Jury Finds Tuscaloosa Man Guilty Of Murder, Other Charges In 2023 Shooting

TUSCALOOSA, AL — A Tuscaloosa County jury on Thursday found Reginal Dawayne Peoples guilty of murder and other charges for the 2023 shooting death of Rufus Tyrone Carter IV.

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The jury began deliberations around 1:15 p.m. Thursday and some members of Carter's family played the card game UNO! in the gallery to pass the time before the jury broke for the day.

After returning for deliberations Friday morning the jury offered its verdicts to Circuit Court Judge Daniel Pruet at 10:15 a.m. Friday morning, the jury found Peoples guilty of murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle and reckless endangerment of a child.

Carter's family became emotional once the verdicts were read and Carter's daughter embraced Assistant District Attorney Monica Rodgers with tears in her eyes.

After two alternates were excused Thursday morning, the demographics of the jury consisted of five Black women, three White women, two White men and two Black women.

The verdicts came after jurors heard two days of testimony, including from Peoples himself, who took the stand in his own defense Wednesday and claimed he acted out of fear during the violent confrontation with Carter.

After handing down the verdict, jurors gathered to give feedback to attorneys from both sides and said the hardest decision they considered rested on the murder charge.

"There was a lot of 'what-ifs,'" one juror recalled. "But we had to get our minds off of the 'what-ifs' and focus on the evidence."

The jurors also said they agreed Thursday to sleep on the decision and return to finish deliberations on Friday to solidify their verdicts.

Defense attorneys for Peoples argued Carter was drunk and acting belligerent when he arrived at the home on Queen City Avenue just before 7:30 p.m. on March 30, 2023.

Prosecutors, however, argued throughout the trial that Peoples had grown fed up with Carter's behavior over the years and intentionally shot him a total of five times.

The jury ultimately concluded that the physical evidence and witness testimony suggested the shooting was deliberate rather than defensive.

Investigators testified that shell casings and damage to Carter’s vehicle appeared to indicate the shooter was moving while firing numerous rounds at Carter as he drove away.

As Patch previously reported, Carter attempted to drive away from the first scene but barely made it a street over before losing control of his car and crashing into a chainlink fence at a nearby business where he was eventually found by first responders.

Rodgers delivered the closing arguments for the state to begin the day Thursday and started by rehashing Carter's final hours to the jury.

Rodgers explained how he had gotten off work, grabbed some McDonald's and went to his home in Duncanville where he lived with his girlfriend and four-month-old baby boy.

The couple and their baby then went to Dollar Tree in Five Points before going to a nearby barbershop so Carter could get a haircut.

After leaving the barbershop, Rodgers said Carter drove his girlfriend and baby to the 1800 block of Queen City Avenue where his teenage daughter lived with her mother and Peoples — her stepfather.

Tensions were immediately high after Carter first knocked on the door and Rodgers told the jury after initially answering, Peoples went back inside, got dressed and came back out to find his wife arguing with Carter, who was her ex-boyfriend.

Rodgers, who told the jury she raises chickens, described the interaction between the two men as "roostering" when they bumped into each other after Peoples came outside.

As Patch previously reported, Peoples testified that at some point he fell down, with his defense attorneys saying the fall was caused by Carter pushing the open car door into him.

Rodgers then described the shooting and paused at different intervals to underscore the succession of the 11 shots fired by Peoples after this initial physical interaction.

She also pointed out evidence regarding the shell casings identified at the scene outside of the house.

"We know that from the pattern of shell casings you see," she said. "It clearly shows someone with a gun is moving."

Rodgers went on to tell the jury about the extent of Carter's injuries, saying he had been hit in the left cheek and left arm by bullet fragments, while also being struck on the left thigh and right shin.

However, as was confirmed through the autopsy report and testimony from the state medical examiner, a bullet struck Carter in the back of the left thigh, severed his femoral artery and exited out the front of his leg.

To drive home the prosecution's argument to the jury, Rodgers again mentioned the succession of shots fired.

Indeed, the jury was played audio showing one shot being fired, before several seconds pass and six more shots are quickly fired. After a few additional seconds, three more shots can be heard and then a final shot after another few seconds.

She also mentioned that Carter's black Mercedes had been struck at least four times during the shooting — supposedly while his wife and baby were in the passenger seat.

"[Peoples] put that father, that brother, that son in a body bag and he did it intentionally," Rodgers told the jury.

Public defender Joseph Van Heest offered up the closing arguments for Peoples and reiterated his position that his client acted in self-defense.

"Reginal Peoples didn't go looking for trouble," he told the jury. "Trouble showed up knocking on his front door. [Carter] was belligerent, he was acting out and he was raising his voice."

As Patch previously reported, Peoples said Carter kept calling him names like "bitch-ass [N-word]" and at one point allegedly told him "I should beat your ass. ... I'll put one [a bullet] in you."

"[Carter] was drunk," Van Heest said. "He was loaded and he was looking for a fight."

Indeed, Van Heest reminded the jury of the toxicology tests they were shown during testimony from Dr. Edward Reedy, chief medical examiner with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, which purported to show Carter was well over the legal limit when he was shot.

The defense team for Peoples also pointed out a bottle of Tanqueray gin visible in photos behind the passenger seat on the floorboard of his Mercedes.

"If he had gotten pulled over, he was going to go to jail," Van Heest said.

Van Heest also used his closing arguments to point out inconsistencies in the testimony of Carter's girlfriend, who told the jury she did not see Carter drinking the day of the shooting and that she was grazed on the back of the neck by a bullet or fragment during the shooting when she was in the passenger seat with her baby.

"Had she been shot, [Peoples] would've been charged with assaulting her," Van Heest said. "And he was not."

Van Heest then turned his focus to Peoples feeling threatened by Carter's belligerence and rehashed his client's testimony when he said he'd grabbed his walker and was trying to leave the property as Carter argued with Peoples' wife.

It was at this point he said Carter slammed Peoples into his own car door, which prompted Peoples to grab his handgun from inside the vehicle and begin firing in an effort to protect himself.

"Now we've gone to full-on assault with that car door," Van Heest said. "[Peoples] had no idea [Carter] hadn't brought a gun with him."

Van Heest ended his closing arguments by saying the shell casings recovered from the scene and shown to the jury did not indicate his client had been in motion when he was shooting.

He also insisted that the only time Carter was "shot in the back" was when the fatal shot tore through his right thigh and caused him to bleed to death.

"Reginal did what he had to do," Van Heest said. "He shot him because he was scared."

During the rebuttal for the state, Assistant District Attorney Ashley Ross reminded the jury it had been provided 177 exhibits of evidence by the prosecution and also argued against Peoples' credibility during his testimony on Wednesday.

"Nothing he says is believable," she said. "He wasn't in fear for his life. He was mad."

Judge Pruet said sentencing will be conducted at a later date.

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