Joseph Maxwell Carter, 35, a white man, was killed on the evening of September 13, 2021, outside his home on Crane Way in the Del Rio community of Cocke County, Tennessee. He was seated in his van in the driveway when gunfire erupted, turning an ordinary late afternoon into a scene his family would replay for years.
Authorities said Carter’s wife called 911 shortly after 5:30 p.m. Deputies arrived to find him unresponsive in the driver’s seat.
Inside and around the van were three children—two older girls who bolted from the vehicle in panic after the shot, and a 10-month-old who remained strapped into a car seat until deputies pulled the baby to safety. None of the children were physically injured, but the moment left a harsh imprint on everyone who witnessed it.
Investigators quickly focused on a neighbor, James Dennard Raspberry, after reports of a long-running dispute between the two households. An incident report described deputies finding Raspberry nearby, partially concealed in the woods and standing behind a tree, before he was taken into custody and questioned and then arrested. The early accounts framed the shooting as the violent crest of a feud that had been simmering for some time.
As the case moved through the courts, prosecutors escalated the allegations. A grand jury charged Raspberry with first-degree murder and felony murder, along with additional counts tied to the danger created for the children present at the scene—charges that included aggravated assault and multiple counts of false imprisonment, according to court records cited in reporting. Raspberry pleaded not guilty, setting the stage for a trial centered on what happened in those seconds in the driveway and whether the shooting was criminal or justified.
In early March 2025, after a nine-day trial, a Cocke County jury returned not-guilty verdicts, clearing Raspberry of the murder charges in Carter’s death. Reporting described the defense argument as self-defense, and the verdict meant the case ended without a conviction for the killing, despite the earlier arrest, the sweeping indictment, and years of buildup in a community that had already been living with the story since the day the shots were fired.
