Carter Cervantez

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Speaker 2 When a fire rages in a Fort Worth apartment, horror awaits beneath the flames.

Speaker 11 This is not just a fire. We actually have a crime scene.

Speaker 18 Firefighters immediately discovered a body, found bludgeoned, stabbed, blood everywhere.

Speaker 10 This was not a stranger. This was somebody who killed her out of anger.
This was torture.

Speaker 2 A young life snuffed out just as it was getting started.

Speaker 7 She was the really cute, fun, outgoing person. A lot of people were attracted to her regardless of whether or not they were a boy or a girl.

Speaker 10 They found what can only be described as a grave.

Speaker 2 Burning vengeance and insatiable greed.

Speaker 20 If you got on her bad side, there was kind of no coming back from it.

Speaker 7 It takes a really evil person to be able to commit a crime that elaborate.

Speaker 10 The level of planning, you don't often get all this intrigue. She was motivated by greed, by hatred, and finally she was motivated by the thrill of it.

Speaker 6 She loved doing this.

Speaker 2 November 28th, 2014.

Speaker 2 It's just before 8 a.m. on Black Friday in a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas, when all hell breaks loose at the River Ranch apartment complex.

Speaker 6 Yeah, hi, I'm going to live over at River Ranch Apartments, and I think there's a fire upstairs in the apartment above me.

Speaker 6 Stay with me, I'll get someone in around.

Speaker 2 Another neighbor, 25-year-old Jeff Kaiser, notices the smoke outside and immediately runs upstairs to check on his friend, 31-year-old Ashley Harris.

Speaker 18 Ashley lived in an apartment complex with a lot of friends nearby, and he was really worried she might be inside.

Speaker 2 Jeff doesn't wait for the fire department.

Speaker 18 He got with a maintenance man and kicked in the door.

Speaker 18 And both went into the apartment. When they did kick in the door, Ashley's dog ran out.
They were looking for Ashley, calling her name. She wasn't answering.

Speaker 18 The two men couldn't really get to the bedroom. It was too smoky and dangerous.
So they exited the apartment.

Speaker 18 By that time, the firefighters had arrived on the scene and they went in with equipment.

Speaker 2 As the smoke clears, it appears firefighters are too late.

Speaker 18 Firefighters immediately discovered a body,

Speaker 18 so they called the Fort Worth police right away.

Speaker 2 Firefighters quickly realize the death wasn't the result of the blaze.

Speaker 18 They find a young woman bound,

Speaker 18 hands and feet on the floor of her bedroom, bludgeoned, stabbed, blood everywhere.

Speaker 11 It was immediately apparent, this is not just a fire. We actually have a crime scene.

Speaker 14 I was the on-call detective for our unit for the Thanksgiving weekend. Upon entering the apartment, my immediate attention was in the living room.

Speaker 14 Nothing really appeared to be ransacked or disturbed as, you know, indications of a struggle. I then walked into the bedroom where I immediately saw the victim laying on the floor.

Speaker 11 Her wallet was there at the scene with her ID that they could tell looked like this person, Ashley Harris.

Speaker 2 News of the fire spreads quickly throughout Fort Worth.

Speaker 7 Our friend called me and said that Ashley's apartment was on fire.

Speaker 7 I said, what? What do you mean Ashley's apartment's on fire?

Speaker 2 A crowd is gathering in the parking lot. Concerned family and friends are desperate for information.

Speaker 23 They were wanting to know, is that Ashley? Is that Ashley?

Speaker 23 We will often withhold that identification for the medical examiner to confirm that identity, either with dental records or with DNA.

Speaker 7 I said, can you tell me anything?

Speaker 8 He said, I'll ask you a question.

Speaker 7 He said, does Jeremiah 29, 11 mean anything to you?

Speaker 7 And I just fell down.

Speaker 7 I mean, my knees just gave out.

Speaker 7 I said, it's Ashley's tattoo.

Speaker 10 There's like someone like pulled the rug out from underneath you, you know.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 7 then we knew.

Speaker 23 I put myself in their position, and that was the best thing I could do to let the friends and family, to let them know something.

Speaker 2 Born in 1983, Ashley Harris came from a loving, blended family.

Speaker 18 She was a Texas girl, born and raised. Her parents divorced.

Speaker 23 Ashley Harris's father, he was a Fort Worth police officer at one time. He was friends with my father.

Speaker 2 Ashley's vivacious spirit drew everyone in.

Speaker 10 Ashley struck me as one of those larger-than-life personalities.

Speaker 10 She had a huge circle of friends.

Speaker 19 She was the really cute, fun, outgoing.

Speaker 7 person.

Speaker 7 And so a lot of people were attracted to her regardless of whether or not they were a boy or a girl.

Speaker 2 In her early 20s, an unexpected romantic spark changed Ashley's life forever.

Speaker 7 When she met Laura,

Speaker 25 she was straight.

Speaker 7 You know, she was pursuing men. And Laura just kind of took her by surprise.
And they really just became very, very close, very, very quickly. And then they moved in together.

Speaker 2 In 2004, Ashley was ready to share this revelation about her identity with her loved ones.

Speaker 7 When she did finally come out, you know, everyone welcomed that decision. The LGBTQ community welcomed Ashley and she thrived.

Speaker 9 Like,

Speaker 11 really, really thrived.

Speaker 2 While her relationship with Laura brought Ashley new friends and self-exploration, it wasn't meant to last.

Speaker 7 There was a pretty big age difference. Laura had a full-time job and Laura had her own place.

Speaker 7 And Ashley was just still trying to find her way.

Speaker 7 But they never stopped being friends.

Speaker 2 As a young adult, Ashley struggled to decide on a career path.

Speaker 7 When she was mid-20s is when she got into retail.

Speaker 7 And then ultimately ended up at American Eagle that she really, really, really, really loved.

Speaker 2 Ashley worked her way up the ranks, making assistant manager by the fall of 2011.

Speaker 18 She worked at Pulin Mall. Her manager loved her.
The store employees loved her. Overall, she was great at her job.
People said that she looked out for her staff, kind of helpful mentoring them.

Speaker 7 What Ashley loved about retail is that she got to meet new people every single day. She finally found like her place in life.

Speaker 2 Just as 31 year old Ashley is coming into her own, her future is cut short.

Speaker 14 We have a 31 year old female who has been murdered. Everyone spoke very highly of Ashley.
She was this great person.

Speaker 14 For us, that's important. It's like who would want to hurt her?

Speaker 8 It was horrific.

Speaker 11 It's very rare we see a case where a person is bound in their own house and of course there was fire that was set to the house.

Speaker 14 Her bedroom was the point of origin for the fire, it appeared.

Speaker 14 The bed was partially burned and her body appeared to have been burned partially. There was some type of trauma to her body.

Speaker 14 You could see signs of blood, see some bruising.

Speaker 14 This is not going to be your typical fire investigation.

Speaker 2 And arson investigators noticed something peculiar.

Speaker 23 The accelerant that we saw was a bottle of alcohol, rubbing alcohol. That's not a very flammable liquid.

Speaker 11 If you're going to set something on fire, a normal household alcohol doesn't really burn as fast and is not a very good accelerant at all.

Speaker 23 For that reason, the fire seemed like an afterthought to me.

Speaker 2 Coming up, detectives have their work cut out for them.

Speaker 10 The impression that I got was: no, this was not a stranger.

Speaker 11 Who would want to hurt Ashley?

Speaker 2 Could a surprise witness hold the answer?

Speaker 14 She was one of the last persons to see her alive.

Speaker 2 Friday, November 28th, 2014.

Speaker 2 Homicide investigators in Fort Worth, Texas are combing through the scorched apartment of 31-year-old Ashley Harris.

Speaker 23 She had been bound with duct tape. There was trauma to the head and face area.
The body was partially burned. There was evidence of a pretty violent struggle.

Speaker 2 Beyond the bedroom, investigators find a home eerily undisturbed.

Speaker 11 There's still money in her wallet, and her credit cards are still there.

Speaker 11 And so that was odd to them that if maybe it's a home invasion or a robbery, you would expect to see TVs taken, electronics taken, and they didn't see that.

Speaker 14 One of the neighbors and a friend had come over and tried to get in, make entry into the apartment.

Speaker 11 Jeff said that he ended up kicking the door in and our victim's dog ran out he described the door as being locked which that was interesting to us how was the door locked we don't know how they accessed ashley's apartment we just feel like by deducing all of that there's no lock-picking evidence

Speaker 10 the impression that i got was no this was not a stranger

Speaker 2 And investigators are faced with another mystery.

Speaker 14 We knew that Ashley had a pickup that was parked at the scene. It was a white Dodge pickup.
So for us, that was important because we wanted to search that vehicle.

Speaker 2 The problem is, detectives can't find Ashley's keys.

Speaker 18 The keys are missing, but it doesn't look like anything else is missing. It didn't look like a robbery.

Speaker 23 Once we realized, hey, the keys aren't even here. Well, whoever did this could have easily used the keys and locked the dead bolt.

Speaker 2 Investigators continue to process the scene while another team searches for witnesses.

Speaker 14 Our job as detectives is to speak to anyone that's close to Ashley, whether it's family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, anyone that could possibly have an issue with Ashley.

Speaker 14 So when we were on the scene, I had interviewed Alexis Torres, who was a friend of Ashley's, and she was one of the last persons to see her alive.

Speaker 2 Friends tell detectives that Ashley had been working around the clock getting ready for Black Friday.

Speaker 7 Ashley was going to work that Thanksgiving and her friends had a little party because they wanted to make sure that Ashley was fed prior to having to go work.

Speaker 10 Alexis had to come over to take care of Ashley's dog while Ashley was working. Because Ashley had to work late that night and then had to be at work early the next morning.

Speaker 14 Alexis Torres came over on three occasions that night, the last being shortly after 3 a.m. And when she arrived, Ashley was already home.

Speaker 11 It was like three in the morning when Ashley got home from work.

Speaker 11 And the plan was Ashley was going to take a nap, take a couple hours, get back up early, seven, eight in the morning, and go back into American Eagle.

Speaker 14 Actually, Ashley wanted Alexis to stay the night and Alexis couldn't because she had her father's pickup and she had to return it to him because he had to work the next morning.

Speaker 2 Alexis tells police that she hung out with Ashley for about an hour and a half before heading home.

Speaker 18 According to Alexis, she left about 4.40 or maybe 4.45 in the morning.

Speaker 11 Alexis remembered when she left and she told Ashley goodbye.

Speaker 13 Ashley locked the door behind Alexis.

Speaker 11 She remembers hearing that noise.

Speaker 2 Alexis also offers up another key piece of information.

Speaker 18 Ashley usually left her keys on this counter. And she always keeps her truck keys with her store keys and it looks like those are missing.

Speaker 2 Ashley's body is transported to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's office for an autopsy.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, the crowd outside Ashley's apartment complex is growing.

Speaker 23 There was a lot of friends and family. Ashley was very loved.
They all started gathering. Co-workers from American Eagle started showing up.

Speaker 2 As investigators talk to potential witnesses, one of Ashley's neighbors comes forward and reports that around seven that morning, he saw something suspicious.

Speaker 14 Stephen Lee had lived at that apartment complex for several years, so he was very familiar with the people that live nearby.

Speaker 14 And he turns out to be a retired law enforcement officer from California, so he was very observant.

Speaker 23 Stephen Lee had a pretty structured routine. Each morning he would step out, smoke a cigarette, and take note of who was home and who wasn't by where their cars were.

Speaker 14 Stephen Lee noticed a specific vehicle that he'd never seen before.

Speaker 14 He described that vehicle to be a two-door black Infiniti, which he thought was a G35.

Speaker 10 It was not a car that he was familiar with. He'd lived there for a while and he knew his neighbors' vehicles.

Speaker 11 Everyone in that apartment has kind of assigned parking spots. It's not technically assigned, but everybody has their spot they park in.
And so he noticed that car.

Speaker 2 More importantly, Steve says the black sedan had been parked next to Ashley's truck.

Speaker 14 The crowd was asked about an infinity that may have been visiting Ashley.

Speaker 2 Ashley's boss, Chris Cravey, is also standing by.

Speaker 11 Chris Cravey, who's actually one of the managers at the time, he was also very close to Ashley. They were friends.
And so he immediately went to her apartment when he was hearing all about this.

Speaker 11 And when he hears that a Infiniti G35 had been at the scene, he immediately thinks, I know an employee that drives that type of Infiniti.

Speaker 2 Chris tells police the name of the employee is 25-year-old Carter Cervantes.

Speaker 18 Carter Cervantes had been working with American Eagle Outfitters for quite some time.

Speaker 20 The first time I met Carter, she was the store manager in Amarillo, Texas.

Speaker 9 She

Speaker 24 actually

Speaker 20 interviewed me for a sales associate job. She was the one that you wanted to like you because if you got on her bad side, there was no coming back from it.

Speaker 20 She would always find a way at work to make it harder on you.

Speaker 2 While Carter was managing the Amarillo store, she also hired 19-year-old David Mallory.

Speaker 14 Sometime during their working together, Carter and David became involved in a relationship.

Speaker 20 David was a stock manager. They weren't supposed to be dating because she controlled his pay, she controlled how much he worked, and she would just give him more preferential treatment.

Speaker 20 And our district manager basically gave her the option to quit or to get transferred.

Speaker 18 David is 19, very young.

Speaker 9 Carter is 24 or 25 older.

Speaker 18 The managers discovered they had a relationship that was against the rules. Carter and her manager worked out that they were going to transfer her to Fort Worth.

Speaker 20 She moved about six hours away to Fort Worth. David was still on our schedule in Amarillo.

Speaker 20 He didn't show up for three shifts in a row. which meant that he was fired and now considered unrehirable.

Speaker 20 So we made sure to put him in our system so that it would show that he was not allowed to work at an American Eagle anymore.

Speaker 2 However, Carter knew how to cheat the system and didn't let that stop her from hiring David in Fort Worth.

Speaker 18 She and David moved in together. Carter got him employed by changing his social security number.
So in the system, it looked like this was a new employee with a different Social Security number.

Speaker 18 So that do not hire

Speaker 18 note didn't come up with corporate HR.

Speaker 2 While talking to detectives, Ashley's boss reveals another crucial detail.

Speaker 11 In August of 2014, months prior to the murder in November, There had been an individual that had gone into American Eagle and stolen over $18,000.

Speaker 2 Coworkers tell detectives that Ashley was the one who discovered the theft.

Speaker 14 A thin individual, possibly a male, comes in, goes straight to the safe, unlocks the safe, and takes the money from the safe and walks out.

Speaker 20 The back door was left unlocked, which is how he got in.

Speaker 20 You have to have a key to open it. It's not a digital safe.
It was obviously somebody who had worked at an American Eagle because they didn't search around.

Speaker 11 It was clear to Ashley that this is David Mallory that's entering in and taking the money. The person that would have left the door open would have been his girlfriend at the time, Carter Cervantes.

Speaker 11 So we believe when it was time to close up, she gave him the key for the safe.

Speaker 12 Coming up.

Speaker 2 Could one of Ashley's former co-workers have reason to kill her?

Speaker 20 Carter did hold this against Ashley because Ashley was the one that turned them in.

Speaker 2 And investigators learned the horrific details of Ashley's last moments.

Speaker 11 Ashley Harris had a tremendous amount of injuries on her body. She had basically more injuries than anyone I've ever seen.

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Speaker 2 Hours after discovering the brutalized body of 31-year-old Ashley Harris, the assistant manager at a popular retail store. Investigators in Fort Worth, Texas get their first big lead.

Speaker 11 So back in 2014, in August, there was this robbery that occurred inside of American Eagle. It was the tax-free weekend.
An individual had stolen over $18,000.

Speaker 2 After reviewing the surveillance footage, Ashley identified one of her coworkers as the perpetrator, David Mallory.

Speaker 11 The records showed that the alarm was not tripped, but the door was ajar.

Speaker 11 Carter Cervantes, as one of the assistant managers, would be one of the only people that would have a key to both the safe and to the back door.

Speaker 14 Earlier that night, Carter Cervantes had gone out to take out trash, which is not typically something that she normally does.

Speaker 14 But on this specific night, she did take out trash, and she left the door propped open.

Speaker 14 And that's where this individual later in that night made entry.

Speaker 2 When detectives pull the police report on the theft, they find that it's still an active case.

Speaker 10 From the police department's perspective, it was still an open case. From American Eagles' perspective, they were satisfied that they knew who had done it.

Speaker 14 Carter Cervantes was terminated after that, and David Mallory never showed up to work, so he was obviously also terminated.

Speaker 20 Carter did hold this against Ashley because Ashley was the one that turned turned them in.

Speaker 2 Detectives become even more suspicious when they receive the results of Ashley's autopsy.

Speaker 11 Ashley Harris had a tremendous amount of injuries on her body. She had basically more injuries than anyone I've ever seen.

Speaker 10 She had a deep cut to one side of her neck, numerous injuries on her face and head from being struck with a hard object.

Speaker 21 She had what we believed to be a stomp mark on one of her lower legs.

Speaker 10 There was evidence of ligature where something had been wrapped around her neck and pulled tight to result in strangulation as well.

Speaker 10 This was somebody who killed her out of anger.

Speaker 10 This was torture.

Speaker 10 This looked like somebody who was mad at her.

Speaker 2 The cause of death is listed as asphyxia and blunt force trauma to the head and neck.

Speaker 14 She was deceased shortly before the fire started.

Speaker 2 It becomes clear to authorities that this was a rage killing and that Alexis Torres is not their suspect.

Speaker 23 Alexis was very cooperative and she was cleared pretty quickly.

Speaker 14 Alexis turned out not to be the best person to look at at that time after we developed two additional suspects.

Speaker 2 Investigators at the scene immediately start tracking down Carter Cervantes and David Mallory.

Speaker 23 We found through our research that they lived in an apartment complex near Hewlin Mall

Speaker 23 and near the crime scene and that they did have a G35,

Speaker 23 the exact kind of vehicle seen parked next to Ashley's truck. registered to Carter Cervantes.

Speaker 14 I contacted one of our undercover units to maintain constant surveillance on this apartment.

Speaker 14 Roughly from about three till about midnight, there was a white Cadillac that was parked nearby registered to David Mallory, but the black two-door infinity wasn't in the parking lot at that time.

Speaker 2 In the early morning hours of Saturday, November 29th, Detective Sedillo returns to run surveillance on the apartment. It's been nearly 24 hours since Ashley was found murdered.

Speaker 14 Upon driving near the building, I now see the black two-door infinity backed in

Speaker 14 approximately 7.45 and the sun's starting to come up. I see the lights on the vehicle blink on and off as if someone has unlocked the vehicle, which gets my attention.

Speaker 10 David Mallory and Curtis Vondage both came outside. They got into her car.
and he followed them as they left the parking lot.

Speaker 18 He follows them just a couple of miles to Hewlin Mall, which is very interesting. Where are they going to Hewlin Mall early in the morning?

Speaker 2 The detective watches as Carter Cervantes exits the vehicle and enters the mall.

Speaker 14 She was wearing dark clothing. Why would they be coming back to a location where they used to work and where Ashley Harris used to work?

Speaker 14 At 7.45 in the morning, the only people that are in the mall are mall workers or employees.

Speaker 2 Detective Sedillo calls for backup before following Carter into the mall.

Speaker 14 And I went into the mall. As I'm walking, I run into Chris Cravey, who is standing outside of American Eagle with the gate still closed.
I said, hey, by chance, did you see Carter Cervantes walk by?

Speaker 2 Chris says he hasn't seen Cervantes, but is anxious to get inside the store to collect a large sum of money in the safe from Black Friday.

Speaker 14 I asked him, well, what are you doing still standing out here? And he says, well, we changed the locks to the gate after we learned of Ashley's death.

Speaker 14 So he was waiting on his bosses to show up with the keys so they can go in. At that point, no one other than law enforcement knew that there was any keys missing.

Speaker 14 The locks were changed at American Eagle for precautionary reasons.

Speaker 20 On tax-free weekend and Black Friday, those were our highest deposit days. Sometimes two or three deposits would be left inside of the safe until they could take it.

Speaker 20 Carter would always joke that if I were ever going to steal a deposit, it would be Black Friday or tax-free weekend.

Speaker 20 And we always thought, oh, haha, that's funny.

Speaker 18 Black Friday and special events are huge. Stores can bring in 50, 60, sometimes almost even 70K in cash.
Carter knew the process, the timing, who did what when, how they made deposits.

Speaker 18 She knew there would be a lot of money in there.

Speaker 14 So for me, in my mind, I'm thinking that David and Carter are there to rob the money from Thursday night and Friday night.

Speaker 2 Outside, officers confront 19-year-old David Mallory, who appears to be waiting on Carter to exit the mall.

Speaker 23 He didn't want to talk.

Speaker 23 That's whenever we arrested him for not having his driver's license on his person.

Speaker 23 Our goal was to talk to David and also to get that vehicle. The search for forensic evidence, we took the car, but we don't have a right to search the vehicle legally until we obtain a search warrant.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, Detective Sedillo is having no luck locating Carter inside the mall.

Speaker 14 At this point, the mall is starting to open up and customers are starting to come in.

Speaker 14 Now it's going to be even more impossible to locate Carter, so I decided to go and maintain surveillance at her apartment a couple miles from the mall.

Speaker 14 Shortly after the undercover officer is spotted, Carter Cervantes in the business office of the complex.

Speaker 14 The officers mentioned that she was wearing pink scrubs, which, you know, that didn't make any sense to me because when I saw her go in, I never saw her wearing any pink.

Speaker 14 She agreed to come down to our office to be interviewed.

Speaker 18 She volunteered of her own volition, went down, and so now the detectives have both of them to at least start getting information.

Speaker 14 I know you have a lot of questions about what's going on and why you're here. You're under arrest for not having a cover license on your person as the offense here in Texas.

Speaker 10 When they asked David Mallory about why he was at the mall that morning, he told them that he brought Carter to the mall and that she was supposed to be doing some new employee paperwork and that he was waiting for her to finish.

Speaker 24 Is there a reason why you're lying so you know she hasn't worked since she left American Legal?

Speaker 26 I thought maybe I got her confused or something, but...

Speaker 13 No, you can't even say that without stuttering.

Speaker 2 Coming up, investigators finally confront Carter Cervantes.

Speaker 14 We asked where she had been the last two days. She mentions that she could Thanksgiving dinner for her and David.

Speaker 17 I know that's a lie.

Speaker 15 No, it's no, it's not.

Speaker 17 You're about to make the biggest mistake of your life. Do you understand me?

Speaker 15 I haven't done anything.

Speaker 2 November 29th, 2014.

Speaker 2 It's been a little over 24 hours since the brutal murder of 31-year-old Ashley Harris.

Speaker 2 Now, investigators in Fort Worth are gearing up to interview their prime suspect, Ashley's former co-worker, Carter Cervantes.

Speaker 18 Carter Cervantes is super nice and friendly at the police department,

Speaker 18 looking them in the eye, answering questions.

Speaker 17 All right. So how did you end up in full work?

Speaker 15 I had a job opportunity with American Eagle Outfitters. I was a store manager for them in Amarillo, and they transferred me down here to work at Hewlin Wall.

Speaker 17 Okay. Are you still there?

Speaker 9 No, I'm not.

Speaker 17 And why did you leave that company?

Speaker 15 They decided to let me go on September 1st. There was a robbery.
at Hewlin Wall

Speaker 15 and I had closed the night before. They determined that I I had left the store unsecured, so they let me go.

Speaker 14 So where are you currently working?

Speaker 15 I'm not currently working. I do some volunteer work sometimes at Texas Health Heritage.

Speaker 17 Do you own any other scrubs besides these?

Speaker 15 Yes, I do.

Speaker 14 We asked where she had been the last two days. She mentions that she cooked Thanksgiving dinner for her and David, and they had a quiet dinner there at the apartment where they watched movies.

Speaker 2 After just half an hour, detectives decide to take a break and regroup. Thank you.

Speaker 14 We gave Carter a bottle of water and Detective Pate and I step out and we're sitting in our office, but we're watching the interview room through a monitor.

Speaker 23 She got a tissue and she wiped the mouth of the bottle off. And she wiped the bottle down and she used the tissue to put the cap back on.
She never touched the bottle again.

Speaker 14 So at that point, I'm thinking she thinks we're going to try to grab DNA from the bottle, which, you know, is only making her look more suspicious.

Speaker 18 So if you're perfectly innocent, why are you wiping down a water bottle at the police station?

Speaker 2 When detectives ask Carter about her trip to the mall that morning, she denies it.

Speaker 14 You were not in that car this morning and you don't get out of the mall.

Speaker 15 No, I got up, I went and put the laundry in, and I went and checked my my email. That's all.
Okay,

Speaker 17 I know that's a lie.

Speaker 15 No, it's no, it's not.

Speaker 17 You're about to make the biggest mistake of your life. Do you understand me?

Speaker 15 I haven't done anything.

Speaker 14 She continues to deny that she ever went to the mall that morning. We thought she'd be the weakest link.

Speaker 13 Boy, were we wrong.

Speaker 14 She was actually the tougher one to interview.

Speaker 2 After the interviews, Carter is free to leave. But David is booked on the misdemeanor and sent to jail.

Speaker 23 David was arrested, but then it's just like getting a no-seatbelt ticket or a moving violation ticket. You get out pretty quickly.
So he was out.

Speaker 18 They didn't have enough to charge them yet, but the investigators were narrowing in quite quickly.

Speaker 14 After the interviews, I obtained a search warrant for Carter and David's apartment. Initially, we weren't sure exactly what we were looking for, but we found some receipts.

Speaker 14 She was using credit cards, which turned out to be a bad mistake for her.

Speaker 14 But we began to do follow-up investigation at those locations. We obtained some video.

Speaker 2 What they see on the surveillance video is shocking.

Speaker 10 On November the 21st, Carter Cervantes went and purchased a pair of shorthandled shovels

Speaker 10 and she purchased what I'm going to describe as a murder kit.

Speaker 10 She had rope,

Speaker 21 she had gloves, she purchased a tarp and

Speaker 10 duct tape.

Speaker 2 When authorities pull the surveillance footage from the mall on Saturday, November 29th, the day after Ashley's murder, they see a familiar figure.

Speaker 5 It's Carter Cervantes.

Speaker 11 We have her going into the mall around eight in the morning that next day after the murder.

Speaker 14 She's walking through the mall. She is wearing a gray sweater, the black pants, the black hat.

Speaker 23 Carter actually goes up to the roll-down door and she tries to unlock the bottom of that door.

Speaker 23 That's when we knew she had Ashley's keys, but she was unable to gain entry into the store. American Eagle, out of abundance of caution, had changed the locks at the store.

Speaker 11 The second that they got word that there had been an employee that was killed, Corporate immediately changed the locks in this Fort Worth store. She did not bank on that.

Speaker 14 Later, when she walks from the mall towards her house, she is wearing pink scrubs. So our theory is that she has the pink scrubs underneath the dark clothing.

Speaker 14 And once the offense was committed, I think she was going to shed those clothes. Now be wearing pink scrubs.

Speaker 2 Investigators' suspicions are finally validated.

Speaker 14 At that point, it's where all it becomes apparent that this is the reason why they killed Ashley Harris. They were there to get the keys.

Speaker 2 Coming up, new evidence surfaces and it's quite damning.

Speaker 14 Upon searching Carter's vehicle, there was a loaded glock underneath the driver's seat.

Speaker 11 When we opened the trunk of David Mallory's car, those two shovels that she bought were sitting in the back of his trunk.

Speaker 2 Following the November 29th, 2014 interviews with murder suspects Carter Cervantes and David Mallory, investigators in Fort Worth, Texas are inching toward justice for Ashley Harris, and the evidence is mounting.

Speaker 14 Upon searching Carter's vehicle, there was a loaded glock underneath the driver's seat.

Speaker 14 We located several knives that were in the vehicle and we seized two cell phones which belonged to Carter and David.

Speaker 11 When we opened the trunk of David Mallory's car, those two shovels, the exact same shovels that she bought, were sitting in the back of his trunk.

Speaker 14 They had bungee cords and zip ties and a tarp. And to me, all that's indications of trying to wrap up a body somehow.
But, you know, they weren't able to do that.

Speaker 2 The nail in the proverbial coffin comes with the DNA results.

Speaker 23 Carter's vehicle, the floor mat in that vehicle,

Speaker 23 we ended up getting forensic evidence off of that. We found blood on the floor mat.
that had been transferred from David's boot to the floor mat of the car.

Speaker 11 Sure enough, it did match Ashley Harris's DNA. So that was a big, big piece of evidence that we were able to get.

Speaker 10 In addition, we got Ashley's DNA on this gun that was found in Carter Cervantes' car under the seat. Ashley had a star-shaped injury behind one ear.

Speaker 10 That's purely the result of impact, and she had another one on the bridge of her nose. Eventually, we determined that the most likely thing that caused that was being pistol whipped.

Speaker 23 The arrest warrants for capital murder were obtained on December 4th.

Speaker 23 David was arrested in West Texas. Once Carter learned that there was an arrest warrant for her, she tried to turn herself in with her attorney.

Speaker 14 Her lawyer was adamant that we couldn't speak to her and was upset that she was getting arrested.

Speaker 2 David, however, agrees to answer some questions.

Speaker 17 David, are you aware what you're under arrest for? The charges are

Speaker 17 capital murder.

Speaker 14 He did admit that Carter stole the tax-free weekend money back in August, but wouldn't admit to the murder.

Speaker 17 Man, I don't know nothing about no homicide, but I don't.

Speaker 17 I really feel like

Speaker 17 I'm just getting drug into this because she doesn't want to go down the road.

Speaker 2 When detectives detectives pull the couple's phone records, they find a blueprint for Ashley's murder.

Speaker 14 Once we were able to forensically analyze those phones, the entire case and their plan was spelled out.

Speaker 18 The planning and the prep for this horrible, horrific event is just kind of part of their daily life almost in their text messages, like back and forth. What's for lunch? What's for dinner?

Speaker 18 Let's go to a movie. Oh, yeah, I got the duct tape and the shovels.

Speaker 14 It was evident to us that Carter was the mastermind behind this and I think David was the muscle.

Speaker 14 She's the one that coordinated everything and came up with the plan.

Speaker 2 On Friday, November 28th, 2014, authorities believe Carter and David laid in wait outside Ashley's apartment until she returned home from her retail shift.

Speaker 14 To this day, we still don't know whether or not the door was locked and how the suspects actually got in.

Speaker 13 She fought for her life.

Speaker 18 Duct taped hand and foot, stabbed, bludgeoned, asphyxiated.

Speaker 18 The fire was set to try to cover up other evidence.

Speaker 10 We believe that Carter Cervantes locked the door on the way out. I mean, they had her keys.

Speaker 10 And if they want the place to burn, it makes more sense to lock the door behind you. She was motivated by greed.
She wanted money. She was motivated by revenge,

Speaker 10 hatred. And finally, though, she was motivated by the thrill of it.

Speaker 21 She loved doing this.

Speaker 9 And that's not all.

Speaker 23 I've kept going through the phone records, and I found they had text messaged each other GPS coordinates.

Speaker 23 This coordinates flew out into middle of nowhere, north of Abilene.

Speaker 10 David Mallory sent this text, these coordinates to Carter on November the 25th, four days after she purchased these shovels.

Speaker 2 What they find at that spot is chilling.

Speaker 10 They walked directly to the spot where these coordinates directed them,

Speaker 10 and they found what can only be described as a grave.

Speaker 10 We believe that David used those shovels. to dig that grave and the intent was to have transported Ashley's body there and buried her

Speaker 10 and that the plan just didn't work out.

Speaker 14 They put a lot of planning into this. I don't think they expected that Ashley was going to put up a fight.
Their plan fell apart very quickly and they got desperate.

Speaker 23 My opinion is it was harder to move a dead body than they thought it was. And for that reason, they tried to destroy the crime scene.
and destroy evidence with the fire.

Speaker 10 Carter Cervantes fancied herself, I presume, a criminal mastermind, but in reality, she was an amateur and

Speaker 10 she left a trail of evidence a mile wide.

Speaker 2 On May 26th, 2016, Carter is convicted of capital murder and receives a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

Speaker 2 Ultimately, the jury in David's 2017 trial holds him just as responsible as Carter.

Speaker 23 Both Carter and David are doing life in prison without the possibility of parole. They will both die in prison.

Speaker 19 It takes a really evil person to be able to commit a crime that elaborate.

Speaker 7 It's unfathomable.

Speaker 11 As swift as the life without parole was given on both defendants, we'll never be able to give her back to the family.

Speaker 7 All of us that experienced it will never be the same person that we were

Speaker 7 before November 28th.

Speaker 7 Ever.

Speaker 7 The mark Ashley left on this earth and the happiness and joy that she brought everyone, myself included, never leaves.

Speaker 7 I think that there's a piece of her that's with me sometimes.

Speaker 5 Carter Cervantes is currently imprisoned at Patrick O'Daniel Unit in Gatesville, Texas. David Mallory is currently imprisoned in Ferguson Unit in Madison County, Texas.

Speaker 24 They will never be released.

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