Law&Crime Sidebar - Mom-Daughter Duo Allegedly Kidnapped Woman and Shoved Her Off Cliff, Suspect Seeking Mercy

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Jessie Kelly and her mother Loretta Carr are accused of kidnapping a woman in northern Alabama and pushing her off a cliff. Mary Elizabeth Isbell’s remains were identified on what would have been her 39th birthday, nearly two years after she was reported missing. Kelly has now submitted character references to a judge, calling herself a “child of God.” Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the case with homicide detective Fil Waters.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A desperate search for a missing mom ends in tragedy when her remains are found at the bottom of a cliff. A mother and daughter are arrested, hused of pushing that woman off that cliff. Now, at least one of the suspects, appears to be asking the court for mercy. Former homicide detective Bill Waters joins us to talk all about it. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

Well, it is quite the stunning end to a tragic missing person's case in Alabama. I say that because a character reference that was submitted to the court in support of one of the murder suspects in this case calls her a, quote, Child of God. Hmm. So Mary Elizabeth Isbell, who has... a teenage son. She was last seen in late 2021. Her ex-husband and father of her son posted on Facebook at the time, quote,

I actually hate to put this out here on social media, but Facebook covers a wide area. Hasn't heard from his mom since September 6th on his birthday, and he's really worried about her because she's always at least calls him on the holidays. I've talked to her family and no one has heard from her, so he thought about doing a missing person report. You see, human remains were discovered on June 28th and officially identified as Elizabeth on what would have been her 39th birthday. The remains were found at the bottom of a cliff at Little River Canyon Nature Preserve near

Fort Payne, Alabama. Authorities, they ended up arresting two suspects, 45-year-old Loretta K. Carr and her daughter, 22-year-old Jesse Eden Kelly, both have been charged with capital murder. The sheriff says that one of the co-defendants was cooperative, allegedly providing directions on where to find the body. In the beginning, we knew that there was a possible. body there. We just didn't know where Little River Canyon is like 15,000 acres of National Park. There's multiple overlooks that run along Alabama Highway 176 and also there's multiple overlooks on the Cherokee County side of Little River Canyon. So

through working with the co-defendant, we were able to narrow down a couple different locations and that proved to be very accurate and the information that she gave. According to police reports, officers had searched Mary's home after she was reported missing and found signs of a struggle, and they also found a bloody handprint. The blood was determined to be Mary's, and the handprint was matched to Kelly because her prints were already in the police database based on previous arrests. Court records lay out what law enforcement thinks happened here, and it's really just a wild story. They say this mother and daughter duo showed up at Mary's home in October of 2021,

with her. Carr is accused of hitting Mary over the head multiple times with a gun. They then allegedly took her to Carr's home, forcing her to shower, getting rid of evidence, getting rid of blood, and then they take her to the Nature Preserve. And once there, Kelly says Carr walked Mary to the edge of the cliff and shoved her off. And what is absolutely chilling is that it has been reported that Carr had visited that same Nature Preserve in 2019 and even posted a selfie to Facebook in the same area where she's accused of killing this woman. Now, a motive for the killing hasn't been released, but authorities did say there was a mutual acquaintance

between all three women, possibly a love interest. They are all acquaintances, mainly to a boyfriend. So I can't give too much of details on that right now, but they all do come back to one specific person. So now the pair face these capital murder charges, and this is where the story takes another strange turn, because former inmates who served time with Kelly submitted character references on her behalf to a judge, which we typically see during a sentencing.

But here, apparently eight letters were submitted, I believe, last week. One saying Kelly is, quote, a kind-hearted child of God. She was also described as naive and an innocent person who may not completely grasp how serious her situation is. Another cellmate jailmate said, quote, she is really a bright, well-meaning, and intelligent young woman who I feel could be easily taken advantage of due to her sweet nature and trusting spirit. Let me bring in right now, legendary former homicide detective Phil Waters to discuss all this, Phil, always good to see you. I tell you, you know what I was struck with first? I was struck with

if I take the prosecution's narrative as true, the planning that was put forward in this, that was laid out by authorities, kidnapping this woman, taking her back to shower to remove blood, then taking her to a cliff to push her off of it. What did you make of that? Well, good morning, Jesse. Well, it looks like a well-executed plan. It's just hearing the details of this thing. I do have to wonder if there is some sort of, I don't know what the proper word would be,

an impairment of some kind with the daughter. It looks like from the description of things here that this was this whole plan, the kidnapping and the murder and so forth was all the mom seemed to be the ramrod on this whole thing. And so when you get these character references, you know, I'm not sure your fellow inmates is the greatest pool for character references. But however, we get some of these. And the, I think one of them you said started out saying she's kind-hearted and I don't know if they use her. A child of God, a child of God.

Well, in a biblical sense, they're correct. You know, that she is a child of God like all of us are. But, you know, that reference in combination with the things that were said before that, you know, it almost sounds as though that description is of a young lady who may have some shortcomings in the, you know, upstairs here in the brain housing group. Yeah. And I don't know that. I mean, I don't know that. It wouldn't even necessarily negate her criminal responsibility in the case.

it may provide an extra layer. It may tell you something about how this case will progress or perhaps sentencing. But I just feel like the idea of how they plan this out, taking her to shower because they knew that they, I mean, the idea that they wanted to shower to get rid of evidence, throw her off to make it look like, first of all, the fact that the body wasn't discovered for quite some time. I mean, I'm sure they didn't know that, but they probably want to make it seem like she fell off by accident. Oh, sure. I think that that was kind of the staging of that thing. And again, and I'm not, I am not in any way, shape, form excusing the daughter's involvement in the thing at all. So I'm just, I'm just trying to get my head around. How would I approach this person if I was going to interview them, that kind of thing? So, yeah. And by the way, it seems like they were, they got some information from the daughter. Right, right. You know, what I am as a homicide cop. And, and, you know, the, the girl, of course, we're only getting. getting a description from what we're getting. But it sounds like the mother was the one executing the plan and the daughter comes along and the daughter as approving of what's going on

and so forth and so on. And then, you know, supposedly it's over some guy. Now, well, we don't know, right? It's the reports. It could be possibly over this. We're not at we can't a hundred percent confirmed. I think I think the sheriff's officer, whoever the, the, the, they, they agency that it was over a man i think they had they had some mutual acquaintance of some kind and it could be possibly and you know that which leads you to wonder too i mean if that is credible in any way i mean she's 22 mary at the time was 37 i think and and wow you know that's a 15 years spread i mean what guy or car or car it could be the mother we don't really know what what was going on. Well, that's true, too. But the mother's 45. I mean, you know, it's just a weird.

The whole thing is very strange. Let me ask you about this, about how they were able to figure out who did this or allegedly did this. So investigators, first, they match the blood from the scene to Mary using DNA from an old sexual assault kit that she had filed with the heart cell police department. This is according to local reporting. That's very interesting. Does that happen typically? Well, I don't know that it's typical. I think that it's fortunate in this particular case that they had that kind of evidence from a previous case that they had and were able to shore that up about whose blood was in fact in that trailer. So that's just one of those nuances of an investigation that you're trying to get these things. And look, I give credit again to the detectives there. So we've got blood at a scene. Looks like something's wrong. I think it's being described as there's a, looks like there was a struggle.

Yeah. And fortunately, they're doing their background investigation on the possible victim. And they come up with this sexual assault kit, a sane kit that was used years before and were able to verify that the blood in the trailer was in fact, did belong to Mary. Yeah, that's just good, that's good detective work. Great detective work. And, you know, you think about that. What a horrible situation that must have been for her in the past, but I don't even know if silver lining is the way, but that it was fortunate that they were able to collect that material to help I solve this murder case.

And then the bloody handprint, they match it to Kelly, one of the perpetrators in this case, one of those suspects, because her prints were already in the system from previous arrest. I think that's one of the things we don't talk about enough is one of the reasons people's fingerprints are taken when they're initially booked because of the possibility. of them committing crimes in the future. Now we have something. We have a form of fingerprint. It's an interesting question, right? Well, sure. And now we're doing the same thing with DNA.

Yeah. So, you know, many, many of the agencies across the country, you get put in a jail somewhere, in a county jail someplace, and your DNA samples take. So we've got a whole other resource database besides CODIS, but now we have people, we know who the DNA belongs to. And so that's going to help facilitate a lot of,

identifying suspects in the in the future so yeah so the fingerprint stuff yeah great again a good detective work they were able to preserve the handprint and and get that they get that person identified and i believe the handprint belonged to the to the mother is that no it actually belonged to the daughter belong to the daughter okay yeah yeah tough case tough case i think it's pretty clear from watching sidebar and hearing about all the stories we talk about that the world can be pretty scary pretty unpredictable and that is especially true if you get injured if you get seriously hurt at those times you need to know how to protect your rights and whether you should be compensated that's why i want to talk about morgan and morgan our great sponsor here on sidebar the largest

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They've completely modernized the whole process because from submitting your claim to uploading documents to talking with your whole legal team, all be done on your smartphone. How easy is that? You can see if you have a case in just minutes. So to start your claim now with Morgan and Morgan, go to for the people.com slash LC sidebar or click the link in the description and pinned in the comments. And by the way, Phil, it's our understanding that at the time her mother was arrested, Kelly, she was already locked up in Pennsylvania. She was awaiting extradition on a different felony theft burglary charge. And then she was extradited to Alabama in July. How do you think that factors into things?

Because I'm wondering if she did have a conversation with police. And she was already, you know, in their crosshairs. What do you think about that? Well, I'd be curious to know if the detectives in Alabama went to Pennsylvania and interviewed her there. So which is what I would have done. But, you know, so we get all these. these links now of course the question is what is she doing in Pennsylvania and then she's got this I think it's a felony theft thing from Missouri is that correct what we discovered there you don't

have to worry about the the state it's we're kind of freeway so well my point is here is that she appears to be doing the round robin there in terms of committing crimes in a in a variety of different places and then of course the she's got the big one in Alabama there involved in the capital murder of Mary. And again, we don't know exactly who was cooperating with law enforcement, but it just, it was interesting to me that you had this, the daughter who was already facing some, and by the way, as we mentioned, her previous arrests helped police link her to this killing and the fact that she was already incarcerated and awaiting extradition on a different

charge is just really interesting to say the least. So do you think this is going to make its way to try? trial. I mean, right now we have these charges. We have some what I think is pretty significant evidence. I would think, you know, it's the potentiality, also the death penalty on the table. So what do you think about it? Well, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. And I know, again, it's a capital murder case. So you're right. You've got the death penalty in play here. It may be down the road. It may be take it off the table, get them to plead to life with no parole, that kind of thing. That'll be, of course, later determined by the prosecutors and whether

how they want to go forward with this case. They're going to discuss it with the family, with Mary's family, and get everybody's input into this thing before they proceed. So it will be interesting. It's just as this thing starts to unfold, it's going to be interesting to me just to see the history of the mom and the daughter altogether. It almost sounds like we've got a Bonnie and Bonnie thing going on here. Do you usually see this? Do you usually, have you, in your career, have you seen a mother, daughter, criminal duo or a father, son, criminal duo? I don't recall a case that I work specifically where we have that kind of a component going on, but I've certainly seen those types of cases around the country

where we've got a parent and child, and for whatever reason, they've decided to collaborate in some sort of criminal enterprise together. What a case. Phil Waters, great seeing you, my friend. Appreciate it. Good seeing you, Jesse, always. All right, everybody. That is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Spotify.