Close to Home (2005) s02e11 Episode Script
211 - Prodigal Son
The victim is Mandy Monroe, stabbed to death in her living room, sometime between She was with her fianc? earlier that night.
Is he good for this? Surgical intern at St.
Mike's, on call midnight to 5:00 a.
m.
, left Mandy's a little after 11:00, scrubbing in at the hospital a half an hour later.
Cops arrested the victim's uncle, Sam Carter.
A witness saw him staggering out of the building around 3:00 in the a.
m.
, looking quite intoxicated.
Murder weapon? 's a kitchen knife-- on the floor, next to the body.
Prints match the suspect.
And Forensics got another hit in the shower off a bottle of conditioner.
OL Hey, he was covered in blood.
I would, wouldn't you? (Annabeth groans) So far it's a routine grounder.
Does he have any kind of alibi? Wife claims he was up all night working at home, some kind of computer whiz.
Software engineer.
Sounds like we got the right guy.
Do we have a motive? Her fianc? popped the question last night, she said yes, called the uncle's house to give the family the good news.
Her engagement has something to do with her murder? Check out what they found on the uncle's computer.
You really jumped the gun on this one, Annabeth.
Talk about a rush to judgment.
We have Mr.
Carter's prints at the scene and on the murder weapon.
I'm sure there's an innocent explanation for both.
r bo Is there an explanation for these? Pictures of his niece? So what? on his computer.
He even customized his screen saver with the name Amanda.
There's nothing incriminating about any of these.
He was aevoted and doting uncle.
He was obsessed with her.
Mandy announced her engagement last night.
You didn't seem to take that news too well.
That's your motive? Please.
Mr.
Carter, you can keep a vow of silence for the rest of your life, for all I re.
We're going to be charging you with Mandy's murder.
No recollection of what you're talking about.
None whatsoever.
So who else was at dinner? Sam, me, his brother, Jordan, Sam's father, Cyrus.
Had the whole family.
Well, Sam has an older sisr, Sheryl, but we don't see her.
And after dinner? We all said good night.
Cyrus and Jordan left, and Sam went out to his office to work.
I went to bed.
You told police he was up all night working at his computer.
Yes.
Witness saw him coming out of your niece's building at 3:00 a.
m.
They must have seen someone else.
They saw him all right, falling down drunk.
Sam has been sober forears.
Really? When the police arrested him, he still had a blood alcohol level near the legal limit.
I-I-I don't know how that could be possible.
Your husband seemed obsessed with his niece.
You make it sound so unhealthy.
What would you call it? Sam and Mandy have always been close.
Sam's mother was killed in a car accident when he was 14.
Diane, Mandy's mother passed when Mandy was little-- cancer.
I think that's why Sam and Mandy have always had a special bond.
Listen, I know Sam is an odd duck, but he is not dangerous.
His prints are on the murder weapon, one of Mandy's kitchen knives.
Well, he was over there a lot.
And in the bathroom on a bottle of conditioner.
That could have happened any time.
When he's anxious, he washes his hands a lot.
He must have been real anxious, apparently took a shower there.
He could have.
He's got a cleanliness compulsion.
Washing calms him down.
I get it.
Your husband and your niece talk, they end up fighting over her engagement, he stabs her, and then he takes a shower to chill out.
Not to mention to wash off the blood.
Look, I know that he didn't do this.
You shld call Jordan, because I heard them leave around 11:00, just after I went to bed.
So he wasn't at his desk all night.
No.
She done lied to the police.
oq Imagine that.
Mm-mm-mm.
Where'd you and your brother go so late? An AA meeting, one at midnight over on Willow and Ashby.
Not that far from here.
Yeah, it's walking distance.
I guess.
I just dropped hro off and went home.
Just dropped him? That's right.
Sam likes to walk.
It clears his head.
He can walk for hours on end.
Not this time.
We have a witness, saw him coming out of this building, a couple hours later, drunk.
I guess the AA meeting didn't work-- fell off the wagon anyway.
I'll ask you the same question I asked your sister-in-law.
What was the deal between your brother and your niece? Fu Look, they were just close, all right? Nothincreepy about it.
Your brother's being arraigned for her murder this afternoon.
Me, I'd call that creepy.
In the murder of Amanda Monroe, how do you plead, Mr.
Carter? Not guilty by reason of insanity, Your Honor.
Very well.
I assume the issue of bail is mute? Yes, Your Honor.
Then the next item on the agenda is a competency hearing.
The defense requests Dr.
Wolfe, Mr.
Carter's personal psychiatrist, to do an evaluation for the competency hearing.
And for the People, Miss Scofield? d? Dr.
Perrin, Your Honor.
So ordered.
ANNABETH: An insanity plea, good luck with that.
CONLON: What other choice do they have? We have him red-handed.
ANNABETH: You think Porter could beat the odds? CONLON: Not in New York, but Indiana has a bifurcated insanity verdict, gives the jury a choice.
ANNABETH: Not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty, but mentally ill.
Exactly.
It's still an impossibly high bar to get over.
All my years on the job, I've never seen a succn sful insanity defense.
Dr.
Perrin is doing our side of the competency hearing.
Competency hearing is a formality.
That standard is set so low, he could be sticking cornflakes up his nose, as long as the court believes he understands what's going on around him.
He should, as long as he stays on his antidepressants.
Well, let's make sure that he does.
His family says Carter's a recovering alcoholic.
He's been on the wagon for many years.
He even went to an AA meeting that night.
Our witness says he was falling down drunk at the crime scene.
Hmm.
The defense may try to use intoxication wv as a mitigating factor.
I'll ask Ray to retrace Carter's steps that night.
Let's depose the family as well, I want to make sure the jury haa clear explanation of why Carter did what he did that night.
Crazy won't cut it? Crazy won't cut it.
night Mandy was killed He can't drink, he's on antidepressants.
How long has he been depressed? For years.
Has he been more depressed than usual recently? Happens every year around the same time.
You see, Sam lost his mother when he was a teen, so the anniversary of her death is hard on him, very hard.
Does he typically drink on the anniversary? I thought he'd been sober for many years.
Oh, sure, he has-- Well, if he hadn't had a drink in years past, what was so significant about this particular anniversary? Mandy getting married and moving away.
If you ask me, it was more than he could handle.
Mr.
Carter, don't you think your son's attachment to his niece was unusual? Mandy was very special to Sam.
You see, they both lost their mother when they were very young.
When she hit her teens, Mandy started looking more and more like Angela, Sam's mother.
Mandy reminded Sam of his mother? Yeah.
She had a lot of her ways.
She reminded us all more and more, the older she got.
It's like we got her back.
Despite his problems wh depression and alcoholism, Mr.
Carter is fully competent to stand trial.
Good.
I wanted to ask you about his obsession with his niece.
Classic case of transference.
According to his father, as she grew older? The niece began to seem more and more like Carter's mother.
Carter lost his mother when he was in his teens.
Even though she died in an automobile accident, he had a feeling that she had abandoned him.
So as Mandy got older, and began to resemble his mother more closely, his attachment to her would naturally deepen.
Then why would he kill her? They said Mandy was getting engaged.
The fianc? told us that they planned on moving to Baltimore at the beginning of the year.
So she was leaving him, both physically and emotionally separating herself.
The relationship he had formed with someone who reminded him of his mother was being threatened.
It was about to end.
And that made him mad enough to kill her? I don't know what other factors might ve been at play.
His mother died around this time of year.
Anniversary effect.
It's a period of great stress and anxiety.
It could have fully triggered his fear of abandonment.
And put him in a murderous rage.
Based on the evaluations of the psychiatrist who've examined Mr.
Carter, the court finds the defendant competent to stand trial.
Your Honor, may I say something? Normally, the defendant waits until the court addresses him, Mr.
Carter, but let's hear it.
These psychiatrists don't know what's best for me.
They don't know anything about me.
Your HonYowe just found out this morning, that my client has stopp taking his medications on a regular basis.
Why is that, Mr.
Carter? z?Why have you stopped taking your medication? It was making me feel lethargic, Your Honor.
I understand it is for depression, Mr.
Carter.
It has the opposite effect on me.
It makes me feel bad.
It makes me feel low.
Your Hon, the People ask the Court to order Mr.
Carter to resume taking his antidepressants.
Both psychiatrists base their evaluations of competency on the assumption that you continue taking your medications as prescribed, Mr.
Carter.
Do you understand? Yes, Your Honor.
If you don't comply voluntarily, in order to insure that you are competent to stand trial.
Miss Porter.
The defense has no objection.
The People? The People concur, Your Honor.
Take your meds, Mr.
Carter.
Yes, sir.
The judge declared Carter competent to stand trial.
No surprise.
How's that working theory comg along? Carter was drinking heavily at a bar a few blocks from his niece's.
Probably trying to get his nerve up to confront her.
We finish deposing the family? Ed finally found Sheryl Carter, the older sister.
He's interviewing her now.
So, you don'stay in touch with your family? Don't exchange Christmas cards? Not at all.
Okay, well, tell me about your brother anyway.
What's to tell? He's screwed up.
Compulsive, depressed, obsesses over stuff.
Won't let go.
You ever known him to be violent, dangerous or threatening? A couple times I came home from work, he'd broken into my house.
Once he was in my bathroom, taking a bath.
Freaked me out.
Well, he is your brother.
Yeah, but still.
Don't you think it's a little weird? Yeah, a little.
What did you do? I called Lizzie to come get him.
I can't deal with Sam's problems.
I have enough trouble of my own.
Your niece seemed to get along all right with him.
Mandy? Mandy was a saint.
It's my fault.
What is? I should have told her a long time ago.
Told her what? I slept with the windows locked.
I wouldn't even turn the air conditioner on in the summertime.
Why? I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hear Sam if he broke into the house when I was home.
You know what it's like to live that way? Why were you so afraid of him? My mother.
My mother didn't die in a car accident.
Sam killed her.
Xg old, you believe that? Got drunk and blew her head off with a shotgun.
Why? What would lead him to do something like that? Did they have a fight? Not that I know.
Sam was one messed-up kid.
he'd ditch school and go drink with his friends.
Come home d sleep it off.
What did your parents do? Tried all kinds of things to straighten him out-- therapy, detention, none of it worked.
Did he act out when he got drunk? Was he angry or violent? No, not back then.
t@ He'd just drink too much and act foolish, and forget all the stupid stuff he did when he was drinking.
He had blackouts as a teenager? He and I both had our share of lost weekends, before we cleaned up our acts.
The difference is, I never drank a drop until the day my mama was killed.
Tell me about that day.
I came home from school.
I remember, I was really happy for a change.
I'd goen an A on a history exam.
I came up the street.
Cops were there.
Sam was on the front lawn covered in my mama's blood.
Daddy told me since I was the oldest, I had to take care of Jordan and Diane.
Mandy's mother? Yes.
Daddy told me I couldn't ever, ever tell them what Sam had done.
And you were how old? Diane was 16, Jordan was the baby.
That must have been impossible.
I dropped out of school.
All the lying I had to do, I couldn't concentrate.
Jordan and Diane knew I was acting weird.
They used to ask me what was wrong, but I couldn't tell them.
So Jordan and Diane never knew.
Right.
Then Mandy never knew.
She had no reason no to trust her Uncle Sam.
Daddy swore he was better.
I didn't know.
P It was just easier for me to stay away from all of them.
But I should have told her.
I should have.
Why didn't you? I was worried that if I made her afraid of Sam, and she pushed him away, it'd set him off.
He'd kill somebo again.
CB So what happened? The very thing I worried about all my life came true after all.
I don't know about you, I got kids.
A parent's worst nightmare, a kid dies.
I personally think it'd be worse if they did something like this, killed somebody.
How'd it go down? Neighbor called it in.
We found the son passed out cold, covered in blood, shotgun next to him.
The mom was upstairs in her bedroom dead, finito.
Why'd he shoot her? House was torn up.
Looked like a bulary.
We thought maybe the kid had an accomplice, they ransacked the place.
You think mom came home, surprised Carter and his pal going through her things? That was the working theory.
Carter a kid on drugs? Most definitely.
Drugs and booze.
We'd been to the house before.
The kid was trouble.
I had complaints from the neighrs-- kid drunk, puking on their lawns.
Why'd you think there was another kid? Her jewelry was missing.
Husband filed an insurance claim.
What was Carter's story? Said he had a blackout.
Couldn't remember a thing.
Been drinking all afternoon, couldn't remember where or with who? You believe him? He was drinking all rit.
He was stink-o.
The blackout? OL Just a kid's lame alibi.
He couldn't come up with anything better on the spur of the ment.
He never gave up his accomplice, though.
There you go.
You got to give him that.
For a falling down drunk, he was a standup guy.
Where was the rest of the family? We called Mr.
Carter at work.
He didn't say a word the whole ride.
I think he already knew.
XUHe wasn't surprised to see his covered in blood, charged with his mother's murder? It was like he'd been expecting it.
Sheryl told us your son killed his mother.
Thank you.
Sam was not in his right mind when he did that.
Because of his age, he was never charged with her murder.
They sent him to a psychiatric facility for a year.
tried as adults.
Sam had no idea what he had done.
It's a-a terrible thing to have the kind of problem that Sam had, majodepression.
I did everything I could to try and make him better, like quit a good job, move the family to Michigan when he was released.
You even changed your name.
We picked that up when we ran the background check.
All so Sam would have a fresh start.
That's what you call a fresh start? My sister Sheryl called out of the blue with some crazy story about Sam and Mom.
Sheryl's not exactly a reliable source, so I thought I'd come to you.
I'm so sorry, Jordan.
It's true.
This is a copy of the police report.
My God.
My God.
How could they have kept this from me? My father has been lying to me my entire life.
Now, I had a right to know about this.
Yeah, you did.
You know, I barely remember my mother.
I hardly had a picture of her, even.
Z@ After she died, one day Daddy just gave all her stuff away.
The girls got her clothes.
The girls got her jewelry.
I didn't get anything to remember her by.
Not one damn thing.
What's your angle? One was a shooting, the other a stabbing, 25 years apart.
It's unlikely we can get a murder he committed as a juvenile into evidence.
We'll use it out of court, rattle the family's cage with it.
They might want to avoid making the mother's murder public.
You want me to offer them a deal? Let me take a run at them.
Your client pleads to manslaughter, Some gift.
Well, he hasn't exactly been candid with you aB about his past probls with alcohol and violence.
What past problems? He's done this sort of thing before.
He's done what before? What are you talking about? Tell your attorney about your mother.
My mother? When you were a teenager, Mr.
Carter.
My mother died in a car accident.
How do you think a jury's going to feel when they find out that he shot his mother when he was 14 during an alcoholic blackout.
They won't.
Even if this is true, it has no bearing on the current case.
Oh, it parallels the murder of his niece exactly.
He murders a female family member under the influence, and then claims insanity.
You'll never get it into evidence.
It's bound to come out in the press.
Are you threatening us? I'm urging you.]
[client to consider what he's put his family through.
Take the deal, Mr.
Carter.
Let's put this to rest.
I'm doing what they want me to do.
Let's see what Judge Crenshaw has to say.
The people's motion to admit the prior homicide as evidence in the current trial is denied.
At this time, Your Honor, the defense would like to motion to include Mr.
Carter's prior homicide.
Your Honor, you just ruled to exclude it.
What is the dense up to? If you would reconsider, Your Honor? What's on your mind, Ms.
Porter? Why the change of heart? The prosecution wanted to include the homicide Mr.
Carter committed as a juvenile as a prior bad act.
The defense's position is that the homicide demonstrates the length and severity of Mr.
Carter's illness.
Mr.
Carter is now, and has been since an early age, subject to psychotic depression.
I grasp the distinction.
The first is prejudicial, the second forms the basis of his plea.
The defense would also like to motion de Mr.
Carter's medical records from the Corin Psychiatric Institute for Juveniles.
Mr.
Conlon, anything you'd like to add? The people have no objection to its inclusion, Your Honor.
It was our idea in the first place.
Then I'll allow the prior homicide and juvenile records.
The defense has the burden of proof.
Porter's just trying to bolster the insanity plea anyway she can.
They want to use his year in a juvenile psych ward as evidence of his insanity.
We can just as easily argue he benefited from being institutionalized.
I think basically in the end, it'll come down to how Sam Carter does on the stand.
You're taking a risk by putting him on.
It's odd, the defense going first.
Sort of like opposite day.
You guys never did opposite day at your house? Have dinner for breakfast, and then end the day with pancakes and maple syrup? I think my wife did that once with our daughter.
At my house, every day was stay-on-track- no-matter-what,-Maureen Day.
Speaking of staying on track, get with Dr.
Perrin review the interview she did with Sam Carter for his competency hearing.
Amanda called that night and said that she was moving away.
It made me feel so bad inside.
I wanted a drink so badly so I could stop thinking about it.
And I kept coming back to the same thought.
I've got to stop Mandy from leaving.
So I went over to her place, just to talk.
There's nothing Mr.
Carter said in this session that indicates he experienced disassociation when he killed his niece.
Did he lose touch with reality? Blacking out doesn't involve nv losing contact with reality.
The person experiences amnesia, yes, but he's still in contact with his surroundings.
So, he's not halcinating or hearing voices? No, that's something different.
A psychotic break.
The defense is arguing just that.
Could alcohol have triggered a psychotic break? I see no evidence of that.
They're trying to use his mother's murder to argue that he's been psychot since he was a teenager.
There are many cases of teenagers killing their parents.
They're angry, they're impulsive.
It doesn't mean they're psychotic.
What we do know about Carter is that alcohol abuse was involved in his mother's murder.
And alcohol abuse led to the stabbing of his nce.
AAAAAAAAAA has your husband's behavior changed in any way? I knew what to expect from Sam around that time of year.
It's the anniversary of his mother's death.
And so I would make sure that Sam was taking his anti-depressants.
But this time it was really bad.
In what way? He hardly ate anything.
He'd be in his pajamas all day, sitting on the couch, wringing his hands and listening to the same CD over and over until I thought I'd scream.
Did you know what he had done to his mother? bu No, he never told me what he did.
The night your niece was murdered, she called your house.
To tell us that she was engaged.
That she and her fianc?would be leaving town.
How did your husband react? He was upset.
I was worried that he would fall off the wagon.
What happens when your husband drinks? He has blackouts.
Mrs.
Carter, of the 15 years you've been married, has your husband been depressed often? Often.
Especially around the anniversary of his mother's death.
And during those depressions, especially the worst ones around those anniversaries, has your husband ever been ejected from a mie theater or a restaurant because he couldn't conform his conduct to socially-acceptable standards? No.
Has he ever been arrested? No.
Traffic tickets? Moving violations? DWIs? No.
Have you ever called the police to your house? No.
Ever afraid for your safety? No.
That's all, thank you.
Mr.
Carter is suffering with major depression with psychotic features.
What symptoms are we talking about? Sadness, thoughts of extreme guilt, insomnia, agitated behavior, pacing, compulsive and frequent hand washing.
And the psychotic part of the depression? A loss of contact with reality, manifested by delusions or hallucinations that are consistent with the theme depression.
tu When you asked Mr.
Carter to describe the night he killed his niece, how would you characterize his mental state? He was delusional.
He had lost contac with reality.
Did his mental state rise to the condition of legal insanity as defined by Indiana statute? In my opinion, yes.
Is the murder of Mr.
Carter's niece connected to the murder of his mother? As I said, Mr.
Carter suffers from psychotic depression.
The night of his niece's murder, his psychotic break was triggered tu by heavy alcohol consumption.
I believe something similar happened when he killed his mother.
Did he know what he was doing at the time of that killing? In my estimation, no.
And when he killed his niece? I believe he had no consciousness of what he was doing at the time and no memory of its aftermath.
Thank you.
MAUREEN: what percentage of homicides in this country are connected to alcohol abuse on the part of the offender? The number's quite high, between 80 and 85 percent.
So would it be accurate to say, based on multiple studies, that violence, homicide and alcohol consumption are linked? That is correct.
Isn't it possible, even likely, that Mr.
Carter wasn't delusional wh he killed his niece? That because he'd been drinking, he acted on his violent impulses? That would be one interpretation, but not mine.
According to you, he was delusional? Correct.
We have only Mr.
Carter's word for what he was thinking when he went over to his niece's apartment.
He's been totally consistent with all the mental health experts he's dealt with.
He's told the same story to all of them.
His story's been consistent.
Yes.
As consistent as the lie he's been telling for the past 25 years about the death of his mother? That she died in a car accident? Your brother killed your mother when he was 14.
Yes.
A fact of which you were unaware until he murdered your niece.
My family kept it from me, yes.
Every year, he's severely depressed on the anniversary of your mother's death.
Sam always managed to do okay with his medication.
Did you witness any unusual behaviorben your brother's part, prior to his murdering his niece? jR None that I can recall.
Was there alcohol at the family dinner the night your niece was murdered? My father enjoys a good bottle of wine.
We all do.
Did your brother Sam drink any? knows he can't mix alcohol with his medication.
He knows better.
Yes.
But he was upset about Mandy's engagement.
wv I talked to him.
I told him he ought to go to a meeting, and so I drove him to one, about midnight.
And did you pick him up after? No, he said he would catch a ride home with someone, or walk.
But instead, he went drinking and then went to see his niece.
Yes.
In the last several months, did you ever stay over at your brother's house? No.
So you were not aware of his deteriorating mental state? Objection.
Sustained.
So you were not aware of how long it took your brother's wife to convince him to eat a meal, or comb his hair, or sleep for a couple of hours, instead of staring endlessly at his computer screen, and listening to the same CD over and over? Objection.
Facts not in evidence.
Sustained.
CONLON: Mr.
Conlon.
Set yourself a hell of challenge.
Regretting it? I could hardly do otherwise.
My client's the real deal.
Just depressed like the rest of us.
According to Dr.
Wolfe, he's delusional.
Well, our expert witness begged to differ.
I don't think your Dr.
Perrin turned the jury around.
I still have the edge.
Now who's delusional? And you're putting him on the stand.
Carter is genuinely unstable.
I think the jury will find him very sympathetic.
The jury expects to see someone talking to themselves and fighting imaginary dragons.
Anything less, he knew damn well what he was doing.
And so do I.
When your niece called to tell you she was getting married, how did you react? It made me angry.
I didn't want to think about it.
What did you do? I went to a meeting.
But then I left.
I was restless.
I went to a bar.
You went to a bar.
tu Did you have a drink? Three or four shots, yes.
We heard testimony from the bartender that night who said you had six or seven.
That you were, in his words, "sloppy drunk.
" It could've happened.
I don't remember.
You'd been sober for 14 years.
Why did you ke a drink that night? So I could stop the thoughts.
What kind of thoughts? About my mother.
Thinking about how she died.
What they said I did to her.
Sometimes the thoughts keep coming no matter what I do.
The thoughts keep coming back to me.
And Mandy made me feel better, like my mother.
And like a little part of her was still here.
I didn't want her to go.
I had to go and see her.
So you went to Mandy's place? Yes.
Was she glad to see you? She seemed confused.
I think I woke her up.
Then what happened? I started talking to her, and I told her I didn't want her to leave.
How did she react? She started acting like she was afraid of me, li I was crazy, and not making any sense.
She wasn't listening to me anymore.
And then what happened? I don't remember.
What is the next thing you do remember about that night? I was waking up at my desk, and the police were arresting me for Mandy's murder.
Thank you.
Mr.
Carter, when you were at the bar with these thoughts of your mother and Mandy racing through your brain, why didn't you call your wife to come pick you up, instead of having yet one more drink? I wish that I had.
You have no memory of taking a kitchen knife and stabbing your niece to death that night? Oh, no, ma'am.
Well, that's convenient, isn't it? Objection, Your Honor.
Sustained.
memory of taking a shower after killing her to wash off the blood.
No, ma'am.
I find that very hard to believe, Mr.
Carter.
Your Honor.
Do you have a question for the witness, Ms.
Chase? You remember going there that night, you remember talking to your niece.
You even remember what you said.
Yes, ma'am.
not remember the crucial event of that night, killing your niece.
No, ma'am, I don't.
No more questions, Your Honor.
was a depressed teenager who had been self-medicating with alcohol and drugs when he killed his mother.
Every year on the anniversary of her death, he suffers from depression.
This yr his depression was more severe than ever before, and he had a psychotic break.
The same kind of psychotic break he suffered just before he killed his mother.
He was legally insane at the time he killed his niece.
The people acknowledge that the defendant suffers from depression.
But so do many millions of people who never commit a crime.
Mr.
Carter's marriage of 15 years, as well as his long-term employment, testifies to his overall stability.
You heard Dr.
Perrin's testimony.
Mr.
Carter had the ability to discern right from wrong.
He made the wrong choice.
ku That night, the defendant-- knowing that he had a substance abuse problem and a history of violent behavior and alcoholic blackouts, and knowing that during one such blackout, he shot and killed his own mother-- went to a bar, and started drinking.
He became enraged at the idea that his niece was abandoning him, getting married and leaving him.
And he went to her apartment and stabbed her to death.
Sam Carter has never been legally held responsible for the murder of his mother.
If he had been, this whole tragedy never would've occurred.
I beg you hold Mr.
Carter responsible for the murder of his niece.
Great closing.
Thanks.
Yoan too.
Jury's taking a long time.
Thanks.
Thank you.
@A Trying to sort through the three possible verdicts under Indiana law.
Guilty.
Guilty but mentally insane at the time.
Not guilty by reason of mental defect or disease.
That's a lot to sort through.
Yeah.
Annabeth Chase.
Thank you.
The jury's back.
Okay.
The jury finds the defendant guilty of the murder of Amanda Monroe, but mentally ill at the time of the crime.
Mr.
Carter, you'll be transferred to a psychiatric facility, duration and terms to be determined at your sentencing.
Congratulations, I guess.
Who said a tie game is like kissing your sister? Vince Lombardi.
We have to prepare for our sentencing.
Make sure Sam Carter doesn't end up five years from now in outpatient care.
Jury found him sympathetic.
The guy's only a bender away from killing again.
I want him put away for the rest of his life.
to influence the sentencing.
Carter was a model patient in the juvenile pysch ward.
No run-ins with any other inmates, no problems with the staff.
Prior to his incarceration, he had some curfew violations, a couple of drunk and disorderly charges, ticket for loitering, in front of a liquor store the day of the murder.
Nothing that indicates he was prone to violence? No.
Nothing.
According to the police report, the house was ransacked, jewelry and cash stolen.
Wait.
Jordan told me his father gave all his jewelry to his sisters.
Mr.
Carter reported it stolen, and filed an insurance claim.
Just an opportunist? Saw his chance to commit a little insurance fraud? His son kills his wife, and he's thinking how to make a few bucks defraung the insurance company? MAN: I found the jewelry in my room a couple of days after my mom died, in a bag in the back of the closet.
When I looked inside, I thought-- well, it sounds dumb-- but I thought maybe she left it for me somehow.
And so I put it away in my toy chest.
p A few days later, Daddy came looking for it.
What did he say? Well, I told him what I thought.
That Mama must have wanted me to have it.
But he told me she didn't put it there.
It wasn't for me.
It was for my sisters.
Your father filed a claim on that jewelry.
He collected a rather large payment.
That's Daddy for you.
Rules were always meant for somebody else.
Cheats on his taxes, too.
Don't tell him I told you.
WOMAN: I have left of my mama.
You believe it all fits in this little box? My mama's wedding ring.
Hmm.
And a boy's class ring.
"KG"? Kevin Grover.
Mama would always tell this story how he took her to the senior prom and his car caught on fire.
She'd laugh and say it was the hottest date she'd ever had.
She had some kind of crush on him.
She held on to it forever.
Sent the most beautiful spray of flowers when she died.
MAN: Just tell me about Angela Carter.
Angela and me, we were on again, off again, for a lot of years.
When she died? We were on again.
She was married then? Yeah, but t for long.
Her husband know? She said she was going to tell him, but I don't think she ever did.
That's the kind of thing you put off as long as you can.
It wasn't easy, but we kept it quiet.
Angela would come by most days.
We'd have lunch.
Did you have lunch with her then? The day she died? We did.
Always the same time.
We'd go to this little diner other side of town, early.
We'd beat the lunch crowd, so we wouldn't run into anybody who we knew.
Angela would be on her way home by noon.
What? Are you sure about the time? Yeah.
Something about Angela Carter's murder doesn't add up.
Her husband reported her jewelry stolen, but later he gave it to his daughters.
Minor league insurance fraud.
I'm sure the statute of limitations has run out on that.
The afternoon of the murder, Carter was ticketed for loitering in front of a liquor store around 3:00.
Time enough to go ho and shoot his mother.
Well, here's the thing.
She had had lunch that day with her lover.
Her lover? Ed spoke to him.
I went back and looked at the autopsy report.
She was killed within an hour of eating that meal.
What's the official time of death? Between 3:00 and 4:00.
When did she have lunch with her lover? Before noon.
Doesn't completely clear the kid.
No, but it makes him more unlikely, and it moves the time of death up to about 1:00.
Did the police ever check if the father had an alibi? The case was so cut and dried, only a cursory check as far as I know.
Let's see what Ed and Ray can dig up on that.
Here's Cyrus's file, January, 1981.
A letter to his coworkers lling them where to send flowers.
Donation today is PCA.
Fax and report for a company vehicle.
Check out the date.
Same day his wife was killed.
Checked out a company truck on his lunch hour, between 12:30, 2:00.
Dented a fender.
Company files a claim for the bodywork.
Question is, where was Cyrus Carter between 12:30 and 2:00? You mean right around the time his wife was killed.
We got a solid gold motive.
A jealous husband.
Doesn't get much better than that.
If we can place him near the crime scene, and blow up his alibi I'm thinking there's a good chance the Indiana Public Employees surance Union might have a record of the specific location of his little fender bender.
We're charging you for the murder of your wife, Angela Carter.
That's just a crazy idea.
You checked out a company vehicle over your lunch hour, went home, killed your wife, staged a robbery to cover it up, and then went back to work.
oq I completely agree with Mr.
Carter.
A truly crazy idea andheer conjecture without a shred of evidence.
We have the records from Indiana Electric.
In your haste to get back to work, you hit a utility pole two blocks from your house at 1:10 p.
m.
What happened, Mr.
Carter? You were in such a state after killing your wife that you got into an accident? It's not like that.
See, I was just driving through the neighborhood on my way back from lu fh.
In a company truck.
Why didn't you take your own car to lunch? Why would I kill Angela? I had no reason to.
Mr.
Carter, don't say anything else.
This is fantasy, Miss Chase.
You had all the reasons in the world, Mr.
Carter.
And his name was Kevin Grover.
Your wife's high school sweetheart.
We know they were having an affair.
Apparently, so did you.
@A What you didn't know was that they had lunch together that day, early.
Which means the autopsy results, based on the contents of her stomach, place her death lunch hour.
If the authorities got the time of death wrong, that's their problem.
You knew your wife was leaving you, didn't you? Your son didn't kill his mother.
You did.
And we have enough evidence to take you to trial and convict you.
I am offering you a choice, Mr.
Carter.
Are you offering us a plea? We'll discuss that if he tells us the truth.
They were my kids.
Our kids.
yE I wasn't going to let her take them away.
Let them call that man "Daddy.
" They're my kids.
You let the police arrest your son.
Because I knew nothing much was going to happen to him because of his age.
Besides, he's troubled.
I thought they would give him the help he needed.
You let him believe he killed his mother.
How was that helping him? I have other children to raise.
If I went to prison, who was going to provide for them? I gave my children a good life.
You keep telling yourself that.
I think about it all, every day.
I don't know why I did it.
Or why I did what I did to Mandy, either.
Do you think there's a day that goes by I don't beg her for forgiveness? Or my mother? You don't need to do that anymore.
Not for your mother anyway.
How come? Why not? You didn't kill her.
Miss Chase, there was blood all over me.
My prints were on the gun.
You were very drunk that day.
You came home, the house had been ransacked.
You saw your mother lying in a pool of her own blood.
The shock of seeing her body must have been tremendous.
The shotgun was lying next to her, and you picked it up.
The stress of what you had just seen you had a blackout.
And, when you came to, the police were arresting you, but you didn't do it.
She was already dead? She was already dead.
And, all these years, I thought If I didn't kill her? Your father.
He shot her and let you take the blame.
Daddy wouldn't have done that.
We confronted him with the evidence, and he confessed.
No.
No, no, no.
My daddy loves me.
And he wouldn't let me suffer like that.
He wouldn't let me think that I had done something like that.
He wouldn't throw my life away like that.
I'm sorry, Mr.
Carter.
You're going to have to wrestle with that one.
And Mandy.
You can lay your mother to rest now, at least.
Is he good for this? Surgical intern at St.
Mike's, on call midnight to 5:00 a.
m.
, left Mandy's a little after 11:00, scrubbing in at the hospital a half an hour later.
Cops arrested the victim's uncle, Sam Carter.
A witness saw him staggering out of the building around 3:00 in the a.
m.
, looking quite intoxicated.
Murder weapon? 's a kitchen knife-- on the floor, next to the body.
Prints match the suspect.
And Forensics got another hit in the shower off a bottle of conditioner.
OL Hey, he was covered in blood.
I would, wouldn't you? (Annabeth groans) So far it's a routine grounder.
Does he have any kind of alibi? Wife claims he was up all night working at home, some kind of computer whiz.
Software engineer.
Sounds like we got the right guy.
Do we have a motive? Her fianc? popped the question last night, she said yes, called the uncle's house to give the family the good news.
Her engagement has something to do with her murder? Check out what they found on the uncle's computer.
You really jumped the gun on this one, Annabeth.
Talk about a rush to judgment.
We have Mr.
Carter's prints at the scene and on the murder weapon.
I'm sure there's an innocent explanation for both.
r bo Is there an explanation for these? Pictures of his niece? So what? on his computer.
He even customized his screen saver with the name Amanda.
There's nothing incriminating about any of these.
He was aevoted and doting uncle.
He was obsessed with her.
Mandy announced her engagement last night.
You didn't seem to take that news too well.
That's your motive? Please.
Mr.
Carter, you can keep a vow of silence for the rest of your life, for all I re.
We're going to be charging you with Mandy's murder.
No recollection of what you're talking about.
None whatsoever.
So who else was at dinner? Sam, me, his brother, Jordan, Sam's father, Cyrus.
Had the whole family.
Well, Sam has an older sisr, Sheryl, but we don't see her.
And after dinner? We all said good night.
Cyrus and Jordan left, and Sam went out to his office to work.
I went to bed.
You told police he was up all night working at his computer.
Yes.
Witness saw him coming out of your niece's building at 3:00 a.
m.
They must have seen someone else.
They saw him all right, falling down drunk.
Sam has been sober forears.
Really? When the police arrested him, he still had a blood alcohol level near the legal limit.
I-I-I don't know how that could be possible.
Your husband seemed obsessed with his niece.
You make it sound so unhealthy.
What would you call it? Sam and Mandy have always been close.
Sam's mother was killed in a car accident when he was 14.
Diane, Mandy's mother passed when Mandy was little-- cancer.
I think that's why Sam and Mandy have always had a special bond.
Listen, I know Sam is an odd duck, but he is not dangerous.
His prints are on the murder weapon, one of Mandy's kitchen knives.
Well, he was over there a lot.
And in the bathroom on a bottle of conditioner.
That could have happened any time.
When he's anxious, he washes his hands a lot.
He must have been real anxious, apparently took a shower there.
He could have.
He's got a cleanliness compulsion.
Washing calms him down.
I get it.
Your husband and your niece talk, they end up fighting over her engagement, he stabs her, and then he takes a shower to chill out.
Not to mention to wash off the blood.
Look, I know that he didn't do this.
You shld call Jordan, because I heard them leave around 11:00, just after I went to bed.
So he wasn't at his desk all night.
No.
She done lied to the police.
oq Imagine that.
Mm-mm-mm.
Where'd you and your brother go so late? An AA meeting, one at midnight over on Willow and Ashby.
Not that far from here.
Yeah, it's walking distance.
I guess.
I just dropped hro off and went home.
Just dropped him? That's right.
Sam likes to walk.
It clears his head.
He can walk for hours on end.
Not this time.
We have a witness, saw him coming out of this building, a couple hours later, drunk.
I guess the AA meeting didn't work-- fell off the wagon anyway.
I'll ask you the same question I asked your sister-in-law.
What was the deal between your brother and your niece? Fu Look, they were just close, all right? Nothincreepy about it.
Your brother's being arraigned for her murder this afternoon.
Me, I'd call that creepy.
In the murder of Amanda Monroe, how do you plead, Mr.
Carter? Not guilty by reason of insanity, Your Honor.
Very well.
I assume the issue of bail is mute? Yes, Your Honor.
Then the next item on the agenda is a competency hearing.
The defense requests Dr.
Wolfe, Mr.
Carter's personal psychiatrist, to do an evaluation for the competency hearing.
And for the People, Miss Scofield? d? Dr.
Perrin, Your Honor.
So ordered.
ANNABETH: An insanity plea, good luck with that.
CONLON: What other choice do they have? We have him red-handed.
ANNABETH: You think Porter could beat the odds? CONLON: Not in New York, but Indiana has a bifurcated insanity verdict, gives the jury a choice.
ANNABETH: Not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty, but mentally ill.
Exactly.
It's still an impossibly high bar to get over.
All my years on the job, I've never seen a succn sful insanity defense.
Dr.
Perrin is doing our side of the competency hearing.
Competency hearing is a formality.
That standard is set so low, he could be sticking cornflakes up his nose, as long as the court believes he understands what's going on around him.
He should, as long as he stays on his antidepressants.
Well, let's make sure that he does.
His family says Carter's a recovering alcoholic.
He's been on the wagon for many years.
He even went to an AA meeting that night.
Our witness says he was falling down drunk at the crime scene.
Hmm.
The defense may try to use intoxication wv as a mitigating factor.
I'll ask Ray to retrace Carter's steps that night.
Let's depose the family as well, I want to make sure the jury haa clear explanation of why Carter did what he did that night.
Crazy won't cut it? Crazy won't cut it.
night Mandy was killed He can't drink, he's on antidepressants.
How long has he been depressed? For years.
Has he been more depressed than usual recently? Happens every year around the same time.
You see, Sam lost his mother when he was a teen, so the anniversary of her death is hard on him, very hard.
Does he typically drink on the anniversary? I thought he'd been sober for many years.
Oh, sure, he has-- Well, if he hadn't had a drink in years past, what was so significant about this particular anniversary? Mandy getting married and moving away.
If you ask me, it was more than he could handle.
Mr.
Carter, don't you think your son's attachment to his niece was unusual? Mandy was very special to Sam.
You see, they both lost their mother when they were very young.
When she hit her teens, Mandy started looking more and more like Angela, Sam's mother.
Mandy reminded Sam of his mother? Yeah.
She had a lot of her ways.
She reminded us all more and more, the older she got.
It's like we got her back.
Despite his problems wh depression and alcoholism, Mr.
Carter is fully competent to stand trial.
Good.
I wanted to ask you about his obsession with his niece.
Classic case of transference.
According to his father, as she grew older? The niece began to seem more and more like Carter's mother.
Carter lost his mother when he was in his teens.
Even though she died in an automobile accident, he had a feeling that she had abandoned him.
So as Mandy got older, and began to resemble his mother more closely, his attachment to her would naturally deepen.
Then why would he kill her? They said Mandy was getting engaged.
The fianc? told us that they planned on moving to Baltimore at the beginning of the year.
So she was leaving him, both physically and emotionally separating herself.
The relationship he had formed with someone who reminded him of his mother was being threatened.
It was about to end.
And that made him mad enough to kill her? I don't know what other factors might ve been at play.
His mother died around this time of year.
Anniversary effect.
It's a period of great stress and anxiety.
It could have fully triggered his fear of abandonment.
And put him in a murderous rage.
Based on the evaluations of the psychiatrist who've examined Mr.
Carter, the court finds the defendant competent to stand trial.
Your Honor, may I say something? Normally, the defendant waits until the court addresses him, Mr.
Carter, but let's hear it.
These psychiatrists don't know what's best for me.
They don't know anything about me.
Your HonYowe just found out this morning, that my client has stopp taking his medications on a regular basis.
Why is that, Mr.
Carter? z?Why have you stopped taking your medication? It was making me feel lethargic, Your Honor.
I understand it is for depression, Mr.
Carter.
It has the opposite effect on me.
It makes me feel bad.
It makes me feel low.
Your Hon, the People ask the Court to order Mr.
Carter to resume taking his antidepressants.
Both psychiatrists base their evaluations of competency on the assumption that you continue taking your medications as prescribed, Mr.
Carter.
Do you understand? Yes, Your Honor.
If you don't comply voluntarily, in order to insure that you are competent to stand trial.
Miss Porter.
The defense has no objection.
The People? The People concur, Your Honor.
Take your meds, Mr.
Carter.
Yes, sir.
The judge declared Carter competent to stand trial.
No surprise.
How's that working theory comg along? Carter was drinking heavily at a bar a few blocks from his niece's.
Probably trying to get his nerve up to confront her.
We finish deposing the family? Ed finally found Sheryl Carter, the older sister.
He's interviewing her now.
So, you don'stay in touch with your family? Don't exchange Christmas cards? Not at all.
Okay, well, tell me about your brother anyway.
What's to tell? He's screwed up.
Compulsive, depressed, obsesses over stuff.
Won't let go.
You ever known him to be violent, dangerous or threatening? A couple times I came home from work, he'd broken into my house.
Once he was in my bathroom, taking a bath.
Freaked me out.
Well, he is your brother.
Yeah, but still.
Don't you think it's a little weird? Yeah, a little.
What did you do? I called Lizzie to come get him.
I can't deal with Sam's problems.
I have enough trouble of my own.
Your niece seemed to get along all right with him.
Mandy? Mandy was a saint.
It's my fault.
What is? I should have told her a long time ago.
Told her what? I slept with the windows locked.
I wouldn't even turn the air conditioner on in the summertime.
Why? I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hear Sam if he broke into the house when I was home.
You know what it's like to live that way? Why were you so afraid of him? My mother.
My mother didn't die in a car accident.
Sam killed her.
Xg old, you believe that? Got drunk and blew her head off with a shotgun.
Why? What would lead him to do something like that? Did they have a fight? Not that I know.
Sam was one messed-up kid.
he'd ditch school and go drink with his friends.
Come home d sleep it off.
What did your parents do? Tried all kinds of things to straighten him out-- therapy, detention, none of it worked.
Did he act out when he got drunk? Was he angry or violent? No, not back then.
t@ He'd just drink too much and act foolish, and forget all the stupid stuff he did when he was drinking.
He had blackouts as a teenager? He and I both had our share of lost weekends, before we cleaned up our acts.
The difference is, I never drank a drop until the day my mama was killed.
Tell me about that day.
I came home from school.
I remember, I was really happy for a change.
I'd goen an A on a history exam.
I came up the street.
Cops were there.
Sam was on the front lawn covered in my mama's blood.
Daddy told me since I was the oldest, I had to take care of Jordan and Diane.
Mandy's mother? Yes.
Daddy told me I couldn't ever, ever tell them what Sam had done.
And you were how old? Diane was 16, Jordan was the baby.
That must have been impossible.
I dropped out of school.
All the lying I had to do, I couldn't concentrate.
Jordan and Diane knew I was acting weird.
They used to ask me what was wrong, but I couldn't tell them.
So Jordan and Diane never knew.
Right.
Then Mandy never knew.
She had no reason no to trust her Uncle Sam.
Daddy swore he was better.
I didn't know.
P It was just easier for me to stay away from all of them.
But I should have told her.
I should have.
Why didn't you? I was worried that if I made her afraid of Sam, and she pushed him away, it'd set him off.
He'd kill somebo again.
CB So what happened? The very thing I worried about all my life came true after all.
I don't know about you, I got kids.
A parent's worst nightmare, a kid dies.
I personally think it'd be worse if they did something like this, killed somebody.
How'd it go down? Neighbor called it in.
We found the son passed out cold, covered in blood, shotgun next to him.
The mom was upstairs in her bedroom dead, finito.
Why'd he shoot her? House was torn up.
Looked like a bulary.
We thought maybe the kid had an accomplice, they ransacked the place.
You think mom came home, surprised Carter and his pal going through her things? That was the working theory.
Carter a kid on drugs? Most definitely.
Drugs and booze.
We'd been to the house before.
The kid was trouble.
I had complaints from the neighrs-- kid drunk, puking on their lawns.
Why'd you think there was another kid? Her jewelry was missing.
Husband filed an insurance claim.
What was Carter's story? Said he had a blackout.
Couldn't remember a thing.
Been drinking all afternoon, couldn't remember where or with who? You believe him? He was drinking all rit.
He was stink-o.
The blackout? OL Just a kid's lame alibi.
He couldn't come up with anything better on the spur of the ment.
He never gave up his accomplice, though.
There you go.
You got to give him that.
For a falling down drunk, he was a standup guy.
Where was the rest of the family? We called Mr.
Carter at work.
He didn't say a word the whole ride.
I think he already knew.
XUHe wasn't surprised to see his covered in blood, charged with his mother's murder? It was like he'd been expecting it.
Sheryl told us your son killed his mother.
Thank you.
Sam was not in his right mind when he did that.
Because of his age, he was never charged with her murder.
They sent him to a psychiatric facility for a year.
tried as adults.
Sam had no idea what he had done.
It's a-a terrible thing to have the kind of problem that Sam had, majodepression.
I did everything I could to try and make him better, like quit a good job, move the family to Michigan when he was released.
You even changed your name.
We picked that up when we ran the background check.
All so Sam would have a fresh start.
That's what you call a fresh start? My sister Sheryl called out of the blue with some crazy story about Sam and Mom.
Sheryl's not exactly a reliable source, so I thought I'd come to you.
I'm so sorry, Jordan.
It's true.
This is a copy of the police report.
My God.
My God.
How could they have kept this from me? My father has been lying to me my entire life.
Now, I had a right to know about this.
Yeah, you did.
You know, I barely remember my mother.
I hardly had a picture of her, even.
Z@ After she died, one day Daddy just gave all her stuff away.
The girls got her clothes.
The girls got her jewelry.
I didn't get anything to remember her by.
Not one damn thing.
What's your angle? One was a shooting, the other a stabbing, 25 years apart.
It's unlikely we can get a murder he committed as a juvenile into evidence.
We'll use it out of court, rattle the family's cage with it.
They might want to avoid making the mother's murder public.
You want me to offer them a deal? Let me take a run at them.
Your client pleads to manslaughter, Some gift.
Well, he hasn't exactly been candid with you aB about his past probls with alcohol and violence.
What past problems? He's done this sort of thing before.
He's done what before? What are you talking about? Tell your attorney about your mother.
My mother? When you were a teenager, Mr.
Carter.
My mother died in a car accident.
How do you think a jury's going to feel when they find out that he shot his mother when he was 14 during an alcoholic blackout.
They won't.
Even if this is true, it has no bearing on the current case.
Oh, it parallels the murder of his niece exactly.
He murders a female family member under the influence, and then claims insanity.
You'll never get it into evidence.
It's bound to come out in the press.
Are you threatening us? I'm urging you.]
[client to consider what he's put his family through.
Take the deal, Mr.
Carter.
Let's put this to rest.
I'm doing what they want me to do.
Let's see what Judge Crenshaw has to say.
The people's motion to admit the prior homicide as evidence in the current trial is denied.
At this time, Your Honor, the defense would like to motion to include Mr.
Carter's prior homicide.
Your Honor, you just ruled to exclude it.
What is the dense up to? If you would reconsider, Your Honor? What's on your mind, Ms.
Porter? Why the change of heart? The prosecution wanted to include the homicide Mr.
Carter committed as a juvenile as a prior bad act.
The defense's position is that the homicide demonstrates the length and severity of Mr.
Carter's illness.
Mr.
Carter is now, and has been since an early age, subject to psychotic depression.
I grasp the distinction.
The first is prejudicial, the second forms the basis of his plea.
The defense would also like to motion de Mr.
Carter's medical records from the Corin Psychiatric Institute for Juveniles.
Mr.
Conlon, anything you'd like to add? The people have no objection to its inclusion, Your Honor.
It was our idea in the first place.
Then I'll allow the prior homicide and juvenile records.
The defense has the burden of proof.
Porter's just trying to bolster the insanity plea anyway she can.
They want to use his year in a juvenile psych ward as evidence of his insanity.
We can just as easily argue he benefited from being institutionalized.
I think basically in the end, it'll come down to how Sam Carter does on the stand.
You're taking a risk by putting him on.
It's odd, the defense going first.
Sort of like opposite day.
You guys never did opposite day at your house? Have dinner for breakfast, and then end the day with pancakes and maple syrup? I think my wife did that once with our daughter.
At my house, every day was stay-on-track- no-matter-what,-Maureen Day.
Speaking of staying on track, get with Dr.
Perrin review the interview she did with Sam Carter for his competency hearing.
Amanda called that night and said that she was moving away.
It made me feel so bad inside.
I wanted a drink so badly so I could stop thinking about it.
And I kept coming back to the same thought.
I've got to stop Mandy from leaving.
So I went over to her place, just to talk.
There's nothing Mr.
Carter said in this session that indicates he experienced disassociation when he killed his niece.
Did he lose touch with reality? Blacking out doesn't involve nv losing contact with reality.
The person experiences amnesia, yes, but he's still in contact with his surroundings.
So, he's not halcinating or hearing voices? No, that's something different.
A psychotic break.
The defense is arguing just that.
Could alcohol have triggered a psychotic break? I see no evidence of that.
They're trying to use his mother's murder to argue that he's been psychot since he was a teenager.
There are many cases of teenagers killing their parents.
They're angry, they're impulsive.
It doesn't mean they're psychotic.
What we do know about Carter is that alcohol abuse was involved in his mother's murder.
And alcohol abuse led to the stabbing of his nce.
AAAAAAAAAA has your husband's behavior changed in any way? I knew what to expect from Sam around that time of year.
It's the anniversary of his mother's death.
And so I would make sure that Sam was taking his anti-depressants.
But this time it was really bad.
In what way? He hardly ate anything.
He'd be in his pajamas all day, sitting on the couch, wringing his hands and listening to the same CD over and over until I thought I'd scream.
Did you know what he had done to his mother? bu No, he never told me what he did.
The night your niece was murdered, she called your house.
To tell us that she was engaged.
That she and her fianc?would be leaving town.
How did your husband react? He was upset.
I was worried that he would fall off the wagon.
What happens when your husband drinks? He has blackouts.
Mrs.
Carter, of the 15 years you've been married, has your husband been depressed often? Often.
Especially around the anniversary of his mother's death.
And during those depressions, especially the worst ones around those anniversaries, has your husband ever been ejected from a mie theater or a restaurant because he couldn't conform his conduct to socially-acceptable standards? No.
Has he ever been arrested? No.
Traffic tickets? Moving violations? DWIs? No.
Have you ever called the police to your house? No.
Ever afraid for your safety? No.
That's all, thank you.
Mr.
Carter is suffering with major depression with psychotic features.
What symptoms are we talking about? Sadness, thoughts of extreme guilt, insomnia, agitated behavior, pacing, compulsive and frequent hand washing.
And the psychotic part of the depression? A loss of contact with reality, manifested by delusions or hallucinations that are consistent with the theme depression.
tu When you asked Mr.
Carter to describe the night he killed his niece, how would you characterize his mental state? He was delusional.
He had lost contac with reality.
Did his mental state rise to the condition of legal insanity as defined by Indiana statute? In my opinion, yes.
Is the murder of Mr.
Carter's niece connected to the murder of his mother? As I said, Mr.
Carter suffers from psychotic depression.
The night of his niece's murder, his psychotic break was triggered tu by heavy alcohol consumption.
I believe something similar happened when he killed his mother.
Did he know what he was doing at the time of that killing? In my estimation, no.
And when he killed his niece? I believe he had no consciousness of what he was doing at the time and no memory of its aftermath.
Thank you.
MAUREEN: what percentage of homicides in this country are connected to alcohol abuse on the part of the offender? The number's quite high, between 80 and 85 percent.
So would it be accurate to say, based on multiple studies, that violence, homicide and alcohol consumption are linked? That is correct.
Isn't it possible, even likely, that Mr.
Carter wasn't delusional wh he killed his niece? That because he'd been drinking, he acted on his violent impulses? That would be one interpretation, but not mine.
According to you, he was delusional? Correct.
We have only Mr.
Carter's word for what he was thinking when he went over to his niece's apartment.
He's been totally consistent with all the mental health experts he's dealt with.
He's told the same story to all of them.
His story's been consistent.
Yes.
As consistent as the lie he's been telling for the past 25 years about the death of his mother? That she died in a car accident? Your brother killed your mother when he was 14.
Yes.
A fact of which you were unaware until he murdered your niece.
My family kept it from me, yes.
Every year, he's severely depressed on the anniversary of your mother's death.
Sam always managed to do okay with his medication.
Did you witness any unusual behaviorben your brother's part, prior to his murdering his niece? jR None that I can recall.
Was there alcohol at the family dinner the night your niece was murdered? My father enjoys a good bottle of wine.
We all do.
Did your brother Sam drink any? knows he can't mix alcohol with his medication.
He knows better.
Yes.
But he was upset about Mandy's engagement.
wv I talked to him.
I told him he ought to go to a meeting, and so I drove him to one, about midnight.
And did you pick him up after? No, he said he would catch a ride home with someone, or walk.
But instead, he went drinking and then went to see his niece.
Yes.
In the last several months, did you ever stay over at your brother's house? No.
So you were not aware of his deteriorating mental state? Objection.
Sustained.
So you were not aware of how long it took your brother's wife to convince him to eat a meal, or comb his hair, or sleep for a couple of hours, instead of staring endlessly at his computer screen, and listening to the same CD over and over? Objection.
Facts not in evidence.
Sustained.
CONLON: Mr.
Conlon.
Set yourself a hell of challenge.
Regretting it? I could hardly do otherwise.
My client's the real deal.
Just depressed like the rest of us.
According to Dr.
Wolfe, he's delusional.
Well, our expert witness begged to differ.
I don't think your Dr.
Perrin turned the jury around.
I still have the edge.
Now who's delusional? And you're putting him on the stand.
Carter is genuinely unstable.
I think the jury will find him very sympathetic.
The jury expects to see someone talking to themselves and fighting imaginary dragons.
Anything less, he knew damn well what he was doing.
And so do I.
When your niece called to tell you she was getting married, how did you react? It made me angry.
I didn't want to think about it.
What did you do? I went to a meeting.
But then I left.
I was restless.
I went to a bar.
You went to a bar.
tu Did you have a drink? Three or four shots, yes.
We heard testimony from the bartender that night who said you had six or seven.
That you were, in his words, "sloppy drunk.
" It could've happened.
I don't remember.
You'd been sober for 14 years.
Why did you ke a drink that night? So I could stop the thoughts.
What kind of thoughts? About my mother.
Thinking about how she died.
What they said I did to her.
Sometimes the thoughts keep coming no matter what I do.
The thoughts keep coming back to me.
And Mandy made me feel better, like my mother.
And like a little part of her was still here.
I didn't want her to go.
I had to go and see her.
So you went to Mandy's place? Yes.
Was she glad to see you? She seemed confused.
I think I woke her up.
Then what happened? I started talking to her, and I told her I didn't want her to leave.
How did she react? She started acting like she was afraid of me, li I was crazy, and not making any sense.
She wasn't listening to me anymore.
And then what happened? I don't remember.
What is the next thing you do remember about that night? I was waking up at my desk, and the police were arresting me for Mandy's murder.
Thank you.
Mr.
Carter, when you were at the bar with these thoughts of your mother and Mandy racing through your brain, why didn't you call your wife to come pick you up, instead of having yet one more drink? I wish that I had.
You have no memory of taking a kitchen knife and stabbing your niece to death that night? Oh, no, ma'am.
Well, that's convenient, isn't it? Objection, Your Honor.
Sustained.
memory of taking a shower after killing her to wash off the blood.
No, ma'am.
I find that very hard to believe, Mr.
Carter.
Your Honor.
Do you have a question for the witness, Ms.
Chase? You remember going there that night, you remember talking to your niece.
You even remember what you said.
Yes, ma'am.
not remember the crucial event of that night, killing your niece.
No, ma'am, I don't.
No more questions, Your Honor.
was a depressed teenager who had been self-medicating with alcohol and drugs when he killed his mother.
Every year on the anniversary of her death, he suffers from depression.
This yr his depression was more severe than ever before, and he had a psychotic break.
The same kind of psychotic break he suffered just before he killed his mother.
He was legally insane at the time he killed his niece.
The people acknowledge that the defendant suffers from depression.
But so do many millions of people who never commit a crime.
Mr.
Carter's marriage of 15 years, as well as his long-term employment, testifies to his overall stability.
You heard Dr.
Perrin's testimony.
Mr.
Carter had the ability to discern right from wrong.
He made the wrong choice.
ku That night, the defendant-- knowing that he had a substance abuse problem and a history of violent behavior and alcoholic blackouts, and knowing that during one such blackout, he shot and killed his own mother-- went to a bar, and started drinking.
He became enraged at the idea that his niece was abandoning him, getting married and leaving him.
And he went to her apartment and stabbed her to death.
Sam Carter has never been legally held responsible for the murder of his mother.
If he had been, this whole tragedy never would've occurred.
I beg you hold Mr.
Carter responsible for the murder of his niece.
Great closing.
Thanks.
Yoan too.
Jury's taking a long time.
Thanks.
Thank you.
@A Trying to sort through the three possible verdicts under Indiana law.
Guilty.
Guilty but mentally insane at the time.
Not guilty by reason of mental defect or disease.
That's a lot to sort through.
Yeah.
Annabeth Chase.
Thank you.
The jury's back.
Okay.
The jury finds the defendant guilty of the murder of Amanda Monroe, but mentally ill at the time of the crime.
Mr.
Carter, you'll be transferred to a psychiatric facility, duration and terms to be determined at your sentencing.
Congratulations, I guess.
Who said a tie game is like kissing your sister? Vince Lombardi.
We have to prepare for our sentencing.
Make sure Sam Carter doesn't end up five years from now in outpatient care.
Jury found him sympathetic.
The guy's only a bender away from killing again.
I want him put away for the rest of his life.
to influence the sentencing.
Carter was a model patient in the juvenile pysch ward.
No run-ins with any other inmates, no problems with the staff.
Prior to his incarceration, he had some curfew violations, a couple of drunk and disorderly charges, ticket for loitering, in front of a liquor store the day of the murder.
Nothing that indicates he was prone to violence? No.
Nothing.
According to the police report, the house was ransacked, jewelry and cash stolen.
Wait.
Jordan told me his father gave all his jewelry to his sisters.
Mr.
Carter reported it stolen, and filed an insurance claim.
Just an opportunist? Saw his chance to commit a little insurance fraud? His son kills his wife, and he's thinking how to make a few bucks defraung the insurance company? MAN: I found the jewelry in my room a couple of days after my mom died, in a bag in the back of the closet.
When I looked inside, I thought-- well, it sounds dumb-- but I thought maybe she left it for me somehow.
And so I put it away in my toy chest.
p A few days later, Daddy came looking for it.
What did he say? Well, I told him what I thought.
That Mama must have wanted me to have it.
But he told me she didn't put it there.
It wasn't for me.
It was for my sisters.
Your father filed a claim on that jewelry.
He collected a rather large payment.
That's Daddy for you.
Rules were always meant for somebody else.
Cheats on his taxes, too.
Don't tell him I told you.
WOMAN: I have left of my mama.
You believe it all fits in this little box? My mama's wedding ring.
Hmm.
And a boy's class ring.
"KG"? Kevin Grover.
Mama would always tell this story how he took her to the senior prom and his car caught on fire.
She'd laugh and say it was the hottest date she'd ever had.
She had some kind of crush on him.
She held on to it forever.
Sent the most beautiful spray of flowers when she died.
MAN: Just tell me about Angela Carter.
Angela and me, we were on again, off again, for a lot of years.
When she died? We were on again.
She was married then? Yeah, but t for long.
Her husband know? She said she was going to tell him, but I don't think she ever did.
That's the kind of thing you put off as long as you can.
It wasn't easy, but we kept it quiet.
Angela would come by most days.
We'd have lunch.
Did you have lunch with her then? The day she died? We did.
Always the same time.
We'd go to this little diner other side of town, early.
We'd beat the lunch crowd, so we wouldn't run into anybody who we knew.
Angela would be on her way home by noon.
What? Are you sure about the time? Yeah.
Something about Angela Carter's murder doesn't add up.
Her husband reported her jewelry stolen, but later he gave it to his daughters.
Minor league insurance fraud.
I'm sure the statute of limitations has run out on that.
The afternoon of the murder, Carter was ticketed for loitering in front of a liquor store around 3:00.
Time enough to go ho and shoot his mother.
Well, here's the thing.
She had had lunch that day with her lover.
Her lover? Ed spoke to him.
I went back and looked at the autopsy report.
She was killed within an hour of eating that meal.
What's the official time of death? Between 3:00 and 4:00.
When did she have lunch with her lover? Before noon.
Doesn't completely clear the kid.
No, but it makes him more unlikely, and it moves the time of death up to about 1:00.
Did the police ever check if the father had an alibi? The case was so cut and dried, only a cursory check as far as I know.
Let's see what Ed and Ray can dig up on that.
Here's Cyrus's file, January, 1981.
A letter to his coworkers lling them where to send flowers.
Donation today is PCA.
Fax and report for a company vehicle.
Check out the date.
Same day his wife was killed.
Checked out a company truck on his lunch hour, between 12:30, 2:00.
Dented a fender.
Company files a claim for the bodywork.
Question is, where was Cyrus Carter between 12:30 and 2:00? You mean right around the time his wife was killed.
We got a solid gold motive.
A jealous husband.
Doesn't get much better than that.
If we can place him near the crime scene, and blow up his alibi I'm thinking there's a good chance the Indiana Public Employees surance Union might have a record of the specific location of his little fender bender.
We're charging you for the murder of your wife, Angela Carter.
That's just a crazy idea.
You checked out a company vehicle over your lunch hour, went home, killed your wife, staged a robbery to cover it up, and then went back to work.
oq I completely agree with Mr.
Carter.
A truly crazy idea andheer conjecture without a shred of evidence.
We have the records from Indiana Electric.
In your haste to get back to work, you hit a utility pole two blocks from your house at 1:10 p.
m.
What happened, Mr.
Carter? You were in such a state after killing your wife that you got into an accident? It's not like that.
See, I was just driving through the neighborhood on my way back from lu fh.
In a company truck.
Why didn't you take your own car to lunch? Why would I kill Angela? I had no reason to.
Mr.
Carter, don't say anything else.
This is fantasy, Miss Chase.
You had all the reasons in the world, Mr.
Carter.
And his name was Kevin Grover.
Your wife's high school sweetheart.
We know they were having an affair.
Apparently, so did you.
@A What you didn't know was that they had lunch together that day, early.
Which means the autopsy results, based on the contents of her stomach, place her death lunch hour.
If the authorities got the time of death wrong, that's their problem.
You knew your wife was leaving you, didn't you? Your son didn't kill his mother.
You did.
And we have enough evidence to take you to trial and convict you.
I am offering you a choice, Mr.
Carter.
Are you offering us a plea? We'll discuss that if he tells us the truth.
They were my kids.
Our kids.
yE I wasn't going to let her take them away.
Let them call that man "Daddy.
" They're my kids.
You let the police arrest your son.
Because I knew nothing much was going to happen to him because of his age.
Besides, he's troubled.
I thought they would give him the help he needed.
You let him believe he killed his mother.
How was that helping him? I have other children to raise.
If I went to prison, who was going to provide for them? I gave my children a good life.
You keep telling yourself that.
I think about it all, every day.
I don't know why I did it.
Or why I did what I did to Mandy, either.
Do you think there's a day that goes by I don't beg her for forgiveness? Or my mother? You don't need to do that anymore.
Not for your mother anyway.
How come? Why not? You didn't kill her.
Miss Chase, there was blood all over me.
My prints were on the gun.
You were very drunk that day.
You came home, the house had been ransacked.
You saw your mother lying in a pool of her own blood.
The shock of seeing her body must have been tremendous.
The shotgun was lying next to her, and you picked it up.
The stress of what you had just seen you had a blackout.
And, when you came to, the police were arresting you, but you didn't do it.
She was already dead? She was already dead.
And, all these years, I thought If I didn't kill her? Your father.
He shot her and let you take the blame.
Daddy wouldn't have done that.
We confronted him with the evidence, and he confessed.
No.
No, no, no.
My daddy loves me.
And he wouldn't let me suffer like that.
He wouldn't let me think that I had done something like that.
He wouldn't throw my life away like that.
I'm sorry, Mr.
Carter.
You're going to have to wrestle with that one.
And Mandy.
You can lay your mother to rest now, at least.