Carlos Jermaine Thurman Jr., a 19-year-old Black male from Little Rock, Arkansas, lived with the everyday routines of family, work, and neighborhood life before a November Sunday night in 2023 turned him into the focus of a homicide investigation. Born on August 9, 2004, he “transitioned” on November 5, 2023, leaving behind a daughter, Kelcei Desirae Thurman, his parents, Carlos Thurman Sr.
and Yolunda Floyd, several siblings, and extended family who would later gather to mourn him at a funeral service in Little Rock.
On the evening of November 5, officers with the Little Rock Police Department’s Northwest Patrol Division were dispatched to The Canopy Apartments at 9201 Kanis Road, an apartment complex situated across the street from Baptist Health Medical Center. Police had received a call reporting a shooting just before 9 p.m., and when they arrived at the complex they found Carlos suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. Emergency medical personnel from MEMS and rescue teams responded, and he was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Once the victim had been transported, officers secured the scene around the apartment complex so that a full investigation could begin. The department’s Homicide Detectives were notified and responded to the location, joined by the Crime Scene Search Unit. Investigators began with the painstaking first steps of a major case: marking and collecting physical evidence, documenting the scene in photographs, and canvassing the surrounding buildings and courtyards for anyone who might have seen or heard the shooting. Detectives also started searching for video surveillance in and around the complex, hoping nearby cameras might have captured the moments leading up to the gunfire or the movements of those involved.
After he died at the hospital, the Pulaski County Coroner’s Office took custody of Carlos’s body and transported him to the Arkansas State Crime Lab for an autopsy, a standard step meant to confirm the cause and manner of death and to preserve any additional forensic evidence that might be present. Next of kin were notified, and in the days that followed, the formal obituary and memorial pages began to appear online, describing him not in terms of a case number, but as a son, father, brother, and grandson whose absence left a deep void in his family.
Publicly released information about what happened that night has remained limited. Early news coverage noted that there was no immediate word on what led to the shooting and that police had not provided any description of a suspect. The official city news release similarly described the investigation as ongoing and did not identify any person of interest. CrimeSolversCentral, which compiles summaries of violent deaths and links to official and media sources, echoes those accounts: it recounts the basic timeline of the shooting at 9201 Kanis Road, notes that detectives canvassed for witnesses and surveillance footage, and lists the case as still under investigation in the Northwest Division.
In the wake of the killing, authorities appealed to the public for help. Local coverage reported that anyone with information was urged to contact homicide detectives with the Little Rock Police Department, underscoring that investigators were relying on community members who might have seen suspicious activity around the time of the shooting. Even as time has passed, publicly available records and case summaries offer no indication that a suspect has been named or that any arrest has been announced in connection with the homicide. As of the most recent updates, Carlos is remembered on national gun-violence memorial sites as one of the many people lost to gunfire on November 5, 2023, while the official accounts continue to describe his death as an open case, awaiting answers that have yet to be made public.
