Background: The area around County Road 39 and County Road 8 in Jasper County, Mississippi (Google Maps) Inset left: Victor “Jerry” Carver III (Wayne County Sheriff”s Office) Inset right: Caden Cantrelle (Jasper County Sheriff’s Department)
A man with a “significant criminal history” is accused of killing his nephew and leaving his body on the side of a Mississippi road after the boy was temporarily placed in his uncle’s care.
Victor “Jerry” Carver III, 37, faces a charge of manslaughter in the death of 17-year-old Caden Cantrelle. According to authorities, Carver requested permission from the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS) to watch Cantrell, and his request was granted, but they were not given permission to leave Tennessee.
On Monday, when the allotted time of their visit was reportedly up, Cantrelle had not returned, and DCS contacted his father, who had a tracking device on his son’s phone and saw that it last “pinged” in Mississippi. That is when Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson was made aware of the situation.
Jasper County is in the central part of Mississippi, nearly 250 miles south of the Tennessee border.
It is unclear what Cantrelle’s father and DCS’ relationship was regarding Cantrelle’s care, nor is it clear whether a court was involved in the decision for him to be released into Carver’s care.
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Johnson told Law&Crime that four of his deputies drove to the location where the phone’s activity had last been recorded – on County Road 39 near the intersection with County Road 8 close to Vossburg, Mississippi. They parked their vehicles and searched.
The deputies came across Cantrelle’s body on the edge of a gully overgrown with vines. According to Johnson, they quickly “suspected foul play.”
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Department learned who Cantrelle was and contacted the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee. A warrant was secured for Carver’s arrest, and deputies there found him asleep inside his home, with his vehicle outside. He had not contacted any authorities about his nephew.
Investigators were told that Carver took Cantrelle to Louisiana to visit family, and on the way back to Tennessee, they got into an argument. However, the uncle reportedly did not admit to harming his nephew, just saying he left him there on the side of the road.
Johnson suggested the evidence they have will show otherwise, and that the manslaughter charge may be upgraded. Carver is expected to be extradited back to Mississippi.
The suspect has a criminal history in Wayne County, Tennessee, dating back nearly 20 years, according to Nashville NBC affiliate WSMV.
The attorney who represented Cantrelle’s interests in court proceedings was left stunned as to how Carver was allowed to assume his nephew’s care.
“If it’d been presented to me, if it’d been presented to a judge, and we knew the criminal history, and I think many of us knew this uncle had a significant criminal history, we would have been opposed to giving this level of access to this child,” Stacie Odeneal, Cantrelle’s guardian ad litem, told the outlet.
“We as a system prevented him from having a chance,” she added.
Odeneal told WTVC in Chattanooga that she has been a certified child welfare law specialist for 15 years.
“Worst outcome I’ve seen,” she said of Cantrelle’s case.
Tennessee DCS said they are “deeply saddened over the death of Mr. Cantrelle.”
“DCS has taken immediate steps to engage with our law enforcement partners as they conduct a criminal investigation, and the employees involved are currently on leave as the department continues to assess its established policy and the application of those policies in this particular case,” the agency added in a statement to WTVC.
