Family Business - Someone They Knew with Tamron Hall

she was the glue that kept everyone together 9-1-1 where is your emergency shirley carter was shot twice in her kitchen has dci found bill carter's bolt action rifle no we have not the lead investigator told local law enforcement to stop following up on those leads did you seize the gun safe no every pursuit should have been thoroughly examined explored there's a hall through the foreign if you've ever been to iowa you know that much of the state is farmland corn soybeans pork eggs there are over 80 000 farms in the hawkeye state one of those farms not far from des moines in lakota belonged to bill and shirley carter they met in high school got married young and had three children together bill jr jana and jason they did everything together including working their farm until june 19 2015. [Music] growing up in a small town i always envisioned lacona to be very much like where i grew up where everyone kind of knew other people's business and everyone either knew someone had a good reputation or a bad reputation most of them are farmers their families are farmers they've been there for generations that's how the town is bill carter was a farmer and farmed his whole life he grew up in that community he raised three children in that community bill struck me as a very simple man and their house was a very simple house as far as i could tell it had never been remodeled it was essentially the same as it was the day they walked in the door in 1960 so that shows you the frugalness of his everyday life shirley helped bill on the farm there was a time when bill described to us that he and shirley were partners they farmed together she would drive ahead of him and he would plant behind her that was how they did things bill and shirley were both farmers there is a distinction between being a farm wife and being a farmer jason especially was close with his parents because he farmed and they worked together and his wife shelley was close with shirley and bill she was the glue that kept everyone together she was one of the most giving people that you know i've ever met she didn't like attention um she wasn't showy she just embraced the love i remember her going sledding with us i just remember her screaming going down the hill thinking that she was she was gonna crash go off in the ditch down in the creek and uh she was always really it was it was funny listening to her go down the hill and her voice just keep getting higher shirley and billy had a you know a very traditional relationship where billy made a lot of the decisions and um he called truly mama i mean the kids were the light of her life she worked hard but you like to have fun too and we made a lot of memories together [Music] june 19 2015 bill and shirley got up they went and got their coffee they did their morning thing they came back and it was time for bill to haul grain he said he dragged decaf and she drank caffeinated coffee so they didn't drink it together at home they would go out for coffee and then he dropped her at home and then he went off to do some corn hauling on june 19 2015 i was hauling grain that day and uh started the semi ran into town headed for pleasantville to casey's got something to eat or drink for breakfast and went back got in the semi and took it to cargill to the corn processing plant dropped the load off there and headed back to hebrew lens to park the semi got in the pickup and anyway it was a nice day out just took my time getting there and uh parked the pickup by the fuel barrel and went to walk inside and walked through the door and found my mom laying on the floor she had blood around her side and i could definitely tell she was she had been gone for a while you know i couldn't figure out what happened at first she you know i called my sister to tell her you know what i just found and she asked me if i'd called 9-1-1 and i said no and she said well call 9-1-1 and she hung up and then i called 9-1-1 9-1-1 where's your emergency yeah i need that i mean i need your hands i don't know what happened the law enforcement officers said that they didn't know if someone had simply just picked a house and you know tried to rob them and killed or if this was more personal if this was a family member like no other june 19 2015 started out like any other day on the farm for the carter family in lacona iowa running errands doing farm chores hauling crops but by noon their daily routine took a deadly turn shirley carter was shot twice in her kitchen and jason carter was the first person to discover the body [Applause] [Music] there were at least two shots fired from the area of the doorway the first into shirley it went through her body before coming to rest in the refrigerator the second bullet was fired into shirley's body while she was laying on the floor shirley was at the house doing chores according to bill and then he gets a call from his daughter jana saying that jason called her shirley's been shot and bill needed to call 9-1-1 hello 9-1-1 where's your emergency street at lacona uh my wife my son just called and said he fell oh life bed on the floor in the kitchen okay um we do have an ambulance on the way there now [Applause] he showed up you know pretty quick like and he walked through the door and i just remember him kneeling down and he said oh mama and he knelt down and he kissed her on the forehead very quickly after that however the police came and kind of chewed him out of the house and closed closed up the house as a crime scene so he was not able to go back in for quite a while to look at the evidence police were called to a home along street outside lacona around noon today there they found a body of a person inside this home police are not saying how the person died the division of criminal investigation is also helping with the case [Applause] i remember standing in the dining room uh doorway you could see blood was around her side but you could not tell where she had been shot i turned around and i could see drawers were pulled open there you know everything in the dining room was just a mess and that's when i told my dad i said you know you know you've been robbed and they've shot mom shirley had been shot twice the first shot took off the bottom of her heart the second disintegrated her heart jason came in from the deck and showed him a bullet hole in the fridge jason was hysterical and um yeah i tried calling everybody he any i even called our neighbor the sheriff a local sheriff bill got a phone call from not his son jason but his daughter janna why hadn't the first phone call been to 9-1-1 and why hadn't jason called him directly i really don't find anything suspicious about his call to his sister but before his call to 9-1-1 especially because shirley was obviously dead she was not in distress i think that was probably clear to him certainly the same thing when bill arrived on the scene he didn't try to resuscitate because they both knew [Music] the community was very shocked most everybody usually trusts everybody it was hard for anyone to feel very safe after this happened and the law enforcement officers said that they were kind of at a loss they didn't really have any leads at the time there was claims that the house had been you know ransacked there was things everywhere and so they didn't know if someone had simply just picked a house and you know tried to rob them and kill shirley or if this was more personal if this was a family member the allegation that the crime scene looked like a staged burglary certainly made sense initially as time went by we realized that we don't know that nothing was taken we don't know what happened one of the first things we noticed is that the prescription drugs and the jewelry boxes on shirley's dresser were completely undisturbed also shirley's purse had cash sitting just inside the purse on top of all of the other contents that had not been taken so realistically it appeared early on that someone had taken the opportunity to stage the scene so it would look like a home invasion burglary but the evidence wasn't there to support that for months and months law enforcement were still investigating had not arrested anyone agent ludwig was the agent in charge so he is the one who led the investigation guided it and told people what they could or couldn't do mark ludwig had previous law enforcement experience i believe he was a iowa state trooper and then he moved up to become an agent with a division of criminal investigation the investigation turned towards jason early on they state that jason lied to them he knew more information about the murder scene than he should have and he arrived at the scene much sooner than he stated he arrived he was accused at least by investigators that he was looked at as a suspect and their prime suspect there was a gun safe and a missing murder weapon bill's theory at the time was that jason actually planned to kill both of them because he stood to inherit this money that otherwise bill would have inherited shirley's share of it free for 30 days on june 19 2015 68 year old shirley carter was found dead on the floor of her farmhouse kitchen in lacona iowa most people in the area never even locked their doors so neighbors were stunned by the brutality of this crime they wanted to know who did this and why the lead investigator mark ludwig of iowa's division of criminal investigation set his sights on a primary suspect early on jason carter shirley and bill's son who discovered the body and over the course of the investigation bill carter jason's dad began to think his son was guilty as well [Music] in the beginning i think everyone was just in so much shock because it was such a tragedy but as mark ludwig continued to work bill my father-in-law and continue to convince him more and more that jason was responsible my father-in-law got more and more vocal i think there were various reasons for bill's suspicions one of them had to do with money that jason stood to inherit the family farm and all the money that went into that another that he hadn't been aware of but when he hired a private detective he learned jason had been having an affair with somebody else and that that might have been an impetus for surely to have gotten angry with him and this to have ensued in this particular case there was no indication that she was alarmed or tried to flee so given that information it was possible that the killer was someone she knew we examined jason as well jason was actually found to be at the at the house on the day that it occurred he had means he was also found to have a motive it all stems from mark ludwick he was the lead investigator on my mom's case it all stems from listening to my 9-1-1 call on his way to the scene and making his decision that i was his prime suspect [Music] i mean he must have had the biggest blind set of blinders ever bill's theory at the time was that jason actually planned to kill both of them because he stood to inherit this money that otherwise bill would have inherited shirley's share of he thinks that he just didn't come in at the right time to the house wasn't there at the right time where both of them would have been killed the weapon that was used was consistent with a high-powered weapon in this particular case there was a weapon missing from the residence which was a remington model 77 270 caliber bolt action rifle in the carter house there was this gun safe that jason said he didn't really know anything about but it was actually a gift from him and shelly carter his fingerprints were all over it jason said he had never touched the gun safe where that rifle was stored however evidence shows he assembled it himself and if you look at where these fingerprints were they're inside the locking mechanism and in places where if you are assembling a gun safe you would touch to assemble i still don't remember this day as getting a gun safe or whatever even putting it together but my dad did find a picture of me and our son assembling the safe on our living room floor there was a gun safe and a missing murder weapon and the bullets from that weapon were identified as having in the same bullets as the ones that killed shirley i think maybe bill felt that there should have been a search for that done a vigorous search for that gun so in his suspicions against jason bill felt that jason had been given time to find it and get rid of it these are the sort of assumptions that investigators made that really didn't have any evidentiary support especially considering the evidence against other individuals there were two brothers named followell joel and john followell there was an individual named joseph zedlock they were all implicated in different ways and law enforcement would talk to them and get their alibi and never went and talked to their alibi to confirm whether or not that happened law enforcement had interviewed all these people interviewed the family still hadn't arrested anyone bill carter thought that it was taking too long and decided to file the civil suit accusing his son jason carter bill sold his son basically because he wanted to get criminal charges filed he sued him because he wanted the evidence against his son that he felt that he had been able to unleash through this private investigation to come out in court [Music] you know i'm your flesh from blood the last person you know you'd think you'd want to point the finger at i honestly god think he lost his ever loving mind when he walked in and saw mom and it just everything went to hell from there so at the end of the civil trial jason carter was found liable for his mother's death responsible essentially the civil trial resulted in a verdict against jason for 10 million dollars the district attorney's office felt that jason carter knew too many details and said some things that led them to the arrest if this making sense hold the fridge hold the floor there's no block there's no blood no splatter no nothing that i can recall on any of that within two days jason was arrested and charged with murder i think it was very obvious that the police questioning was accusatory the questions were repeatedly just tell us what happened we know you're lying just tell us what happened we know you're lying no no no but i want to say something real quick okay so what if whoever out there that shot my mom if they shoot another person here in the next day or two how are you gonna feel i feel like we're doing our job the prosecutors believed that the motive was marital problems he had a 15-month affair with someone else how often do you text and talk with tara is that pretty frequent made like no other two years after his wife was murdered bill carter was successful in his 10 million dollar civil suit against his son jason and just two days after that judgment jason was charged with the first degree murder of his mother lacona was taking sides and the carter family was being torn apart on june 19th bill and shirley got up with the sun because for farmers sunlight is money they started their day with a light breakfast bill had a cup of coffee what bill didn't know what he couldn't have known is that would be the last time he ever saw his wife alive as a lawyer walking into the case where jason has just been found civilly liable for 10 million dollars and now charged with murder it's a big hill to climb was jason carter planning on killing both his parents that day i don't know but i'm not required to prove to you why jason carter did what he did i'm only required to prove to you that he did shoot and kill his mom to understand the motive you've got to understand that bill had very strict philosophies about marriage and bill likely would have disowned jason had he known that jason was having an affair there was information that surfaced during the investigation to indicate that shirley actually knew about the affair and was possibly planning on telling bill i will say the state's right about one thing they don't have to prove motive but i do think you can look at what's their motive the evidence will show there wasn't significant pieces of evidence weren't followed through so when the state says to you all clues point to one conclusion it's all the clues that the tunnel vision of law enforcement and one investigator in particular went after they were absolutely focused on jason carter and ignored all the other clues the prosecutors believed that the motive for jason to allegedly kill his mother was financial issues as well as marital problems he had a 15-month affair with someone else and they believed shirley may have found out about that please be seated on june 19th of 2015 did you communicate with jason carter yes how did you usually communicate with jason carter uh most of the time by text message when i learned that my husband was not faithful it was you know deeply disturbing and shocking and you know i didn't know what was going to happen with our marriage but i did know this that my husband didn't have anything to do with this mom's death we just had to put all that aside and that was tough how often do you text and talk with tara is it pretty frequent yeah so just throughout the day would be a normal yeah okay so that phone was probably used more than your personal phone dealer now you said that you shared personal information did jason carter always speak positively about his mother yes from what you could see appeared to love his mother yes did you ever have any sense that he was angry or mad at his mother no in fact would you say he was close to his parents yes phone records were a key part of this case because it helped with the timeline for both jason and bill based on your education training experience if the assertion was made the jason carter handset never left once it arrived there do the forensics tell differently yes our office discovered that there were other suspects um cell phones hanging off the towers near the time of the murder including some who did not live anywhere near that area so there'd be no reason for them to be passing through lacona it was really just one thing after another that started pointing at those three individuals [Music] part of your job is to protect wells fargo isn't it correct protect their financial best interests correct did you at any time have concerns about jason and shelley's ability to meet their financial obligations no the state thought there was a financial motive because jason was slated to take over farming from his parents if and when they decided to retire but if you look at shirley's will when she died everything went to bill so jason had zero financial motive at some point did you have a conversation with jason about why he didn't go into business with his father yes i did when did this conversation take place i believe it was the fall of 14. and where were you when you actually had this conversation in the combine cab combining with jason what did jason tell you i asked why he didn't farm together with his dad and his response was i can't because my mom is a [ __ ] we had someone who called in and said here's where the murder weapon is we know someone who said there was a recording of these individuals talking about the murder regarding the homicide what uh circling do you know i got a guy that admitted to him for a minute in 2019 four years after he found his mother shot dead on the floor of his parents kitchen jason carter was sitting at the defendant's table facing a first degree murder charge one of the biggest issues that the carter family had from the start was the investigation by law enforcement did it take too long was evidence ignored and did law enforcement point to jason too quickly as the prime suspect without considering anyone else 9-1-1 where is your emergency right here on the floor i don't know people are sending an ambulance i don't know she was trying to i don't care what happened while several law enforcement officers were on the stand they described the 9-1-1 call from jason as almost too emotional almost made it sound like he was faking it what had occurred just before you radioed in to dispatch of this tape jason carter called my cell phone prior to this phone call did you know jason carter i did could you understand what jason carter was trying to tell you i could understand when he made the comment she's dead they killed her and then also in that conversation i got out that uh he said he needed help and they killed her other than need help mom's been shot could you make out much of what else mr carter was saying no there's some research that's been done regarding 9-1-1 calls and the expression of finality when a family member calls 9-1-1 regarding a victim and expresses finality rather than asking for help then that's an indicator that that they may be a participant in the offense itself there's nothing that can be said right now that's going to make obviously anything better but we just we really need to concentrate on on the when you looked at this crime scene were the important pieces of evidence that led you to the conclusion staging had occurred as as suspects stage crime scenes they're under a tremendous amount of pressure and so they have to make things look like they think it should look and this is most notable in just two sections of the house and another important feature of this scene is it's very selective staging in this particular case one of the first things we noticed is that the prescription drugs and the jewelry boxes had not been disturbed we don't know that nothing was taken we don't know what happened and so we realized it was a jump to say that this looks like a stage burglary there were a number of things you did follow up on this investigation is that correct yes you are also aware that neither jason or bill's clothing were taken at the time of on june 19th is that correct uh i'm aware of that now i'm not sure when i first became aware of that i think there was already some discussion that he went to the house to collect a gun that had been missed yes law enforcement's theory is that jason either hid the murder weapon under the hood of his truck or left the scene to hide the murder weapon and then came back before bill carter arrived has dci or any member of law enforcement found bill carter's 270 bolt action rifle no we have not did you seize the gun safe no why not i didn't really think anything of seizing the gun safe it was unlocked it was open or at least the key was in the door and i didn't think the gun safe had any evidentiary value if a preponderance of evidence existed and did not come up and was not shared at trial then i think it's unconscionable on the part of law enforcement every pursuit should have been thoroughly examined explored how many reports has the marion county sheriff's department received indicating that joe sedlock john falwell or joel followell were involved in the murder of shirley carter i do not know the number but there's been a lot more than 20 could be we had someone who called in and said here's where the murder weapon is didn't go follow up didn't go check to see if the murder weapon was there we know someone who said there was a recording of these individuals talking about the murder didn't go try and get that you received multiple reports about a suspicious white truck in the area of street lacona iowa yes i believe there's two or three now you also received many many reports implicating joel falwell john followell or joseph didn't you i've heard the names that you've mentioned the the follow else and said locks i do i'm familiar with those people i've heard those names but i have not received taken in a report and investigating reports specifically on those people it became more and more clear to us that these other individuals should have been looked at and never were they were never really investigated as suspects and in fact we have emails very shortly after the murder occurred where the lead investigator told local law enforcement to stop following up on those leads because they'd heard enough about those individuals i thought mark ludwig knew what he was doing i think this is his first homicide case oh man my mom drew the short end of the stick when she got him you have directed the marion county sheriff's department to stop following up on leads with regard to the followells and joe sadlock haven't you we have been very clear with marion county sheriff's office and all law enforcement that there's any new information any credible information or any new information at all we're going to follow up on it i think tunnel vision is very descript of what happened in this case you you think something and you don't want to be wrong and you push away any any evidence or information that might contradict your internal belief there was at least one allegation that joel followell made reference to the murder and his involvement in a jail phone call wasn't there that's correct yes regarding the homicide what what specifically do you know i got a guy that admitted to it for admitted his brother did it okay is that it's a follow-up follower gentlemen joel's who i'm talking about okay okay that was a information we had received that joel was in jail at the time that he made that confession over the phone which i found incredibly unlikely because people don't confess to murderers while they're in jail on the phone i had never reported on a case where i saw this many things left out iowa dci agent mark ludwig said during the trial while we missed some things and by the time i found out we missed some things it was too late if i can get you to raise your right hand for me please do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you please be seated i think everybody was moved by bill carter's testimony this death of his wife was you know it destroyed him and it destroyed their family i got a phone call from my daughter what did you learn in that phone call [Music] she said uh dad [Music] mom's dad [Music] and jason found her and he won't call 9-1-1 you've got to call 9-1-1 i did not help janna and billy nearly as much as i did jason and jason also helped you too there's discussion in what respect did he help me shirley and i did not want help [Music] jason carter was standing trial for the 2015 murder of his mother in lacona iowa the state said jason knew too much about the crime to be innocent the defense said that law enforcement had bungled the investigation and it dropped the ball on other suspects one thing was clear shirley's death had left the carters a broken family [Music] i found shirley on the floor [Music] and she was just looked like she was sleeping the first thing i did was check her carotid artery [Music] and she was dead and then i picked her hand up and i kissed her on the forehead and she was cold bill was anything broken in your home no was your tv missing no were any tools missing no other than a 270 bolt action rifle or any of your firearms missing no were you sad they say your life can change in an instant it it did and it'll never be the same [Music] shirley certainly sounded like the glue of his life i mean bill really relied on her for emotional interaction and support he talked about the way she would get up every morning and make them breakfast and plan their day she kind of did everything and so she shared his perspective and his outlook and my understanding is that they were just always extremely close i did not help jana and billy nearly as much as i did jason well and jason also helped you too there's a discussion in what respect did he help me when you were taking crops out of the fields he was like no no he was never done i always went and helped him when shirley and i got done i didn't need any help shirley and i did not want help we like to do things ourselves since shirley's death what we've heard is that no one is connected with anyone else in the family all of the children talked to shirley made plans with shirley sherwoodley was the one who made sure that holidays occurred and without shirley the family appears to have just completely dissolved jason carter is stuck jason carter is inconsistent on the things that directly link him to the crime there's only two people in this world who know what happened on june 19 2015 and one of them is dead and the other one's sitting behind me the state of iowa requests that you find jason carter guilty of murder in the first degree the thing we wanted the jury to know is that jason had nothing to hide here's the good and the bad at the end of the day we hoped they'd see that the evidence didn't indicate that jason was involved in the death of his mother the state asserts that jason carter had all the answers but the evidence really says jason carter was looking for answers there were people who said i heard a confession it took more than a year up to three years to follow up there is just no way to say that's anything other than an incomplete unfair unjust investigation i ask you to return a verdict of not guilty [Applause] it was under two hours when the jury gave the final verdict so the people in the room really split as to who felt confident and who felt shaken and worried but the main thing we all tried to do is just keep our cool and not jump to any conclusions and be ready for the best or the worst result form of verdict number one we the jury find jason carter [Applause] not guilty is that your verdict ladies and gentlemen yes it is in light of the jury's verdict i will enter a judgment of acquittal uh any bond previously posted by the defendant will be released and exonerated i think the jury saw in this case the same thing that i did there wasn't evidence implicating jason there were some guesses and there was some speculation but there was really no solid evidence that implicated jason from my perspective and the jury basically said the same relief jason how are you feeling hearing that verdict i can't even talk i'm sorry i just want to go and see my kids it's been a long time coming i've had to endure so much i have hope that someday the right individuals will be charged for my mom's murder and put behind bars forever there's still information to work with it's clearly a cold case but jason has been asking for additional investigation for a long time it's hard to say if there will ever be a conclusive answer it would be very hard to prosecute someone because the defense in that case could say well you've already said you had probable cause that it was someone else but it's possible my dad had the headstone made without my name on it so it's hard to go there and visit and take our kids and our kids you know they kind of still scratch their head to this day i believed that the truth will set you free but i'm going to tell you that that's always true friends and family say that bill carter has attempted suicide more than once in the wake of shirley's murder in an interview bill stated quote the worst time is when i wake up in the morning and i reach across the bed and she's not there to this day no one else has been charged for that crime i'm tamron hall thank you for watching someone they knew [Music] you

2022-05-03 13:58

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