Jeffery Rigsby, a 23-year-old White male from Smithville, Tennessee, was killed on June 25, 2020, in a shooting that unfolded on a quiet stretch of Carter Drive just outside the city limits of town. That Thursday just after midday, a call came in to DeKalb County Central Dispatch at about 12:28 p.m., reporting that someone had been shot at a residence on Carter Drive.
Deputies from the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department and officers from the Smithville Police Department rushed to the address, where they found Rigsby lying on the front porch of the home, suffering from gunshot wounds. Despite the efforts of first responders, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to statements released by the sheriff’s office at the time, investigators quickly identified the shooter as 34-year-old Ronald Joshua Carter, the owner of the residence on Carter Drive. Early information from the scene indicated that an exchange of gunfire had taken place between Rigsby and Carter on or near the porch of the home. Carter was not reported to have been injured. The District Attorney’s Office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation were called in and joined local authorities on the scene, documenting evidence and interviewing witnesses in an effort to piece together how the confrontation had started and why it turned deadly so quickly.
In the days after the shooting, the sheriff publicly emphasized that the case remained under active investigation and that no arrests had been made. Authorities noted that the circumstances suggested a possible self-defense scenario but stressed that it was “unclear if defensive,” language that underscored how many questions still surrounded what had happened on that front porch. With state investigators leading the review, the decision on whether to treat the shooting as a criminal homicide or a justifiable use of force was left open. As of the publicly available reporting and records, there have been no documented arrests, formal charges, trials, or convictions made public in direct connection with Rigsby’s death, leaving the legal resolution of the case largely opaque to the community following it from the outside.
While investigators worked through the evidence, friends and family turned to online memorials to remember who Rigsby was beyond the brief, stark details of a police statement. On a national gun-violence memorial site, loved ones lit virtual candles and described him with words like outgoing, funny, sweet, caring, and loyal, and noted that he was a parent, emphasizing the hole his death left in the lives of his children and those who knew him best. A separate burial memorial lists his death date and places him in Smithville, Tennessee, quietly marking the end of a life that, for those who cared about him, is remembered as far more than a line in a crime log.
Taken together, the official accounts and the memorials paint a picture of a sudden, violent encounter on a summer afternoon that ended with a young resident of Smithville dead on a neighbor’s porch and a homeowner identified as the shooter but not immediately arrested or charged. Years later, with no clear public record of a definitive legal outcome, the events on Carter Drive remain, at least in the public eye, an unresolved and deeply tragic chapter in the community’s recent history.
