Verdict: First of three local men charged with shooting 18-year-old mother found guilty

Video shows the scene of the shooting on Pontiac Street, Jan. 3, 2023.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — Three local young men were charged in the January 2023 shooting
death of an 18-year-old girl.

Thursday, the first of the trio saw his fate decided in Allen Superior Court and will likely go to prison.

A jury in Allen Superior Court found Rashun Carter, now 33, was found guilty of murder, a Level 1 felony, and criminal recklessness, a Level 6 felony, on Thursday after a four-day trial. He was also found guilty of a gun enhancement charge, which can add up to 20 years to a sentence.

The jury could not decide on the second charge of attempted murder, coming to a hung jury. It’s up to the prosecutors to attempt to try Carter on that charge again.

Carter now faces up to 87 and a half years, 45 to 65 years for murder and 2 and a half years for criminal recklessness. He will be sentenced by Allen Superior Court Judge David Zent on June 3 at 10 a.m.

The three men – Carter, Swanyea Taylor and Rapheal Brown – allegedly set out to avenge Taylor who apparently didn’t like the fact that the mother of his child, Jocelyn Bolf, had a new beau.

The three knew Bolf and her boyfriend were at a music studio in the 1800 block of South Anthony Boulevard the evening of Jan. 2, 2023 and had Brown’s pregnant girlfriend drive them there for mayhem, according to court documents and trial testimony.

“Are you the new dude?” two of the alleged shooters reportedly asked the music studio owner as he stepped outside around 11 p.m. that night, court documents said. An hour later, he heard shots hit his building and saw a black Toyota drive away.

The next evening the three are accused of cornering Bolf and her new beau behind the Corner Store at 1716 E. Pontiac a couple minutes past 7 p.m.

According to a video taken from the crime scene, all three of them shot at the couple from the
black Toyota driven by Brown’s girlfriend. Carter’s movements were tracked on his cell phone as part of the evidence by Fort Wayne Police Department forensic analysts, court documents said.

An hour and a half after the shooting, there may have been some regret as Swanyea Taylor continued to text Brown’s girlfriend to find out the condition of his “babymama.” The news had reported her deceased.

Incredibly, Brown told police he believed he killed Bolf because Yousif “moved” after he shot his AR-style assault weapon from the sunroof of the black Toyota. Court testimony revealed that Yousif was shot multiple times and is paralyzed.

The evidence against the trio isn’t in their favor.

In court, deputy prosecutor Tina Gull showed two Snapchat videos, one where Carter rides in the backseat of Brown’s girlfriend’s black wearing a pink T-shirt, just prior to the shoot-up of the music studio, loud rap music apparently providing the battle cry. Another video showed Carter and Taylor partying together.

Fingerprints on a rear passenger door proved to be those of Carter, a forensic expert testified in court, although defense attorney Robert Gevers made the point that it didn’t prove the
prints were made that night.

In closing statements. Chief Counsel Tesa Helge and Gull told jurors Carter knew what he was doing when he joined the two younger co-defendants out for revenge.

“Nobody put a gun to Rashun’s head and told him to get out of the car and shoot,” Helge said. “This is murder all day long and twice on Sunday.” All three shot that night at the Corner Store, so no matter which bullet struck Bolf in the head, they all share the guilt.

Gevers, a renowned local defense attorney, painted a completely different picture. Placing both hands on Carter’s shoulder as if he were his son, he argued that Carter didn’t act in concert with the other two who were involved in a “beef” with Yousif. Carter, Gevers said, was in the “wrong
place, wrong time and certainly with the wrong people.”

The relationship between Carter, nearly a decade older, and the other two wasn’t explained Thursday during closing arguments, but they evidently enjoyed drinking and doing drugs together, Helge said in her statement.

Gevers had a different take on the video taken outside the corner store. Carter pulled his pink T-shirt over his head and ducked out after he saw the violence occur.

“He comes around the corner, pulls up his T-shirt, hears shots and then he’s gone,” Gevers said. “We all know who fired that gun. It was something he didn’t expect to be in the middle of.” He wasn’t a lookout; he was a coward, Gevers insisted.

Carter thought to remove his clothing so as not to be identified in the video, just like the other two, and he searched the black Toyota for shell casings, according to the woman who drove the three men to the music studio and the Corner Store.

In a second video taken after the shooter, Carter “is having the time of his life,” without any appearance of remorse, Gull said.

“I find it ironic his street name is flea,” Gull said, quoting the old adage “You lie down with
dogs. You get up with fleas.”

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