SHELBY COUNTY, TN – A 48-year-old man out of Tennessee is facing a first-degree murder charge after authorities say he fatally stabbed one of his neighbors in an apartment complex in late March, allegedly leaving the body to decompose for roughly a week before authorities discovered the victim during a welfare check in early April.
Police arrested 48-year-old Collan Lee Carter on July 21st following a months’ long investigation stemming from an ostensibly late March homicide, with authorities claiming a break in the case came when Carter allegedly revealed intimate case details to detectives that had not yet been publicly released.
During the early morning hours of April 6th, Memphis Police officers conducted a welfare check at the residence of a woman later identified as Tresa Long at the Villages Apartments located off of Jackson Avenue. Upon arriving at the apartment unit, officers reportedly detected a “foul odor” emanating from the residence, with the Memphis Fire Department breaching the door and first responders happening upon Long’s “badly decomposed” body.
Initial canvassing of the apartment unit showed no signs of force entry, according to authorities, with a subsequent autopsy of the victim revealing she’d died via multiple stab wounds to the neck. Surveillance footage which reportedly showcased Long’s front door showed the last known visitor was seen leaving the unit at roughly 3:00 a.m. on March 29th, wearing a distinctive hoodie with the number “23” emblazoned on the front.
Authorities say the then-unidentified male was captured on surveillance footage exiting the unit and making their way to another unit inside the apartment complex. After investigators obtained leasing records for the complex, they landed on Carter as being the person on the lease of the aforementioned unit.
Police later acquired a search warrant for Carter’s apartment and took the suspect in for questioning, with Carter allegedly admitting to detectives that he was the person adorning the distinctive hoodie on March 29th but claimed he never entered Long’s residence despite being reportedly shown the footage in question. However, it’s what Carter allegedly told detectives during his questioning that seemingly cemented his arrest, after he reportedly claimed to have “heard that Tresa Long was stabbed multiple times,” even though police had yet to share said details publicly at that point in the investigation.
Officials have yet to detail a possible motive in the case nor have they released any statements as to why Carter’s arrest came months after landing on him as a prime suspect. Carter is currently being held at the Shelby County Jail without bond, with his next slated court appearance scheduled for July 29th.
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