On Nov. 2, authorities said they found his remains in a wooded area south of Taylorsville, Mississippi.
Rasheem Carter with his mother, Tiffany Carter, at his college graduation in 2016.
It's unclear what prompted authorities to search the wooded area or what led them to determine initially that foul play was not suspected.
"He was in so many different pieces," said Yokena Anderson, a cousin to Carter’s mother, Tiffany Carter.
"They wanted to tell us that he went there and fell dead and the animals were feeding off him.".
"When I went on the scene, the Holy Spirit hit me and said this is foul play," she said.
Carter, a welder from Fayette, Mississippi, was in Taylorsville, about 100 miles away from home, working a short-term contracting gig. »