On the evening of December 14, 2018, Rico Boyce, 27, a Black man from Nashville, was standing outside Big G’s Market on Lafayette Street when gunfire broke out and he was struck. Officers and medics rushed to the area in South Nashville, and Boyce was taken to the hospital in critical condition, but he later died from his injuries.
Early information released by investigators described a fast, violent moment: a gold sedan pulled up near the storefront and shots were fired from the
vehicle toward the sidewalk. The shooting happened just before 7 p.m. outside the address on Lafayette Street, and the initial reports focused on the car, the sudden burst of bullets, and the lack of warning for anyone nearby.
As detectives worked the scene and followed leads, they came to believe Boyce had been caught in the middle rather than being the intended target. Investigators said two people had been shooting at each other, and in that exchange one of the rounds hit Boyce in the back while he was simply there in front of the market.
Weeks later, police publicly identified a suspect and described a chaotic escape. Detectives said Antonio D. Carter, 22, was named in a criminal homicide warrant, and they alleged he had been one of the people trading gunfire that night. According to the same reporting, Carter ran across Lafayette Street after the shots, was struck by a car, and then continued into the Napier area; at the time the warrant was obtained, he was already being held in the Putnam County Jail on an aggravated burglary charge.
In the days after Boyce’s death, reporting also noted he had a prior conviction for reckless homicide in 2015 stemming from a 2012 killing, a detail investigators referenced as part of the background they were reviewing while the case unfolded. Public updates in the sources available describe the warrant naming Carter and the circumstances police said led to Boyce being killed, but they do not provide a clear, final public accounting of a later trial outcome or conviction in Boyce’s death, nor do they identify the other person police said was involved in the exchange of gunfire.
