Prosecutors in Mobile are asking jurors to hold defendants accountable for “death and violence.”

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – A murder-for-hire conspiracy case that federal prosecutors have described as a two-state reign of terror will soon be in the hands of a jury.

Prosecutors and lawyers for three people accused of conspiring to kill a man delivered closing arguments Thursday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gaillard Sam Ladd argued that two shootings at a Mobile nightclub in 2022 several months apart, a shooting later that year at a Walmart on Interstate 65 and a murder in an attempted carjacking outside a casino are connected in Mississippi.

“These defendants have cut a path of death and violence through southern Mississippi and Mobile,” he said.

Prosecutors presented more than two weeks of evidence to prove that John Fitzgerald “Juvie” McCarroll Jr. orchestrated a failed but bloody plot to murder a man named Milton Carter as revenge for the 2020 death of another man.

Also charged are McCarroll's girlfriend Lyteria Hollis and accused hitman Darius D. Rowser.

A shooting at the Bank Nightlife Club on Azalea Road in September 2022 resulted in the death of Derrick “Day Day” Shavers. Prosecutors classified the case as a case of mistaken identity. In November of that year, a shooting at the Paparazzi Lounge on Dauphin Street injured four people, including a young woman who is now paralyzed.

Prosecutors also allege that two other acts of violence were part of the conspiracy, but not attempts to take Carter's life. These included the shooting of Nicholaus Craig in his car outside the Scarlet Pearl Casino Resort in D'Iberville, Mississippi, and a shooting at a Walmart store on Interstate 65 in December 2022.

Prosecutors allege the casino shooting was an attempted carjacking tied to a desire to acquire stolen cars to further the murder plot. And they claim the reason for the trip to Walmart was to purchase a magnetic box to hide a cellphone attached to Carter's car to locate him.

A woman who suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder at Walmart testified during the trial that her young child was nearby and that her injuries made it difficult to breastfeed the child.

But the defendants' lawyers protested their innocence. Josh Briskman, McCarroll's attorney, argued that prosecutors spent much of their time on evidence that made his client look bad but was ultimately irrelevant. He said prosecutors had failed to prove that his client was responsible for “any of these terrible acts” and had gone too far in charging him with murder-for-hire without proving that McCarroll had specifically promised to pay anyone for murder.

“If you don’t have the agreement, it’s not a murder-for-hire case,” he said.

Ladd pointed to phone records, social media posts and text messages that he said tied the defendants together and showed that McCarroll had a vendetta against Carter long ago, when the defendant testified that they had reached an agreement.

According to witness statements, investigators matched bullet casings found at the paparazzi with a Glock 21 taken from Rowser's friend's home in the January 2023 paparazzi shooting.

“Brother! “I only have four people in the club with three bullets,” he said in the recording.

Rowser's attorney ChaLea Tisdale admitted what the jury saw – surveillance video of the defendant inside the paparazzi. She did not deny that he fired his weapon. However, she argued that the intended target was not Carter but a gang member who she said killed Rowser's friend. She argued there was no evidence of cash transactions or agreements to support a contract killing.

“Don’t let them force a condemnation on you with the bottle just because they’re trying to make a case that they want you to. … Ultimately it’s about whether he was paid,” she said.

Tisdale also argued that the Mississippi shooting was not a carjacking attempt and that even if it was, there was no evidence that it was part of a conspiracy to kill Carter. Likewise, she said, the evidence presented about the Walmart shooting suggested it was a chance meeting between two rival groups of teenagers and was not related to a murder-for-hire conspiracy.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Roller strongly opposed this in his rebuttal. He reminded jurors of videos Rowser sent to McCarroll of the outside of Carter's home. In between those videos, Rowser made one using McCarroll's nickname, in which he said, “I told Juvie – I told him we had a game plan.”

Roller said it didn't matter what the defense argued if Rowser never sent that video. It was evidence of a conspiracy, he said.

Roller also disagreed with defense attorneys' characterization that the defendants' behavior was a product of the harsh environment in which they live. The prosecutor said McCarroll's attorney made it seem like he was simply caught in the middle.

“The evidence shows that Mr. McCarroll is the middle. … He was not in danger,” he said. “He was the danger.”

As for Hollis's involvement, prosecutors reminded jurors of Cash App records showing she received payments from McCarroll and then transferred equal amounts to Reginald Fluker, who has admitted fatally shooting Shavers at Bank Nightlife .

But Assistant Federal Public Defender LaWanda O'Bannon told jurors that this was not evidence that Hollis was involved in or even aware of a conspiracy to commit murder. She argued that prosecutors had only shown that Hollis was aware of an argument between McCarroll and Carter.

“Because you know about a conflict doesn’t mean you support a murder plot,” she said.

U.S. District Judge Terry Moorer will brief jurors on the law Friday morning and then decide whether prosecutors have proven the allegations. If convicted, the defendants face life imprisonment.

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