Double amputee taken from wheelchair before he’s shot in a field, TN prosecutor says
A 41-year-old man who had both legs amputated and used a wheelchair was abducted outside of a store in Tennessee last year, according to the local district attorney’s office.
Two days later, prosecutors said, a father and son found his body in a field a few blocks away.
Now a 24-year-old man has been charged with his murder. A grand jury in Shelby County indicted Jerome Nichols on charges of premeditated first-degree murder, first-degree murder in the perpetration of a kidnapping, especially aggravated kidnapping with a deadly weapon and especially aggravated robbery resulting in serious bodily injury, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said in a March 31 news release.
A second suspect seen in surveillance footage on the day Ramarreo Prince Akins disappeared has not been identified, according to the release.
Akins, a double-amputee, was abducted at gunpoint in broad daylight outside of a grocery store in the 4700 block of Horn Lake Road in Memphis on Aug. 12, prosecutors said. A gas station convenience mart and a Community Grocery sit across the street from each other on the road.
“Surveillance video showed two men putting him into a green Saturn SUV after one of them punched and slapped him,” the district attorney’s office said. “They drove off, leaving the wheelchair behind.”
It wasn’t clear if Akins was reported missing. But two days later, prosecutors said, a father and son riding four wheelers found his body in a field off nearby West Shelby Drive.
Akins had been shot more than six times, the medical examiner said.
According to the district attorney’s office, Nichols and Akins were acquaintances. Investigators identified Nichols as a possible suspect early on and he was arrested a month after the shooting.
Prosecutors have asked anyone with information about the case to call Memphis Crime Stoppers at (901) 528-CASH (2274).
