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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out at patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. July 29, 2012. On a hot summer night in Craighead County, Arkansas, police pull over three men: two white and one black male.
The two white officers find drugs inside the vehicle. The white suspects are free to go. The black suspect will never take another breath. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 102, The Story of Chavis Carter. ♪
Thank you.
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
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Please continue to tell your friends and family who love true crime about us. Now, let's jump right into this week's case. At 9:50 p.m. on July 29th, 2012, a concerned motorist called the Jonesboro Police Department. Jonesboro is a city located in Craigshead County, Arkansas. It's the fifth largest city in the state.
The caller told Johnsboro police officers that a suspicious car was out on the highway. The car was driving down the road without its headlights on. The motorist was concerned because the car might cause an accident on the dark Arkansas street. Officers Keith Baggett and Ron Marsh from the Johnsboro Police Department responded to the call. They drove down the street the 911 caller described. Then officers spotted the car.
They flashed their emergency lights and instructed the vehicle to pull over. The officers assumed this was probably a simple DUI case. Someone had a little too much to drink. Unfortunately, they got behind the wheel and forgot to turn their headlights on. Inside the car were three 20-something-year-old males, the driver and two passengers, one in the front seat and the other in the back.
One of the passengers was African American and the other two were white. What happened after the police stopped the car is told by the Jonesboro Police Department. According to the police report, as soon as the officers approached the car, they smelt marijuana coming from inside. Smelling marijuana gave the police officers enough probable cause to search the vehicle and the three people inside without a warrant.
The smell also meant this stop was more than just a simple DUI case. One of the passengers inside the car was 21-year-old Missouri resident Chavis Carter. When the two officers pulled over the car, Chavis was the passenger seated in the front seat. At first, Chavis Carter lied about who he was and told the officers that his name was Laron Bowman, not Chavis Carter.
Because the police officers smelt marijuana coming from the car, they were lawfully allowed to frisk and pat down the three men. Now, this doesn't mean that the police can search the entire vehicle or the entire person, but for officer safety reasons, they had the right to at least pat down the car's occupants. When the officers patted down Chavez, he found a small amount of what turned out to be marijuana inside of one of his pants pockets.
Now, when I say a small amount of marijuana, according to the police report, the amount of marijuana found on him was equal to about $10. After finding the marijuana, the police officers are able to get Chavez's real identity. They learned that he wasn't Bowman like he had said a few minutes ago, but he's actually 21-year-old Chavez Carter.
And after learning his real name, his true identity, one of the police officers went back to his patrol car to run a report on Chavez. Standard procedure anytime someone is pulled over. And when the officer ran the report, he discovered Chavez had an active warrant out of Missouri.
According to court documents, a warrant had been issued for Chavez's arrest after he violated probation for a 2011 drug conviction where he pled guilty to selling marijuana. After the police officers discovered that Chavez had an active warrant, they placed him in the back of one of the police cars on scene without being handcuffed. At this point, he wasn't technically under arrest, but
But the officers wanted to make sure that he didn't try to run away while they searched and spoke to the other two men inside the car. So while Chavez sat in the back of the patrol car, the officers patted down the other two people inside of the car. Now, before I go any farther, I want to mention here that Chavez is black and the other two people inside the car were white.
The two police officers who responded to the call, Officers Baggett and Officer Marsh, were also white. The officers needed to search the other two men because they had already found marijuana on Chavez, so they thought that maybe the other two men had something on them as well.
But when they searched the two men, they didn't find anything illegal. No drugs, no weapons. They were perfectly clean. So both of them were released and free to go. They were leaving Chavez behind, uncuffed in the back of the patrol car. After the cops released the other two men, they had Chavez get out of the car. At this point, they handcuffed him and conducted a second search.
This time, the officers conducted what is known as a search incident to arrest. Under our Constitution, we're protected from searches without a warrant. This includes searches of ourselves, clothing, our homes, and even our vehicles. But a search incident to arrest allows police officers to conduct a deeper search of person and property without a warrant.
And the idea behind these types of warrantless searches is to, number one, ensure officer safety while making an arrest. Number two, the prevention of escape of the individual. And then number three, the preservation of evidence. In this case, the police search Chavez for a second time to, of course, ensure officer safety. And then number two, preserve any evidence.
Because Chavez had an active warrant in Mississippi, the officers didn't know if he posed any danger or if he had any weapons on him. Because they already found marijuana inside one of his pants pockets, they didn't know if he had any more anywhere else on his body.
So the officers are executing this type of search to, number one, ensure their safety and then to preserve any evidence. And they can do all of this without a warrant. Now, according to the police report, they didn't find anything during this second search. They didn't find any drugs. No weapon was recovered. Nothing.
So after finishing this second, much deeper search, they handcuffed him and put him back in the patrol car. And this is where our story truly begins. Let me tell you that what happened next is directly from the police report. Quote,
As the officers then returned to their vehicles, the second officer entered his vehicle and noted the smell of something burning and noticed Carter slumped over on the passenger side of the patrol unit. The officer then opened the rear door and noticed Carter unresponsive with a quantity of blood on him.
At this point, he ran to the other officer to prevent him from leaving, and both officers returned to the second unit, opened both doors, and began to attempt to assist Carter and summoned an ambulance. The ambulance arrived and transported Carter to the hospital, where he died a short time later."
The report then goes on. Investigators were called to the scene and began processing the evidence, photographing and securing evidence. A small .38 caliber Cobra semi-automatic firearm was discovered, as well as an expended case and a projectile, which was recovered in the rear of the vehicle. Let me stop here for a moment because I want to talk about this gun.
According to the Jonesboro Police Department, the .38 caliber Cobra gun that was found next to Chavez had been reported stolen from a Jonesboro resident just one month earlier. So we're not talking about a police service weapon. Instead, this was a gun that Chavez allegedly had with him while handcuffed in the back of the patrol car.
Now, back to the police report. Quote,
Furthermore, the windows of the patrol unit where Carter was detained were up and intact, indicating no possibility of a bullet penetrating from the outside of the patrol unit where Carter was detained. End quote. So what happened to Chavez? Just minutes earlier, he was searched by the police twice and was handcuffed in the back of one of the patrol cars. So how did he end up dead?
Well, according to the Jonesboro police detectives, Travis Carter shot himself while he was handcuffed, with his hands behind his back, and while in police custody. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. What are some of your self-care non-negotiables? Maybe you never skip leg day or therapy day.
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That's betterhelp.com. Jonesboro police officers said that after they smelled something burning, they saw Chavez slumped over and covered in blood. Next to his body, they said they found a semi-automatic .38 caliber Cobra pistol, which was reported stolen one month earlier.
Although the officers searched Chavez twice before handcuffing him and putting him in the back of the patrol car, their position is that they must have missed the weapon. So if the police officers failed to recover the gun throughout two searches, how did the weapon fire? Chavez is handcuffed with his hands behind his back in the back of the patrol car.
According to the Jonesboro Police Department, Chavez recovered the gun and used it to shoot and kill himself, and this finding is supported by forensic evidence. Stephen A. Erickson, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner of Craighead County, performed Chavez's autopsy on July 30, 2012. He concluded that the cause of death was a gunshot wound of the head and the manner of death was suicide.
When Chavez's body arrived for the autopsy, the medical examiner noted that rigor mortis was present and fixed in the extremities. The amount of rigor mortis was consistent with someone dying around 24 hours earlier. Besides rigor mortis, lividity was present and fixed on the posterior surface of the body. Again, all consistent with the police report.
The only injuries the medical examiner noted on Chavez's body were the single gunshot wound to his head and some bruising around his wrist, consistent with handcuff marks. Other than that, the medical examiner didn't find any other injuries to his body. There was no evidence he had been in a recent fight, nothing. The bullet entered the right side of Chavez's head, four inches below the top of his head.
The entrance wound measured 7 16th of an inch by 3 4th inches, a typical size wound for a .38 caliber handgun. In the soft tissue of the wound, the medical examiner found dense soot. This soot indicates that someone fired the gun either touching Chavez's skin or was very, very close to it.
For the gun to leave behind dense soot in the wound, it would have had to been fired at close range. The next thing the medical examiner looked at was the bullet's direction. We know that Chavez was handcuffed with his hands behind his back. So determining the bullet's direction helps determine whether or not Chavez could have pulled this off.
According to the medical examiner's report, the bullet's direction was, quote, primarily right to left with a slight backward and downward deviation. Now, to create this path, Chavez would have had to hold the gun in his right hand and fire to the right side of his head, causing the bullet to take the slight backward and downward path before exiting on the left side of his head.
Would this be difficult to do, especially being handcuffed? Yes, absolutely. But impossible? Well, according to the medical examiner, no, not impossible. Craighead County medical examiners ordered a full toxicology report. We know that Chavez had a small amount of marijuana on him and the car smelled like marijuana. But they wanted to find out if he had taken any other drugs that may have led him to shoot himself.
Generally speaking, marijuana isn't the type of drug that leads to many suicides, and it isn't known for causing extreme delusions or anything similar. Maybe some people were experiencing paranoia while smoking marijuana, but that's it. So finding out what may have been in Chavez's system at the time of his death could be valuable in figuring out exactly what happened.
The toxicology report showed that Chavez had methamphetamine, anti-anxiety medication, marijuana, and a few other drugs in his urine and blood. These drugs in both his urine and blood are important because our bodies metabolize drugs differently in our blood and in our urine. Typically, drugs will clear the blood first, but then can be detected in our urine several days later.
The medical examiner noted a methamphetamine level of 0.38 micrograms per milliliter in Chavez's blood. His amphetamine level was at 0.12 micrograms per milliliter. So let's put these levels into perspective. Chavez's intoxication level matters when he was arrested.
The Winix drug and chemical chart is one of the best tools available to interpret levels of drugs and chemicals found in blood and then translate them to blood levels. This chart lists every known drug and chemical and says how much is considered normal, therapeutic, toxic, or lethal.
Normal refers to the amount of drug that typically is found or produced in our systems. Therapeutic blood levels would refer to the amount of normal drug when administered for therapeutic or medicinal reasons. Then the following two levels are toxic and lethal. At a certain point, when the drug or chemical has a higher concentration in the blood, it becomes toxic or lethal.
Toxic blood levels of any drug or chemical are associated with severe toxic symptoms in humans. And of course, we know what lethal blood levels mean. So using this chemical chart, Chavez had toxic levels of both methamphetamine and amphetamine in his blood at the time of his death.
The Craighead County medical examiners ruled Chavez's death a suicide based on these findings. Case closed. They believed that the forensic evidence was strong enough. They didn't need to explain how or why this could have happened.
The Jonesboro Police Department released a statement saying that the two officers who responded to the call basically did everything right. They searched Chavez twice, but they must have missed the gun on both searches. The police even released their own reenactment video that shows four different police officers demonstrating how Chavez could have done it.
The officers, whose faces are blurred out in the video, are all of different heights and weights from 5'5", 120 pounds, all the way up to 6'2", 180 pounds. And just for reference here, Chavez was around 5'8", and around 160 pounds.
But in all four of these instances, the police officers were all successfully able to pull a hidden gun while handcuffed and were able to raise their hands high enough to place the gun against their temples. The police video seemed to suggest that, yes, it was challenging to do, but no, it was not impossible, at least according to the Jonesboro Police Department.
Now, in a public statement to the Associated Press, Jonesboro Police Chief Michael Yates said that it's obvious his officers missed the weapon on the first search. But, quote, it is likely since he was placed into the car unhandcuffed the first time that he had an opportunity to stash the weapon in the car.
The second search, which was more thorough and inclusive, did not disclose the weapon either. End quote. So the Jonesboro Police Department isn't saying that its officers simply missed the gun on both searches. According to the police, it's possible that Chavez left the gun inside the patrol car, and that's why they didn't find it the second time.
But not everyone was convinced. Many people in Arkansas and throughout the country were troubled when they heard of Chavez's case, including Chavez's family. Everyone had two big questions on their minds. Number one, how did police officers search someone twice, find $10 worth of marijuana, but miss a handgun?
2. How does that individual, who's been handcuffed, use that gun to shoot himself in the head while in police custody? When Chavez's family heard that he had been killed and his death was ruled a suicide, they couldn't believe it. Chavez wasn't suicidal. According to his family, he never once expressed feelings about hurting himself.
Shortly after the case went public, Chavez's girlfriend, who was pregnant with his child at the time, came forward and said that she spoke with Chavez on the phone twice that night. She said Chavez called her right when they got pulled over and he told her that he gave the police officers a fake name. She said Chavez called her a second time, this time while he was in the back of the patrol car.
And during this second phone call, he allegedly told her that he had a gun and he was scared.
She asked him if he was okay, and he said, yes. He said, I love you, and he would write to her. Now, presumably, this statement means that Chavez is telling his girlfriend that he loves her and that he's going to write her from jail because he knows that he's going to go to jail because he has this outstanding probation violation from his earlier drug conviction.
Now, according to the girlfriend, he never once said that he was suicidal. He never made any statements about planning to shoot and kill himself. And actually, his statements kind of seem to point to the contrary. He's on the phone telling his girlfriend that he loves her and that he's going to write her from jail. Typically, when someone is about to pull the trigger on themselves, they don't tell someone that they will write them.
She also found it hard to believe that he would have killed himself knowing that she was expecting their child together. On a side note, the girlfriend miscarried that same night after finding out about Chavez's death. Something else Chavez's family pointed out was that Chavez was left-handed, but the autopsy showed that he was shot on the right side of his head.
So on top of this being a very tricky move to pull off while handcuffed, he would have had to use his less dominant hand, his right hand. Over the next three weeks, the Jonesboro police and FBI investigated the case. During this time, both of the officers involved, Officer Baggett and Officer Marsh, were placed on paid administrative leave pending the investigation results.
After three weeks, the Jonesboro Police Department released two dash cam videos in the case for a total of 41 minutes.
In one of the videos, Chavez is restrained and questioned by the two police officers. And everyone seems to be polite with each other. Chavez says, yes, sir, no, sir. He answers the police officers' questions. And the officers are just as courteous and respectful. There isn't anything unusual or concerning about this initial encounter between Chavez and the two police officers.
A few minutes later, the two white males who were inside the car with Chavez are seen in front of the car talking with the officers who decided to let them go. On the tape, you hear one of the officers tell them that they're both lucky and that they were this close to going to jail for possession. But it seemed like Chavez wasn't as lucky as his two friends were.
Now the video ends with the two males getting into the truck and driving off. Then the video ends before the gunshot goes off. A similar scene is captured in the second video, but from a different angle. In this second video, you can hear a man saying he was breathing a second ago, but neither of the videos shows Chavez shooting himself. But how could that be?
Well, for one, the two police cars were parked back to back to each other. So neither one of them, neither one of those dash cameras could see the back of either of the patrol cars where Chavez was sitting. So once he was handcuffed and put in the back, there wasn't any camera on him.
What was also weird was that you didn't hear any sounds of gunshots during the entire dash cam footage, either because the dash cam cameras weren't recording anymore. So perhaps you can't hear the gunshot through the microphone or something unexplained happened at the moment the gun went off.
The release of the dash cam videos opens a slew of questions. The videos proved nothing. You can't see or hear the gunshot. The videos don't say anything about what actually happened. So those who were critical of the police's story, including Chavez's family, grew even more concerned when they discovered that nothing was captured on camera that night.
Besides the dash cam videos, the Jonesboro Police Department also released witness statements from that night. One of the witnesses, Jamie Anderson, was the one who called 911 to report the suspicious car. She said she watched as the police stopped the car and saw the police officers separate Chavez from the other two men. And then about 15 minutes later, she said she heard a loud pop.
According to Jamie Anderson, the police car windows were closed and she saw the two police officers standing outside of the car when she heard the loud pop, which is presumably the sound of the gunshot. Now, it's not clear why this witness, Jamie Anderson, heard the gunshot, but the two police officers didn't. Another eyewitness who lived down the street from the scene also reported hearing a loud popping sound that sounded like a gunshot.
After he heard the pop, he saw the moment when one of the police officers found Chavez shot in the back of the patrol car and then saw him running to tell the other officer on the scene. Again, this is another person who claimed to have heard the gunshot and another eyewitness who seemed to support the police's story that neither police officer was near the backseat where Chavez was sitting.
The Jonesboro police concluded its argument that Chavez's death was a suicide by saying the window of the patrol car where Chavez was sitting was perfectly intact. They argue that the window would have been broken if Chavez had been shot from the outside of the patrol car, but it wasn't.
In their words, quote, there was no possibility of a bullet penetrating from the outside of the patrol unit where Chavez was seated, end quote. With this statement, the Jonesboro police and FBI officially closed Chavez's case as a suicide. Officer Marsh was reprimanded and temporarily suspended for failing to search Chavez properly. He has since been reinstated to the department.
But the internal investigation found no wrongdoing from the other officer, Officer Baggett. So after a brief period of paid administrative leave, Officer Baggett returned to work. Nearly one year later in 2013, Chavez's mom, Teresa Rudd, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Jonesboro and Keith Baggett and Ronald Marsh, the two police officers.
She also filed a lawsuit against Jonesboro Police Chief Michael Yates. She filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Arkansas. Her main argument was that her son was detained improperly and that the two police officers conducted a negligent search.
In the lawsuit, Teresa Rudd argues that the other two men who were white were both given a pass, but her son, who was black, wasn't, even though drug paraphernalia was found inside the car where all three men were.
The complaint goes on to make several critical allegations about the case. Number one, despite being only a few feet away from the patrol car, neither of the two police officers heard the gunshot.
2. One of the police officers admitted to picking up the gun reportedly used in Chavez's death, but when fingerprint analysis was done on it, there weren't any fingerprints. None. None that belonged to the police officers and none that belonged to Chavez.
3. Chavez was alive when the two officers found him in the patrol car and one of the officers used his personal cell phone to take pictures of him. 4. Immediately after the incident, the police car was washed down, destroying any evidence. 5.
One of the officers, Officer Marsh, used an audio recording device to, quote, record all of his interactions with individuals with whom he made contact with that night. But Officer Marsh claims that the memory card on this device was somehow lost somewhere between Chavez's death and the police station that night.
After bouncing through the legal system for years, Judge Christine Baker dismissed the civil lawsuit in March of 2017. In her ruling, she said, "...the court is not aware of any authority establishing that a neglectful or negligent search conducted by an officer violates a suspect's Fourth Amendment rights."
While courts have found that the Fourth Amendment was violated in cases where excessive force was used or the manner of a search results in the destruction of property, there is no authority known to the court supporting Ms. Rudd's negligent search theory.
The judge is simply saying, look, poor searches don't violate constitutional rights. Because these two officers clearly conducted bad searches by not finding the gun, that doesn't mean the search was unconstitutional. In fact, it's the opposite. These police officers didn't search correctly. If the search were excessive or forceful, they would have found the weapon.
The ruling was devastating to Chavez's mother and family. They firmly believe there's much more to this story. Chavez was left-handed. To them, it seemed impossible that he could have retrieved his concealed gun and shot himself in the right temple, all while having his hands handcuffed behind his back.
There were no fingerprints found on the gun, no fingerprints belonging to Chavez, and no fingerprints belonging to either of the police officers. Chavez called his pregnant girlfriend while in the backseat of the patrol car, telling her that he loved her and that he would write her from jail. And finally, when the two dash cam videos were released, neither footage captured the moment when the gun fired.
So that's it. End of story. Unfortunately, in today's America, this is the case. Racial profiling has been an injustice for decades. In today's climate, the social, racial, and political divide is at an all-time high. We need our governing bodies and citizens to do better. So when incidents like this occur, there are no questions and no fingers to point.
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After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share my personal thoughts and opinions about the case. This is where I get the opportunity to say what I really think happened to Travis Carter. To check out photos from the case, be sure to head to our website, ForensicTales.com. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday.
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