Boy, 17, is found dead in brush after road trip with uncle as police make arrest
Victor 'Jerry' Carver III was arrested in Tennessee on a manslaughter charge on Monday, two days after checking 17-year-old Caden Cantrelle out of the Tennessee Department of Children's Services (DCS) on July 5 with permission.
The two then illegally drove to rural Mississippi, where the boy's body was found deep in a deep ditch off a road in Jasper County on Monday.
Cops made the discovery after receiving a tip from the boy's father that his phone last 'pinged' in Mississippi. He had tracking software installed on his son's phone.
DCS contacted him after the allotted time of the preapproved visit had expired, cops said. Cantrelle's phone last pinged Sunday in the Jasper area before being found the following afternoon.
Carver III, 37, is now facing manslaughter charges as a result. He was cuffed in Tennessee after deputies there found him asleep inside his home with the car used for the 'trip' parked outside.
Those charges could be upgraded as evidence is collected, officials said this week .
The suspect also has a criminal history in the state dating back nearly 20 years, according to Nashville NBC affiliate WSMV. He was still allowed to check the boy out, for what was proposed as an innocent road trip to Louisiana to visit family.
At some point on the way back, though, the two got into an argument, investigators were told.
It remains unclear what Cantrelle's father and DCS' relationship was regarding Cantrelle's care.
Deputies came across Cantrelle's body on the edge of a gully overgrown with vines.
Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson recalled to Law&Crime on Friday how, after driving to the location where the phone's activity had been last recorded with four of his deputies, he immediately 'suspected foul play.'
The cops then learned who Cantrelle was, before contacting the Wayne County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee.
A warrant was subsequently secured for Carver's arrest. The suspect admitted to leaving his nephew on the side of the road, cops said.
The uncle has not admitted to harming his nephew, however, only conceding there was some sort of argument. He never contacted authorities in either state about his nephew, cops said.
Carver, moreover, has a criminal history dating back to 2007, records reviewed by WSMV revealed. Among those is record of a guilty plea for attempted aggravated assault, the outlet reported.
The circumstances of that alleged incident are still unclear.
Also unclear is the living situation that saw the victim left with CPS in the first place -and how state officials failed to see the danger of leaving the boy with someone with a criminal record such as the suspect's.
Stacie Odeneal, a certified child welfare law specialist who had been tasked with taking care of the teen during his stay, admitted to WSMV: 'We as a system prevented him from having a chance.'
'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,' she added.
She called Cantrelle's case 'Worst outcome [she's] seen' in 15 years of CPS work, while a statement from Tennessee DCS expressed 'sadness' over the death.
'DCS has taken immediate steps to engage with our law enforcement partners as they conduct a criminal investigation,' the agency added in a statement.
'[T]he 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 criminal investigation into Cantrelle's death, meanwhile, remains ongoing.
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The Guardian
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Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
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BBC News
3 hours ago
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US landlord who killed Palestinian-American boy dies in Illinois prison
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