In the late summer of 2021, the life of 41-year-old Remarrio Prince Akins, a disabled man who used a wheelchair, was violently cut short in Memphis, Tennessee. On the afternoon of August 12, 2021, Akins was outside a grocery store on Horn Lake Road when he was abducted at gunpoint. Surveillance footage captured the harrowing moment when two men assaulted Akins, punching and slapping him before forcing him out of his wheelchair and into a green Saturn SUV.
Two days later, on August 14,
2021, a father and son riding four-wheelers discovered Akins's body in a field on West Shelby Drive. An autopsy revealed that he had been shot multiple times. The community was left in shock by the brutal nature of the crime against a man described as vulnerable due to his physical disability.
The investigation into the murder of Remarrio Prince Akins led to a breakthrough a month later with the arrest of one suspect. Jerome Nichols, 24 years old at the time, was taken into custody in connection with the crime. In March 2022, a Shelby County grand jury indicted Nichols on multiple felony counts, including premeditated first-degree murder, murder in the perpetration of a kidnapping, especially aggravated kidnapping with a deadly weapon, and especially aggravated robbery. He was subsequently held without bond.
Despite the arrest and indictment of Jerome Nichols, the case remains partially unresolved. The second man seen in the surveillance footage abducting Akins has never been publicly identified, and his whereabouts remain unknown. Authorities have appealed to the public for any information that could lead to the identification and arrest of this second individual. The prosecution of Jerome Nichols and the ongoing search for the second suspect are all that remains to bring a measure of closure to the tragic and untimely death of Remarrio Prince Akins.
