My Friend, the Serial Killer | 2. Confessions

Speaker 1 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

Speaker 1 So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting Lisk, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam. Available now.

Speaker 1 Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 A quick warning before we start. This show contains descriptions of sexual violence and murder.
Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 3 Robert Carr's home was a bit like Carr himself. Unassuming, a little pockmarked.
Seemed average enough. It's in a duplex.
The cars were renting upstairs.

Speaker 3 As I walk up the steps and knock on the door, I have my reporter's notebook in hand. I'm feeling a little nervous.

Speaker 3 After all, Joanne Carr is my best shot, maybe my only shot, at getting a big interview with her husband, Robert.

Speaker 3 I knock. Joanne opens the door, but just a crack, tentatively, like she doesn't really trust who's on the other side.
She's small with dark hair, sweet face. Looks like she hasn't slept in a while.

Speaker 3 She invites me in.

Speaker 3 She's clearly shell-shocked. Joanne says she cannot believe what her husband has done.
Attacked and killed kids, young women.

Speaker 3 Of course, she knows about the rapes her husband committed previously. He'd been to prison in Connecticut.
But standing there in her kitchen, she tells me something that I've never forgotten.

Speaker 3 She says, I thought if you gave it to them at home, they'd be fine.

Speaker 3 She thought that if she provided sex at home, then her husband wouldn't rape others.

Speaker 3 One thing seems clear to me. Joanne Carr was terrified of her husband.

Speaker 3 And then, as we're talking, I notice their 12-year-old daughter, Donna.

Speaker 3 She's standing not far away. She's a skinny kid with long, bright, blonde hair, hunched over a bit.
To me, maybe it's just the circumstances, but she seems forlorn.

Speaker 3 Suddenly, I feel like an intruder. But you know, I'm here to get a story.
So we start talking.

Speaker 3 Pretty soon, Joanne shocks me. She wants my help.
To mentor Donna, be a kind of big big brother to her.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 It feels like this woman's desperate. I can't say no.

Speaker 3 There was this little knee wall next to the building where they lived. So one day, Donna and I sit there and we talk.

Speaker 3 Another day, I take her to an arcade. It's a local place with pinball machines.
In my memory, It was not a good day for Donna.

Speaker 3 She banged on the pinball machine when she didn't do well, and then she just ran out of the arcade.

Speaker 3 Over the years, I've wondered what happened to Donna, how her life turned out. But back then, my focus was pretty singular.
I was trying to find a way to talk to Donna's father.

Speaker 3 I asked Joanne to send a message to her husband down in that prison in Florida. putting a word for me.
I remind Joanne that I know him, that he picked me up hitchhiking not far from their house.

Speaker 3 I assure her I can tell his story.

Speaker 3 Robert Carr has already started to tell his story to the cops. He says he's going to give them all the evidence they need to make a case against him.

Speaker 3 This is My Friend the Serial Killer. I'm Steve Fishman, episode 2:

Speaker 3 Confessions.

Speaker 4 Who was Elon Musk before he was so loved and so hated?

Speaker 3 He saved free speech. He created so many different great things.

Speaker 4 Before the billions, before the rockets, before the never-ending headlines.

Speaker 4 I'm Jacob Silverman, and my new podcast explores the prequel to the Elon Musk era. Let me tell you what you don't know about the world's most notorious billionaire.
Understood the making of Musk.

Speaker 4 Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 Nicole Ernest Pate was 21 years old when a predator assaulted her in her own home. He is kind of the boogeyman in the night that you are truly afraid of.
She went straight to the cops.

Speaker 3 She said, this sounds like some sort of movie plot.

Speaker 1 No one believed her until one day, the man who helped put the Golden State killer behind bars helped figure out the serial predator's pattern.

Speaker 3 This is a serious offender.

Speaker 1 He'd been hiding in plain sight. But even when the attacker was unmasked, Nicole still had questions.
The why, the what, the why means. She wanted to meet him.

Speaker 1 From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence, this is Hunting the Boogeyman. Available now on the binge.

Speaker 1 Search for Hunting the Boogeyman Boogeyman wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today.

Speaker 2 Has everything you're telling us been true to the best of your knowledge?

Speaker 2 The best of hands.

Speaker 3 Cops and prosecutors don't typically think too much about why someone confesses to crimes. They're too busy closing cases, moving on to the next one.

Speaker 3 But Robert Carr was unusual because when when Miami police arrested him for one crime, he confessed to many others. Crimes the police and prosecutor Ed O'Donnell didn't even know had been committed.

Speaker 3 Did he ever say why he was confessing?

Speaker 5 When he got arrested for the attempted rape or rape, he had an awakening, Tiffany, if you want.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 this is what I'm supposed to do now. Let me get rid of

Speaker 5 all this guilt.

Speaker 3 He doesn't say that.

Speaker 5 No, oh, no, no, no, no, no. That's me thinking, no, no, I never, I never said to him, Okay, Robert, come on, why did you do this? Was it, you know,

Speaker 5 you know, maybe if

Speaker 5 I was a defense attorney, you'd be looking for some sort of insanity or something, but

Speaker 5 it wasn't there. There was no, no real

Speaker 5 remorse.

Speaker 3 Something is motivating him, but what is it?

Speaker 3 Robert Carr spent hours and hours over several days telling detectives about the crimes he said he'd committed. In the confession tape, he remains calm throughout.

Speaker 3 His descriptions are detailed and matter-of-fact. To me, he almost seems weary.

Speaker 2 I drank

Speaker 2 two

Speaker 2 six packs of beer, then two pints of peppermint snops during the day,

Speaker 2 and then picked up two more six packs of beer.

Speaker 3 Both the cops and Carr seemed to have an appetite for the smallest details.

Speaker 2 What kind of beer do you drink? Melahala. What kind of peppermint snubs?

Speaker 2 Harold Walker.

Speaker 3 By the time he'd finished with the detectives, Robert Carr had confessed to multiple crimes. Four murders, two 11-year-old boys who were best friends, a teenage girl, and a young woman.

Speaker 3 He also confessed to at least eight rapes, all of them hitchhikers. Carr often held his victims captive for a week or more, which is really unusual in a rapist.

Speaker 3 Eventually, he'd let some go if he believed they wouldn't tell the cops.

Speaker 3 According to Carr, He ultimately decides to confess because of a sense of connection he felt with one of his victims, Tammy Ruth Huntley, who was 16 years old, half Carr's age.

Speaker 2 This is the only I confess this whole thing was on

Speaker 2 her account.

Speaker 3 Carr may have kidnapped and raped Tammy,

Speaker 3 but he still imagined they had sort of a relationship.

Speaker 3 Tammy had a stepsister named Candy Sweet Love It.

Speaker 3 Candy thought of Tammy as a big sister, loving and dedicated.

Speaker 3 She was also a protector.

Speaker 3 She was very tough. She didn't take shit from nobody.
I'm telling you, she did not take shit from nobody.

Speaker 3 Tammy's about two years older than Candy.

Speaker 3 She made me feel like I was a princess or something.

Speaker 3 She treated everybody equal.

Speaker 3 You know, she

Speaker 3 never, you know, put down people or criticized people or made fun of people.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 3 she was just amazing.

Speaker 3 So was she the kind of kid who ran away from home?

Speaker 3 Not her, no.

Speaker 3 But she didn't show up for work one day.

Speaker 3 Tammy had a job at a place that made golf cart seats and guitar cases.

Speaker 3 It was her day off.

Speaker 3 She was supposed to go to work to get her paycheck.

Speaker 3 I mean, she was

Speaker 3 when it comes to money, she was really funny about that. She got her money, okay? So it was just really odd that she had missed out on it.

Speaker 3 She counted for every fucking penny she got on her paycheck.

Speaker 3 Trust me, when it comes to money, she would have picked that check up.

Speaker 2 So that's when something was going on.

Speaker 3 Candy had no idea what happened to her sister.

Speaker 2 On the night of

Speaker 2 March 29th, I

Speaker 2 came down 163rd Street headed east toward the beach and made the right

Speaker 2 at this corner.

Speaker 3 This is one of the tapes Carr made with those two Miami homicide detectives. It wasn't easy to get.
We'd been spending a lot of time trying to track down those detectives.

Speaker 3 Finally, we got one on the phone. He wouldn't talk, but he did say he had a couple of tapes.
And one day they showed up at my producer's apartment. I wasn't exactly looking forward to watching them.

Speaker 3 I knew they were going to be detailed, and I knew they were going to be creepy.

Speaker 3 But it's so rare that you get to hear a serial killer talk openly about his crimes.

Speaker 3 Here in one of the tapes, Carr is drawing a map on the blackboard behind him. He looks a little like a school teacher given a lesson.
He's calm. He's relaxed.

Speaker 3 He's wearing short sleeves and he shows the detectives exactly where he makes a right turn on

Speaker 2 I stayed in the right lane and there was a girl standing just beyond the Greyhound bus station, which is right on the corner there. She was standing in an extremely dark area

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 my headlights hit her and I knew right away

Speaker 2 this was it.

Speaker 3 Carr's driving a 69 Ford Torino with racing stripes. Tammy was trying to go about 20 blocks, and like I was just months before, she's looking for a ride as Robert Carr drives up.

Speaker 2 Was she hit second? Yes, she was.

Speaker 2 How did you pick this girl as compared to the other girls?

Speaker 2 She was mature looking.

Speaker 2 She was intelligent looking, okay?

Speaker 2 She didn't look as big as she was, really.

Speaker 2 She had a

Speaker 2 kind of a real girlish look about her, which was deceiving a little bit

Speaker 2 after I got a better look at her. But, you know, I mean, you have to make a decision somehow, and I made it by what I thought I saw.

Speaker 2 This girl got in the car and she was

Speaker 2 talking

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 this continuous.

Speaker 2 She was all wound up. And she's just talking, and I never saw anything like it.

Speaker 2 And I was trying to question her about just how far are you going now? And she told me she was going to 140th Street. I wasn't sure where that was at that time.
And I says, well,

Speaker 2 where is 140th Street?

Speaker 2 And she says, you know where the drive-in is? And I said, oh, yeah. And she says, well, it's just below the drive-in.
I said, okay.

Speaker 2 So we're driving down, and she's talking and talking, and I'm nodding my head and saying, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Speaker 2 It got down to the drive-in and she says, you can let me out right here on the right-hand side. That's about anywhere.

Speaker 2 She was looking out.

Speaker 2 I, you know, wasn't stopped, she wasn't trying to open the door or anything. She was just looking out for some reason.

Speaker 2 And I reached and pulled the knife out, and this knife had an extremely sharp point on it, like a pin.

Speaker 2 And I just pushed it up into her house and it stuck her a little bit. You know, like I don't mean it went into her, but it was real sharp and it just, you know, jumped her.

Speaker 2 And she

Speaker 2 turned around real quick like that, and I said,

Speaker 2 Don't move, and you won't be hurt.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I said,

Speaker 2 just calm down.

Speaker 2 And she said, oh, my God, please don't do anything. And I said, okay, then go down on the floorboard with your knees on the floor, your stomach and your head on the seat.

Speaker 2 And she looked at me in a real startled.

Speaker 2 And then she says, oh, my God. And then she reached and grabbed my arm.

Speaker 3 The detectives are listening intently. At one point, Carr turns to Detective Charlie Zatrapelik.

Speaker 2 Can I use your arm for a minute?

Speaker 3 Can I use your arm for a minute? He asks.

Speaker 3 Charlie sticks his arm out so Carr can act out his story. He uses both hands to tightly grab the detective's arm just behind the wrist.

Speaker 2 She reached and she went around the knife like this and she grabbed my arm and she's looking at me and she says, oh my God, please don't hurt me. And I said, take your hands off my arm.

Speaker 2 And she squeezed that much harder. And she said, Oh, my God, please don't hurt me.
And I said, Take your hands off of my arm.

Speaker 2 And she says, Please, like that, I said, I'm going to stab you. And

Speaker 2 I launched like this, and she threw her hands up. And she said, Okay, I'll do anything you say.

Speaker 3 As Carr is calmly telling the detectives about this incredibly frightening ride,

Speaker 3 someone in the police station whistles happily nearby.

Speaker 2 The car right on my bumpus, so I just kept straight on down. I made a right on 125th Street

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 proceeded west on 125th. At that time, I told her to put her knees on the

Speaker 2 floorboards, put her stomach and her head on the seat. This time, she watching me very closely, she did that.

Speaker 2 She one time picked her head up. And I pushed it down on the seat.
I said, don't pick your head up again.

Speaker 2 And she didn't. I covered her up with a coat

Speaker 2 and I told her not to say a word. Don't ask me any questions.
Don't talk to me. I'll answer all your questions later.

Speaker 3 Carr drives all night and then all the next day. Finally, at 1 a.m.
the following night, he arrives at a remote dirt road in the middle of a swamp.

Speaker 2 I just pulled down in there, and there's no place to pull pull on a park, get out of sight, so I had to stop right in the middle of this dirt road, which was used

Speaker 2 for logging trucks, I guess. I don't know, and Hunter's used it frequently.

Speaker 2 Where is this area that you're speaking here? It's called Turkey Island. It's in Mississippi.

Speaker 2 About 25 to 30 miles east of New Orleans.

Speaker 3 Now they're about 800 miles from Miami. Carr says Tammy barely moved the whole trip.

Speaker 2 I'd driven all day the day before, all night at night, and all at day.

Speaker 2 And I was exhausted, literally exhausted. I was scared to go to sleep for fear that she would get away.

Speaker 3 Carr lets Tammy get up, but says if she gives him any trouble, he'll lock her in the trunk. She begs to go home.
Carr assures her he's not going to hurt her.

Speaker 2 I said, Tammy, if I ever tell you a lie or if I ever do anything that I said I wasn't going to do, then, you know, you have reason not to trust me. As long as I keep my word to you,

Speaker 2 trust me.

Speaker 2 And she says, that sounds like a good idea.

Speaker 2 And so I was a little worried about telling her I was going to ready for her.

Speaker 3 Neither of them had eaten much since they left Miami nearly two days before.

Speaker 3 Robert Carr opened some chicken noodle soup. No doubt that had been on his shopping list too.

Speaker 3 He shared it with Tammy.

Speaker 2 It was nice.

Speaker 2 Anyway, Tammy said,

Speaker 2 Tammy started listening and she said, what's that noise?

Speaker 2 And I said, what noise? And she says, that noise out there in the woods, you know what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 And I started looking and then I heard it, something rustling around in the bushes.

Speaker 2 And I said, I don't know. And all of a sudden, a little armadillo about this long

Speaker 2 just walked right out for the edge of the road, gave us a look,

Speaker 2 stuck his nose in the leaves, and played right there beside the car. He rolled over.
He did everything.

Speaker 2 And Tammy was fascinated. She said, I've never seen an armadillo before.
And she says, I bet you if I opened the door, he'd get in.

Speaker 3 I hadn't heard this confession tape until I began making this podcast. Listening to it, I remember my own ride with Carr, that soft southern drawl.

Speaker 3 It's clear in the tapes, Carr enjoys telling a story, even this one.

Speaker 3 He enjoys being the instructor at the blackboard, controlling the narrative.

Speaker 3 I listen now, that same quiet voice, and I think how nonchalant nonchalant he makes evil sound.

Speaker 2 Anyway, I leaned over, I was still leaning over her, and I looked at her, and I said, Tammy, you know, remember when I told you that if I don't ever lie to you,

Speaker 2 trust me, etc.

Speaker 2 And she says, yeah.

Speaker 2 And I said, well, it's one thing there. It wasn't a lie at the time, but now I changed my mind about it.
I think we should talk about it. She says, what's that?

Speaker 2 And she says, you're not going to hurt me. And I said, no, I'm not going to hurt you.
I said, but remember I told you you you weren't going to get raped. And she says, yeah.

Speaker 2 And I said, well, I decided to change my mind on that. I think we should talk about it.

Speaker 2 And she sat there for a minute and she thought about it. She says, well,

Speaker 2 just once now, you need.

Speaker 2 And I said, no, we're going to be here a while. She says, We may as well,

Speaker 2 I'm going to

Speaker 2 want to, you know, quite often today.

Speaker 2 You don't like that or anything this time? No. No, I was locked locked up in the garden.

Speaker 2 She said, I really don't have any choice, do I?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I said, in this position, Tammy, I'd say, no, you don't.

Speaker 3 This is her second day in captivity.

Speaker 3 That night, it rains hard. The ground turns to mud.
The vehicle gets stuck. Carr is in a foul mood.
A stuck car means they might need help, which could give Tammy a chance to escape.

Speaker 3 They try to free the car themselves, pushing it, shoving stuff under the tires for traction. Nothing works.

Speaker 3 It's April 1st, Carr's daughter's birthday. That's Donna.

Speaker 3 I remember her as the forlorn little girl. Her mother had asked me to spend time with.

Speaker 3 She's turning 12, and as they work to free the car, he tells Tammy about his daughter. At one point they take a break, and Tammy finds a muscle shell in the mud.

Speaker 3 According to Carr, she draws flowers on it, writes Donna in capital letters, and covers it in clear nail polish, then gives it to Carr.

Speaker 3 Many of these details come from a book Carr eventually wrote with a reporter.

Speaker 3 There are a lot we can't independently verify, like the one with the muscle shell.

Speaker 3 We can verify that a little while later, Tammy spots a hunter next to a truck in the distance. He's holding a gun.

Speaker 3 Carr tells Tammy he's going to wade through the water to ask the hunter to help pull them out.

Speaker 3 He tells Tammy if she says anything, one of them is going to get hurt, and she better hope it's the hunter.

Speaker 3 According to Carr, she replies, don't worry about it. I'm not going to say a thing.

Speaker 3 They both get into the hunter's truck, and he drives it around to position it where he can hitch it to the car and yank it out.

Speaker 3 And then the hunter goes on his way.

Speaker 3 Tammy's in her second week of captivity. In Carr's mind, they're in this together.
Carr believes Tammy is loyal to him. He even starts to imagine she likes him.

Speaker 3 They go to stores together, and Carr says they go to clubs. He believes they're having fun.

Speaker 3 One day in a store, she looks at an imitation sapphire, her birthstone.

Speaker 3 Carr buys it for her. He lets her drive the car.
He feels like he's really started to care about her.

Speaker 3 I think about this and it takes the wind out of me.

Speaker 3 I think of Tammy with that knife point in her thigh, desperate to survive, doing whatever it takes. She's only a teenager.
Carr's 32. He's let other victims go.
Tammy's on her best behavior.

Speaker 3 It's all she has to hold on to.

Speaker 3 At night, Carr always takes her back to the same secluded Mississippi woods. That's where they sleep in the Ford Torino.

Speaker 2 Had you been to this area previously? Yes, I have.

Speaker 3 In his confession, Carr is giving cops detailed reports of rapes and murders he says he committed. But the cops have a problem.

Speaker 3 No murders have been reported. Carr can confess all he wants with as many details as he wants.
Without a a body, the cops have no case. Prosecutor Ed O'Donnell.

Speaker 5 Remember, we got to find bodies. They wouldn't have any bodies.
We don't have any reports of anybody being found deceased that

Speaker 5 nothing to go on.

Speaker 5 So, you know, where are these bodies?

Speaker 2 Is it the main section of the road or off the road? No, it's off the road.

Speaker 2 Well, it's off the road. You think you'd be able to find it again? Yeah.

Speaker 2 You gonna be willing to take us and show us where it's at? Yes, I am willing to take them and show you where it's at.

Speaker 3 What's your reaction when he says, I'll take you to them?

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 5 Really? You'll take us there now. You understand

Speaker 5 that when we find these bodies, we've got a completed crime.

Speaker 5 Look, when we find these bodies, you're going to be arrested, charged with first-degree murder. at that time it did carry death

Speaker 5 he said i understand that okay

Speaker 3 according to carr tammy is not the only victim he took across state lines in fact not the only victim he took to that spot on turkey island

Speaker 3 of the people he claims to have killed he says two are buried in mississippi one in louisiana and there's one back in Connecticut. And that's all the cops have to go on.

Speaker 3 Nothing other than Carr's word.

Speaker 3 So now they're going to go on a trip to see if the guy is telling the truth.

Speaker 3 And on this trip, Robert Carr will be leading the way.

Speaker 3 I really enjoyed his company.

Speaker 3 So he's a guy you could imagine having dinner with.

Speaker 2 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 3 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 Bobkoff.

Speaker 3 Our associate producer and production coordinator is Austin Smith. Editorial consulting by Annie Aviles.

Speaker 3 Fact check, Catherine Newhan. Our mixer and sound designer is Scott Somerville.
From From Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producers are Jonathan Hirsch and Catherine St. Louis.

Speaker 3 Additional reporting by Daniel Bates, Ben Fuhrer,

Speaker 3 Andy T. Bow, and Francisco Alvarado.
Special thanks to Cassie Epps at Otis Library in Norwich, Connecticut.