Travis Carnes murders 13-year-old with help from judicial system
In DeSoto County, Mississippi, back in August, 25-year-old Travis Carnes broke into the Hernandez’ family’s home and set the place on fire. He was subsequently locked up and held on $250,000 bond. The Hernandez family moved out of the county to get away from Carnes. He couldn’t make the bond, though, so they were reasonably safe from him.
“Someone” then lowered the bond to $30,000, so Carnes got out of jail, nd on Sunday, he tracked down the Hernandez family and murdered 13-year-old Nathidia Hernandez on Sunday.
It’s unclear at this point who signed off on lowering Carnes’ bond and why they made that decision.
“We still got a lot of background work to find out what happened and why it happened,” Southaven Police Department Lt. Mark Little said.
This case forces many people to wonder: Did the system fail the Hernandez family?
“Did the system fail the Hernandez family? Well I don’t know. The system, everything looked to be in place,” Little said. “I haven’t really studied their file…He was charged. Everyone is afforded a bond, and you’re innocent until proven guilty.”
Mark Little is an idiot, they should have found someone who knows how to answer questions and not Mark Little. It seems like it would be an easy thing to check records instead of dodging thrown fingers.
Category: Crime
I hope the Hernandez family hires an attorney and goes after the halfwit(s) who caused the death of their family member. There is someone who knows he/she is responsible for this death and has to live with that for ever.
Did the system fail the Hernandez family?
I don’t know, is water wet? The system has gone from protecting the victims from the accused to protecting the accused from prosecution.
This is why we are seeing people in law enforcement telling people to get guns and shoot criminals during the commission of the crime.
Why do you think it is called the “Criminal Justice System”? If it was the “Victim’s Justice System” this asshole would have stayed locked up.
Social justice at its finest:
Poor People Can’t Be Jailed If They Can’t Afford Bail
http://bluelivesmatter.blue/doj-poor-people-cant-afford-bail/
The article states that the people would only be released for misdemeanors. That’s actually something I could agree with. Otherwise you have people clogging up jails for longer than the punishment for their crime would last, as the judicial system isn’t known for its expediency.
“We still got a lot of background work to find out what happened and why it happened.” Yeah, that’s bullshit. It’s all in the court file. This POS Carnes was arrested in August so it seems certain to me that he wasn’t released due to an automatic bail review, as happens when, say, someone is arrested after hrs or on the weekend and no actual judge is available. Instead, POS Carnes (through a public defender or private atty) filed a motion to reduce bond. A hearing was likely held and the decision made by a judge to lower the bond. That’s the way it works. Little knows that. He just doesn’t want to name names.
I agree. My guess is that Little has to work with the judge involved in the future and decided that it’s in his best professional interest not to expose the judge to public criticism.
IMO he should; the judge who approved the bail reduction deserves to take the heat for this. But Little isn’t about to name him publicly.
Yeah, that statement jumps off the page. And thoroughly ticked me off.
Background work? What background work? You don’t really need to know the genus of tree from which the paperwork was made. All you need to do is pull a couple of forms from a file.
What is your plan? You don’t really need to study the relative value of electronic vs hard copy files. Just get a few copies and pass them around.
What is so difficult, or time consuming? Do you need to delay so that somebody can make the pertinent docs disappear?
Prolly!
“We still got a lot of background work to find out what happened and why it happened.” I call bullshit on this – they are in damage control mode for this shitstorm that they had a hand in.
The family and the community need to push for an investigation into this crap and someone needs to pay for their incompetence that cost a 13 year old girl her life.
I realize that it is easy to pile on Little here, but all of the non-evidentiary documentation would be public record. Yet the article states:
However, WMC Action News 5 investigators uncovered that someone then lowered Carnes’ bond from $250,000 to $30,000.
and then…
It’s unclear at this point who signed off on lowering Carnes’ bond and why they made that decision.
The news “investigators” couldn’t figure out who lowered the bond either.
This means that the dear lieutenant may not know who lowered the bond any more than the newsies do. It very well could be that the records are either accidentally lost, deliberately “lost,” corrupted, electronically haven’t caught up with the world or incomplete.
Furthermore, since Little was the Police spokesman of the City of Southhaven where the murder suicide took place but not County of Desoto where Carnes was arrested, booked and being held, the actual question on who lowered the bond should have been asked of the Desoto County Court / Clerk of the Court spokesperson.
I am not willing to sell Little down the river (yet) because he didn’t know a court record 48 hours after the murder / suicide. I would think that the SPD would still be processing the scene, dealing with the family and finding out who illegally provided Carnes a weapon.
We live in a “right now” or “7 minute news segment” world. It is not unreasonable to expect police and other agencies to have some time to gather all the information before presenting it to the world.
Southaven, MS, is in Desoto County, MS. It’s the largest city in the county and the 3rd largest in the state.
I know that Hondo.
What is your point?
Mine is that Little may not have had at his disposal the information people asked because it was not in his town.
I don’t know about where you live, but my town’s police and courts are separate from the surrounding county sheriff’s department and court system.
The question should have been asked of the Desoto County Courts / Clerk of the Courts.
I know all of that as well. My point was that the matter may well have been entirely within the Southaven municipal court and police departments, with no involvement from either the Desoto County sheriff or the county/state court systems. Or the original offense could have been in county jurisdiction, handled by the county sheriff, and the bail reduced by a county or state judge. What’s been reported to date doesn’t exclude either possibility.
The reporting concerning this case is sloppy. It does not clearly specify many pertinent details, and thus does not provide enough information to rule out definitively either possibility.
In particular, the reporting here does not specify explicitly (1) the jurisdiction(s) in which the crimes were committed, or (2) the courts considering the matter. Saying that something occurred “in Desoto County” does NOT definitively exclude the possibility that it happened in Southaven – or that it was handled by Southaven municipal courts. Both of those are “in Desoto County”.
Little may well not have had access to the information needed to answer media questions – for any number of reasons. Alternatively, Little may well have known precisely who lowered the dead thug’s bail – and have been covering for a judge with whom he needs to work in the future. At this point, for all we know either could be the case.
There really ought to be tremendous outrage about this. The thing is that Mississippi case law sets out the factors to be considered when establishing bond, if any. The seriousness of the charges(s) and the defendant’s criminal history are parts of the consideration. I am well aware that the purpose of bond is to secure (as best as possible) the defendant’s appearance in court. However, that is not the whole story or instant charges and criminal history would not be factors. Somebody screwed up, big time. Perhaps an admonition was issued to POS Cranes not to go near the family he stalked and whose home he tried to burn. Surprise! It didn’t work.
Here we go again, another “Let ’em Loose Bruce” type of Judge takes part in freeing a goblin and it costs someone their life. I wonder if State Judges are elected in Mississippi? If so there’s one that definitely needs to be fired!
Judges in Mississippi appear to be elected officials, except for municipal judges. Municipal judges in Mississippi appear to be appointed to office by the municipality they serve. They exist in towns having populations of 10,000 or more.
https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_selection_in_Mississippi
Southaven, MS, appears to have a population of between 45 and 50 thousand. I’m guessing the judge in question here was a municipal judge, but I could easily be wrong about that.
The 17th Judicial District serves Desoto County, MS. The Circuit Court Judges are elected officials (4 year terms).
In my experience, Arson and Burglary are not heard in municipal court in MS.
Cocksucker.
Lt. Little must have passed the lieutenant’s exam marked on the curve.
Some of you older SOB’s will know what I mean. lol
I would think that the judge that set the original bail amount would have to be alerted, if not for legal reasons, but as a courtesy that the bail was reduced so significantly.
I wonder if the court, that lowered his bail, notified the family that he had been freed. While the court could be found culpable, the average family cannot afford to hire the attorney that has the ability to prosecute the system.
The police do all they can to nab these turds, only to see the court system turn them back out on the streets.
Wrongful death attorneys in MS work on commission (they get paid from the moneys awarded or don’t get paid). This may work to the family’s adavantage.
How did Travis even make $30k bail and then travel to another country and track down this family?
That required lots of resources and some smarts plus knowing a foriegn language.
And is he rotting in a Central American jail?
County not country
You are correct. Coffee did not kick in.
Bail only requires 10% in most areas, so someone had to pay $3,000 for his release. And the family only moved to a different county. Might want to re-read the story. Douchenozzle should not have gotten bail lowered that much for the crime he committed. Fucking liberal judges!
In some instances, cash isn’t required at all. The surety is obtained through property, usually a family member or the defendant himself, w/o a bondsman. In other words, a signature here and one there will work. Also, if cash, competition between bail companies often means that bail bondsmen will take less than the max permitted under state law. So, although a 10% fee is pretty standard, it could be less. No matter how it’s cut, the SOB was released by court order and the outrage should be great–but probably won’t generate a whimper. The victim was not killed by a police officer so…
“Did the system fail the Hernandez family?”
Yes, obviously it did, or else their daughter would still be alive and this fucking upright animal would still be locked up for arson and multiple attempted murders. Whoever made this possible needs to be brought up on charges immediately, though I’m sure that won’t happen.
The news video says that Carnes is dead-did he kill himself?
If so, I wish he would have just gone ahead and done so when he got out and saved everyone else involved a tremendous amount of grief and suffering.
4 judges serve the 17th Judicial District in Mississippi. Hon. Gerald Chatham has been on the bench since 2011. He was a DA prior to that. Hon. James McClure III has been on the bench for quite a while. Hon. Smith Murphey has been on the bench since 2011. He was DA prior to that. Hon Robert Chamberlin seems to have been on the bench for a while. He is seeking election in the MS Supreme Court this year.
I wonder which one of these fine representatives of the Mississippi Bar made this asinine decision?
See my comment above. Not sure this was a district judge’s handiwork – Southaven, MS, is a large enough town that it has municipal judges.
I agree, but see my reply.
Additionally, this area is ripe with corruption. Anyone of the judicial officials could be receiving some sort of compensation for judicial actions. This “fine individual’s” release could have been covering for someone else’s release.
It’s a dookie sandwich any way it’s served and my prayers are with the young girl’s family.
I’ll defer to your knowledge of the court system in that area. Wasn’t trying to poke your eye – just raising a possibility. We won’t know for sure “who shot John” in this case until more facts come out, and I hate to see possibilities overlooked or people jump to conclusions. Municipal judge vice state seemed to be a second possibility.
If it was indeed a corrupt judge, I hope LE can find that out and prove it. A few years in a MS Stat Prison’s “gen pop” for a corrupt judge sounds like excellent Karmic justice.
No worries. I truly enjoy this site and have learned much from many of you (I started to list some, but figured I catch some poop from those left out)
The strong feelings come from recent dealings with “fine examples” of judicial impartiality a little further down the state. I would post those articles, but the anniversary is approaching and my beautiful bride and her family doesn’t need the Google hits. Just suffice it to say, “Corruption is winning on Earth, but true justice comes when they answer to their Maker!”
Amen!
But Carnes wasn’t being held in Southaven, MS. He was being held in jail by DeSoto County, which has its own judicial system. Carnes was arrested for crimes in the county, not in the city. .
As I noted above, Southaven, MS, is a city in DeSoto County. If he was being held in Southaven, by definition he was being held “in Desoto county”. Further, the articles say that the original “terrorizing” took place “in Desoto County”. However, they do not explicitly identify the jurisdiction that took him into custody or the court that processed his case. A crime occurring in Southaven also occurs “in Desoto County” – but not necessarily in the county sheriff’s jurisdiction.
Since Southaven is a city of 45k+ people and is in Desoto County, if reporting here was a bit sloppy it’s at least theoretically possible that all of this took place within the Southaven police and judicial systems. As other commenters have noted, that’s somewhat doubtful – arson and burglary typically end up in other than municipal courts in MS. However, since Southaven is also the state’s 3rd largest city it may also be large enough to be an exception to the general rule on that score.
Bottom line: based on what’s been reported so far, this being a Southaven municipal affair from start to finish can’t IMO be ruled out. I doubt it was – but that yet can’t be definitively excluded.
Sorry Hondo, it doesn’t work the way you are saying.
If the original crime were committed in Southaven, that is what would have been said due to jurisdictional issues.
Look for the one with the Obama bumper sticker.
Epic Fail
Travis Carnes is a piece of shit and he should be hung in the county square. Worthless waste of oxygen.
Additional stories say it was a murder suicide.
http://wreg.com/2016/10/25/southaven-police-identify-victim-suspect-in-weekend-murder-suicide/
The family will not get the satisfaction of watching him get his “just desserts” serving in the MS rehabilitation program with Old School Bubba, Tiny, Thor and many other fathers of little MS girls.
According to that story, it looks like this worthless, feral thug was the murdered girl’s mother’s boyfriend at some point.
I don’t think so. The article mentions Lucas Jones Carnes but does not explain the relation.
A Google search indicates that a “Luke Jones” works as a reporter at WREG – the station that published the article. I think the sentence is saying that someone told WREG’s reporter (Mr. Jones) that Carnes was the girl’s former boyfriend.
So, along with murder, arson, and burglary, looks like we can add pedophilia and child rape to the deceased thug’s criminal repertoire.
Nice guy. Hope he loves eternity with Satan.
You are correct, my apologies. Maybe the reporters can start using correct punctuation.
De nada. Had to search a bit myself to find that one – first search missed it.
Or was a pervert after a 13-year-old girlfriend?
Meanwhile we’ve got some poor bastard here in the PRoM caught with some weed for personal use who couldn’t make 10,000 in bail in jail for three years thanks to the speedy wheels of justice…
But hey let’s make a sure a would be murderer can make bail…did the Hernandez family piss off the judge?
Why would anyone care if this shit bag could make bail? Fuck him, let him rot in prison until he’s convicted of his crime and then let him rot some more.
I agree with your sentiment.
Unfortunately, this area of the South is very ripe with corruption. Southaven, MS borders Memphis, TN if this gives you any indication of the amount of crime in this area. I-55 runs from Chicago, IL through St Louis, MO through Memphis, TN to New Orleans, LA. Indications show the level of drug activity along this route rivals the East and West Coast drug arteries.
Got to take I-40 from I-55 I lived in the boot heel. 🙂
Charge whoever let that piece of shit out of jail with depraved indifference or whatever can be made to stick. Get that fuckstain into prison, then spend a carton of cigs to have it killed with a shank to the neck.
Since twatwaffle is DEAD dead, find the son of a bitch that kicked him loose, drag his ass out to a desert and using rope, stakes, hammer and jar of honey leave that bastid on the ground and Ma Nature will definitely sort it out. Fuck that guy…
Quote: This case forces many people to wonder: Did the system fail the Hernandez family?
“Did the system fail the Hernandez family? Well I don’t know. The system, everything looked to be in place,” Little said. “I haven’t really studied their file…He was charged. Everyone is afforded a bond, and you’re innocent until proven guilty.”
I have not read all the posts but I think I may be singing to the choir. This should never have happened. Who ever was responsible for letting this POS out on bail needs to face dereliction of duty with CRIMINAL consequences like life in prison. This is total bull $h!t MAJORLY!
Well, if ‘the system’ was properly in place, there would be one 13 y/o alive who is not. Enough finger pointing to go around. I do believe the judge or his/her equivalent is the only one who can adjust a bond.
Don’t have words to describe this crime. The system fails one more time. How many felonies a person can hold before he/she is considered a criminal? Why is the system so corrupt? Why the system frees criminals to murder innocent people? I can only think of the pain Nathalya’s mother is suffering! What about her little sister? Who is going to pay for therapies that will be needed to help Nathalya’s mother and sister cope with this tragedy? So many concerns, so much damage and all because our judicial system failed one more time!