After deliberating for two hours, jurors voted 7-5 for the death sentence over life in prison without parole.

Circuit Judge Willard Pope must give this recommendation great consideration when he imposes a sentence on Carr on Feb. 22.

He will first preside over a hearing on Jan. 11 to give the defendant's family one last opportunity to plead for a life sentence.

If Pope chooses to sentence Carr to death, she will be the first woman in Marion County since serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the 1990s to receive capital punishment.

"I think the jury did a very good and thorough job in evaluating the circumstances and arriving at a verdict," said State Attorney Brad King, chief prosecutor in the case. "I think the judge will do what he believes is appropriate [at sentencing]."

The jury's advisory sentence marked the conclusion of a two-week legal proceeding that began with Carr standing trial for the gruesome killing of Strong, a mother of two.

Carr and boyfriend Joshua Fulgham are accused of luring Strong to an abandoned storage trailer behind Carr's mother's home in mid-February 2009. Fulgham was married to Strong, but the couple were estranged at the time.

During Carr's trial, prosecutors showed videotape of Carr admitting to detectives that she pulled the tape while Fulgham ripped it and bound Strong to a computer chair.

Carr also admits to placing a black plastic bag over Strong's head and trying to break her neck but failing to do so because Strong was struggling too hard.

Strong was eventually suffocated. Her remains were discovered on March 19, 2009, in a shallow grave on the property.

Carr was the first of the pair to head to trial; Fulgham is scheduled to go to trial early next year.

The state sought the death penalty because of the prolonged and brutal manner in which Strong died.

"Those evils go to the very heart of our independence and dignity," King told jurors during Friday's closing arguments in the penalty phase. "That's the evil we are looking to punish."

He presented as aggravating circumstances the fact that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel; that it was cold, calculated and premeditated; and that it took place during the commission of the separate offense of kidnapping.

The jury, consisting of seven women and five men, was asked to decide whether these factors outweighed the mitigating circumstances, which included Carr's lack of a criminal history, her young age at the time of the crime and her troubled family history stained by allegations of sexual abuse by her family.

In her closing argument, defense attorney Candace Hawthorne stressed her client led a life full of promise but for the molestation she suffered until she was a teen.

"For a small child to keep that secret, she had to engage in fantasy to take her away — she learned to fantasize," Hawthorne said. She maintains her client lied to detectives when she confessed to participating in Strong's murder in order to reclaim the three children that had been taken from her by state officials.

Guilty verdict for woman accused of first-degree murder and kidnapping

Gainesville.com

Dec. 7, 2010

Emilia Carr, the woman who has stood trial over the past week on charges she helped carry out a cold, brutal attack on Citra resident Heather Strong last year, was convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping late Tuesday afternoon.

A jury deliberated two and a half hours before delivering a guilty verdict.

The same panel of seven men and five women will hear arguments about Carr’s punishment early this afternoon during the penalty phase of trial. The state seeks the death penalty; the only other option for first-degree murder and kidnapping is life in prison.

“I’m relieved,” Carolyn Spence, Strong’s mother, who traveled from Mississippi to attend the trial, said Tuesday after the verdict was published.

Neither State Attorney Brad King, the lead prosecutor, nor Carr’s court-appointed defense attorney, Candace Hawthorne, offered comment following the jury’s decision.

Since Wednesday of last week, jurors sat through testimony where the state attempted to prove Carr’s role in the disappearance and murder of Strong – a mother of two who worked as a cashier/server at the Iron Skillet restaurant at the Petro gas station near the Orange Lake/Irvine exit of I-75.

Unlike other first-degree murder trials, Carr’s has stood out for the sheer frequency with which the defendant provided statements to law enforcement in the lead-up to her March 24, 2009 arrest – about a week after Strong’s remains were discovered in a shallow grave in Boardman, a few miles north of McIntosh.

Those statements, freely and voluntarily given, albeit outside the presence of an attorney, were seized by state prosecutors over the last week as they mounted their case against Carr.

Totaling 10 statements altogether, those words would land Carr in a predicament she attempted to wriggle free from when she took the witness stand Monday afternoon and claimed those statements had been spun from lies.

“What is her history of telling the truth?” prosecutor Rock Hooker asked the jury during his closing argument Tuesday morning. “Her history of telling the truth is not good…are you going to believe her now?”

Hooker pointed out that Carr’s consecutive statements to detectives prior to her arrest had been different from her previous ones, each slightly amended to reflect Carr knew more than she initially let on.

Carr was accused of assisting co-defendant Joshua Fulgham, her then-boyfriend, with detaining Strong – his estranged wife – inside a storage trailer behind Carr’s mother’s home in mid-February 2009.

The state claims Carr then tried to break Strong’s neck. When that failed, the pair allegedly placed a black plastic bag over Strong’s head and suffocated her, all while the victim was duct-taped to a computer chair, her hands and feet bound.

In his closing, Hooker advised the jury the state had no duty to prove a motive in the brutal crime – only that it proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Carr had the intent to either kill her herself or assist her co-defendant in killing Strong.

The jury Tuesday had the option of finding Carr, 26, guilty of the lesser-included offenses of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, manslaughter and false imprisonment.

“I’m glad it’s over with. I’m glad justice has been served,” said Larry Spence, Strong’s stepfather, who knew Heather since she was a young girl. “I think [Carr] was guilty.”

As jurors heard testimony from multiple witnesses over the past week, several possible motives bubbled to the surface: Carr’s possible jealousy over a brief reunification between Fulgham and Strong in December 2008; her spite toward Strong for having put Fulgham in jail in January 2009 following a domestic dispute; or loyalty to her boyfriend (Carr was seven months pregnant with Fulgham’s child when the crime occurred.).

“Emilia Lily Carr, in this case, blocked Heather Strong from leaving,” Hooker said of her role in the storage trailer. “That’s all in the statements she gave.”

Carr divulged details of the crime to Fulgham’s sister, Michele Gustafson, during a conversation that was bugged by detectives. Carr later admitted to law enforcement that she participated in the episode.

“ ‘He held her down because he was stronger. I taped her hands and feet,’ ” Hooker read out loud to the jurors, reading from a transcript of Carr’s statements to the detectives.

Fulgham, 29, also fathered two children with Strong, whom he first met in Mississippi. He is currently awaiting his own trial on the same charges.

During her nearly two-hour closing argument, Hawthorne painted her client’s statements as “lies” so she could reclaim custody of her children, who had been removed by the state Department of Children and Families.

“Stupid? Maybe. Desperate? Maybe. Duress? Maybe. Was she afraid of Josh? Maybe,” Hawthorne told jurors to consider in weighing such motivation to lie.

But Hooker, who has co-tried this case with King, pointed out in his rebuttal argument early Tuesday afternoon that Carr simply knew too many details of what the victim had been wearing before she died and the specific manner in which she died - before such facts had been released - to be merely passed over as a scared and witless suspect.

“Those are some pretty direct, simple statements,” he said to jurors.

Carr jury hears chilling words from the accused

By Suevon Lee - Ocala.com

Friday, December 3, 2010

There is no physical evidence linking her to the crime, but in this case, none may have been necessary. In a conversation captured clearly on tape, Emilia Carr confesses to assisting with a brutal crime that took the life of a 26-year-old Citra woman in 2009.

That hourlong tape was played back for jurors Friday afternoon during Carr's first-degree murder and kidnapping trial. It is one of many recorded conversations prosecutors have played for the panel this week, and it may be the most convincing one of all.

“I thought it would be quick and painless,” Carr said to Michele Gustafson, the sister of Joshua Fulgham. Carr was referencing her and Fulgham's attempts to first break Heather Strong's neck inside a storage trailer before suffocating her with a black plastic bag placed over her head.

“Did she fight him?” asked Gustafson, who was wearing a recording device provided by Marion sheriff's detectives. At the time of the conversation, the women were sitting beside each other in a car.

“Yeah, she fought him,” Carr responded.

“Did you help?” Gustafson continued.

“Yeah, I helped,” Carr said softly. “I helped him.”

Following this March 24, 2009 conversation, detectives, who were listening nearby, approached the car. They spoke briefly with the pair, then eventually took Carr into custody.

The echoes of Carr's vivid and confessionary words to Gustafson, a friend of hers, seemed to linger in the courtroom.

The jurors have been provided written transcripts of the recorded calls, so their facial expressions and reactions have been difficult to gauge. Their heads were bowed over the stapled papers as the recordings were played.

The state is almost ready to end its part of the case. The defense will call its first witnesses next week as it attempts to lessen the damaging evidence — mostly confessional statements — that has been introduced by the state thus far.

Carr, 26, could face the death penalty if found guilty as charged.

She is accused of helping Fulgham, who fathered her youngest child and was also Strong's longtime on-again-off-again love interest, with Strong's murder.

Strong, a mother of two, was first reported missing by her cousin in mid-February 2009. A month later, on March 19, 2009, her body was uncovered from a shallow grave a couple miles north of McIntosh. It was Fulgham who initially led detectives to the site, which was located on the wooded property behind Carr's mother's home.

Fulgham, who remains behind bars awaiting his own trial, was already in police custody on a related charge when the body was unearthed.

Carr wasn't arrested in the case until March 24, 2009, managing to elude arrest for almost a week as she negotiated and engaged in verbal gymnastics with sheriff's detectives Donald Buie and Brian Spivey, seeking to distance herself from the gruesome crime.

It's Carr herself whom jurors learned this week initiated much of the contact with law enforcement after they initially brought her in for questioning. She was read her Miranda rights during these interviews. Spivey testified Friday morning she placed several calls to his work mobile phone in order to wrangle a deal.

“I can put the nail in the coffin as long as I don't go to jail or prison,” she tells Spivey during a phone call several days before her arrest. She continuously asks for “immunity” if she divulges additional information about Strong's death.

“I need to know I'm protected,” she says in this recorded phone conversation, played for jurors Friday morning. “I'm not going to say anything without immunity, because I'm going to go down with him [without it]. I didn't kill the girl,” she says.

Although court-appointed defense attorney Candace Hawthorne attempted to suppress Carr's statements ahead of trial, Circuit Judge Willard Pope ordered redactions only.

Hawthorne emphasized in her opening statement Carr's high-risk pregnancy at the time of her arrest, and the fear and concern she felt over the welfare of her three other children, who had been taken from her by then by the state Department of Children and Families.

Such concern for her children is expressed by Carr to Gustafson during their taped conversation. So is her spoken intent to pin Strong's death on Jamie Acome and Jason Lotshaw, two convicted felons and mutual friends whom she tells Gustafson have already been identified as persons of interest by the authorities.

“I'm not saying it's OK, not in the least,” she says of her so-called plans to lead law enforcement to these two men. “[But] the only way he [Fulgham] is gonna get out there and be with his kids, is if he keeps his mouth shut,” she says, in attempts to send a message to Fulgham.

What Carr does not let on is her previous statements to detectives, in which she's already pinned Strong's death on Fulgham; yet across the Sheriff's Office hallway, in separate interrogations, Fulgham was doing the same to her.

Both were arrested for Strong's disappearance and murder on March 24, 2009; they were indicted by a grand jury less than a month later. Although Carr was offered a life sentence plea deal by prosecutors shortly before trial, she refused to accept the offer.

The defendant, who has closely followed along with written transcripts of her statements during the course of trial, comes across as calm in these recordings, if shaken by past events.

To Gustafson, she speaks of how Fulgham hit Strong in the head with a flashlight every time “he heard something he didn't want to hear.” Strong was lured to the trailer by the promise of cash, she said, and Fulgham was upset she had plans to flee the state with their two kids.

“He said, ‘You've cost me a lot of money, you've cost me my kids, you cost me just about everything I've ever had, and I'm tired of it.' ” Carr recollects.

After she goes over the details of how he duct-taped Strong to the chair after she tried to bolt by breaking a window, and the pair's hasty attempts to end Strong's life, Carr's voice grows quiet.

“He wasn't Josh that night,” she tells his sister. “He was emotionally in another place. It wasn't Josh. He wasn't there. He was just somebody else."

Opening statements in McIntosh-area murder trial

Gainesville.com

December 1, 2010

A defendant's panicked statements to sheriff's detectives and a hasty decision to confide in a friend: These are the crucial events prosecutors referenced Wednesday at the start of Emilia Carr's first-degree murder and kidnapping trial.

In opening statements to jurors Wednesday morning, State Attorney Brad King spent nearly an hour detailing the sequence of events that led to the gruesome discovery of Heather Strong's decomposing remains one March 2009 morning in a backyard lot near McIntosh.

Carr, 26, is charged with helping co-defendant Joshua Fulgham carry out Strong's murder.

Using a written timeline beginning in December 2008 and ending March 24, 2010, when Carr and Fulgham were taken into police custody, King told the jury about the rocky relationship between Fulgham and Strong, one which involved a cast of secondary characters that included Carr and other men in the women's lives.

Carr would often babysit for Strong's two young children, he said, and such encounters led to one past incident in which Carr allegedly held a knife to Strong's throat to scare her into signing paperwork to release Fulgham from jail.

Although Strong and Fulgham were longtime friends -- they had two children together but married as recently as December 2009 -- it was Fulgham and Carr who were romantically involved at the time of Heather's death. In fact, Carr was seven months' pregnant with Fulgham's child at the time.

Whatever their commitment to one other, King told jurors that Carr had told detectives it was Fulgham who allegedly threatened to do the same to her that he said he had done to his estranged wife: strangle her, then bury her body.

Later, after Strong's body was unearthed, said the prosecutor, Carr requested a private meeting with Fulgham's sister in which she revealed the manner in which Strong was killed: suffocated with a bag over her head after Carr tried and failed to break her neck. That conversation, unbeknownst to Carr, was recorded by law enforcement.

In a sign that this trial could hinge on jurors' interpretation of Carr's videotaped confessions, her defense attorney cautioned the jury in her opening statement to be mindful of Carr's stress levels when she provided her statements.

Saying Carr was "as much of a victim as Heather," Candace Hawthorne reminded the jury that Carr was undergoing a "high-risk pregnancy" when questioned and that her three other children had recently been removed from her custody.

Tossing the blame and intent back onto Fulgham, who remains in custody at the jail as he awaits his own trial on the same charges, Hawthorne cast him as a jealous and possessive man who wanted Strong, who was tied to other men, all to himself.

"Josh and Heather were like oil and water," she said. "They had a very tumultuous relationship. This is all about Josh and his kids and his control of Heather and his wanting custody of his kids." Strong's mother, Carolyn Spence, sat in the back of the courtroom.

If found guilty as charged, Carr could face the death penaty.

Update: Jury seated in Emilia Carr murder trial

Ocala.com

Nov. 30, 2010

After nearly two days, a 12-member jury was seated 3 p.m. Tuesday for the Emilia Carr murder trial.

The entire panel consists of eight men and six women -- two will serve as alternates.

Opening statements were scheduled to begin shortly.

Defendant in murder trial refuses life sentence plea deal.

Still little is known about Emilia Carr, the 26-year-old woman standing trial on charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the disappearance and eventual killing of Heather Strong, a young mother from Citra, in the early months of 2009.

But a decision she was faced with last week, as lawyers convened to discuss procedural matters ahead of trial, may say at least one thing about her: She won't so easily back down.

Carr, who faces the death penalty if convicted, was given the opportunity to accept a life sentence and erase any chance of receiving the state's maximum punishment.

“The state told the court that if Ms. Carr wanted to sign an agreement for life, they would go to the victim's family and see if they approved,” Candace Hawthorne, Carr's court-appointed attorney, said Monday during a recess in jury selection.

That lawyers spent all day Monday trying to select the 12 individuals, plus two alternates, who will serve on the jury is a reflection of Carr's decision to forgo the state's offer and accept the risks.

By the end of the day, no jury had been seated. Jury selection resumed Tuesday.

Carr is the first of two people to be tried for the death of Strong, a mother of two who worked at the Petro gas station and was 26 when she went missing in February 2009. Her body was unearthed from a shallow makeshift grave outside a storage trailer near McIntosh a month later.

She had been deprived of oxygen flow to the brain. The official cause of death was asphyxiation.

Prosecutors claim Carr and then-boyfriend Joshua Fulgham lured Strong into a storage trailer in Boardman, placed a plastic bag over her head and tried to break her neck, constricting her airway when that failed.

Fulgham, 29, is Carr's co-defendant and also the purported father of her child, whom Carr delivered shortly after being booked into jail after her arrest.

He will be tried at a separate date on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and organized fraud for allegedly using Strong's credit cards during the period of her disappearance. As Strong's estranged husband, Fulgham had a history of exhibiting domestic violence towards his spouse and may have felt burdened in the victim's waning days by child support payments.

It's such clues that will guide State Attorney Brad King and prosecutor Rock Hooker this week as they attempt to convince jurors that Carr, the new woman in Fulgham's life at the time, was complicit in devising a scheme to remove Strong from the picture.

Dozens of potential jurors faced the standard line of questioning Monday by King, Hawthorne, and clarifications posed by Circuit Judge Willard Pope, who will preside over the trial.

They were asked about everything from their views of the death penalty to the more mundane details of their lives, such as their hobbies, employment history, or past dealings with law enforcement.

A nine-page questionnaire was distributed to the pool Monday morning, touching on such subjects as political and religious beliefs; civic work in the community; and familiarity with the criminal justice system.

While such pre-voir dire questionnaires have been used before, Hawthorne said the detailed handout was crucial, “to help us narrow the field because we have a lot of information to go over with [jurors]."

Woman's murder trial under way

Ocala.com

Nov. 30, 2010

Still little is known about Emilia Carr, the 26-year-old woman standing trial on charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping for the disappearance and eventual killing of Heather Strong, a young mother from Citra, in the early months of 2009.

But a decision she was faced with last week, as lawyers convened to discuss procedural matters ahead of trial, may say at least one thing about her: She won’t so easily back down.

Carr, who faces the death penalty if convicted, was given the opportunity to accept a life sentence and erase any chance of receiving the state’s maximum punishment.

“The state told the court that if Ms. Carr wanted to sign an agreement for life, they would go to the victim’s family and see if they approved,” Candace Hawthorne, Carr’s court-appointed attorney, said Monday during a recess in jury selection.

That lawyers spent all day Monday trying to select the 12 individuals, plus two alternates, who will serve on the jury is a reflection of Carr’s decision to forgo the state’s offer and accept the risks.

By the end of the day, no jury had been seated. Jury selection resumes today.

Carr is the first of two people to be tried for the death of Strong, a devoted mother of two who worked at the Petro gas station and was 26 when she went missing in February 2009. Her body was unearthed from a shallow makeshift grave outside a storage trailer near McIntosh a month later.

She had been deprived of oxygen flow to the brain. The official cause of death was asphyxiation.

Prosecutors claim Carr and then-boyfriend Joshua Fulgham lured Strong into a storage trailer in Boardman, placed a plastic bag over her head and tried to break her neck, constricting her airway when that failed.

Fulgham, 29, is Carr’s co-defendant and then-boyfriend. He is also the purported father of her child, whom Carr delivered shortly after being booked into jail after her arrest.

He will be tried at a separate date for first-degree murder, kidnapping and organized fraud for allegedly using Strong’s credit cards during the period of her disappearance. As Strong’s estranged husband, Fulgham had a history of exhibiting domestic violence towards his spouse and may have felt burdened in the victim’s waning days by child support payments.

It’s such clues that will guide State Attorney Brad King and prosecutor Rock Hooker this week as they attempt to convince jurors that Carr, the new woman in Fulgham’s life at the time, was complicit in devising a scheme to remove Strong from the picture.

Dozens of potential jurors faced the standard line of questioning Monday by King, Hawthorne, and clarifications posed by Circuit Judge Willard Pope, who will preside over the trial.

They were asked about everything from their views of the death penalty to the more mundane details of their lives, such as their hobbies, employment history, or past dealings with law enforcement.

A nine-page questionnaire was distributed to the pool Monday morning, touching on such subjects as political and religious beliefs; civic work in the community; and familiarity with the criminal justice system.