Mobile man admits role in Mississippi casino fatal carjacking
In plea bargain, Karmelo Derks admits to transporting stolen car across state lines
MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - A guilty plea in federal court Wednesday shed new light on a Mississippi connection to a murder-for-hire case involving a pair of nightclub shootings in Mobile.
Karmelo Cortez Morris Derks, 19, of Mobile, pleaded guilty to transporting a stolen vehicle across state lines as part of a deal in which prosecutors agreed to ask a judge to dismiss a carjacking charge.
The incident centers on a fatal shooting in September 2022 at the Scarlet Pearl casino in D’Iberville, Mississippi. Derks and co-defendant Darrius Dewayne Rowser face murder charges in Mississippi in the death of Nicholaus Craig, who was on his way to his hometown of Mobile to celebrate his 36th birthday.
According to court records, Derks spoke several times with law enforcement investigators, admitting that he and Rowser traveled in a stolen Nissan Altimo from the Mobile area to Mississippi. He told investigators that he believed the two would be stealing cars.
At the casino, the pair circled the parking lot several times before Rowser, 20, of Mobile, told Derks to pull up alongside a Dodge Charger in the parking lot.
“I’ll do the rest,” Rowser said, according to Derks’ written plea agreement.
According to that document, Derks believed he would drive the Altima back to Mobile while Rowser would drive the stolen Charger.
Rowser got out of the Altima and told Craig to “come on with it” and then shot him through the window, according to the plea agreement. According to court records, surveillance video from the casino shows Rowser getting out of the passenger seat just after 1 a.m., walking to the driver’s side of the Charger and brandishing a gun before running back to the Altima.
Derks told investigators that he asked Rowser why he shot the man, to which he replied: “It had to be done.” Rowser also told Derks he “may have got the wrong person,” according to the plea document.
The plea document does not indicate who the intended target was, but the indictment alleges that co-defendant John Fitzgerald McCarroll Jr. ordered a hit on a man that resulted in shootings at Bank Nightlife in west Mobile in September 2022 and the Paparazzi Lounge on Dauphin Street that November. McCarroll and Rowser both have pleaded not guilty.
Derks’ plea document states that on Sept. 14, 2022, a week before the Scarlet Pearl shooting, surveillance video from a Dollar Tree and Greer’s grocery store in Eight Mile show the theft of the 2010 Altima. The owner of the car reported that his keys had been stolen from his work station at the Dollar Tree.
Prosecutors allege that the thieves later switched the license plate with one that had been stolen from a car parked on Cheshire Drive South in Mobile three days later.
The plea agreement references Facebook messages from Rowser seeking black paint to spray-paint the car.
“Ya blue. We need black,” he wrote, according to court records.
That same document indicates Rowser wrote to a different person, “Tryna go to Mississippi. … I gotta kar.”
A day after the casino shooting, the Prichard Fire Department responded to a call at the Azalea Apartments on Commercial Drive, where they found the stolen Altima engulfed in flames. The remnants of a rag were sticking out of the gas tank. That was less than half a mile form where Derks and Rowser lived.
Later that same day, according to court records, Rowser sent a Facebook message to someone about trading his gun because it was “hot,” writing: “I’m not trading wit nb else. … Let’s trade till ts die down my gun hot I Kant get caught wit it.”
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