The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - My Friend, the Serial Killer | 4. The Exclusive

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Steve secures his exclusive interview with the killer, who reveals what he considers the “real reasons” his victims died. While digging into this investigative lead, Steve tracks down a former social worker, who has a stunning revelation for Steve that will completely change his understanding of the case.   This episode will be released for free on June 24th.   Unlock all episodes of Smoke Screen: My Friend, the Serial Killer, ad-free, right now by subscribing to The Binge. Plus, get binge access to brand new stories dropping on the first of every month  thats all episodes, all at once, all ad-free.   Just click Subscribe on the top of the Smoke Screen show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts.   An Orbit Media & Sony Music Entertainment production in association with Rhyme Media.  Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. The Bench.

This show contains descriptions of sexual violence and murder. Listener discretion is advised. And a quick note, this episode contains material from old audio tapes where sound quality is poor and actor voices Robert Carr's words. All right, walking down these fakach steps

into this hovel of a basement here. Sadly, everything's in piles here. My basement is like a museum to my career without a curator. Oh, my god. And there's the ceiling. It's falling down in this box. There goes a spider running out of it. Fantastic. Somewhere in this mess, I hope, are cassette tapes I haven't listened to since 1976. These tapes were the foundation of my career, my first big story, my calling card.

It gave me confidence, led to other big story. My calling card. It gave me confidence. Led to other big stories. The Robert Carr tapes. I'm rifling through the boxes. Through greatest hits of my career in journalism. People who talk to me, who wouldn't talk to anyone else. Made off, made off, made off. The greatest Ponzi schemer in history.

My Bible, given to me by the woman who introduced me to Son of Sam. Another infamous serial killer. Oh, my story in Rolling Stone. Well, maybe I'll stop and read that. No, I won't. And then I spot a bag. A paper shopping bag. There's sheetrock dust in it.

It's fallen from the ceiling. Oh, and office supplies from my days as a staff writer at New York Magazine. Oh, and a stapler, baby. I'll take that. But wait. There in the bottom of the bag, blue plastic, a cassette. Motherfucking believe it. Cannot fucking believe it. There is an old car tape.

Holy mother... Jackpot! A blue cassette with my handwriting. CAR in capital letters. I stick the tape in a cassette player for the first time in nearly half a century. And I'm transported to a Miami jail in 1976. I'm sitting across from a confessed serial killer, and now he's telling me what the real story is,

according to him. They would still be alive if Connecticut had me evaluated by a psychiatrist because I would have been detected. It's Robert Cart telling me he could have been stopped. This is My Friend the Serial Killer. I'm Steve Fishman. Episode 4.

The Exclusive. Here's how I ended up getting my exclusive with Robert Carr. Back in 1976, right after I read the wire service report and right after I realized that I'd been picked up hitchhiking by a serial killer who got his victims hitchhiking, I spent maybe a minute thinking about the fact that I could have been killed. Then I thought, I've got to get Carr to talk to me. I've got to get the story. So I visited Carr's wife, Joanne, and his daughter, Donna. Then I head back to the newspaper. I burst into the boss's office. I tell him, Carr's wife says she's going to reach out to him for me. And he lights up. My boss loves a big story. And now I get back to work, typing, phoning, still covering high school football games,

but really, I'm waiting for a call from a serial killer. And then one evening, someone shouts across the room, Fishman, you got a collect call from a prison. So I'm picking up the phone, and there's this voice with that same drawl, and it puts me back to that hitchhiking moment. So I say, words to the effective, well, it's good to hear from you again.

You know we met. And he says, yeah, I remember. I remember we met. He remembered everything. We were immediately on a personal footing. It was not like I just kind of met him at a bowling alley, you know. It was like I was in the car in the seat where his victims had been. Carr isn't committing, but he calls constantly. It's kind of like we're pals, checking in daily. And it's not just with me. Carr becomes like a newsroom celebrity. My boss intercepts his calls.

He would even sometimes tell Carr details about my dating life and then shout Carr's response across the newsroom, as if Carr and the managing editor are teasing me, you know, the way friends do. And then finally one day, Red says to me, why don't you come down and visit at the jail in Florida? So I pack my little tape recorder. The boss assigns an older reporter to accompany me. I'm not actually old enough to rent a car at that point. We get on the plane and I tell my partner with excitement,

this will be the first time I set foot in a jail. It's the start of July. I'm in a Miami jail with Robert Carr. He's wearing a crisp, floral, button-down shirt. No jumpsuit, no handcuffs. He's clean- crisp, floral, button-down shirt. No jumpsuit, no handcuffs. He's clean-shaven, chain-smoking. The scene is nothing like what I was expecting. Carr's got like his own room set aside with this pretty big table.

He sits at the head, presiding. He's already famous here. Every time they show somebody the head, presiding. He's already famous here. Every time they show somebody the jail, they go, there's Carr over there. Come on, where's my quarter if I'm going to be a monkey in a cage? This is the actor voicing Carr's words. Carr and I get to talking, like friends catching up. Carr mentions where he lived in Norwich.

I mention where I live in Norwich. He mentions that he misses it. Like everyone says, Carr's easy to talk to. One reason hitchhikers like me took rides from him. But then, pretty quickly, the mood shifts. Carr mentions his wife, Joanne, who'd helped me get here. Uh, don't bother her. I ask if she feels like I'm bothering her when I contact her.

I don't know if you are or not. I'll say this. She's upset. Very upset. My wife and I are separated. My wife still loves me a lot. I still love her a lot. And according to Carr, Joanne thinks I'm an aggressive reporter. She quoted you saying you'd sell your grandmother for a story. I'm trying to brush this off with a laugh.

Out of context, I say, out of context. But now it occurs to me that maybe Joanne has me right. I also don't think it occurred to me at the time that, in all likelihood, his wife was more afraid of him than of me. Carr starts by flattering us, me and my older bearded colleague. At that point, I couldn't yet grow a beard. He compliments our little paper. I tell you what to do, and you get the best story ever.

In case I'm wondering who's in charge. Carr has an agenda for this interview. He carries with him one of those accordion files full of papers, which he takes out one by one and places on the table. Tammy, uh, died because of these reasons I'm going to give you now. According to Carr, his victims are dead because there was no treatment in the Connecticut prison. They died because there was no program. Psychiatrists would have evaluated me

and found I had psychopathic symptoms. Nothing. They weren't interested. They could care less. It's a warehouse. Carr embraces his psychopathy. Yeah, I am someone who hurts people and doesn't feel remorse. But what he says really bothers him is that the system failed to discover this about him. He pulls documents and letters out of his file, laying out his case like he's a lawyer addressing a jury. That's me.

He quotes from Connecticut law. Section 1881 of Connecticut General Statute, the duties of the commission. It doesn't say he may. It says shall receive treatment. I didn't try to rush these letters. I just did them as I built my case. I wasn't irrational about it. He reads me letters he sent, which are crucial to the point he's trying to make, that he asked for treatment repeatedly. Here's one he sent to the director of prisons in the state,

a guy named John Manson. What I wanted to know, Mr. Manson, was why is it an individual is considered to be an inappropriate candidate for any available program? What Carr is claiming is that he fought to get help and was told there were no programs available for him. He also has Manson's reply. Dear Mr. Carr, I do not intend to discuss with you what you perceive as staff failings. I will address your programmatic concerns with institutional staff. In other words, he's telling me, get off my back.

He doesn't want to hear it. My problem isn't that I'm stupid. I have a mental problem, a psychological problem, okay? Listening to these tapes years later, after exhuming them from my basement, I can picture my younger self staring at Carr, taking notes, not asking a lot of questions. Sometimes I hear myself say,

Uh-huh. Occasionally, I laugh. It's uncomfortable to listen to these tapes now. I want young Steve to challenge Carr. Push back. Instead, Carr is running this like a seminar, and he's the expert at the head of the table. He keeps asking me,

Okay, do you understand? to make sure I'm paying attention, I guess, and I was. I know I found it fascinating. But now, as I re-listen, I think, is this serial killer really claiming that all this ruin, this horror, was entirely someone else's fault? Like he was a bystander who got caught up in something. Just another victim. It makes me want to shout, hey, you did it, you, with your bare hands. We spent a couple of days with Carr in that welcoming jail in Florida,

always shaking hands when we arrived and left, politely, like colleagues. At one point, Carr told us, I do trust you. To which I responded, we're out to tell your side. By the time I sat down with him, Carr had already told Florida detectives he had killed four people. Three of them he picked up in Florida, which under Florida law meant they could be prosecuted there, since it's where those crimes began. But the final victim, the fourth, he picked her up and killed her back in Connecticut. For us, it was the murder of a local woman, and so one I was particularly interested in, and one that only Connecticut could prosecute.

Carr had refused to confess this murder to Connecticut police. He had a grudge against the state for what he saw as that lack of treatment when he was in prison there. You let Connecticut worry about their own. But he did lay it out for Florida cops. On a chilly Connecticut evening, Robert Carr was driving around looking for a victim. He'd been at it since morning. It was a few months since Carr had been paroled from prison in Connecticut, and not long after he picked me up hitchhiking.

This is the real voice of Carr talking on that videotaped confession he gave in Miami. I was tired. I'd driven all day and I was drunk. And I was about ready to give the whole thing up and go home. But then he spotted someone. And I knew this particular girl. I had met her on several occasions while I worked in the gas station. She would come in to get a Coke, a pack of cigarettes, or just to talk. Up until this moment, Carr had never taken a victim he knew.

Her name was Rhonda Holloway. She was a black woman, 21 years old, the mother of two small children. Carr followed his playbook. As Rhonda was about to get out of the car, he threatened her with a knife, told her to get down. He took Rhonda to an isolated place and raped her repeatedly. up in the apartment alone and she was worried about them. Finally she kept talking about the kids until I stopped, put her in the trunk, took her house key. I was going back and just opened the door for the kids so they could get out of their closet. In end car does not stop the place is flooded with people it's a predominantly black neighborhood and i went right on down the street and didn't even look for how

she was talking about instead carr killed her what made you choke her? Well, she knew everybody I knew. She could expose me very easily. You think she would expose you? Yes, I do, he said. We reached out to Rhonda's family. The subject is extremely painful, and those family members we were able to reach did not want to speak to us. We can say that her two small children are okay. Just a few months after he killed Rhonda,

Carr is on that trip to recover his three other victims, the ones he killed in the South. While there, he tells the Miami cops he's willing to lead them to Rhonda's burial site in Connecticut. That's not their jurisdiction, but again, Carr desperately does not want Connecticut officials to put him in prison there. So Carr has an offer. He'll show the Miami cops where he buried Rhonda,

but they can't relay that information to Connecticut's cops, not until he's safely out of the state. Oh, and he's got one more condition. Carr wants a TV crew to come with him to the burial spot in Connecticut. TV crew, yes. Connecticut officials, no. Carr gets his deal. Robert Carr knew exactly where the body was buried.

Even though he had not been on this dirt road in Connecticut for three months, he told two Miami detectives he was positive his victim. The segment aired on NBC Nightly News. On TV, you can see Carr slowly walking to a spot and putting a stick in the ground to mark the burial site, which is just about 25 minutes from his family's home. The two Miami detectives stand nearby watching. He led police to the graves because he said he could no longer live with his guilt. The story reached millions of Americans. Carr had confessed to the Miami detectives,

but he still refused to confess to Connecticut cops. One had even flown down to Miami, but Carr had sent him away. This is the actor again. I'm not going to give it to you on a silver platter. I'll give you cases that pertain to you. This was an embarrassment to Connecticut authorities. But for my boss, it was an opportunity. He got on the phone with one of his cop buddies.

Soon after, he called me in Florida. I was told another Connecticut state trooper was ready to fly down, this time to join us at the table with Carr. My marching orders, get Robert Carr to confess to the Connecticut state trooper. And Carr agreed. He trusted us at that point. He liked us, thought of us as friends. Plus, there was no risk to him. He was already being prosecuted in Florida. I did not record Carr's confession in front of the Connecticut State Trooper, but Carr had talked to us about Rhonda.

He'd offhandedly admitted to the murder. Again, this is the actor. When I killed Rhonda, it bothered me. Not really. Rhonda Holloway was black, on the welfare, a prostitute. Three strikes against her right there. State of Connecticut would kill her if they could get away with it. All I did was do them a favor.

Yes, the press at the time identified Rhonda as a sometime prostitute, but there's no way to verify that. They may have been just taking Carr's word for it. What's striking, though, is that Carr dismisses her on that basis, and also because she's black and, he says, poor. Like he's saying, her murder doesn't count. After the formal confession, Connecticut put a detainer on Carr and reserved the right to pursue him, should he ever get out of prison in Florida. For us, this confession was a big scoop, and we hurried back to our hotel room to write the exclusive story. As I recall, I put my knees on the floor and I'm leaning over the bed, typing, except I'm not typing. I suddenly have writer's block. Hey, I'm not an experienced reporter, not at all. Writing a big story on

deadline is daunting. And I think now that also the awful details were maybe sinking in. Maybe I just had to pause, catch my breath. But then the phone rings. It's the boss. Writer's block seems a little fancy to him. Where the hell is the story, he barks. And then we get it together, and I type this sentence. In the first detailed account to Connecticut Police Wednesday night, Carr confessed he strangled and killed Rhonda Holloway. We also wrote that Carr had picked up 50 hitchhikers and raped 14 of them. After writing that, I did the math. That would mean Carr assaulted one in three or four of the hitchhikers.

The story ran with a photo of the confession scene. Four of us at a table in the jail. A helpful guard must have taken the photo. There's 20-year-old me with below-the-ear hair, the envy of my current head of hair. My older colleague is next to me with a beard. The state trooper in short sleeves looks vaguely bored. Carr is at the head of the table. He's angular and relaxed. He's facing the camera. The story, the photo, they were a score. And I was thrilled. Even Carr seemed excited.

Believe me, your paper packs as much weight as NBC does. My five-part series started on August 1st, 1976. The boss ran the stories at the very top of the front page. It was a place of honor. I'd come a long way from covering Easter egg hunts, and I was proud. So was my father. In my basement, when I was searching for those old tapes, I'd come across awards the series won. One of them was from the Associated Press. But almost five decades later, I'm rereading the series,

and I'm troubled. This is the headline of one lead article. Carr, Manson, at odds over treatment in prison. As if Carr and the head of the Department of Prisons were equals. Another headline. Rapist minus treatment may be on murder path, experts say. The first expert in that article? Robert Carr.

I'd elevated the serial rape slayer, as we'd like to call him in the bulletin. I'd given him stature. This angry, volatile murderer. That's how I think of him now. He appeared in my portrayal as a thoughtful analyst of a difficult societal problem. My articles were thorough and well-researched.

Carr had sought treatment in the Connecticut prison system, and that's a fact. And my articles also showed the system didn't really care about treatment. The 70s were about punishment, not rehabilitation. This is from that NBC News report at the time. Deputy Commissioner Raymond Lopes defended the prison's treatment of Carr. There's no ideal method of treatment for these type of individuals. But here's what really struck me, dismayed me. In these articles, Carr emerges exactly as the person he wanted to be, a victim of an indifferent system.

Everyone had lined up against him, according to Carr, except that is for one person, a woman named Betsy Carl. I admire her very much, professionally and personally. I think she's one of the kindest people I've ever known in my life. Betsy was a social worker who'd visited Carr in prison and spoke to him on the phone, wrote him letters. Carr confided in Betsy.

I told her everything, except for the fact that I killed two boys, okay? I told her there was a good possibility I would kill if I got out. Wait, so the serial killer really did want to be stopped? I needed to talk to Betsy. I found her on the opposite side of the country. A lot has changed in Betsy Carl's life since she met Robert Carr. For one thing, she's not Betsy anymore. She moved to California and changed her name to Chloe.

Yeah, Chloe's more California than Betsy. I just needed a change. We meet on Zoom one afternoon. I'm in New York, she's in California. She's in her 70s now. In 1975, when she met Carr, she'd just turned 30. She was a feminist who'd recently started a rape crisis center for victims in Hartford, Connecticut. It was a time to not only to speak out, but to do something. She was forwarded a letter Carr sent to a TV station seeking help for his problem. She reached out. He said you were one of the kindest people he ever met. Yeah.

That's nice. I'm glad he thought I was kind. Are you kind? Yeah, I've been told that. She'd meet him at the prison, in a separate room with windows and ashtrays, sitting across the table from him, both of them smoking, she assumes. She was a smoker back then. He told me that he had wanted treatment, he wanted help.

To Chloe, Robert Carr seemed clear-headed, self-aware. I believed that he was trying to help himself. He contacted psychologists and people, but it was difficult to get help. Chloe'd already been at the forefront of the rape victims movement. She'd gotten the local police to call her whenever they had a new sexual assault victim, no matter the time of day. But there was something else. Chloe says that Carr confided to her that he knew with complete certainty that he wasn't fit to leave prison. In my experience of being with him, he was clear, yes. Clear that? That he did not want to be released. This was an urgent matter because during the time Chloe was working with Carr,

he came up for parole. Do you remember what your reaction was to him when you, when he said that? I told him when he said that to let them know and continue to look for help and tell him that you're not ready. You're not ready, Bob. Tell him that. Chloe encouraged Carter to stay in prison. She didn't know that when he was talking to her, he'd already murdered two 11-year-old boys.

No one knew. What she did know was that he told her he shouldn't be on the street. He was clear. In my experience of being with him, he was clear, yes, that he did not want to be released. He was afraid that he would commit more rape, that he would assault other victims. So Robert Carr could be self-aware.

I recalled an insight he'd shared with me. I know this to be a fact. People who were killed were people who disagreed with me, who would not let me hurt on them and still say, you're a great guy. You understand what I'm saying? In other words, it's very important to me that these people like me. I know this is true.

Robert Carr knew that he was a monster, and he knew he couldn't control the monster. He would be going along just fine, heading to work, heading home, and then, he said, the need for a forceful relationship would overcome him. This is the part I'd missed. I hadn't witnessed the worst of him. This is the part I'd missed. I hadn't witnessed the worst of him. I'd seen him in jail, in a controlled environment where he was in check. But I also wondered if maybe I'd ignored it. Thinking back now, I wonder if I'd already decided the story I wanted to tell, one that focused on systemic problems, the kind of broad societal focus that wins prizes.

What I came to learn was that Carr could become a different person in an instant. Chloe learned that too. While he was sincere with what he was saying in one moment, he could change. It was the switch from one personality to a very different, a very angry personality. And almost the kind of personality that would end up blaming the person that was helping him, you know, that was there with him one minute, and then the next minute you're his enemy. He flipped on Chloe. He accused her of being his enemy, and he flipped on parole. Carr had told Chloe he wasn't ready,

but when I talked to him about his time in a Connecticut prison, he told me something very different. Sure I want it out. Any asshole wants out of prison, I'd have to be really sick to not want out of prison. God damn it, I fought like hell and won my way out of prison. Clearly, some part of the monster wanted to be on the loose again, free to rape and murder. The state of Connecticut paroled Robert Carr after two years and ten months. The state decided he was ready to reenter society, to get a job,

to take care of his 12-year-old daughter Donna, which is a story I'd wanted to write back when he picked me up hitchhiking. I think of Donna talking to me on that knee wall and running out of the arcade. Our time together would have been just a few months after her father got out of the Connecticut prison. And in that short time, he'd raped half a dozen more people and killed Rhonda Holloway, not far from where Donna slept at night. Then he skipped town for Florida and picked up Tammy Ruth Huntley, just four years older than his daughter. Donna and I had a brief but intense connection back then, and now, more

than four decades later, I want to find her I want to know what it was like to be Robert Carr's daughter I want to know what she can tell me about the monster inside him and I want to know if she's okay I can still tell my father's voice man what is he saying to you? to the Binge Podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you'll get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts, all of them ad-free. Plus, on the first of every month,

subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series. That's all episodes all at once. Unlock your listening now by clicking subscribe at the top of the Smokescreen show page in Apple Podcasts or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. My Friend the Serial Killer is a production of Orbit Media in association with Rhyme. Creator and host, that's me, Steve Fishman. Our senior producer is Dan Bobcoff. Our associate producer and production coordinator is Austin Smith.

Editorial consulting by Annie Aviles. Fact check, Catherine Newhan. Our mixer and sound designer is Scott Somerville. From Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producers are Jonathan Hirsch and Catherine St. Louis. Our voice actor is Andy Manjock. Thanks also to our researchers for this episode,

Tess Pilkington and Eric Axelrod. Thanks for listening. See you next time.