Jason Carter’s Iowa Murder Case: Acquittal, Civil Verdict, and Appeal

The Jason Carter Iowa murder case produced two opposite verdicts over the shooting death of his mother, Shirley Carter, on her rural Marion County farm in 2015: an Iowa civil jury found Jason liable for her death in December 2017 and ordered him to pay more than $10 million, and days later he was charged with first-degree murder — a charge a criminal jury rejected in March 2019 when it found him not guilty. The civil judgment has since been affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court, and Jason’s own federal lawsuit against the investigators who built the case against him was dismissed and that dismissal affirmed in June 2025.

The Killing on the Family Farm

Shirley Dene Carter, 68, was found shot twice in the back on the kitchen floor of her home at 132 Perry Street in rural Lacona, Iowa, on June 19, 2015. Her son Jason discovered the body.¹

Investigators concluded early that the scene had been staged to look like a burglary. Shirley’s purse, prescription drugs, and checks were still near her body, but drawers throughout the house had been emptied.² The suspected murder weapon, a Remington .270 rifle kept in a gun safe in Bill Carter’s basement, was missing and was never recovered. Two slugs at the scene were consistent with .270 Remington ammunition, though analysts could not confirm a definitive match, and no shell casing was found.³

The Marion County Sheriff’s office and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation did not arrest anyone. Months turned into years without charges.

Bill Carter Sues His Son for Wrongful Death

Frustrated by the lack of progress, Shirley’s husband Bill Carter hired a private investigator and an attorney. On January 5, 2016, he and his other children filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jason in Marion County District Court.¹ The suit alleged Jason killed his mother for access to roughly $5 million in family farmland and because Shirley had discovered he was having an extramarital affair.

The case went to trial before Judge Martha Mertz. Bill’s attorneys argued Jason took the rifle from the basement safe, shot his mother, staged the burglary, hid the weapon, and later retrieved it. Jason denied it. During the trial, father and son each accused the other of the murder.⁴

On December 15, 2017, after roughly two and a half hours of deliberation, the civil jury found Jason liable for his mother’s death and awarded the estate $10,250,002, including $10 million in punitive damages.⁵

A Murder Charge Two Days Later

Two days after the civil verdict, on December 17, 2017, DCI agent Mark Ludwick filed a criminal complaint and obtained an arrest warrant. Jason Carter was charged with first-degree murder.⁶ DCI agent Michael Motsinger stated in the complaint that Jason had given “multiple inconsistent statements” and that evidence at the scene contradicted the burglary narrative.⁴

Prosecutors alleged Jason knew specific details about the crime — that his mother had been shot with his father’s rifle during a staged burglary and that the shooter took the rifle when leaving — before those facts had been shared with him. Authorities described this as information “only the person present at the time of the crime could have known.”²

The Criminal Trial and Not Guilty Verdict

Because of extensive pretrial publicity, the criminal trial was moved from Marion County to the Pottawattamie County Courthouse. It began in early March 2019, with Marion County Attorney Ed Bull prosecuting and Christine Branstad leading the defense.⁷

The state had no direct physical evidence tying Jason to the shooting. Prosecutors acknowledged they had no DNA, no fingerprints on the weapon (which was never recovered), and no ballistic evidence linking Jason to the killing. They also admitted investigators had failed to test Jason’s clothing for gunshot residue or biological material, and conceded the failure was a mistake.⁸

The defense attacked the investigation itself, arguing that law enforcement had committed “major mistakes” and suffered from “tunnel vision,” fixating on Jason while failing to follow up on leads pointing to other suspects, and offering an alternative theory that Shirley’s death was a burglary gone wrong, possibly committed by two brothers looking for prescription drugs.⁷ Branstad also filed a Brady motion mid-trial, pointing to emails in which a DCI agent described the criminal case as “easier because of the civil trial” and called it the “perfect gift for us.”⁹

On March 21, 2019, the jury found Jason Carter not guilty of first-degree murder. Prosecutor Ed Bull said afterward that the state “didn’t do enough to rebut the presumption of innocence.”⁸

How Both Verdicts Can Be Right

The split outcome looks contradictory, but civil and criminal cases use different standards of proof. In the wrongful death suit, Bill Carter had to show only that it was more likely than not that Jason killed Shirley — the preponderance of the evidence. In the criminal trial, prosecutors had to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard in American law. The same body of evidence can clear the first bar and fall short of the second. The best-known parallel is the O.J. Simpson litigation, though in the Carter case the sequence was reversed: civil liability first, criminal acquittal second.

The Civil Judgment Holds Up on Appeal

After his criminal acquittal, Jason moved repeatedly to overturn the $10 million civil judgment. Judge Mertz denied each motion. She found the new evidence he offered — largely statements from jail inmates and defendants seeking plea deals — was “inadmissible” and riddled with “double and triple hearsay,” and was “incomplete or inconsistent with evidence gathered at the crime scene or proven false in other interviews.”¹⁰

Jason appealed. On March 19, 2021, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the civil verdict. Chief Justice Susan Christensen wrote that Jason’s proposed new evidence would not have “probably changed the trial outcome.” The court rejected claims that Judge Mertz was biased and upheld the jury’s finding that Jason’s timeline was inconsistent and that financial strain and a land dispute supplied a potential motive.¹¹¹²

Jason Carter’s Federal Lawsuit Against Investigators

In December 2019, Jason sued back. His 76-page federal complaint, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, named DCI agent Mark Ludwick, Marion County Deputy Sheriff Reed Kious, and Marion County itself. It alleged the investigators botched the case, manipulated witnesses, intimidated Jason, and shared evidence with his family during the civil suit while withholding exculpatory information from him. He also sued Bill Carter for defamation.¹³¹⁴ The federal claims included false arrest, concealment of evidence, and failure to investigate, alleging violations of the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. State-law claims for malicious prosecution and abuse of process were added.

On March 19, 2024, Chief Judge Stephanie M. Rose of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa dismissed the complaint in full. The court held that Ludwick and Kious were entitled to qualified immunity on the federal claims and that Jason failed to state a claim on the state-law counts.¹⁵

On June 12, 2025, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal in a unanimous opinion by Judge Bobby Shepherd, joined by Judges Gruender and Benton. The court rejected each claim:

On false arrest, it found probable cause supported the warrant, citing Jason’s inconsistent statements and “inside knowledge” of the crime, plus the fact that a neutral magistrate issued the warrant and a civil jury had just found him liable.
On concealment of evidence, it held that the Brady rule requiring prosecutors to disclose exculpatory material does not extend to civil litigation, and called Jason’s reciprocal-discovery theory “entirely novel.”
On failure to investigate, it described the allegations as, at worst, “shoddy police work” reflecting “nothing more than negligent or grossly negligent conduct,” not the “conscience-shocking” behavior needed for a Fourteenth Amendment claim.
On the state-law claims, malicious prosecution failed because probable cause existed, and abuse of process failed because the defendants’ actions remained within the proper scope of the legal process.

There was no dissent.¹⁶¹⁷

Where the Case Stands Now

As of mid-2025, the decade-long litigation appears to be over. Jason Carter was acquitted of murder in 2019. The $10 million civil judgment against him was upheld by the Iowa Supreme Court in 2021. His federal suit against investigators was dismissed and that dismissal affirmed by the Eighth Circuit in June 2025. No one else has been charged with Shirley Carter’s murder. According to the Des Moines Register, the Eighth Circuit ruling marks the end of litigation related to Shirley Carter’s death, “barring further appeals.”¹⁷

1
Iowa Cold Cases. Shirley Carter Case Summary
2
KCRG. DCI: Jason Carter Knew Details Only His Mother’s Killer Would Know
3
Des Moines Register. Criminal Justice System and the Shirley Carter Murder
4
Des Moines Register. Jason Carter Charged After Investigators Reviewed Information From Civil Trial
5
FindLaw. Carter v. Carter, 957 N.W.2d 623
6
KCRG. DCI: Jason Carter Charged With Murder in Mother’s Death
7
KCCI. Jury Set in Jason Carter Murder Trial
8
KCCI. Jason Carter Found Not Guilty in His Mother’s Shooting Death
9
Des Moines Register. Jason Carter’s Attorneys Say Prosecutor Withheld Evidence
10
Des Moines Register. $10M Judgment to Stand Against Man Acquitted in Mom’s Death
11
Des Moines Register. Iowa Supreme Court Upholds $10 Million Civil Lawsuit Against Jason Carter
12
Iowa Courts. Carter v. Carter, Case No. 18-0296
13
KCCI. Father Surprised to Be Sued by Son Jason Carter
14
WHO 13. Jason Carter Files Civil Lawsuit Against Investigators, Father
15
Leagle. Carter v. Ludwick, 724 F.Supp.3d 774
16
FindLaw. Carter v. Ludwick, No. 24-1806
17
Des Moines Register. Jason Carter Lawsuit Against Iowa Murder Investigators Appeal Denied