The Murder of Shirley Carter

 

I have seen more than a few different television shows based on this case and while I cannot say for sure what I think happened, the tactics used by law enforcement, as well as family members, have bothered me.

We have seen many cases that involve both criminal and civil cases. In a criminal trial the standard to reach a guilty verdict is said to be “beyond a reasonable doubt” while in a civil trial a jury only has to consider “the preponderance of evidence” and determine if it is “likely” that a defendant committed a crime. Some say in a civil try one only has to be convinced 51% to in order to reach a verdict. In most, although admittedly not all, a civil case is generally not conducted until after a criminal trial has taken place. The civil case is some times filed before the criminal trial but is often delayed until after the criminal trial is conducted. Now, part of the reason for that is that in most case criminal charges have already been filed so the defendant is already in the process of preparing for a trial hence the courts delay the civil trial. Keep in mind that also the rules in which what not only can be presented in each type of court is different but so is what is required to be “handed” over to each side.

As I stated above the standard to reach a verdict in a criminal trial verses a civil trial are different and we have seen many cases where a criminal trial ends in an acquittal while a civil trial will end with a judgment against the defendant. Two famous cases where this happened involve the actor, Robert Blake and athlete/actor, O.J. Simpson. In both cases their criminal trials were conducted first and they were found not guilty in the murders of their spouse (or in Simpson's case ex-spouse) and/or others. The families of their victims also filed wrongful death civil suits and those juries found both men guilty, or “likely” to have committed the murders and ordered them to pay the families financial compensation. My point here is that it is not unusual for the two separate courts to come to different decisions as to the role in which someone plays in the death of another.

In the case of Shirley Carter it was different however. Her murder occurred in June of 2015 and her family filed a wrongful death suit in court in January of the following year. The civil trial took place in late 2017 and it was not until after that trial that an arrest was made and charges filed in her murder. Not only was the process abnormal, the participants in the case were just as odd. Bill Carter, Shirley's husband, their son, Billy and daughter, Jana, filed the suit against Bill and Shirley's other son, Jason. Two days after the conclusion of the civil trial Jason was arrested and charged in the murder of his mother. So how did this family get to this point? One would reasonably think that to find that answer you would have to go back decades and see a lifetime of dysfunction. However, that is not the case here. In this case the family appeared to get along great and upon Shirley's murder they came together and emotionally supported each other. It is not as if the family suspected Jason from the start.

Bill Carter would tell investigators that on the morning of June 19, 2015 he and his wife, sixty-eight year old Shirley, had gone out for coffee. It was indicated in my research as if this was a fairly common practice for the couple. They lived in the rural town of Lacona Iowa, about an hour from Des Moines. Lacona is very much a farming community and both Bill and their son Jason were apparently farmers who also apparently supplemented by hauling corn for others. Bill told investigators that after coffee he had dropped Shirley off at their home and went to haul some corn, telling her he would be home between eleven and eleven-thirty that morning.

Investigators, and the coroner would apparently place her death somewhere between seven and noon so while nothing told me exactly when Bill says he dropped Shirley off at home it seems reasonable to believe they used his statement to determine when she was home and the “noon” must have come from the timing of the 911 call made by their son, Jason who was the first to discover his mother's body.

Bill said that after dropping Shirley off and heading to haul corn he had seen his son Jason there. Realistically if this statement is true then obviously the timeline for Jason to murder his mother was narrowed. Bill says that apparently they each did a load and then while Bill went to do another load Jason had left. Jason and his wife, Shelly, lived just down the road from Bill and Shirley so it seems reasonable that he was likely at their home often and would not have been out of character for him to stop by to see his mother. Bill dropped his second load off and was headed home when he received a phone call from his daughter, Jana. He was informed that she had received a call from Jason, who had found their mother dead on the kitchen floor. There was much made about the fact that apparently upon finding his mother Jason had called his sister before calling the authorities.

Jason would call 911 and it would be after calling his sister but even Bill beat the authorities to the home. When he got there he says that Jason was outside the home pacing and on the phone while he ran inside to see his wife laying in a pool of blood in the kitchen. The coroner would say that she had been shot in the back twice. The first shot nicked her heart but the second completely pierced it. When authorities arrived they made Bill leave the home. He would later say that he had not paid attention to anything else in the home but his wife on the floor and it seems apparent that he was not asked about missing items. Once law enforcement arrived at the home they “sealed” the house for several days not allowing anyone in.

Investigators would say that the home was ransacked to the point that drawers were pulled out and papers and items were thrown around. But, they would also later say they also did not feel that this was a robbery or that anything was missing. Shirley's purse was found untouched. Inside were several credit cards and about $140.00. There had also been an envelope on a dresser containing $1,700 in one hundred dollar bills that remained. There was however a gun missing from a gun cabinet in the basement. It was never found but said to have thought to have been the murder weapon. My research stated that Bill claimed to be holding a gun for Jason and that he had not been given the opportunity to see if that was the gun missing, at least during the first hours of the investigation. I also found a statement that Bill was able to provide shells from the missing gun and when compared to Shirley's wounds it was considered to be a match, but I found nothing that stated that the missing gun was in fact the one belonging to Jason. I also was unable to determine how many guns were in the cabinet and what type of guns they were to possibly determine if there could have been any other reason this particular gun may have been missing in the first place, or why someone would choose this gun to use.

There were several local and state agencies working on this case and it appears that it is possible that with so many hands “in the cookie jar” it may have resulted in some things not getting done properly. For example it is pretty customary that the person who finds the body is examined physically as well as have their clothes and body examined for things such as blood and gunshot residue. This was not done when it came to Jason until allegedly about ten days later. Bill would later claim that much of the botched investigation and evidence recovery was due to the fact that Jason was friends with the county sheriff, Jason Sandholdt. Sandholdt would be taken off the case by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations later when the agent in charge, Mark Ludwick, who believed Jason Carter was the perpetrator and Sandholdt disagreed.

Some have said that Ludwick has openly admitted that he believed from the moment he heard the 911 call that Jason Carter had killed his mother. There have been many allegations that he used this tunnel vision in order to not properly investigate the case as well as to turn Jason's family against him.

This brings us to another common tactic used and allowed by investigators. Law enforcement officers are allowed to not just stretch the truth, but to flat out lie, not just to potential suspects, but basically to anyone they would like to. They also obviously are allowed to muddy some waters to get the answers that they want. You will see this often when you see investigators tell suspects that they have evidence such as DNA results that they really do not yet have. In fact, I have seen this first hand. When my son was a juvenile he had gotten into some trouble and was questioned by the police about some abandoned properties that had been broken into. My son admitted to one in which he was involved. Of the three they were questioning him about he had admitted to the most serious yet the officer kept pressing him on the other two, telling him that there were witnesses. We lived in a very small town at the time and I had already gotten wind of a few things so knew the officer was not being truthful. My son stuck to his story despite the officer probing. Later it was determined who the other person was involved in the other crimes and it was not my son. But, at fourteen the officer was attempting to get a confession.

In this case Agent Mark Ludwick had interviewed Jason Carter, who was denying any involvement in his mother's murder. Ludwick had investigated Jason and discovered two things that he thought were of importance. One was Jason's financial situation. It was not great, but then again those who work in the farming business are used to that. There are times where funds are low and debt is high but the money will flow in from crops and other things. We have all heard the stories about how the agriculture business had a big bust in the 1980's. Crops were not yielding what they had in the past and many farmers did lose their farms but in the same respect when it comes to this occupation there is a different level of financial issue that the general person does not see, nor understands well. Both Jason and his wife dismissed the issues brought up about their finances and in fact as they had a budget and a plan and knew when and how their money would be coming in. The second issue at hand was the fact that investigators discovered that Jason had been having an affair. One theory, although I am unsure that it was proven, was that Shirley knew of the affair and that it had not set well with her and there was a fear, allegedly on Jason's part that his wife or other members of his family would find out and it would be detrimental to his lifestyle and character.

In at least one of the television shows that I watched on this story I saw the investigators push Jason on these issues as they accused him of murdering his mother. Jason maintained his innocence. The same episode showed interviews that the investigators had with Jason's father and siblings. Bill, Billy and Jana and not suspected Jason was involved. And, as I recall the financial issue alone did not sway them despite investigators pressing and point out that Jason was a trustee of his parents' estate. However, when they told his family about his affair, something by this point Jason had admitted to, things changed. For his family this not only was something they would have never expected from Jason, but also something that upset them greatly in knowing. It made them question just how well they knew their son and brother. It was this revelation in which started the change in how they felt about Jason and investigators knew it.

Using these tactics with Jason had not worked to get him to confess, which is what investigators would prefer happen, so their next goal was to get his family on their side so they could possibly get him to confess. Once they had planted the seed about the affair they were able to point to “other” things they found suspicious like how the home did not appear to be burglarized and looked more “staged” to them; how they found it suspicious that one gun was missing from the gun cabinet. Even before they had any kind of ballistic evidence linking the alleged missing gun to the crime they were pushing that angle.

Over the next six months investigators were telling the family and the media that an arrest would basically be imminent and that the public at large was not at risk. And yet, they were coming up empty as far as evidence. Some say that it was not that they did not have any evidence, it was that they were not following leads that took them away from Jason Carter as being the perpetrator. Bill decided to take matters into his own hands and hired a private investigator and a lawyer. He announced that he had lost faith in the law enforcement community that they would solve his wife's murder.

While I was unable to determine exactly what evidence this private investigator, or the attorney found, information simply stated that things pointed to Jason. So, on January 5, 2016, less than seven months after the murder of Shirley Carter, Bill's attorney filed a wrongful death suit against Jason on behalf of Bill and his two other children.

I want to point out that I do not know exactly when a tombstone was placed on Shirley's grave but Jason's name was purposely not put on the stone. The front of the tombstone says “parents of Jana and Billy.” I think this is rather telling. Throughout all of this Bill would stand in front of a media camera proclaiming that he still loved his son, although it was clear he fully believed at this point that his son had killed his wife. He would say that this civil suit was simply a legal proceeding to begin getting justice for his wife. I also want to note that several sources stated that the in the first year after his wife's death Bill had twice attempted suicide. I am unclear when or how these attempts were made, nor do I know the seriousness of them.

While the civil suit was filed it did not appear that investigators were any closer to arresting Jason, let alone anyone else in Shirley's murder. The trial took place over a period of several weeks at the end of 2017, nearly two years after it was filed, and still no one had been charged with murder. During the civil trial obviously Bill's attorney gave the theory that Jason had murdered his mother. But, just what that evidence was is unclear. Obviously there was no criminal case at that point to base any information on and I should point out that even later it was noted that there was no forensic evidence against Jason. Jason's attorney's in turn accused Bill of being the murderer. Whether that was with Jason's consent or not is unclear, nor is it clear whether Jason really believed this. However, it was said that allegedly Shirley had been planning to leave Bill because he was a controlling man and he likely killed her in a “fit of anger.” Again, I have no idea where they got this information but I do think that it is important to note their description of Bill due to something you will hear about later.

The civil trial had Bill and Jason testifying, along with others, including Jason's wife, Shelly and the woman he had been having an affair with at the time of his mother's murder. The now ex-girlfriend testified that he was highly stressed at the time but I found nothing specific. Shelly testified to their finances and how things worked for them on a regular basis. She also testified that they had gone through a lot of marriage counseling after she learned of the affair but that they had worked through things.

After taking two hours to deliberate the jury came back finding Jason “responsible” for the murder of his mother. Since it was not a criminal trial he was not facing jail time but he could face a financial judgment to which he did to the tune of ten million dollars to be paid to the estate of his mother. Two days later on December 17, 2017 authorities arrested Jason Carter and charged him with the first degree murder of his mother.

After Jason was arrested Bill's attorney was quoted as saying, “The goal for Bill in filing that civil lawsuit, in large part, was to move the process of obtaining justice for Shirley, moving forward, not just civilly, but criminally as well.” I find this remark very revealing. Without evidence investigators had convinced Jason Carter's father that he was responsible for his wife's murder. They had been so successful that Bill took matters in his own hands and in turn filed a lawsuit against his own son. It appears highly unlike that anything revealed in the civil suit would have been something investigators did not already have or know about. It seems just as unlikely that if there was something revealed they had been unaware of that they would have successfully been able to investigate the issue AND it be enough to obtain a conviction for murder.

Jason's criminal trial began on March 5, 2019. His bail had been set at $100,000 and he had paid that so he did not spend the entire time from his arrest until this trial in jail. I find this point interesting also considering that investigators, and later prosecutors, had insisted that his financial situation had been dire enough to push him to murder his mother and yet he had received nothing, including support from his family and yet he was able to make bail. The trial lasted a period of about three weeks. At this point prosecutors had been forced by law to turn over all information they had obtained throughout their investigation over to the defense. It was at this time that defense attorneys, as well as I can only assume the public at large, learned that in 2015 investigators had received a tip from a man that another man had confessed to the crime.

Just who this man was that gave the tip to investigators is a bit confusing. Some reports indicate that it was an inmate at the local jail, which, let's be fair, can often be shady. Other reports state that the confession was made on a jailhouse recorded line which would indicate the tipster, or at least the person to hear the alleged confession obviously was not in jail at the time. The other confusing part was just who the confession had come from. The part that was not confusing was who was allegedly involved and how the murder had occurred. Allegedly two local brothers, Joel and John Followill, along with another man named Matt Kammerick had gone to the Carter home to commit a burglary. Apparently these three men had records for this type of crime. The story became that while they were in the home they were surprised by Shirley and that in the haste of it all they had shot her twice. Jason's defense argued that while the tip had come to law enforcement in 2015 that there was no evidence that it was ever followed up on, including having the phone records requested or obtained.

While the fact that the defendant was the victim's son would have hampered the strength of any DNA evidence found, it appears that there was nothing available to link Jason to the crime. Then again it should be pointed out that according to Bill, Jason's clothing was not taken for ten days. Also, I am unsure if there was any forensic evidence aside from alleged ballistic information in the case. That does not mean however that there was not any, just none that linked Jason to the murder officially. The alleged ballistic information said that the gun that was missing from the home and never found was the murder weapon but the gun itself was never found. It was theorized that after shooting his mother Jason hid the gun on the property somewhere and went back later to dispose of it, but again, none of that could be proven. Even still, if the ballistic information is correct the only thing it proved was that a weapon inside the home was used. It does not prove who used that gun. It could have Jason; it could have been Bill; it could have been one of the Followill brothers or anyone who had gone into the home and had been surprised by Shirley.

The trial had been moved to another county due to pre-trial publicity and after three weeks was given to the jury. Just as was the case in the civil trial, the jury took about 2 hours to reach a verdict. This time however the jury sided with Jason Carter and his defense team and found him not guilty.

Prior to his criminal trial Jason had appealed the civil verdict against him. It had been upheld and then it was appealed to the Iowa State Supreme Court who again upheld the ruling in March of 2021. After the verdict in his criminal trial he filed two lawsuits, one in the state of Iowa and the other at the federal level. Both lawsuits named the state of Iowa, Marion County, Agent Mark Ludwick and his father as defendants. The lawsuits claimed that false and factious information was spread about him not only costing him freedom and financial issue but also damaging his character. The federal lawsuit was dismissed in August of 2020 based on a jurisdiction issue, which I concur with. In fact, I am unsure where his attorneys believed there was standing at the federal level. It was said, through his attorney that he planned to appeal but I found no more information on this or his state lawsuit.

Things within the Carter family have not ended with this though. First, it has been said that Jason remains to be estranged from his family as it seems apparent that either they still believe he is guilty of killing his mother, or he is yet to forgive them for their actions, or maybe it is both. Secondly in the summer of 2020 the Carter family again made the news.

In July of 2020 Jason's brother Billy was arrested on charges that he had assaulted their father. Bill Carter, now seventy-four years old, had been found on the side of a road injured. Remember when I discussed earlier that at the civil trial Jason's defense team spoke of Bill's character and the fact that he was “controlling”? Well, Billy Carter was questioned apparently after Bill was found on the side of the road. Billy told investigators that he had been at his fathers home and an argument had ensued, the topic of which was not released. Billy claimed that he left his father's home in anger, on foot. A few minutes later Billy claimed that Bill had followed him in his truck, met up with him on the road, and had continued the argument. At that point Billy admitted pushing his father to the ground, kicking him twice and leaving him there. The last thing I could find on this was that Billy had been arrested and faced charges and there had been a restraining order issued between the two. I found not just the incident interesting but I also found the fact that Bill followed him, got out of his vehicle and continued the argument with Billy after Billy had allegedly left his home and the argument behind. This tells us a little more about their characters. Billy apparently at first had the restraint to walk away but then later when confronted again assaulted his father. But, on the other hand we have an elderly man who was willing to get into his vehicle, to chase down his grown son to either continue an argument, have the last word, or at least get a point across. First, it may not tell us if the family was fractured to this point before the death of Shirley, but it does tell us that the current fractures are deeper than believing Jason killed his mother. Secondly, it shows us yet another side of Bill, unrelated to the death of his wife that may in fact give credence to Jason's defense in the civil trial, even if just slightly. We have already seen a man who was swayed first by police officers and later by attorneys who had little to no solid evidence that his son killed his wife file a lawsuit against the son in hopes that it would bring criminal charges against his own son. In my opinion you do not do something like this to anyone without some good hard evidence, which obviously there was none. And, not that I have heard that Bill has tried, but get to say “Oops” when it does not work out the way you expected. Then we see this same man “chase” after his grown son down the road after an argument. Until the murder of his wife it does not appear that anything had happened in this family at a level that was criminal or noteworthy, at least in public but we all know that what goes on behind closed doors is often different. You compare these behaviors to the comments by Jason's lawyers in the civil trial stating that Bill was a very controlling person and that Shirley was planning to leave and it leaves you wondering.

When you look at the crime and the scene you have to think about some things. If we are to believe the investigators that the scene was staged to look like a burglary without actually taking anything it still does not mean that Jason was the only person who was available and capable of doing the crime. Investigators argued that there was plenty of money and valuables in the home that could have been taken. My first question was why was there so much cash in the home? Why was there almost $2,000 in cash in one hundred dollar bills in the home, just apparently sitting out on a dresser? In the same respect the story that it was a robbery and Shirley surprised the thieves could make sense too.... they shot her and ran to get out of the area without taking anything.

Do I think Jason did it? No, I do not. I do not believe that the motives the prosecutors and investigators laid out were enough. If Jason needed money and thought he could get it from his families estate or from them himself I have two problems. One, simply killing his mother would not have obtained an inheritance. His father would have had to die too. Why not simply wait at the home after he killed his mother until his father got home and shoot and kill him too? Why call your sister and tell her that you have found your mother dead? If word gets out you lose the element of surprise on your father. Besides, again, if it was about money, you have only killed one parent and you want the scene to look like a robbery why not take the readily available money and really make it look like a robbery. If we hold the prosecution to their theory then Jason was able to hide the weapon used and go back later to dispose of it, then why could he not have put money or valuables with it too?

The other theory for motive that investigators and prosecutors pushed was the fact that Jason was having an affair and that Shirley knew it. For me this theory seems even more unlikely than the financial theory. By all accounts Shirley was a loving mother and grandmother. It does not seem plausible that she would “rat” her own son out to his wife, betraying him and turning the lives of her grandchildren upside down. If Shirley did in fact know about the affair and had kept that secret from her own husband, who apparently did not know then it is unlikely she would have told her daughter in law. Could Jason and Shirley have argued about it? It is possible in theory, but it truly seems unlikely a motive for murder.

So do I think Bill did it? I have to say I am on the fence with this. I think he would have had more of a motive to do so than Jason. I think he had the opportunity to do so more than anyone else. We know that authorities did not look into some leads that they should have. Do we know if they looked into Bill's story? I never saw anything that stated anyone did, or did not, see the couple when he says they went for coffee that morning. Then again who is to say that they did not go for coffee and instead of simply dropping her off as he indicated an argument ensued then that ended in her death? The one thing that leads me away from Bill being the murderer is the fact that he spent more than $100,000 on a private investigator and an attorney to solve the murder after his wife's death. This seems an unlikely act for someone who had committed the crime. But I find it just as curious that after information came out at the criminal trial that he has seemingly dropped his quest for answers. The only comment I found of note came from his attorney regarding the appeal of the civil suit. The attorney made a remark that he found it interesting that Jason has found the money to fight the judgment but had paid nothing to the estate.

What about the story about the Followill brothers? If this lead was not, and as not been properly followed through with then I think that is an injustice. Based on the little information or the story given it sounds as if it could have been possible. But, I obviously have questions. Was any foreign DNA found at the crime scene or was the home and scene even processed for DNA? It was said that the lead investigator suspected Jason from the beginning and if this is true DNA would have likely had little impact on the case considering it was his parents' home, a place he frequented often so it is likely his DNA would reasonably be in the home anyway. Did the jail phone call happen? Is it still available to hear at this point? Why has nothing more been said about this? Why have we not heard from Bill or his attorney about looking into this or if this has been refuted? It seems odd to me that a man who was so set on “finding justice” for the murder of his wife simply stopped even when alleged information came to light that it was possible his son was actually innocent of the crime.