Little Girl Blue

by Randy L. Schmidt

  It was obvious to most that Karen’s treatment was inadequate and ending too soon. Frenda felt the timing was one of the biggest hindrances. “She tried to get help,” she says. “She went to New York to try. It just wasn’t the right way to do it. If this had happened in today’s world I think Karen would have lived. I think we would have had a good shot. They know so much more. We were dancing in the dark.”

  17

  TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE, TOO SOON

  FROM THE office window, Evelyn Wallace caught a glimpse of the limousine as it pulled up in front of Newville. She ran to meet Karen as she approached the door, and the two embraced. Even though Karen’s weight was above one hundred pounds, Ev was shocked to see she looked as frail as ever. “She didn’t look one ounce over what she did when she left,” she recalls. “I knew not to squeeze her too hard, and I didn’t. I just put my arms around her. I could feel every bone in her back.”

  Karen ate heartily on Thanksgiving Day, much to the delight of her family, and she even called Itchie Ramone that night to tell her of all she had eaten. “She said to me, ‘I ate this and that and all my favorite things,’” she recalls. “She was very proud of herself then. We were all very proud of her. It seemed like progress.”

  In the weeks following her return to Los Angeles, Karen went back to shopping and socializing without delay. Although she spoke with Steven Levenkron regularly by phone, most of her friends believed she had no real intention of returning to his care. At home, she ate very little and slept a lot. This worried Agnes, but she had been cautioned to “keep quiet,” says Wallace. “She had been warned by Levenkron to not be jumping all over Karen. Agnes was told that Karen was trying her best to get healthy again and that she should just leave her alone and not be yelling at her and reminding her that she was sick. ‘Just leave her alone,’ he said.”

  On December 17, 1982, Karen gave what became her last public performance, singing for Frenda Leffler’s twins Ashley and Andrew, their cousin Brooke Megdal, and the children’s classmates at the esteemed Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California. “I never dreamed it would turn out to be the last time—never, never, never,” Frenda says. “How could that be possible? But it was. She was so thin. There was just nothing left of her.” Ed Leffler was worried about Karen, given her recent traumatic hospital stay in New York, and tried talking her out of making the appearance. “But she wanted to do it for the little children,” Frenda explains. “Except for our kids, these children had no idea who she was. To them she was just a nice lady who came to sing.”

  Wearing a festive cardigan over a turtleneck with red slacks and matching shoes, Karen sat on a platform at one end of a small auditorium before the audience of forty or fifty children watching attentively with their chins on their fists. As Frenda recalls, Karen’s joy was palpable that day. “She loved singing more than anything in the world,” she says. “Who better to sing for children? She was a natural mother. If life had been different and kinder I know she would have had a wonderful family. It meant so much to her, and she would have excelled at loving her family with the same love she gave to every performance she ever gave. Even that would have been perfection. She didn’t know any other way.”

  Although others felt she was still quite fragile and thin, Herb Alpert saw Karen shortly after the New Year and recalled her looking terrific and healthy. She bounced into his office saying, “Hey, look at me, Herbie! What do you think? How do I look?” She was excited and twirled around to show off her new figure. Alpert agreed that she looked happier and healthier than he had seen her in some time and felt she appeared to have won the battle. “I am so happy,” she told him. “I’m ready to record again, and Richard and I have been talking about getting the group together and performing.”

  On the evening of January 11, 1983, publicist Paul Bloch drove Karen to CBS Television City, where they met Richard for a special photo session celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Grammy Awards. They posed for group portraits alongside other past Grammy winners, including Glen Campbell, Dionne Warwick, and Helen Reddy. Karen spoke to reporters and mingled with friends including Debby Boone, Johnny Rivers, and Toni Tennille during what became her last public appearance. She looked tired, worn, and much older than a woman of thirty-two. Afterward she and Richard stopped for dinner at St. Germain on Melrose in Los Angeles, where Karen had an appetizer, entrée, French bread, and wine.

  On January 14, Karen met Richard and former college friend Dennis Heath for dinner, again at St. Germain. She startled the two when she stopped eating, put down the knife and fork, and looked at them as if frightened or in pain. She struggled to speak but couldn’t. After a lengthy visit to the ladies’ room, Karen returned and assured Dennis and Richard she was fine. After dinner the three drove to nearby A&M Studios, where they listened to playbacks from the April 1982 sessions.

  Debbie Cuticello called Karen on the evening of January 25 after having watched an Olivia Newton-John concert special on HBO. Incidentally, Karen had joined Olivia on the road for several stops during that 1982 Physical tour. The two had even discussed the possibility of Karen drumming during a few concerts, but because of her deteriorating health that idea was never realized. In 1982 she was far too weak for such an endeavor, but by 1983, Debbie Cuticello thought she sounded great—at least over the phone. “She was full of energy, vigor, and excitement and seemed to have pulled herself together and was ready to start a new lease on life. I asked her to send me some new photographs, and she said she would.”

  Despite Karen’s efforts to convince friends and family she was cured, her eyes told a more truthful story. The usual rich, warm, twinkling brown eyes were shadowed by a lifeless black. Even her nervous energy seemed stifled. She was taking more naps than usual and sometimes lying down by 7:00 in the evening. When Richard reported to Werner Wolfen that he did not think she looked well, word got back to Karen, and she was furious. She tracked Richard down and found his Jaguar parked outside the Broadway, a department store in Downey’s Stonewood Center. Richard exited the store to find Karen’s Jaguar XJS parked next to his XJS. Reluctantly he approached Karen, who was visibly incensed, and with great articulation and eloquence she chastised her brother in the parking lot that evening. “I want you to know that I am doing my best here,” she insisted, reminding Richard he did not recover overnight when he came home from Menninger. He responded that, although he may have acted a little strangely, he was most certainly well. He did not believe she was well, and he told her so.

  The confrontation continued when Karen demanded another meeting with Richard, this time with Werner present. There she explained that she felt unfairly attacked and that she had not been given the chance to fully recover. Questioning their belief in her ability to do so, she began to cry. “It’s not that I don’t believe in you,” Richard told her, “it’s just that I love you so much.”

  On Thursday, January 27, Florine Elie drove to Century City for her weekly cleaning of Karen’s condo at Century Towers. There the housekeeper made an unnerving discovery. “When I was working up there, I found Karen,” Elie says. “She was lying on the floor of her closet.” She gently shook Karen and rubbed her back. She awoke but was groggy. “Karen, is there something wrong?” she asked.

  “No, I am just so tired,” she replied, looking up in a daze at Florine.

  “Maybe you better go lie on your bed,” she said, helping Karen up and tucking her into bed. “You’ll be more comfortable this way.” Florine checked on Karen again before leaving. By then she was awake and was adamant that she was OK. Even so, this worried Florine, so she called Karen to check on her the next morning before reporting to work at Newville.

  Tuesday, February 1, found Karen once again dining with her brother, this time at Scandia on Sunset Boulevard. They were joined by stage producer Joe Layton, and the trio discussed plans for the Carpenters’ return to touring. Karen ate with enthusiasm and after dinner returned to Century Towers. This was the last time Richard would see his sist
er alive.

  The next day Karen drove to Werner Wolfen’s office at Irell and Manella, just a few blocks down Avenue of the Stars. There she and W (her nickname for the attorney) reviewed her final divorce decree. “Well, did you get the better of him?” she asked Wolfen playfully. Further revisions were necessary, so she made another appointment to sign the papers that Friday afternoon, February 4, at 3:00 P.M. Wolfen recalled she wanted desperately to finalize the divorce so that she could begin rebuilding her life without Tom Burris.

  Later in the day Karen spoke with Itchie Ramone, who was pregnant with her and Phil’s first child. From the time she learned of the pregnancy Karen had begun preparing for the arrival of the baby she called “ours” when talking to the Ramones. “K.C. went crazy buying strollers, a playpen, a swing, a highchair, a car seat, and you name it,” Itchie says. “Everything, by the way, was in blue. She was certain the baby would be a boy.” Karen shared her plans for the week. She would sign the final divorce papers Friday and then prepare to leave for New York. “That weekend, February 6, she was going to hop on a plane and be there for the birth,” Itchie recalls. “But first, she was finally going to sign her divorce papers and pay Tom off. She was ready to pay him the money and send him on his way—one million dollars. That’s what she said: ‘I’ll give you the million dollars, now get lost!’”

  On Thursday, February 3, Karen spoke with Richard by phone and asked his advice on videocassette recorders, as she was planning to purchase a new one. He recalled that she yawned a lot during their conversation. That afternoon Karen drove to Downey, where she planned to buy a new stackable washer/dryer for her condo. Hers was in need of repair, but she refused to call a service technician or simply order a replacement. She certainly had the resources to do so, but as she often did, Karen remained loyal to Downey, where she felt she would get the best deal and hometown service. “Both Karen and Agnes shopped at the best stores, and she shopped at the bargain stores,” says Debbie Cuticello. “They were never ostentatious. They were always very cautious with their purchases. I’m not saying cheap; I’m just saying they remember their roots. They remembered where they came from.”

  Stopping by Newville to pick up Agnes, Karen said a quick hello and hugged Evelyn Wallace in the office before setting on a mother-daughter shopping trip. Unable to find stackable units in stock at Gemco, the two postponed their search, and Karen agreed to sleep over and continue the search at the local Sears store first thing Friday morning.

  “We’re going down to Big Boy. You want to come?” Agnes often invited Evelyn to join the family for dinner. Ev declined the invitation this time but encouraged them to go and have a nice dinner since Karen was visiting. The three drove up Florence Avenue to Bob’s Big Boy, where Karen ordered her usual shrimp salad and asked for an extra serving as well. Afterward she told her parents she was still hungry and stopped for a taco. “Boy, that was good,” she told them as she finished the snack by the kitchen counter at home.

  Settling in, the family gathered in the den to watch a rerun of Shogun, the 1980 NBC miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain. At the end of the evening Karen went upstairs to Richard’s old room, where she often slept when visiting her parents. She preferred the room to her own since it had a television and videocassette recorder. This particular night she watched a taped episode of Magnum, P.I. and then phoned Phil Ramone before bed, finalizing travel plans for her New York trip the following week. Karen mentioned to Ramone that she had recently listened to her solo recordings. Her voice softened in hesitation as she continued. “Can I use the f-word?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I think we made a fucking great album!”

  Ramone agreed and encouraged Karen to look upon their work together as a positive milestone in her career, regardless of the way it was received by others. “You will make many more records with your brother,” Ramone told her, “but don’t lose the landmark just because it’s not out in the marketplace.”

  Shortly after midnight, Karen went over her to-do list with Frenda by phone, and the two finalized plans for the next day. “OK, I am going to go try to find a washer/dryer,” she said. “Then I’m going to drive in. There shouldn’t be a lot of traffic.” According to Frenda, Karen enjoyed keeping up with traffic reports. “Then we’re going to go get the red fingernail polish!” The two had a noon appointment for a manicure. She was excited and planned to have them finished with bright red polish in celebration of her divorce. “Then we’re going to go up to Werner’s and sign everything.”

  Frenda was in agreement. “Honey, I am with ya. It’s going to be a great day!”

  Judging by her voice, Karen was exhausted. “You know, Fren, I am so tired,” she said. “I don’t know what it is. I just feel like my chest is tired.”

  The two said their goodnights, but Frenda was worried. She phoned Agnes downstairs. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Would you go up and check on her for me?”

  Agnes phoned her back a few minutes later. “Well, I think she’s all right, Frenny,” she reported. “She’s going to be OK. I pulled the covers up over her.”

  Although Agnes and Frenda had their differences, they shared a common concern for Karen’s well-being. “We still were all on the same page,” Frenda says. “We all wanted to save her. That was our goal.”

  ON FRIDAY morning, February 4, Karen awoke and went downstairs to the kitchen, where she turned on the coffeepot her mother had prepared the night before. She went back upstairs to get dressed. Around 8:45 A.M. Agnes Carpenter heard the heavy mirrored closet doors slide open above her and Harold’s bedroom. “Karen’s up,” she said, getting up and heading to the kitchen, where she habitually prepared hot cereal and coffee each morning.

  On the kitchen counter she saw the percolator Karen had hooked up and the place settings she had prepared—two cups for coffee and two bowls for the cereal. “Before she had always set it for herself, too,” Evelyn Wallace says, “along with a bunch of pills the doctor gave her to take. This particular morning it was just a cup for Harold and one for Agnes; nothing for Karen.”

  Rather than shouting for Karen when the coffee was ready, Agnes picked up the multiline phone and dialed the upstairs bedroom phone, but its ring, heard faintly in the distance, went unanswered. Agnes went to the foot of the stairs and called to her daughter. She continued calling for Karen as she climbed the stairs, but there was no response. Entering the room, Agnes found Karen’s motionless, nude body lying facedown on the closet floor. Her eyes were open but rolled back. She was lying in a straight line and did not appear to have fallen. “She had just laid down on the floor and that was it,” Agnes recalled. “I picked her up and I called to her and held her.” She screamed to Harold to call for help.

  “She was out on the floor when I got there,” recalls Florine Elie, who arrived just after Agnes discovered Karen unconscious. “It must have been just before 9:00. She was out on the floor, and I am pretty sure she was dead there at the house.”

  The Downey Fire Department received Harold Carpenter’s call at 8:51 A.M. and dispatched Engine Company No. 64 as well as a nearby paramedic unit. “They were there so fast, pulling me off,” recalled Agnes, who herself attempted to resuscitate her daughter.

  The three firemen from Downey Fire Squad 841 and two paramedics from Adams Ambulance Service in Santa Fe Springs found Karen to be unconscious but detected a slight pulse. “It was a chilling scene,” paramedic Bob Gillis recalled to reporters. “Karen looked frail and very thin. She was completely nude.” A faint pulse was detected in her neck with her heart beating only every ten seconds. “This is a sure sign of a dying heart,” Gillis said. The crew moved her from the closet to the bedroom, where they began performing CPR and finally asked that Harold escort his distressed wife from the room.

  Agnes rushed down the stairs and phoned Richard. Like many musicians, Richard was a night owl and still sound asleep when the call came in around 8:55 A.M. So panic-stricken was Agnes that her son had trouble understand
ing her hysterical cries. Finally realizing Karen was unconscious, Richard threw on a T-shirt and blue jeans and tore out of the house.

  Arriving for what she thought to be an ordinary day at work, Evelyn Wallace was startled to see emergency vehicles outside the house and grew worried about Harold Carpenter. “Harold was the first one I thought of,” she says. “He had heart trouble and had to take a number of pills for his heart.” Hurrying into the house, Evelyn was met with Agnes, sobbing as she held tightly to a railing that separated the entry from the living room. “Agnes, what’s the matter?” she asked.

  There was no response. “Agnes couldn’t talk. She was crying and just waved me up the stairs. I went upstairs and saw they had Karen on a gurney. I could tell they were working on her heart.”

  Driving frantically from Lubec Street, Richard hoped it was only a collapse, perhaps even one severe enough to persuade Karen to take her condition more seriously. He began to cry as he rounded the corner onto Newville in time to witness paramedics exiting the house with the gurney. With full lights and siren, the ambulance transported Karen’s lifeless body and her shaken mother, still in her robe, to Downey Community Hospital. Richard and Harold were instructed to follow cautiously.

  Arriving at 9:23 A.M., the unidentified patient was reportedly in full cardiac arrest, not breathing and without a heartbeat. “All we knew was that we were getting a thirty-two-year-old female in full arrest,” says Pat Tomlin, RN, who worked in the emergency room. “When she arrived, the first thing that shocked me was her size. She was so frail and fragile looking.”