The Binge Cases: Scary Terri - My Friend, the Serial Killer | 1. Local Man

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Steve Fishman is an intern at his local Connecticut newspaper and a regular hitchhiker. When one of his hitched rides comes to an unnerving conclusion, Steve shrugs it off—until weeks later, when the news breaks that the driver he rode with has confessed to being a serial killer who preys on hitchhikers. Steve sees the chance to get the scoop of a lifetime: a killer’s story, Who better to tell it than someone who almost became one of his victims? 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

You're listening to Smokescreen, my friend the serial killer. Before you dive in, if you want to listen to the whole story uninterrupted, you can. Unlock the entire season ad-free right now with a subscription to The Binge. That's all episodes, all at once. Unlock your listening now by clicking subscribe at the Smokescreen show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. The Binge.

A quick warning before we start. This show contains descriptions of sexual violence and murder. Listener discretion is advised. Tell me about your first big break as a journalist. Okay, well, it's 1975. I'm a college dropout. My dad has recently kicked me out of the house. And I'm an intern at this small newspaper in Connecticut,

which means I get the pizza and the coffee, I work weekends, and do anything I can to get my byline in the newspaper. Now, I love being in the newsroom. It's full of life. I mean, typewriters, police scanners, people shouting. And in the back of the newsroom, there's a kind of closet with these newswire machines. And all day and all night, they pound out breaking news stories. And when there's an important story, bells ring. One or two for a minorly important story, to maybe a dozen bells for, say, the invasion of a country.

Or for big local news. So one day I'm in the newsroom and the bells start ringing like crazy. I rush over and watch as the machine prints out this story. I rush over and watch as the machine prints out this story. A man has just confessed to the cops that he committed a series of rapes and murders. Crimes they didn't even know existed. And he's a local man, the serial killer next door. Then it prints the guy's name. Wait a second. I know this guy. And

it makes me realize I came close to being a victim myself. I was looking for a hitchhiker, potential rape victim. potential great director. This is My Friend the Serial Killer. I'm Steve Fishman. Since starting out at the Norwich Bulletin, that small Connecticut paper, I've had a long journalism career,

won awards, covered a lot of big, dark stories. The serial killer's son of Sam opened up to me. So did the guy behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, Bernie Madoff. But this story about the serial killer I knew, the serial killer I became friendly with, was different. It was personal. And in a sense, it's where journalism began for me. This story has haunted me for years. For decades, really. Which is why, for a long time, I resisted it.

I didn't want to revisit this territory. I didn't want to think about the horror of the serial killer's crimes. But there was another reason I resisted. I'm afraid my younger self got this story wrong. And I haven't wanted to revisit that either. Until now. Episode 1 Local Man Local man. like the separation of church and state. Americans United for Separation of Church and State

has been on the front lines defending your freedom to live and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Most folks don't see how church-state separation affects our daily lives until that freedom is gone. The separation between church and state covers many core freedoms like civil rights for LGBTQIA plus people,

women, and racial slash religious minorities, or reproductive justice and freedom. But those rights are not a given. Every day, Americans United works at the state and federal level to make sure these freedoms and more are protected for every American to enjoy and benefit from. They can't do this alone, though. Join Americans United for separation of church and state

and growing the movement. Because church-state separation protects everyone. Freedom without favor and equality without exception. Learn more and get involved at au.org slash curious. Hi, everyone. This is Jonathan Van Ness. Clean water, fresh air, our health. Electricity, honey. We tend to take for granted the things that matter most, like the separation of church and state. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has been on the front lines defending your freedom to live and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Most folks don't see how church-state separation affects our daily lives until that

freedom is gone. The separation between church and state covers many core freedoms like civil rights for LGBTQIA plus people, women and racial slash religious minorities, or reproductive justice and freedom. But those rights are not a given. Every day, Americans United works at the state and federal level

to make sure these freedoms and more are protected for every American to enjoy and benefit from. They can't do this alone, though. Join Americans United for separation of church and state and growing the movement, because church-state separation protects everyone. Freedom without favor and equality without exception. Learn more

and get involved at au.org slash curious. Alright, so take me back to the very beginning where this story starts. Well, probably in my parents' basement in suburban New Jersey. I just dropped out of college. All those discussions about enlightenment poetry and, you know, whatever. It stopped feeling exciting to me.

Certainly stopped feeling important. And anyway, dropping out was kind of a thing in the 70s. Find yourself, remember? So at first, where I found myself was in my parents' house, diligently trying to be a writer. My parents had this basement. was in my parents' house, diligently trying to be a writer. My parents had this basement, kind of had small windows, so it was always kind of gloomy. And they had this wet bar that they never used.

It had like a blue Formica countertop, and that's where I set up my office. Every day I'd write these short stories out by longhand. Ardent accounts, you know, I don't know, teenage romance in the style of who was then my favorite writer, Hemingway. Listen, my parents were not enthusiastic about my current lifestyle choice. My father in particular had no idea what the hell I was doing. He wore a suit every day. He worked in the city. He commuted to a skyscraper. And every now and then he would thump down these stairs and he'd say to me, so when are you going to be done? When are you going to be published? These short stories. It was as if

he was asking me like, what the hell are you doing? I think he kind of thought I was pulling a stunt. To him, you know, I was avoiding being an adult. And then one day he cracks. What do you mean he cracks? And then one day, he cracks. What do you mean he cracks? Well, it must have been a weekend. I remember he sat me down at our breakfast table. He's back by the sun, so he's got this kind of fuzzy halo effect on him.

And he tells me, I have to leave the house. I have to leave home. And then he starts to cry. Wait, so he is telling you to leave the house, but that he's crying? Yeah, it's confusing. It was confusing then, it confuses me now. I have this reaction like, he's crying, so I got to comfort him? It's all right, Dad, got to comfort him. It's all right, dad. I understand. I'll go pack a few things. I think the idea for him of tossing me out of my childhood home must have seemed sadistic, which in a way it was. But he had this idea that at 19 years old, I should be on my way to taking on responsibilities. So my dad hustles me into the car and drives me, I think it was like 15 minutes away, and says basically, all right, here you are, and dumps me on the sidewalk. And in my memory, he just leaves me on the sidewalk to hitchhike.

And the truth is, you know, I was okay with that. Frankly, I hated being in that basement. I knew I had to get out of that dungeon. I had needed to leave college, and now I needed to leave the suburbs. I mean, if I was going to write anything, I needed to find something to write about. So there I am on the side of that road. I stick out my thumb. You have to remember that back then, it's like 1975.

It's just not such a big deal to hitchhike. It's a way to get around, especially if you don't have a car, which I didn't. I start getting rides, and soon I land that internship at that daily newspaper in Norwich, Connecticut. And, you know, I figured, hey, Hemingway had been a journalist too. And at that newspaper is where the course of my directionless life changes forever. I mean, I will never forget the first time I walked into this newspaper. It's like eight o'clock at night.

The town is totally dead. But I walk into the paper's office, which is on the second floor, and the place is lit up like a ballpark. So remember, this is back before everyone is on the internet. People still trust journalists. Newspapers are booming. I mean, I could hear it. All the clatter of typing and yelling. It was really vibrant. It was really alive. And then I sit down with the managing editor in his little office. Oh, by the way, it seemed really old to me at the time, though he was 28. And the managing editor seems confused. I'm not really sure he knew that the

paper had an internship program. So he kind of ignores me. He sits across the desk, goes about his business, and gets on the phone with one of his cop buddies. because I think this guy really wanted to be a cop more than a journalist. And as I'm sitting there, he's got this cop on the line and he's holding forth and they're having a grand old time. And then I overhear the cop who's on the other end of the line reveal the name of a dead person so that the paper can include it before deadline. And now this editor, my future boss, stands up and yells across the newsroom to the reporter who's covering homicides, do you have the name of that dead guy yet? And then he turns to me and his face breaks into a wicked smile. As I would later find out, the boss loved drama.

He loved competition. He loved journalism. And he loved journalism prizes. I took it all in. This did not feel like college. It felt like there were stakes. There were deadlines. There were dead bodies.

And so I'm thinking, this is going to be fun. So now I fall into the routine of the newspaper. And also, I keep hitchhiking. Sometimes the rides are great. You would get these mothers who would have their children in the back seat or, you know, young hippies in minibuses who would offer me drugs and also, you know, dreams of changing my life like buying a van and painting it purple and driving across America. And then there were other kinds of rides. One time a couple of guys took me to the end of a dirt road.

And right before they steal my backpack, one of them says to me, Don't you know you shouldn't hitchhike? Maybe I'm willfully oblivious, but I figure I've been lucky enough. I'm going to keep hitchhiking. One weekend, it must have been around the fall of 1975, I'd just turned 20, and I need to get back to Norwich from Boston where I'd been visiting friend. So here I am again on the side of the road, thumb out, and waiting for a ride. Do you remember the moment when the car picked you up? So I was on the side of the road and there's a LeSabre.

The car in my memory is kind of a green, you know, a sedan, like a nice enough car, pulled up, and I was just really happy. But there's this guy, like nice enough. He had a kind of, like a bit of a drawl. He seemed to be kind of my size, kind of red-orange hair. He probably was 10, 15 years older than me at the time. I tell him I'm going to Norwich, and I'm lucky. He says, he's from Norwich, and he knows a shortcut.

Nice guy. Tells me his nickname is Red, like his hair. So he seemed a little bit like a stranger, but not like strange, but a stranger. And we kind of fell into conversation about, like, so where are you from? What do you do? And he says, well, I'm kind of an electrician, but, you know, I'm trying to get on my feet.

I said, yeah, it's not easy always. He said, well, that's, you know, I just came out of prison. So that's both like a conversation stopper and now I'm thinking, well, this could be a story, you know, like feature a guy just coming out of prison, reintegration into society. Now I'm trying to draw him out about it. And would you be open to doing a story about it? And he says, sure. Yeah, sure. I mean, he's a guy who's articulate. He's friendly. He's open. 15, 20 minutes go by and we're getting to my destination. I jot down his contact information. The car stops. I reach for the door handle and it doesn't open.

stops. I reach for the door handle and it doesn't open. The handle just doesn't work. I turn quickly, see what the hell's going on, and I feel panic taking over. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic or your sink full of dishes? As an actor, it's very free being part of these shows. You can step in the booth and kind of be anything. Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anubay!, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is...

Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. I literally, when I saw it, when I found out about this, I literally had, like, a a nervous breakdown in a good way.

With the best celebrity guests. I've never pirated anything, but I'll steal it if I have to. That was how I felt when I started to get really hooked on Black Butler. Oh, it's coming back. It's coming back. So join us every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. to the scandal at Lululemon. You've got this man saying that his yoga pants don't work for women because they're too fat to wear them.

We've got over 100 episodes ready for your binging pleasure. Listen to Infamous, the gossip show that's smart. We're going to come back to that ride. But first I need to introduce you to a guy in Miami. My name's Ed O'Donnell. I'm an attorney. Now it's June 1976. Ed O'Donnell is a prosecutor in Miami, Florida,

where something strange is about to happen in a courtroom. The case started as a rape case. He got basically caught in the courtroom. The case started as a rape case. He got basically caught in the act. So the alleged rapist is awaiting his bond hearing to see if he'll get bail. Before the hearing starts, the suspect motions to an officer in the courtroom, and the officer in uniform walks over, clearly annoyed.

Is this important, he says. The suspect replies, is murder important? He started wanting to talk to the uniformed guy about murders. And, you know, uniformed guys are just that. They don't take statements. They contacted homicide. The suspect is brought from the bond hearing to a couple of homicide detectives. And they came to me and told me that this guy wants to confess to these murders.

And I said, well, you know, let him confess. You know, you never know. People confess to things they didn't do. But let's find out. The detectives give the guy a notepad. On it, he writes four names of people. Two boys, a girl, and a young woman. The detectives don't recognize any of these names. The suspect tells the cops to go check missing persons.

One of these detectives, this guy named Charlie Zatropalik, The suspect tells the cops to go check missing persons. One of these detectives, this guy named Charlie Zatropalik, heads over to the missing persons desk. He starts with the two boys the suspect mentioned. I said, I'm looking for two kids that are together. I said, you got anything like that? And one of the detectives had to be sitting there. He goes, yeah, he says, I got a case like that.

He said, we thought they ran away. I said, I don't think they did. Okay, consider this scene for a moment. Here is a suspect caught in the act of rape who now wants to voluntarily confess to being a serial killer. The murders he wants to claim are not active cases. They're not even cold cases. No one knew these were murders to solve until he starts talking. Following interviews being videotaped at the Dade County Public Safety Department, located at 1320 Northwest 14th Street, Miami-Dade County, Florida, room 518, on June 17, 1976, starting at approximately 8 p.m.

They've brought the suspect to a kind of TV studio they have at the police station. It's typically used to record training sessions, but they've decided to use it to film these confessions. They will be one of the first ever videotaped murder confessions in U.S. history. And much of this tape has never been heard before. The suspect goes willingly without his lawyer. And sir, would you identify yourself? My name is Robbie F. And sir, would you identify yourself? My name is Robert F. Carr III. On the video, the two homicide detectives

face the suspect, Robert F. Carr III. They're just a couple of feet apart. Remember, it's the 70s. One cop looks mawed with a mustache and bangs, kind of Beatles style. The suspect is chain smoking. There's a clock on the wall showing the time and date of the recording. Behind the suspect is a blackboard, as if it's a classroom. The two detectives call the suspect by his first name, Bob, like they're pals.

Should you talk to me, anything which you say can and will be introduced into evidence in court against you. You understand that, Bob? Yes, I do. If you want an attorney to represent you at this time or any time during questioning, you're entitled to such counsel. You understand that? Yes, I do. you're entitled to such cause. You understand that?

That's right. So, you know, he was obviously advised of his rights and told that no promises could be made to him. You know, anything he told us, and we made it real explicit. It's like, you know, we're gonna find out whether all this is true. But when he unloaded, I'll tell you that.

They'd ask the questions, he'd answer them, and then he'd go, you missed this, or he'd give you more. I've never seen anything like it, and 40 years later, whatever it is, I've never seen anything like it since, and I've done a lot of homicide work. On the tape, one detective asks Bob a question. On the tape, one detective asks Bob a question. from Connecticut. And upon arriving in Miami, I proceeded to do certain things that I considered to be necessary in the crime that I planned to commit. What kind of crime did you plan on committing when you came down here? I wrote kidnapping, rape. I knew that I was going to take a trip.

I knew that I was going to Mississippi on this trip. I proceeded to make a list of what items I thought I would need in order to make this trip. And every time I thought of something, I got it on a piece of paper. He's making a shopping list. I needed a knife that was, that the size of it would frighten somebody. It had to be chrome so that it would show up in dim light. I needed rope, gasoline,

canned goods, paper towels, and first on this list of items was disconnect the door handle on the right-hand side of the car. The door handle disconnected on purpose. I was looking for a hitchhiker, potential rape victim. Many victims had grabbed the door handle. That seems to be a natural reaction for everybody.

That's the first thought. Grab the door handle and try to get out. The minute the door handle doesn't work, they freeze. They don't know what to do next. I didn't know what to do when it was me in that seat. So there I am in Connecticut, hitchhiking, about to get out of that green sedan. And I'm grabbing the door handle, but nothing happens.

Like, it doesn't catch. And I freeze. What are you thinking in this moment? I'm not sure I'm thinking at all. But if I'm thinking, I'm thinking, what the hell is going on and what is going to happen? Except that this guy seems nice. We had a nice conversation.

He's from the same town where I live. And so for a moment, I'm on the edge of panic. But before it escalates, this nice guy interrupts. He's almost apologetic. He says, oh, sorry, there's something wrong with the door handle. I got to get it fixed. It's warm out, and the car window is open. I reach my arm out and open it from outside.

I shout goodbye, and then hustle along. I push that really weird moment out of my mind. And I start thinking, you know, I need a feature story for the week. This guy told me he was in a rehab program for ex-cons. He'd gotten a job at a gas station. And I think, that might be a story. A local man trying to reintegrate into society after prison. When I get back to the newsroom, I track down the supervisor of this rehab program,

and the supervisor gets on the phone, and he says, do you know what this guy did to get into jail? And I realize, I don't. I hadn't asked him. You know, I'm still an inexperienced journalist. You wouldn't want to know, he says. In other words, no story. Kind of amazing to me now that I didn't push to find out

what crime could be so awful that this supervisor would veto an interview. So that was it. And then, you know, you had that kind of gray metal desk and I pulled out a bottom drawer and I slipped his name and number into a folder and put his name on the tab of the folder, Robert Carr, and kind of forgot about it. Months go by and I start getting assignments. Everything from high school football games to a highly competitive local Easter egg hunt. I know how that sounds. But I will tell you that I felt like I was in the thick of it.

And I was having a blast. Still, really looking to make a splash. Back then, as I think about it now, you know, I was pretty full of myself. I'm pretty eager for the rest of the world to see how important I was or, you know, going to be. And that noisy little newsroom felt like the place where I was going to prove myself. Looking back, I realized I was very ambitious and maybe blinded by my ambition. I think that explains what happens next. The newsflash comes across the wire, the one with the bells ringing like crazy. The one that reports on the local man

arrested for a series of rapes and murders. I'm standing in front of the wire machine in my tie. The newspaper had a strict dress code. I can read the story as the teletype is spitting it out and I start to get more details. It says the man captured his victims hitchhiking and then it prints his name and I shiver. Robert F. Carr III. I go back to my filing cabinet and I pull out the contact info I'd stuffed in there months before. It matches. And suddenly I realize I'd taken a ride with a serial killer.

A serial killer who got his victims hitchhiking. Who had trapped them with a disconnected door handle. I had sat in that seat, had a friendly conversation with him, and then I had tried to open that door handle, just like his victims must have done. And for a moment, my mind is back there in that car, with what I now know to be a serial killer, And I can feel the panic rise in my stomach. But then my thoughts turn elsewhere because I'm thinking, this could be the break that I've been looking for.

This could be a big story. And if I land it, it could win awards. And you know what? My dad would understand awards. And so me, ambitious 20-year-old me, who ducked kidnapping or worse, is thrilled. What a break for my career. I'd met a local man who was a confessed serial killer,

and I have his phone number. I dial the number. A woman answers. I tell her, I'm calling from the Norwich Bulletin. And I say, Mrs. Carr? She says, yes. And I say, I have to come over and see you. That's next time on My Friend the Serial Killer.

Don't want to wait for that next episode? You don't have to. Unlock all episodes of Smokescreen, my friend the serial killer, ad-free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Just click subscribe at the top of the Smokescreen show page on Apple Podcasts

or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. As a subscriber, you'll get Binge access to new stories on the first of every month. Check out the Binge channel page on Apple Podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. 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 Newhand. Our mixer and sound designer is Scott Somerville. From Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producers are Jonathan Hirsch and Catherine St. Louis. Additional reporting by Daniel Bates,

Ben Feuerherd, Andy Tebow, and Francisco Alvarado. Special thanks to Cassie Epps at Otis Library in Norwich, Connecticut.