A 31-year-old Mobile man will spend the rest of his life in federal prison for the killing of a Pensacola woman — a case prosecutors said began with cyberstalking, crossed state lines and ended in a parking lot outside the victim’s apartment.
Charles Carson-Dowdy was sentenced in federal court to life imprisonment on convictions for cyberstalking, interstate domestic violence, murder through use of a firearm, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in connection with the death of Starmichael L. Tucker in Pensacola in early 2025.
A Relationship That Turned Deadly
According to court documents, Carson-Dowdy and Tucker began dating around October 2024. Prosecutors said that during the relationship, he used cellular phones, the internet and a ridesharing service “to engage in a course of conduct with the intent to harass and intimidate” Tucker.
In late December 2024, Tucker flew to California to visit family for the holidays. As she flew back to Florida on Jan. 1, 2025, the two exchanged a series of escalating text messages in which Tucker tried to end the relationship.
Prosecutors said Carson-Dowdy then hailed an Uber from Mobile to Tucker’s Pensacola residence to confront her — bringing a Taurus handgun and an extra loaded magazine despite being a convicted felon prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition.
The Attack
Court documents say Carson-Dowdy entered Tucker’s home without her permission and waited inside. Around 8 p.m. on Jan. 2, 2025, as Tucker left her apartment, Carson-Dowdy followed her outside and shot her in the back, causing her to collapse in the parking lot. He then approached where she lay wounded and shot her about 10 more times at close range, prosecutors said.
He then got into Tucker’s vehicle and deliberately drove over her body, reversed and drove over her a second time, then drove forward and ran over her a third time before fleeing the complex in her vehicle. Tucker died from her injuries.
The Capture and Investigation
Law enforcement later located Carson-Dowdy in Tucker’s vehicle in Spanish Fort, Alabama, and took him into custody. The handgun used in the killing was found inside the car.
The case was investigated jointly by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, the State Attorney’s Office and the Spanish Fort Police Department — a multi-agency effort that tracked the crime from a Florida apartment complex to a traffic stop on Alabama’s Eastern Shore.