Social media posts, videos and prison records in the dispute over contract killing in Mobile

MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) – Federal prosecutors want to use social media posts, voice messages and a recorded phone call from prison to support their allegations that a Prichard man shot and killed five people as part of a murder-for-hire plot.

An indictment alleges that 20-year-old Darrius Dewayne Rowser attempted to kill a man on the orders of co-defendant John Fitzgerald McCarroll Jr. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors detailed the evidence in a court document, responding to an attempt by Rowser's lawyers to exclude social media evidence. A judge will hear arguments on the issue in U.S. District Court on Wednesday.

“Simply put, Rowser is wrong about the facts,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Roller wrote in a court document. “Contrary to his claims, Rowser's social media content is full of important evidence that is both proximate to and relevant to the crimes he is charged with.”

The defense claims that social media material would unfairly influence a jury with irrelevant evidence. Posts incriminating Rowser have not been authenticated, the defense argues.

“They serve little purpose other than to portray the defendant in a bad light before the jury and to induce the jury to decide the case on an improper basis,” defense attorneys wrote. “The obvious meaning of many of these posts is that the defendant acted in accordance with the conduct or words of the post with respect to the crimes he is charged with.”

Prosecutors allege Rowser opened fire at the Paparazzi Lounge on Dauphin Street in Mobile in November 2022, wounding four people. They also allege he killed a man in Mississippi in September of that year while trying to steal his car outside a casino.

The prosecutor's response includes a photograph of a Glock 21 pistol that Rowser allegedly used in the nightclub shooting, which police seized from Rowser's boyfriend's apartment the following January.

Prosecutors say the weapon was fitted with an illegal device that turned it into a machine gun. The court filing includes a screenshot from a video that prosecutors say Rowser sent to others showing him firing the weapon. The video is dated December 12, 2022 – about two weeks after the nightclub shooting.

A firearms expert concluded that the gun matched shell casings found at the Paparazzi Lounge after the shooting. On the same day of the shooting, Rowser sent an Instagram message saying he was at the club, according to the filing. Prosecutors allege that two days later, in an Instagram voice message, he said, “Brother! I just shot… four people in the club – with three bullets!”

Prosecutors also presented evidence linking Rowser to a fatal shooting in Mississippi in September 2022. Investigators say he and his co-defendant, Karmelo Cortez Morris Derks, drove to D'Iberville in a stolen Nissan Altima that Rowser had painted black. They allege the defendant shot Nicholaus Craig as he tried to steal his car outside the Scarlet Pearl Casino Resort.

Derks pleaded guilty in April to transporting a stolen vehicle across state lines as part of a plea deal in which prosecutors agreed to ask a judge to drop a charge of auto theft.

Prosecutors allege Rowser discussed the plan in Facebook messages days before the Mississippi shooting — including his efforts to obtain black spray paint. The day after Craig's death, Rowser sent a message asking his co-defendant, Jimaurice Pierce, to get his gun, the court filing says.

“Let's act until the lid is shut, I can't get caught with this,” he wrote.

Pierce, 21, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to commit murder.

Rowser is also accused of shooting at Walmart on the Interstate 65 Service Road on December 27, 2022. Prosecutors allege Rowser, Derks and Pierce went to the store to purchase a magnetic box in which they planned to place a cellphone. The plan, prosecutors say, was to attach the box to the car of the man they wanted to kill in order to track him down.

Prosecutors wrote in their court filings that there was evidence of a Google search for such a container on Rowser's phone left behind at Walmart.

Prosecutors wrote that police found the getaway car – a stolen Kia Sorrento with a broken steering column – near Rowser's home in Prichard when they arrested him at Walmart a week after the shooting.

Shortly after the arrest, the Mobile County Metro Jail's phone recording system recorded a conversation between Rower and his friend. Prosecutors wrote that Rowser asked the friend to get his guns. Police also seized the Glock pistol, an extended drum magazine and a machine gun conversion kit.

The trial of McCarroll, Rowser and a third defendant, scheduled for October 7, is expected to last 10 to 12 days.

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