MORGAN COUNTY, Ala. — State prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty against a man they say fatally shot three people, including his ex-wife, in a domestic incident in Morgan County in 2020.
Carson Ray Peters turned himself in to United States Marshals in Decatur shortly following the May 24 incident, in which the bodies of Peters' 54-year-old ex-wife, Teresa, her 55-year-old boyfriend James Edward Miller, and her 50-year-old sister Tammy Renee Smith, were found by Decatur officers.
Teresa's mother, Mary Kennedy, was injured in the shooting, which investigators said was the result of a domestic incident.
Documents filed in late October in a Morgan County circuit court show nearly three dozen people have been named as witnesses by state prosecutors.
Peters has entered a plea of not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
The trial could begin in late November or early December. If convicted of capital murder, the trial will move to a penalty phase in which a jury will vote whether to impose the death sentence or life without the possibility of parole. At least ten jurors will need to vote for the death penalty for the sentence to proceed.
A woman, April Hanner, was arrested in Piedmont shortly after the shooting on charges of hindering prosecution in the first degree. That case is still pending.
