Chicago woman says rappers confessed to her husband’s murder in music video
A grieving widow in Chicago is convinced the men who murdered her husband last summer confessed to their crime in one of their rap songs. Now she’s pleading with authorities to do something about it.
According to CBS Chicago Asiah Carter had lost hope of ever finding out who killed her husband until videos started popping up on the internet that seemed to point to some brazen suspects.
“They literally sang about it, and they continue to mock him,” Carter told the CBS affiliate. “It’s not fair to kill people and mock their families. It’s not trendy.”
READ MORE: Tracee Ellis Ross on pressure to get married: ‘I’ve got so many things to do’
Ladt August Carter’s husband, Aaron, was fatally shot when someone opened fire into the back of a home in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood.
“They gave so many clear details about his murder,” she explains, noting the rappers reference Aaron and the circumstances of his death with too much specificity for it to be a coincidence.
“That’s Aaron. He hopped the gate. That’s all the similar things that happened with Aaron’s murder,” Carter said while viewing the music video. “You see how they’re in the alley in the backyard? Right on 75th.”
READ MORE: Missouri family seeks answers in Black 19-year-old Derontae Martin’s death
“It was so disturbing because nobody in the entire state of Illinois had claimed Aaron’s death until these guys did,” she continued.
While Carter hopes the song and the visuals from the video are enough evidence to gain the authorities’ attention, CBS 2 legal analyst Irv Miller says the audio and video clips are only enough to initiate a probe, but not enough for a conviction on their own.
“That could get the attention of the authorities to say hey there might be something here and we can take a look at this,” Miller said. “If I was this particular rapper I would be concerned that there’s going to be a knock at my door saying hey let’s talk about that video.”
READ MORE: Prince Harry: Meghan let go of suicidal thoughts because it would be ‘unfair’ after Diana’s death
While perceived confessions in rap lyrics have led to convictions in states like Maryland, Sanford Ungar, the director of the free speech project at Georgetown University, warns that the practice of doing so is still considered, “very controversial.”
“The ultimate free speech question here is whether this is on a slippery slope,” said Ungar. “If you allow a conviction or two or three on the basis of something that someone said.”
But Asiah Carter, who is determined for bring her husband’s killer to justice is undeterred.
“Hopefully, hopefully these songs and videos can be used against them and prosecute them for Aarons murder,” she concluded. “It would mean so much. It would be justice, a resolution.”
