A Tennessee man who is already serving life in prison after a murder conviction has been charged for allegedly killing a fellow inmate.
Carlos Green, who is currently incarcerated at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, has been charged with second-degree murder in the 2022 death of Justin Michael Walters.
Walters was serving a 15-year sentence that began in 2016. He was found dead in his cell, and District Attorney Glenn Funk requested an investigation into his death. No cause of death has been revealed, but the manner of death was determined to be a homicide.
“On March 13th, the Davidson County Grand Jury returned an indictment charging Carlos Derrick Green … with one count of Second Degree Murder,” said a press release from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI). “On March 21st, with the assistance of Tennessee Department of Correction special agents, Green was served the warrant and booked into the Davidson County Jail without bond, before being returned to Riverbend, where he is currently serving a life sentence on an unrelated charge out of Shelby County.”
A memorial webpage has been set up for Walters.
Records show that Green is serving a life sentence for the murder of Reedell Seals, for which he was convicted in 2002.
Testimony from Green’s trial indicates that he shot Seals because Seals owed him money.
“Antoine Davis testified that on the night before the shooting, the defendant came home to
their house on Pontotoc and told him that he and Reedell Seals (the victim in this case) had ‘got into it’ with some men in the neighborhood,” the records say. “The defendant told Davis that the victim owed one of the men some money. As the men approached them, the victim fled. The defendant shot at the men and stated to Davis that he thought he had hit one of them. Davis testified that the defendant did not seem upset about the incident.”
Green filed an appeal on procedural grounds in 2003, but it was denied.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter.