June 18, 2024 • 30 mins
What would you do if someone you knew turned out to be a serial killer? In the 1970s, Steve Fishman was an intern at his local newspaper. One day, he hitched a ride back home from Boston with a kind stranger who graciously picked him up and dropped him off at his destination. What Steve didn’t know however, was that this stranger was hiding a dark secret: by the time he picked up Steve, he had already killed three people - all hitchhikers. But this fateful ride was just the beginning of Steve’s story. While this may have been the first time Steve met the man he’d come to know as Red, it wouldn’t be the last… Featuring exclusive interviews and never-before-heard tapes, join Steve as he tells his chilling story for the first time and unravels the lingering questions surrounding this wild chapter of his life. Why did Steve get spared by the killer during their first meeting? And what could have possibly driven Steve back to the same killer he had just escaped? Find out on Smoke Screen: My Friend, the Serial Killer - available now wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes right now, completely ad-free.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Burden followers and fans. This is Steve Fishman and
I'm really excited to introduce you to another great true
crime listen Smoke Screen My Friend the serial Killer. This
isn't just any story. This is a story of my
real life, first hand experience, and it's as terrifying as
(00:21):
it is fascinating. It begins with a simple car ride.
It's the seventies. I'm a young journalist hitchhiking and I
get picked up by a friendly, soft spoken stranger with
a charming Southern accent. But behind that charm hides a dark,
chilling secret. What I wouldn't find out until later was
(00:42):
that this stranger was a serial killer, hunting for his
next victim among hitchhikers. Smoke Screen My Friend the serial
Killer is available now wherever you get your podcasts, and
if you're a subscriber to The Binge, you can enjoy
all episodes ad free today. Here's a sneak peek a
(01:11):
quick warning before we start. This show contains descriptions of
sexual violence and murder. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Tell me about your first big break as a journalist.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Okay, well, it's nineteen seventy five. 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.
(01:50):
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 found out breaking news stories. And when
there's an important story, bells ring one or two for
(02:13):
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
(02:34):
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
(02:59):
this guy, and it makes me realize I came close
to being a victim myself.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I was looking for a hit child, potential red victor.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
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. One Awards covered a
lot of big, dark stories. The serial killer, son of
Sam opened up to me. So did the guy behind
(03:37):
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
(04:03):
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 one. Local Man.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
All right, so take me back to the very beginning
where this story.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Starts, well, probably in my parents' basement in suburban New Jersey.
I just dropped out of car all those discussions about
enlightenment poetry, and you know, whatever had stopped feeling exciting
to me certainly stopped feeling important. And anyway, dropping out
(05:12):
was kind of a thing in the seventies 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 kind of had small windows, so it was always
kind of gloomy, and they had this wet bar that
(05:33):
they never used. It had like a blue for micah countertop,
and that's where I set up my office. Every day.
I write these short stories out by long hand ardent accounts.
You know, I don't know teenage romance in the style
of who was then my favorite writer, Hemingway. Listen, my
(05:55):
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
(06:17):
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
(06:41):
he cracks.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
What do you mean he cracks?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, it must have been a weekend. I remember he
sat me down at our breakfast table. He's backly 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.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Wait, so he is telling you to leave the house,
but that he's crying.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
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, I understand.
I'll go pack a few things. I think the idea
for him of tossing me out of my childhood home
(07:31):
must have seemed sadistic, which in a way it was.
But he had this idea that at nineteen 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 fifteen minutes away and says basically,
(07:55):
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.
(08:16):
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
(08:37):
back then, it's like nineteen seventy five, 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
(08:57):
you know, I figured Emmingway 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
(09:19):
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
(09:42):
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, seemed really old to me at the
time though he was twenty eight. And the managing editor
(10:05):
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,
(10:28):
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 revealed 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
(10:52):
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 trauma. He loved competition, he loved journalism, and he
(11:13):
loved journalism prizes. I took it all in. This did
not feel like college. It felt like there were steaks,
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
(11:36):
keep hit jriking. Sometimes the rides are great. You would
get these mothers who would have their children in the
back seat, or you know, young hippies and mini buses
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
(11:58):
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
(12:21):
gonna keep hitch shaking. One weekend, it must have been
around the fall of nineteen seventy five, I just turned
twenty 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.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Do you remember the moment when the car picked you up?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So I was on the side of the road and
there's a saber. 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
(13:13):
to be kind of my size, kind of red orange hair.
He probably was ten fifteen 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
(13:36):
like his hair. So he seemed like 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
(14:00):
him out of prison. So that's both like a conversation stopper.
And now I'm thinking, wow, 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
(14:21):
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.
Fifteen twenty minutes go by, and we're getting to my destination.
I jock down his contact information. The car stops. I
(14:41):
reach for the door handle and it doesn't open. The
handle just doesn't work. I turned quickly see what the
hell's going on, and I feel panic taking over. We're
(15:10):
going to come back to that ride, but first I
need to introduce you to a guy in Miami.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
My name's Ed O'Donnell.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I'm an attorney now. It's June nineteen seventy six. Ed
O'Donnell is a prosecutor in Miami, Florida, where something strange
is about to happen in the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
The case started as a rape case. He got basically
caught in the air.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
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 important.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
He started wanting to talk to the uniform guy about murders.
And you know, the uniform guys are just that they
don't take statements. They contacted homicide.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
The suspect is brought from the bond hearing to a
couple of homicide detectives.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
And they came to me and told me that this
guy wants to confess to these murders. And I said, well,
what you know, let them confess. You know, you never
know people confess the things they didn't do. But let's
find out.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
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's Atra Palak,
(16:59):
heads over to the missing person's desk. He starts with
the two boys the suspect mentioned.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
I said, well, I'm looking for two kids.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
They're together.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And I said, you got anything like that, I mean,
whether the detectives had to be sitting there. He goes, yeah,
he's got a case like that.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
He said, we thought they ran away that, so I
don't think they did.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
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.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Following interviews being videotaped at to Day County Public Safety
Departments located at thirteen to twenty Northwest fourteenth Street, Miami Dade, County, Florida,
Room five eighteen on June seventeen, if I think seventy six,
starting at approximately eight pm.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
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 videotape murdered confessions in US history, and much of
this tape has never been heard before. The suspect goes
(18:28):
willingly without his lawyer.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
And sir, would you identify yourself by name? Is prov.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
On the video. The two homicide detectives face the suspect,
Robert F. Carr, the third. They're just a couple of
feet apart. Remember it's the seventies. One cop looks mod
with a mustache and bangs kind of Beatles style. The
suspect is smoking. There's a clock on the wall showing
(19:03):
the time and dated the recording. Behind the suspect is
a blackboard, as if it's a classroom. The two detectives
called the suspect by his first name, Bob, like their pals.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Should you talk to me anything, what you say, Ken,
and we'll be introduced into everything court against you. You
understand that, Bob, if you want an attorney to represent
you at this time or anytime, if you're in questioning,
you're intalitled to such constant.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You understand that.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
That's so.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
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.
You know, we're gonna we're gonna find out whether all
this is true. Boy, he unloaded. I'll tell you that
they'd asked the questions, he'd answer them, and then he'd
(19:56):
go he you missed this, or he'd give you more.
I've never seen anything like it. And forty years later,
whatever it is, I've never seen anything like it since.
And I've done a lot of homicide work.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
On the tape. One detective asks Bob a question.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
Well, Corn your attention to March nineteen seventy six. Do
you have an occasion of being the Daye County area.
Speaker 6 (20:21):
Yes, as there as I can figure. I arrived in
the Dade County area in Miami on March twenty fifth
from Connecticut, and on arriving in Miami, I perceived because
(20:41):
certain fighting said, I considered to be necessary in the
crime that I'm planned to commit. What kind of clime?
When did you play like many? When you came down
althoad kidnappen Right. I knew that I was going to
take a trip. I knew that I was going to
(21:01):
Mississippi on this trip.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (21:05):
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 was guided
on a piece of paper.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
He's making a shopping list.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
I knew the night that was that was that the
sight of it would writing somebody.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
It had to be chrome so that it would show
it and them life. Uh.
Speaker 6 (21:40):
I needed rope, gasoline, can goods, UH, paper.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Towels and uh.
Speaker 6 (21:55):
First on this list of items was uh the connect
the door handle on the right hand side of the car.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
The door handle disconnected on purpose.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I was looking for a hitchhi potential.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Right.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
There many victims that grabbed the door hand. That seems
to be.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Not a reaction for everybody.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
That's the first thought.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Grab the ball handle, try to get out.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
The minute the ball handle doesn't work, Like was like,
I don't know what to doing it.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I didn't know what to do when it was me
in that seat. So there I am in Connecticut, hitch shiking,
about to get out of that green sedan, and I'm
grabbing the door handle, but nothing happens, like it doesn't
(22:59):
care hatch and I freeze.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
What are you thinking in this moment?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
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
(23:31):
guy interrupts. He's almost apologetic. He says, oh, sorry, there's
something wrong with the door handle. I gotta get it fixed.
It's warm out and the car window is open. I
reach my arm out and open it from outside. I
shall goodbye and then hustle along. I push that really
(23:57):
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
(24:21):
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.
(24:44):
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
(25:06):
was it. And then you know, you had that kind
of gray metal desk, and I pulled out a bottom
drawer night 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.
(25:32):
Months go by and I start getting assignments everything from
high school football games to a highly competitive local easter
a 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
(25:53):
really looking to make a splash. Back then, as I
think about it now. 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
(26:16):
that 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,
(26:38):
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 this story as
the teletype is spitting it out, and I start to
get more details. It says the man captured his victim's hitchhiking,
(27:02):
and then it prints his name, and I shiver, Robert F. Carr,
the third. I go back to my filing cabin and
then I pull out the contact info I'd stuffed in
there months before. It matches, and suddenly I realize I'd
(27:24):
taken a ride with a serial killer, A serial killer
who got his victim's 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
(27:45):
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 rides in my stomach. But then my thoughts turn elsewhere,
because I'm thinking this could be the break that I've
(28:06):
been looking for. This could be a big story, and
if I landed, it could win awards. And you know what,
my dad would understand awards, And so me, ambitious twenty
year old me who duck, kidnapping or worse, is thrilled.
(28:30):
What a break for my career. I'd met a local
man who is 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 missus Carr. She says yes, and I say
(28:56):
I have to come over and see you. That's next time.
I'm on My Friend the serial Killer for the full story,
search for smokescreen My Friend the Serial Killer. Wherever you
(29:16):
get your podcasts to listen now. My Friend the Serial
Killer is a production of Orbit Media in association with
Ron creator and host That's Me, Steve Fishman. Our senior
producer is Dan Bobkoff. Our associate producer and production coordinator
(29:36):
is Austin Smith. Editorial consulting by Annie Avilese, fact check
Katherine Newhan. Our mixer and sound designer is Scott Somerville
from Sony Music Entertainment. Our executive producers are Jonathan Hirsch
and Katherine Saint Louis. Additional reporting by Daniel Bates, Ben
(29:58):
furderherd Andy Tibau, and Francisco Alvarado. Special thanks to Cassie
Epps at Otis Library in Norwich, Connecticut
Hello, Burden followers and fans. This is Steve Fishman and
I'm really excited to introduce you to another great true
crime listen Smoke Screen My Friend the serial Killer. This
isn't just any story. This is a story of my
real life, first hand experience, and it's as terrifying as
(00:21):
it is fascinating. It begins with a simple car ride.
It's the seventies. I'm a young journalist hitchhiking and I
get picked up by a friendly, soft spoken stranger with
a charming Southern accent. But behind that charm hides a dark,
chilling secret. What I wouldn't find out until later was
(00:42):
that this stranger was a serial killer, hunting for his
next victim among hitchhikers. Smoke Screen My Friend the serial
Killer is available now wherever you get your podcasts, and
if you're a subscriber to The Binge, you can enjoy
all episodes ad free today. Here's a sneak peek a
(01:11):
quick warning before we start. This show contains descriptions of
sexual violence and murder. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Tell me about your first big break as a journalist.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Okay, well, it's nineteen seventy five. 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.
(01:50):
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 found out breaking news stories. And when
there's an important story, bells ring one or two for
(02:13):
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
(02:34):
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
(02:59):
this guy, and it makes me realize I came close
to being a victim myself.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I was looking for a hit child, potential red victor.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
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. One Awards covered a
lot of big, dark stories. The serial killer, son of
Sam opened up to me. So did the guy behind
(03:37):
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
(04:03):
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 one. Local Man.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
All right, so take me back to the very beginning
where this story.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Starts, well, probably in my parents' basement in suburban New Jersey.
I just dropped out of car all those discussions about
enlightenment poetry, and you know, whatever had stopped feeling exciting
to me certainly stopped feeling important. And anyway, dropping out
(05:12):
was kind of a thing in the seventies 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 kind of had small windows, so it was always
kind of gloomy, and they had this wet bar that
(05:33):
they never used. It had like a blue for micah countertop,
and that's where I set up my office. Every day.
I write these short stories out by long hand ardent accounts.
You know, I don't know teenage romance in the style
of who was then my favorite writer, Hemingway. Listen, my
(05:55):
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
(06:17):
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
(06:41):
he cracks.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
What do you mean he cracks?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, it must have been a weekend. I remember he
sat me down at our breakfast table. He's backly 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.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Wait, so he is telling you to leave the house,
but that he's crying.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
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, I understand.
I'll go pack a few things. I think the idea
for him of tossing me out of my childhood home
(07:31):
must have seemed sadistic, which in a way it was.
But he had this idea that at nineteen 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 fifteen minutes away and says basically,
(07:55):
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.
(08:16):
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
(08:37):
back then, it's like nineteen seventy five, 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
(08:57):
you know, I figured Emmingway 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
(09:19):
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
(09:42):
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, seemed really old to me at the
time though he was twenty eight. And the managing editor
(10:05):
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,
(10:28):
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 revealed 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
(10:52):
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 trauma. He loved competition, he loved journalism, and he
(11:13):
loved journalism prizes. I took it all in. This did
not feel like college. It felt like there were steaks,
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
(11:36):
keep hit jriking. Sometimes the rides are great. You would
get these mothers who would have their children in the
back seat, or you know, young hippies and mini buses
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
(11:58):
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
(12:21):
gonna keep hitch shaking. One weekend, it must have been
around the fall of nineteen seventy five, I just turned
twenty 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.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Do you remember the moment when the car picked you up?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So I was on the side of the road and
there's a saber. 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
(13:13):
to be kind of my size, kind of red orange hair.
He probably was ten fifteen 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
(13:36):
like his hair. So he seemed like 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
(14:00):
him out of prison. So that's both like a conversation stopper.
And now I'm thinking, wow, 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
(14:21):
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.
Fifteen twenty minutes go by, and we're getting to my destination.
I jock down his contact information. The car stops. I
(14:41):
reach for the door handle and it doesn't open. The
handle just doesn't work. I turned quickly see what the
hell's going on, and I feel panic taking over. We're
(15:10):
going to come back to that ride, but first I
need to introduce you to a guy in Miami.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
My name's Ed O'Donnell.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I'm an attorney now. It's June nineteen seventy six. Ed
O'Donnell is a prosecutor in Miami, Florida, where something strange
is about to happen in the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
The case started as a rape case. He got basically
caught in the air.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
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 important.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
He started wanting to talk to the uniform guy about murders.
And you know, the uniform guys are just that they
don't take statements. They contacted homicide.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
The suspect is brought from the bond hearing to a
couple of homicide detectives.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
And they came to me and told me that this
guy wants to confess to these murders. And I said, well,
what you know, let them confess. You know, you never
know people confess the things they didn't do. But let's
find out.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
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's Atra Palak,
(16:59):
heads over to the missing person's desk. He starts with
the two boys the suspect mentioned.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
I said, well, I'm looking for two kids.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
They're together.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And I said, you got anything like that, I mean,
whether the detectives had to be sitting there. He goes, yeah,
he's got a case like that.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
He said, we thought they ran away that, so I
don't think they did.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
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.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Following interviews being videotaped at to Day County Public Safety
Departments located at thirteen to twenty Northwest fourteenth Street, Miami Dade, County, Florida,
Room five eighteen on June seventeen, if I think seventy six,
starting at approximately eight pm.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
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 videotape murdered confessions in US history, and much of
this tape has never been heard before. The suspect goes
(18:28):
willingly without his lawyer.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
And sir, would you identify yourself by name? Is prov.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
On the video. The two homicide detectives face the suspect,
Robert F. Carr, the third. They're just a couple of
feet apart. Remember it's the seventies. One cop looks mod
with a mustache and bangs kind of Beatles style. The
suspect is smoking. There's a clock on the wall showing
(19:03):
the time and dated the recording. Behind the suspect is
a blackboard, as if it's a classroom. The two detectives
called the suspect by his first name, Bob, like their pals.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Should you talk to me anything, what you say, Ken,
and we'll be introduced into everything court against you. You
understand that, Bob, if you want an attorney to represent
you at this time or anytime, if you're in questioning,
you're intalitled to such constant.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You understand that.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
That's so.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
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.
You know, we're gonna we're gonna find out whether all
this is true. Boy, he unloaded. I'll tell you that
they'd asked the questions, he'd answer them, and then he'd
(19:56):
go he you missed this, or he'd give you more.
I've never seen anything like it. And forty years later,
whatever it is, I've never seen anything like it since.
And I've done a lot of homicide work.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
On the tape. One detective asks Bob a question.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
Well, Corn your attention to March nineteen seventy six. Do
you have an occasion of being the Daye County area.
Speaker 6 (20:21):
Yes, as there as I can figure. I arrived in
the Dade County area in Miami on March twenty fifth
from Connecticut, and on arriving in Miami, I perceived because
(20:41):
certain fighting said, I considered to be necessary in the
crime that I'm planned to commit. What kind of clime?
When did you play like many? When you came down
althoad kidnappen Right. I knew that I was going to
take a trip. I knew that I was going to
(21:01):
Mississippi on this trip.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (21:05):
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 was guided
on a piece of paper.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
He's making a shopping list.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
I knew the night that was that was that the
sight of it would writing somebody.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
It had to be chrome so that it would show
it and them life. Uh.
Speaker 6 (21:40):
I needed rope, gasoline, can goods, UH, paper.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Towels and uh.
Speaker 6 (21:55):
First on this list of items was uh the connect
the door handle on the right hand side of the car.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
The door handle disconnected on purpose.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I was looking for a hitchhi potential.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Right.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
There many victims that grabbed the door hand. That seems
to be.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Not a reaction for everybody.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
That's the first thought.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Grab the ball handle, try to get out.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
The minute the ball handle doesn't work, Like was like,
I don't know what to doing it.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I didn't know what to do when it was me
in that seat. So there I am in Connecticut, hitch shiking,
about to get out of that green sedan, and I'm
grabbing the door handle, but nothing happens, like it doesn't
(22:59):
care hatch and I freeze.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
What are you thinking in this moment?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
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
(23:31):
guy interrupts. He's almost apologetic. He says, oh, sorry, there's
something wrong with the door handle. I gotta get it fixed.
It's warm out and the car window is open. I
reach my arm out and open it from outside. I
shall goodbye and then hustle along. I push that really
(23:57):
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
(24:21):
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.
(24:44):
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
(25:06):
was it. And then you know, you had that kind
of gray metal desk, and I pulled out a bottom
drawer night 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.
(25:32):
Months go by and I start getting assignments everything from
high school football games to a highly competitive local easter
a 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
(25:53):
really looking to make a splash. Back then, as I
think about it now. 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
(26:16):
that 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,
(26:38):
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 this story as
the teletype is spitting it out, and I start to
get more details. It says the man captured his victim's hitchhiking,
(27:02):
and then it prints his name, and I shiver, Robert F. Carr,
the third. I go back to my filing cabin and
then I pull out the contact info I'd stuffed in
there months before. It matches, and suddenly I realize I'd
(27:24):
taken a ride with a serial killer, A serial killer
who got his victim's 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
(27:45):
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 rides in my stomach. But then my thoughts turn elsewhere,
because I'm thinking this could be the break that I've
(28:06):
been looking for. This could be a big story, and
if I landed, it could win awards. And you know what,
my dad would understand awards, And so me, ambitious twenty
year old me who duck, kidnapping or worse, is thrilled.
(28:30):
What a break for my career. I'd met a local
man who is 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 missus Carr. She says yes, and I say
(28:56):
I have to come over and see you. That's next time.
I'm on My Friend the serial Killer for the full story,
search for smokescreen My Friend the Serial Killer. Wherever you
(29:16):
get your podcasts to listen now. My Friend the Serial
Killer is a production of Orbit Media in association with
Ron creator and host That's Me, Steve Fishman. Our senior
producer is Dan Bobkoff. Our associate producer and production coordinator
(29:36):
is Austin Smith. Editorial consulting by Annie Avilese, fact check
Katherine Newhan. Our mixer and sound designer is Scott Somerville
from Sony Music Entertainment. Our executive producers are Jonathan Hirsch
and Katherine Saint Louis. Additional reporting by Daniel Bates, Ben
(29:58):
furderherd Andy Tibau, and Francisco Alvarado. Special thanks to Cassie
Epps at Otis Library in Norwich, Connecticut
Hosts And Creators
Dax-Devlon Ross
Steve Fishman
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