Main: Starmichael Tucker (Dynasty Feltus/WKRG). Inset: Charles Carson-Dowdy (Escambia County Sheriff’s Office).
A 31-year-old Alabama man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing his ex-girlfriend after she ended their relationship, using Uber to cross state lines and confront the victim in Florida, where he shot her multiple times then used her own car to repeatedly run her over.
Charles Carson-Dowdy of Mobile, Alabama, was sentenced to life in federal prison for cyberstalking, interstate domestic violence, murder through use of a firearm and being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection with the January 2025 slaying of Starmichael L. Tucker, federal prosecutors announced in a news release.
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According to the factual basis Carson-Dowdy agreed to as part of his guilty plea, he and Tucker began dating in October 2024. Their relationship became increasingly contentious while Tucker was visiting family in California over the holidays, with the two exchanging escalating arguments by text.
“The victim and the defendant had a conversation via text message during which the defendant admitted to the victim that, during their relationship, he had surreptitiously reviewed her private text communications stored on her cellular telephone, a revelation that caused substantial emotional distress in the victim,” the statement of facts says. “The victim then attempted to end the relationship with the defendant.”
On Jan. 1, 2025, Tucker attempted to end the relationship as she traveled back to Florida. Carson-Dowdy responded by using Uber to travel from his home in Mobile to Tucker’s residence in Pensacola, Florida, to “confront her about their relationship.”
He brought a Taurus handgun and an additional loaded magazine with him, despite having a prior felony conviction that prohibited him from possessing a firearm or ammunition.
Carson-Dowdy entered Tucker’s home without permission and later sent her a text revealing that he was inside. When Tucker returned, she found him waiting for her in the apartment. Two people who spoke with Tucker during that time said she was very upset, and she told one of them that Carson-Dowdy was the source of her distress.
The following evening, Tucker left her apartment at about 8 p.m. Carson-Dowdy followed her outside and fired “an initial volley of approximately four shots.”
The bullets struck Tucker in the back, and she collapsed in the parking lot.
“Carson-Dowdy then walked over to where Ms. Tucker was lying wounded on the ground and shot her approximately ten more times at close range,” prosecutors wrote in the news release. “Carson-Dowdy then entered the victim’s vehicle parked nearby, and deliberately drove the car over Ms. Tucker’s body. He then reversed the car to drive over her body again, and then drove forward running over the victim’s body a third time.”
After inflicting the fatal wounds, Carson-Dowdy fled the scene in Tucker’s car.
At approximately 8:32 p.m., Carson-Dowdy texted one of Tucker’s family members: “Star is dead.” Shortly afterward, he spoke by phone with another witness and admitted that he had shot Tucker “sixteen times.”
Authorities later found Carson-Dowdy in Spanish Fort, Alabama, inside Tucker’s vehicle. The Taurus handgun used in the killing was found inside the car.
The factual basis for Carson-Dowdy’s guilty plea states that he “deliberately and intentionally took the victim’s life with premeditated intent.”
U.S. Attorney John P. Heekin said Tucker’s family and friends had been “robbed” of her presence by Carson-Dowdy’s actions.
“This defendant’s actions took an innocent life and devastated a family,” ATF Tampa Field Division Special Agent in Charge Kirk Howard said in a statement. “Today’s sentence holds him accountable and hopefully, helps the victim’s family take one step toward closure.”
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