94. Cold Cases That Were Solved This Year

When a case goes cold, it's easy to lose hope that it will ever be sold. But sometimes a leap in technology, or even a deathbed confession, can help families get the closure they've been looking for. Show Notes: https://www.heartstartspounding.com/episodes/coldcases Subscribe on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/heartstartspoundingfor bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to bonus content as well as other perks. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after-show called Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to bonus episodes and more when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@heartstartspounding?lang=enand Instagram https://www.instagram.com/heartstartspounding/ for a daily dose of horror.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kaelyn Moore?

  This episode is brought to you by Bigelow Tea. By now, you should all know that I'm obviously a very curious person, and I'm also a big tea drinker. So I've always heard about this tea called Bigelow Constant Comment. It's been around forever and people absolutely love it. I realized I had no idea what it actually tasted like. Obviously, I had to investigate, and now I'm obsessed. Constant Comment is this incredible black tea with real orange rind, cold-pressed orange oil, and sweet spices. The best way I can describe it is it's like Christmas in a cup, except you get to drink it all year long. Then I learned the story behind it, which made me love it even more. Constant Comment was created by Ruth Campbell Bigelow and her New York City kitchen in 1945.

• 0:43Kaelyn Moore?

  She shared it with her friends, and everyone kept talking about it. And all of those "constant comments" actually gave it its name. The recipe is still a Bigelow family secret over 80 years later. So this one is a mystery worth investigating for yourself. Bigelow Constant Comment. Curiously different, impossible to forget.

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• 2:03Kaelyn Moore?

  On May 30th, 1974, a phone in a police precinct in the small town of Ledyard, Connecticut rings off the hook. An officer answers and asks who's calling, but the voice on the other end won't give a name. Instead, they say that they have some information that the police might find interesting. They said that in the backyard of an A-frame house on Shuville Road, they'd find two bodies. The officer perks up and starts asking more questions. Whose bodies are they and who put them there? But the caller isn't willing to give them that information. Instead, they tell the officers that the murders happened four years prior, and then

• 2:47Kaelyn Moore?

  the line goes dead. So, a few officers decide to go check out the scene. Occasionally, they'd get prank phone calls from local teens about tips, so they were skeptical, but they wanted to go look just in case. The A-frame in question was down a two-lane road with thick woods on either side and houses peppered in between. And as the officers pulled up, it appeared as if no one had lived there in quite some time. No cars were in the driveway, no lights were on in the house, the grass was overgrown, and the house had signs of wear from the elements. It gave the officers a bad feeling.

• 3:28Kaelyn Moore?

  They started walking around the property, seeing if there was any sign of the bodies, when they came upon a big, overgrown garden in the backyard. Thick weeds and brush tangled into each other, but one officer could see through the mess that there was dirt underneath that had been dug out and then filled in again. The area was about the size of a body.

• 3:56Kaelyn Moore?

  Beneath that disturbed dirt were two badly decomposed bodies. Upon initial investigation, it was determined that one was male and one was female. But who were they? And how did they get there? This is Heart Starts Pounding. I'm your host, Kayla Moore, and today we're talking about cold cases that were finally solved this year. Just a reminder, we upload episodes for The Darkly Curious each week on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 PM Pacific. That's 10:00 PM if you're listening in Salem, Massachusetts. And you can listen wherever you get your podcasts, including the Odyssey app.

• 4:38Kaelyn Moore?

  If you noticed the logo change on the show cover, you are truly an eagle-eyed member of the Rogue Detecting Society, but I am super excited to join their network alongside some of my favorite shows like "Search Engine: You Must Remember This," and of course, my good friends Tank and Investigator Slater at Psychopedia. We have some fun things planned for the next year, so stay tuned. But for now, let's go back to the bodies that were found in the Garden in Connecticut. Because when the police uncovered them, they had no idea the 50-year-long goose chase they were about to embark on. This episode is brought to you by Pranuvo.

• 5:21Kaelyn Moore?

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• 6:01Kaelyn Moore?

  To learn more about Pranuvo and get $300 off your whole-body MRI, go to pranuvo.com/hsp and use code HSP. That's P R E N U V O dot com slash H S P. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by GU Skincare. GU just launched their Heal and Seal Trio, a simple three-step Korean skincare routine that replaces those complicated seven-step regimens. Polish pads to exfoliate, toner pads for dark spots and redness, and N A D plus cream to lock in hydration overnight. These three products, three minutes a day. Dermatologist-tested with over 650,000 happy customers and a 90-day money-back guarantee. Recently, I've been using their N A D plus cream,

• 6:44Kaelyn Moore?

  which has been so nice to put on at night. I really love it. It's not super heavy, which I love, but it still feels very moisturizing. It doesn't have a lot of scent, which I'm really sensitive to, which is why it works great in my routine. For a limited time, GU is having a crazy deal for our listeners. Their Heal and Seal Trio is already up to 50% off right now, but our listeners can now get an additional 20% off plus free shipping with code H S P at J I Y U skin dot com. That's J I Y U skin dot com and use code H S P for an additional 20% off. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. This episode is brought to you by C J O. A new season always makes me want to reset things. My space, my routine, how my mornings feel.

• 7:27Kaelyn Moore?

  And honestly, upgrading my bedding has made a big difference. And that's why I have been loving C J O Home. I have the Airy Weight Eucalyptus Sheets from C J O. They have a lightweight feel, cool-to-the-touch texture, and now my bed feels like a real reset at the end of a long day. I know that every little bit of improvement I can do with my sleep routine makes a huge difference. And so I'm so happy I was able to get C J O Sheets. The Airy Weight Sheets are made with Tencel Lyocell. They're doctor-recommended, Echotex-certified, and even H S A and F S A eligible, which I genuinely did not know was a thing for bedding. And if you're someone who prefers a more lived-in texture, their Luxe Weave French Linen Sheets are stone-washed and get softer with every wash. Really beautiful for a bedroom refresh.

• 8:10Kaelyn Moore?

  Go to C J O home dot com and use code H S P to get 20% off your first order. That's S I J O H O M E dot com and use code H S P for 20% off at checkout. After the bodies in the garden were exhumed, they were sent to a medical examiner who was able to at least determine the cause of death. It appeared that the male had died from a gunshot wound to the head. Another bullet was found near his body and one was lodged in his stomach. The woman had suffered the same fate as the man. A shot to the head and one to the stomach. Her remains, though, were so decomposed, there wasn't much else the medical examiner could learn about her,

• 8:55Kaelyn Moore?

  other than she was white, probably between 18 and 30, and about 5'2". No hair color, no eye color, nothing that would help identify her. So, the police had to look at what was left at the scene in hopes that there would be some clues there. She was wearing a tan sweater and a brown tweed skirt. She also had some jewelry on her, like a school ring with the letters J-H-S-N engraved on it, and the initials I-L-N. However, the ring had the year 1917 engraved on the inside,

• 9:38Kaelyn Moore?

  so it was likely a family heirloom. They also, though, found some documents at the scene that identified the couple as Dirk Stahl and Lorraine Stahl. So, next, the police wanted to confirm these identities so they could notify next of kin. When they searched the name Lorraine Stahl, they did get a hit, but it wasn't the one that they were looking for. Instead, they found a living woman named Lorraine Stahl, who had previously moved out of the neighborhood that the bodies were found at. When the police got to her, she said she believed the young woman was actually using her identity. And that's when the police got a call.

• 10:23Kaelyn Moore?

  The medical examiner was able to get an X-ray of the man's teeth, which matched the records of someone who was in a Wisconsin correctional institute in 1965. A man named Gustavus Lee Carmichael. Not Dirk Stahl, like the documents found nearby his body suggested. So, he too must have been using a fake identity.

• 10:49Kaelyn Moore?

  Gustavus Lee Carmichael was a notorious bank robber who had been in and out of prison for a lot of his short adult life. In 1970, he was just 25 years old. A spree of bank robberies he committed in 1968 after he had been released from prison had netted him around a million dollars. And when he was arrested for that, he was actually able to escape out of the car that was bringing him to the courthouse by overpowering the marshal who was driving him and handcuffing him to a tree. So Gustavus had this long criminal record, and it was easy for police to learn a lot about him. But what about the woman who was found next to him?

• 11:35Kaelyn Moore?

  What did her dental records show, the police wondered? Well, her dental records didn't match anything. Was she an accomplice? Or was she just at the wrong place at the wrong time? Regardless, there was a family somewhere out there that was wondering what had happened to their daughter, their sister, their friend. And the people who had done this to her were still out there. So the cops got back to work. They started going through other people who had lived in the neighborhood, because if this woman had stolen one of their identities, maybe someone else had some information. That's when they came across a man, Richard DeFradis, who used to live in the A-Frame House.

• 12:20Kaelyn Moore?

  Richard was currently in prison for a robbery, but his similar history to Gustavus's made the police think that maybe the two knew each other. So they paid him a visit in prison, not really expecting much, let alone a confession, but that's what they got. Maybe it was because he wanted a reduced sentence or something, but DeFradis told police that he and another man killed Gustavus and his girlfriend, but that they didn't know her real name. Apparently, the story went, Gustavus had just Pulled off a heist of $60,000 cash from a bank in New Jersey.

• 13:04Kaelyn Moore?

  And less than a week later, Gustavus and the woman believed to be his girlfriend, packed up their things and arrived at the front door of a married couple named Richard and Joanne Emerson. On December 28th, 1970, Richard Emerson agreed to help Gustavus and his girlfriend assume the fake identities of Dirk and Lorraine Stahl. He even offered the couple a place to stay for a few nights while they arranged a new apartment to move into. But Gustavus wasn't aware that Emerson wasn't entirely trustworthy. In fact, the surname Emerson was actually a partial alias for the 31-year-old DeFridus,

• 13:48Kaelyn Moore?

  who lived with Joanne Ranello, his common-law wife. He had recently managed a successful, if not slightly less impressive robbery himself, ripping off $30,000 from a financial institution in Newport, Rhode Island. So Gustavus trusted him. He was like one of his own. The night that they met, DeFridus introduced Gustavus to his business partner, Donald Brant. Their business was pulling off historic heists without getting caught. And that evening's work included splitting up the $30,000 from DeFridus's Rhode Island haul. DeFridus and Brant also had a third partner named James Gardner.

• 14:32Kaelyn Moore?

  The group had promised to use the arsenal of weapons that they possessed between them to protect each other from whatever consequences might come from their crimes, or anything that threatened to take their money away. And unfortunately, Gustavus's girlfriend started getting nervous. Maybe it was the fact that they were now living with criminals, ones that owned a lot of guns, but it seemed like she was starting to have second thoughts about living a life on the run. And one night, she turned to her new friend, her only friend in the world, Richard DeFridus's girlfriend, Joanne, to express her concerns.

• 15:15Kaelyn Moore?

  But Joanne was not really a friend to the woman, and she took the gossip back to her boyfriend, who immediately raised this concern to his partner, Brant. Brant understood the woman's uncertainty meant that their freedom was at stake. What if this girl snitched on them, or took their cash and ran? DeFradus and Brant were both wanted by the law, DeFradus for armed robbery, and Brant for suspicion of a double murder. And the career criminals felt that they were left with no choice but to silence the girl if they wanted to stay out of jail. They agreed to kill her to stop her from talking to police,

• 16:01Kaelyn Moore?

  which meant, in their minds at least, they would have to kill Gustavus too. It was New Year's Eve 1970, when DeFradus drew Gustavus Carmichael to the backyard of his home under a false pretense. He figured he would deal with Gustavus while Donald Brant would shoot the woman in cold blood. Within moments, both of the fake stalls were dead, but they still needed to make them disappear. DeFradus and Brant called their third partner, James Gardner, as well as DeFradus's girlfriend Joanne, to come over to the house. They were going to need their associates to take care of this one last problem. Around four years and eight months later,

• 16:45Kaelyn Moore?

  the police arrested Richard DeFradus and Donald Brant for the double homicide of Gustavus Carmichael and this unknown woman. But though Gustavus's case was finally closed, investigators were still no closer to finding the identity of the woman who died as Lorraine Stahl, this poor woman who was trying to get away from the situation. Police traced every possession they could associate with Lorraine, including her phone records, which pointed to connections in Tennessee, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. And when police tested the clothes that were found on her, they were still left empty-handed.

• 17:27Kaelyn Moore?

  They also spoke to locals in the area who had seen the unknown woman around, but no one knew who she really was. Enough of them, though, remembered seeing her, so the police were able to draw a composite sketch of the woman. And I've seen this sketch. It's of a young woman with light hair and a shaggy cut with bangs. She has large almond eyes. People knew her face so well, but no one knew her. This mysterious passer through with a fake name. The image was circulated around, but nothing ever came of it. And the case, unfortunately, went cold.

• 18:09Kaelyn Moore?

  Luckily, though, police did know who the murderers were, and they were both sentenced for the murders of Gustavus and the unknown woman. But for now, she would remain unknown, buried in an unmarked grave with no one to bring her flowers. And this would have stayed cold forever if a chief medical examiner named Michelle Clark hadn't taken an interest in the unfinished business 35 years later. In July of 2011, Michelle added the unknown woman's case data and dental records to the National Missing Persons Database, which had been created in 2008.

• 18:52Kaelyn Moore?

  The mystery woman now had a new temporary identity, number UP8909. And a year after that, what DNA they had from the unknown woman was uploaded to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, also known as CODIS. Despite the huge opportunity that these mass databases provided Clark's investigation, neither pulled any hits to match the evidence. Lorraine's case was proving to be a very difficult one, so difficult that actually the technology needed to solve this case wouldn't be available for several more years. That is, until 2022,

• 19:36Kaelyn Moore?

  when a specialty facility called Othrum reached out and said that they now possessed that technology.

• 19:45Kaelyn Moore?

  Though Othrum is a private DNA testing company, it works exclusively with law enforcement. The Texas-based Labs had recently announced their collaboration with the Connecticut Office of the Medical Examiner to leverage advanced DNA testing technology to solve human remains cases that have long remained unsolved. Lorraine Stahl's unresolved mystery was the perfect fit for their work, since Othrum's forensics team can take a piece of evidence as small as a bone fragment and create a full genetic profile through forensic investigative genetic genealogy testing, also known as FIG.

• 20:28Kaelyn Moore?

  Established in 2020, the unprecedented method of DNA genome sequencing is different from previous testing, because it identifies up to 1 million sites on a genome. Existing DNA testing methods could only identify up to 21. And because of this new extensive sequencing, relatives as distant as fourth or fifth cousins can be retrieved from a pool of 2 million people. The pool is made up of civilians who voluntarily gave DNA submissions to the GED match and family tree databases. From there, law enforcement transforms a FIG profile into an identified missing person

• 21:13Kaelyn Moore?

  by building out a family tree from their DNA matches. And this technology first gained attention when it tracked down the culprit of a much more famous unsolvable case. It helped find the identity of the Golden State Killer. And this here, through this FIG technology, an elderly woman in Kentucky got a knock on her door. It was police officers from Connecticut who traveled to her to tell her that they knew what happened to her sister, who disappeared all of those years ago. Her sister, Linda Sue Childers. The unknown woman found next to Gustavus.

• 21:54Kaelyn Moore?

  The police had used this genealogical testing to build out a family tree based on the profile of DNA they had of the unknown woman, and that led them straight to her sister's door. The woman at the door couldn't believe what she was hearing. To have closure over her sister's fate, but also to know where she was resting 54 years after she disappeared, was a miracle. But, she told the officers, there was someone else who really needed to hear this message. She put the police in touch with another woman who was around 60 years old. It was Linda's daughter, who, for her entire life up until this point, had never known

• 22:39Kaelyn Moore?

  what happened to her mother. Linda Sue Childers was 24 years old when she died. She was born on September 4th, 1946, in Louisville, Kentucky. Her family lost touch with her when she moved east in the 70s. Though not a lot has been shared about what kind of woman Linda was in her life, it was confirmed the tip about Childers' murder came from Richard Defradis's former girlfriend, Joanne. Joanne was friendly enough with Linda Sue to briefly act as a shoulder to lean on before she ultimately became complicit in Childers' and Carmichael's deaths. She must have, deep down, cared for the innocent woman, though, to some degree, when she turned

• 23:23Kaelyn Moore?

  in her former boyfriend out of guilt four years later. Without Joanne's tip, Linda Sue's life may have remained something more troubling than a mystery. Her memory would have been lost entirely, but because someone chose to come forward, Joanne, and someone else chose to not stop fighting, Michelle, the medical examiner, two women in Kentucky were able to find a little bit of peace at the end of their lives.

• 23:54Kaelyn Moore?

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• 24:38Kaelyn Moore?

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• 25:23Kaelyn Moore?

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• 25:57Kaelyn Moore?

  Though some crimes take decades to solve, it's not always emerging technology that helps with the breakthrough. Sometimes, when someone is at the end of their life, they reexamine everything they've ever done. They think about the things they regret and all of the secrets that they've kept. And sometimes, that can lead to a confession, as is the case with our next story. In August 2000, a 41-year-old woman named Susan Gale Carter and her 10-year-old daughter, Alex Carter, vanished into thin air. Susan had been involved in a rather intense custody battle with her ex-husband, Rick LaFerty.

• 26:41Kaelyn Moore?

  During one of the custody hearings, actually, she turned to Rick and shouted that he would never see his daughter again. I don't know if Susan knew how true her words actually were, because not long after that, she stopped returning Rick's calls, and then, the calls of her family members. And soon, no one knew where she and her daughter had gone. When that happened, everyone who knew Susan had their theories. Some people really saw her as a vengeful ex-wife who ran off with a new husband and brought her daughter along. But they also knew that if that was the case, they probably would have heard from her at some point.

• 27:25Kaelyn Moore?

  And as the days passed by, no word came from the two. So by November, people started getting a really bad feeling, like, something horrible might have happened? Like, maybe Susan was serious about Rick never seeing Alex again? Eventually, a felony arrest warrant for kidnapping was issued for Susan. The FBI Missing Persons poster described Alex as a 10-year-old, blue-eyed, blonde, white female with a scar over her eyebrow. Susan was listed as 5'6", white, blonde with green eyes, and though the FBI

• 28:06Kaelyn Moore?

  Warned she may have changed her appearance or been using her maiden name of Webb in order to get out of West Virginia unnoticed. As far as the Lafferty family was concerned, the mother was capable of almost anything to keep Alex from her father against her daughter's will. Alex's grandmother said she believed Alex was afraid of Susan. The Laffertys really wanted her home, where they knew she was safe. But unfortunately, because Alex was presumed to be with her mother, the police did not take the case very seriously. They figured she was safe. But doing their due diligence, editor's note, it was not due diligence, it was the bare

• 28:51Kaelyn Moore?

  minimum, they still spoke to a few witnesses, including Susan's landlord, Larry Webb. Larry owned a red brick home that Susan was renting part of for her and Alex. But Larry said that he had no idea what happened to the two. One day, they were there, and the next, they were gone. Rick Lafferty, Alex's dad, was starting to get furious. He felt like the police weren't taking this seriously enough, and that the case was going cold. He just wanted his 10-year-old daughter back. Why was it so hard for the police to understand that he just wanted to know she was safe? So over the years, he kept pushing, all of the Lafferty family kept pushing, even when

• 29:35Kaelyn Moore?

  there was no movement. For 21 years, they bombarded the police department with phone calls and emails until finally, the FBI caught wind of the story. In December of 2021, Special Agent Jennifer King was assigned to the case, and she was absolutely the right person for this. She had cut her teeth in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and was known for her unwillingness to quit. And she was determined to find Susan and Alex. Even if she couldn't find them alive, she wanted to find them and give the Laffertys some closure.

• 30:16Kaelyn Moore?

  She was partnered with Special Agent Mike Nordwall, who promised Alex's family and the community that even though it's been 21 years, this case is not sitting on a shelf. The FBI started by offering a $10,000 reward for anyone willing to come forward about what happened during the summer of 2000. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children created age-progressed portraits of Susan and Alex Carter to help the public imagine what the women would look like at now 62 and 31 years old. And finally, two years after all of this attention was being paid to the case, they

• 30:59Kaelyn Moore?

  got their first real movement. On August 29, 2023, the FBI, US Marshals, and state police pulled up to the same red brick house that police had visited just after the disappearances. It was the home that Susan and Alex had rented. They hoped that now, 23 years after the disappearance, there would still maybe be something inside of that house that would give them a clue. They walked in the front door to see Larry Webb, now an elderly man, bedridden and under the full-time care of a nurse.

• 31:41Kaelyn Moore?

  The officers were informed that his mind was deteriorating, but they asked him, once again, "Do you know what happened to Susan and Alex Carter?" And Larry got a dreamy look on his face and stared past the officers. He said, "I've looked for them over the years. I even went to Cleveland and I looked for them. And I don't know, I just don't know. I loved her with all my heart, and I loved that little girl too." Slowly, the officers made their way to the section of the house Alex and Susan had lived in.

• 32:22Kaelyn Moore?

  The reason that they decided to start here was they now believed, after poring through case files, that this was the last place they were seen alive. They made their way into Alex's room, and even after 23 years, much of it was the same. The furniture had been switched out, but nothing about the home had really been updated since that time, so they got to work searching every square inch of the room for anything, a strand of hair, even a small fingerprint. One officer was tracing the bottom of one of the walls on his hands and knees

• 33:03Kaelyn Moore?

  when he started screaming for the other officers to come over. See, there lodged in the wall, surrounded by faded wallpaper, was one single bullet. Police got to work excavating that part of the wall where the bullet was found, and it was discovered that inside of the wall was dried blood. Whoever this bullet had struck preserved a small piece of their identity with it. The bullet and the blood was immediately sent to a lab for testing, and more of the wall was excavated. It was also reported that a tile from the basement was collected by officials.

• 33:47Kaelyn Moore?

  Following the raid, Larry Webb was questioned about the Carter's disappearances by the police and the media, but he had trouble remembering the details, and his accounts of what happened were muddled. Webb claimed that he would have been the last person to hurt Alex Carter, and that he loved that little girl. But then, he revealed something that sent shockwaves through the community. He said, quote, "I think I was married to her mother." "I think I was married to her mother?" Could this be true? The Laverdys did assume that Susan ran off with a new husband,

• 34:30Kaelyn Moore?

  but Larry was still in the house, and now blood was found in little Alex's room. What could a 10-year-old girl have done that would have made someone so angry he would have taken her life? While the police started building a case against him, Larry reminded them that he had previously cooperated in the past. He said that in 2000, he was the one to report his concerns about his, quote, "wife's disappearance." He even took a polygraph test in 2000 to prove his innocence. And when Susan and her daughter didn't turn up, Larry said that's when he went to Cleveland to try and find them.

• 35:11Kaelyn Moore?

  But Webb's recollections seemed so opposite to the way the evidence was leaning. Was it actually possible Susan Carter had pulled off the greatest disappearing act of all time and left her lover to pick up the pieces all these years later? Police were hesitant to take any of this at face value, though, because of Larry's dementia. When Larry was asked exactly when he saw Susan and Alex for the last time, he told reporters he didn't know anymore because of his disease. Though it might have seemed like the perfect excuse, his caretaker could attest that Webb had been sick for some time now.

• 35:55Kaelyn Moore?

  But that caretaker, who also knew the Carters from 20 years ago, wanted to find out what happened to them just as much as anyone else. She didn't know it yet, but they wouldn't have to wait much longer for the FBI to come back with an answer. The DNA evidence confirmed that the blood on the bullet was Alex's. Larry Webb was indicted by a special grand jury for the first-degree murder of Alex Carter on October 24th, 2023. The prosecuting attorney promised the Laffertys that he was going to put Larry away for good for what he did to Susan and Alex. But there were a few problems with this.

• 36:39Kaelyn Moore?

  Only Alex's blood was found on the bullet, which means there was no physical evidence the prosecution could use to prove that Larry had killed Susan. And also, no body, no crime. There was a chance that someone shot at Alex and Susan fled with the girl and now they were living somewhere under different identities. And when questioned, Webb refused to admit any guilt. Even as his mind was getting worse, he maintained he had nothing to do with it and that he and Susan were in love. There was also the issue of putting someone with dementia on trial. I actually talked about this in my episode on The Run

• 37:20Kaelyn Moore?

  ...Wald secluded family, but someone can be deemed not fit to stand trial, and Larry's condition was making it impossible to question him on the stand. So Larry sat in prison as the courts decided what they were going to do. But the chance of justice being fully served in this case seemed increasingly unlikely. That is, until the first week of April this year. Larry lay curled up in his prison hospital bed when he asked if the nurse could bring an investigator to his bedside. With the strength he had in his fragile state, he finally admitted to killing Susan and Alex Carter.

• 38:06Kaelyn Moore?

  Back in 2000, Webb had a romantic relationship with Susan Carter, but it was rocky, or so he said. On August 8th of that year, Larry and Susan started arguing about money. Larry said he discovered a chunk of his stash missing, and he confronted Susan about it. The conversation quickly became explosive, and Larry insisted the single mother had betrayed him. In a moment of rage, Larry Webb shot Susan Carter point blank, killing her instantly. As soon as the moment had passed, he said he knew he ruined his life by taking hers. He had done the unthinkable, and with his back against the wall, he made an even more

• 38:51Kaelyn Moore?

  heinous decision: to get rid of the only witness. That's why he shot Alex Carter in her bedroom that day, where police had found the bullet his crime had left behind. While he dug the plots in his backyard for Alex and Susan's graves, Larry left their bodies in the basement to decompose without dignity. Larry Webb said he cried himself to sleep that night, without thinking about all the tears he'd cause people who loved Alex and Susan to cry for the next 20 years. As quickly as that moment of deep clarity washed over Larry as he sat in his hospital bed, it was gone. His eyes glossed back over and he had trouble remembering where in his

• 39:36Kaelyn Moore?

  backyard the bodies were buried. So, police had to bring in these huge excavators to his property to search essentially inch by inch until they found the bodies. Weeks into the search, on April 19th, Webb was transferred to hospice care at the Mount Olive Correctional Complex. The window of accessing Webb's memories to put this case to rest was shrinking rapidly. Investigators had even tried bringing Larry back to his home to show them the graves in person, but he was of little help because his state of mind was so clouded. And then,

• 40:16Kaelyn Moore?

  less than two weeks after his formal arrest, Larry Webb suffered a fatal medical event on April 22nd, 2024. He was pronounced dead at Montgomery Hospital around 10:30 a.m., taking whatever memory he had of where Alex and Susan were with him. But just the next day, after weeks of searching, Canine Surge and Rescue Services of Virginia found something. Dogs had alerted their handlers to the scent of human remains, just hours after Larry Webb had died. Rick Lafferty had mixed emotions at the long-awaited discovery. He was just

• 41:01Kaelyn Moore?

  happy he could bring his baby home after losing hope so many times. He was given the green beaded hairpin that Alex wore in her hair the day she was killed. It's now the only physical memory Lafferty has of his 10-year-old girl, and it's decorated with tiny butterfly clips. When it came out what Larry Webb did, police still had to dig a little deeper to verify any of his story. And it's still kind of unclear what parts of the story were fabricated or just muddled in his dementia-ridden mind. It's unclear if he really did have a relationship with Susan or if he hardly knew the two boarders in his house. Was Susan stealing money?

• 41:45Kaelyn Moore?

  Or had she rejected his advances? Those details may never be known, but the most important things now are known. What happened to Susan and Alex? Who did it? And where their bodies were? These stories are sad, but in a way, they give me hope that even decades after a case has gone cold, it can catch a second wind if someone decides to look back into it. And as technology gets better every year, we'll see more and more of these kinds of cases being solved. And let me tell you, Heart Starts Pounding will be here to tell you about them.

• 42:28Kaelyn Moore?

  Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Additional research and writing by Marissa Dow. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstarts pounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.

• 42:53Kaelyn Moore?

  Do you want more Darkly Curious stories in your life? Sign up for our Patreon for free and get access to a rotating shelf of bonus content, our weekly Rogue Detecting Society newsletter, and the HSP Book Club. Paid members also get monthly bonus episodes and archive access, which I think is more than 40 episodes at this point. You also get a cool jinx sticker after your first three months. And you can check it all out with a free seven-day trial. Link in the bio or go to patreon.com backslash heartstarts pounding. But whatever you do, stay curious.