death is unknown.
A spokesperson for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation told The Independent on Wednesday that a cause of death has not been determined due to the condition of Carter’s remains.
“Based solely upon the condition of the remains, there was no means by which a cause of death could be reasonably determined by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office,” the spokesperson said.
“The Mississippi Department of Public Safety can offer no further comment or details pertaining to the death and disappearance of Mr Carter due to it being a pending investigation by the Smith County Sheriff’s Department.”
