Jaumar “Maury” Carvery, a 21-year-old man, was fatally shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the early morning hours of May 3, 2008.
Shortly after midnight, two Halifax Regional Police beat officers who were patrolling Gottingen Street heard gunfire coming from the area of Sunrise Walk and Olympic Court in Halifax’s north end. The officers immediately headed toward the sound and discovered Carvery lying on a walkway.
He had suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was unconscious and unresponsive when police reached him. Emergency Health Services transported him to hospital, but his injuries proved fatal and he was pronounced dead a short time later.
Carvery had grown up in Halifax and was remembered as a talented basketball player. He had been a three-time provincial high school basketball champion and was known around his neighborhood by the nicknames “Maury” and “Moose.” He was also the father of two young daughters. Family members and people close to him later described a complicated period in his life in which he had become involved in drug dealing but, during the months before his death, had begun attending church again and had found employment as he attempted to change the direction of his life.
The shooting quickly became a homicide investigation, but police disclosed relatively little about the evidence they gathered. In the years following the killing, investigators continued to say they believed people in the community possessed information or direct knowledge that could identify those responsible. A Halifax Regional Police spokesperson said in 2008 that homicide investigators can sometimes receive information pointing toward particular individuals very early in a case, but that turning such information into evidence strong enough to support an arrest and criminal charge can be much more difficult.
Carvery’s mother later said that people in the neighborhood believed they knew who was responsible. She described a community theory that two young men had carried out the killing at the direction of a more senior drug dealer and said that one of those men was subsequently imprisoned for an unrelated crime. That account was reported as a belief circulating in the community, not as a conclusion established by police, and authorities did not publicly identify those individuals as suspects or charge them in Carvery’s homicide. Friends and relatives said information had been submitted to Crime Stoppers, but the tips did not result in a publicly announced prosecution.
The loss had a significant impact on Carvery’s family and neighborhood. A vigil was held in the Uniacke Square area, where mourners placed candles, flowers and stuffed animals near the place where he had been shot. Hundreds of people attended his funeral at Cornwallis Street Baptist Church on May 9, 2008, with an overflow crowd gathering outside. Mourners wore purple ribbons as a symbol of peace while family members and community leaders remembered Carvery and called for an end to the violence affecting young people in the area.
Nearly nine years after the killing, in March 2017, the Nova Scotia government and Halifax Regional Police added Carvery’s homicide to the province’s Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program. The program offered as much as $150,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible. Police said the investigation had remained active and that investigators continued to pursue leads and look for ways to advance the case.
On the 15th anniversary of the homicide in May 2023, the Special Investigation Section of the Integrated Criminal Investigation Division again appealed for information. Investigators emphasized that they believed people still possessed information capable of helping solve the murder and expressed hope that the passage of time might persuade witnesses or others with knowledge of the crime to come forward. Even a seemingly minor detail, police said, could provide investigators with what they needed to move the investigation forward.
The case continues to appear on Nova Scotia’s current Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes list, with the government still offering up to $150,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Publicly available official information does not identify a charged suspect, and no arrest, trial or conviction for Carvery’s killing has been announced. More than eighteen years after he was found mortally wounded on the Halifax walkway, his homicide remains classified as unsolved, with investigators continuing to rely on someone with knowledge of the shooting to provide the evidence needed to identify and prosecute those responsible.
