Iowa man accused in mother’s death points to other suspects
KNOXVILLE, Iowa — An Iowa man is seeking to overturn a civil judgment finding him responsible for killing his mother, arguing Wednesday that new evidence suggests another suspect shot her during a farmhouse robbery.
At an unusual civil trial in December, jurors held Jason Carter responsible for Shirley Carter’s 2015 shooting death and ordered him to pay $10 million in damages to her estate.
Jason Carter had argued that his father, Bill, was likely responsible for shooting the woman in the kitchen of their rural Lacona home. But jurors sided with Bill Carter, who had filed the wrongful death lawsuit seeking to hold his son responsible after a criminal investigation into the death appeared to stall.
Bill Carter’s lawyers argued that Jason Carter killed his mother after she discovered he was having an extramarital affair and he worried he would be cut out of his parents’ will. After the civil verdict, prosecutors charged Jason Carter with first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial, which his legal team is seeking to move out of Marion County due to pre-trial publicity that included a February segment on “Dateline NBC.”
