The Murder of Heather Strong

Here are a few secrets for the readers that will sometimes tell you my feelings of a case before you ever get past the title. While many of my blog titles are the names of the perpetrator(s), but when there is a lot of confusion or several perpetrators I will often have the victim's name in the title. Also, if you pay attention to the title as well as throughout the blog in how I refer to the crime you can often get a glimpse of how I consider the outcome of the case. For example, this one says “murder” and I will refer to this crime as one, that can often be a clue that I believe the people accused are in fact guilty. On the other hand, if you see the word “death” in the title or I often refer to the crime as such that is an indication that either I suspect it was not a murder at all, or that I believe the accused person is either not guilty or that the trial in some way was not fair or complete. As you can see by this title I do not seem to have those reservations.

The case in the murder of Heather Strong is a bit complicated as it has many twists and turns it seems. Sometimes the facts seem to be confusing, not necessarily in who or what caused her murder, but in what led up to investigators finding her in a shallow grave. It appears that Heather Strong and Joshua Fulgham were a couple for quite some time prior to their marriage in December of 2008. They already had two children together but obviously had not necessarily been together all that time. In fact, at the time of their marriage a woman by the name of Emilia Carr was approximately five month pregnant with Joshua's baby. Just a month prior to Heather and Joshua being married Emilia and Joshua were actually engaged. Just exactly how this worked and how everyone got along is a bit in dispute. Reports say that after the marriage Emilia was still in the picture and even babysat for Joshua and Heather's two children from time to time. However, by a month into their marriage there was already trouble, at least between the two women as Emilia was arrested for threatening Heather with a shot gun. The charges ended up being dropped seemingly because Heather had decided not to move forward with the case, but it was said later that this only happened because Emilia had once again threatened Heather.

By mid-February it seems the marriage between Heather and Joshua was already over, barely two months into it. Emilia and Joshua were back together and Heather also began to see someone else. Heather apparently had decided to leave the town of Boardman Florida where they lived and take her children with her to Mississippi to be closer to family. Investigators would claim that it was this that would push Emilia Carr and Joshua Fulgham to plot her murder to prevent her from taking the children. The biggest dispute it seems in the case was not who was responsible for her murder (although Emilia Carr apparently maintains her innocence), but who was MORE responsible for her murder.

On February 15, 2009 Heather Strong was reported missing. The circumstances surrounding who, or even why she was reported missing is unclear. My notes say that she was reported after work on that day but other information leads me to believe that she never went to work (although I am unsure where she worked) at all but to be fair, I cannot be certain of that. Investigators were looking for her and into the situation but it was not until March 19^th that Heather was found. Some information I found stated that after being in custody on unrelated issues Joshua Fulgham led investigators to her body, that was in a shallow grave. Around her head was a plastic bag and the coroner would determine she had died of suffocation. The grave was found close to Emilia Carr's mother's home near McIntosh Florida.

Despite leading investigators to Heather's body it seems that Joshua was initially not charged with murder but with fraud after using Heather's credit cards after her disappearance, or when clearly he knew she was already dead. Emilia would be arrested on March 24^th, some five days after Heather was found. She had already been interviewed several times by the police, apparently without ever asking for a lawyer and in one of those interviewed she was confronted with an undercover audio tape of a conversation she had with Joshua's sister in which details of Heather's death emerged. Emilia would later say, and apparently continue to maintain, that she only had that conversation with Joshua's sister to get information on Heather's death and that her comments and recount of things were a lie. Neither investigators, nor a jury in 2010, would believe that.

Few will argue that Emilia had not had a hard life. She was only twenty-four at the time of her arrest. Soon after her arrest she gave birth to her fourth child, Joshua's. She had been married and divorced twice and had three children, although at least one child was from another boyfriend. As a teenager Emilia had contacted school officials and apparently had accused her father of sexually molesting her. Most believe that although Emilia would later change her story when it came time to tell the police that it was in fact true. In February of 2004, some five years before Heather was murdered, Emilia's father was convicted for attempting to solicit the murder of several family members including Emilia and her mother. He was sentenced to four years in prison and I can only assume was already released by the time Heather was murdered. Whether Emilia had contact with her father after his release is unknown.

In similar fashion Joshua's family would claim that he had been physically and sexually abused growing up. There seemed to be little argument that he had a temper or at some point had turned to drugs. There was evidence that he had been arrested at some point for assaulting Heather. And much was later made in his defense that whether it was caused by drugs or genetics, Joshua had an IQ that bordered around 81. The defense would call it possible brain damage. While I was pretty certain the level of intelligence to determine mental deficiency, or better known as mental retardation, was 70 or below, research indicates that that number ranges between 70 and 80, meaning Joshua was just barely above that. While this is not often important in cases, it was here because the Supreme Court has ruled that anyone who falls into this category cannot legally be executed and in this case the prosecution was seeking the death penalty for both defendants. Even though he officially did not fall between those lines his defense would obviously point out just how close he was. In contrast it was said that Emilia Carr's IQ was 125, significantly higher, and from a defense standpoint that made her the more dominant of the two.

Joshua and Emilia both would tell stories about what happened to Heather on the night of her murder. Often they accused each other and left little blame for themselves. At some point Emilia would confess but later would say she only did so in hopes of reuniting with her children. All of her children had been placed in foster care. Piecing things together the prosecution came up with their theory as to what exactly happened on Heather's last night of life.

As was said earlier Heather and Joshua were no longer together. Apparently the divorce had been filed and the two were disputing over the custody of their children. Heather's plans to move to Mississippi with the children was said to be the catalyst of their issues. Prosecutors would claim that Heather was lured, under some unknown (at least to me) pretense, to Emilia's mother's home. In a storage shed behind the house prosecutors argued that Joshua had held Heather down while Emilia used duct tape to tape her to a chair. Joshua then forced Heather to sign a paper giving him custody of their children. After there was apparently an attempt to hit Heather over the head but it resulted in no change. Prosecutors then claim that either separately as one watched, or together Emilia and Joshua placed a plastic bag over Heather's head, pulled tight and suffocated her. They then dug a very shallow grave nearby, placed Heather's body inside and then covered the area with debris in attempts to hide the area and prevent animals from uncovering her body.

Emilia would go on trial in late 2010. And in December of that year she was convicted of kidnapping and first degree murder. The jury, in a 7-5 decision recommended death and on February 21, 2011 the judge agreed. In 2015, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Emilia's conviction and sentence. However, over the years there had been an issue surrounding death sentences that resulted from non unanimous verdicts by juries. The death penalty in Florida has been in dispute as far as the being Constitutional for several years. Apparently in early 2017 Governor Rick Scott passed into law requirements that a unanimous verdict must result from a jury before a death sentence can be ordered. So, in May of 2017 Emilia Carr, who had been at one time one of the youngest women on death row, had her sentenced commuted to life. Since her trial Emilia has maintained her innocence attempting to claim that she played no part in Heather's murder and had no idea that Joshua was in the storage shed with Heather, at her mothers home. Few believe this.

Joshua would face trial in April of 2012. Emilia did not testify against him. It appears that while the defense would argue he was not responsible that the prosecution even still put most of the blame on Emilia. But, considering they believed him to at the very least being present, he too was charged with kidnapping and first degree murder. Once again the prosecution was asking for the death penalty. Joshua was convicted and while Emilia's jury had recommended death, Joshua's voted in an 8-4 decision to recommend life in prison. He was ultimately sentenced to two terms of life without parole. In May of 2015, while obviously in prison Joshua was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. In July of 2016 he was sentenced to an additional fifteen years.

As I mentioned above there has been much made about the death penalty in Florida over the last several years. It appears after Governor Scott's decision there may be hundreds of death row inmates re-sentenced to life. It was said that by 2017 there were over 300 inmates on death row who had been sent there with non unanimous decisions by their juries. Many states have had their death penalty rules challenges successfully in recent years and it has caused a decline of executions, although seemingly it has not stopped prosecutors from continuing to seek the death penalty. Many of these challenges have been made due to the combination of drugs that became harder to obtain, but not all. Over the last year or two many of the states have been making changes and the rate of executions are starting to go back up. It appears that for the most part, through voting, citizens are still in favor of executions and that once the legalities are ironed out the states are attempting to dwindle down the inmates that remain on their death rows, especially those who have been in prison for decades. Only the future will tell what will happen.