To Love and to Kill

by M. William Phelps

  Buie agreed to disagree and then explained that she was being booked on first-degree murder charges, same as Josh.

  For Emilia Carr, the dance was over.

  If she needed to explain herself from this point forward, she could speak to her lawyer.

  CHAPTER 72

  JOSH AND EMILIA were indicted on murder charges by the end of April 2009. Emilia was twenty-four-years old, pregnant, and now facing life behind bars or worse, the possibility of a death sentence. Florida was one state where you didn’t want to muck around with killing people in cold blood during the course of a kidnapping or other mitigating and aggravating circumstances—that is, unless you were interested in potentially staring down a tube, with a syringe at the end of it, strapped to a gurney. In Florida, like in some other states, such as Texas, juries sentenced people to death. Many of those perpetrators actually saw the needle within a reasonable amount of time after all their appeals had been exhausted.

  Special Prosecutor (SP) Rock Hooker came out swinging, stating the facts of the state attorney’s (SA’s) case as he talked about the indictments to the media: “It is evident from the physical evidence and from the statements taken in this case that Heather Strong suffered tremendously before she died. And because of that, both defendants will pay.”

  Less than a month after she was indicted, Emilia went into labor and was rushed from the jail to a local hospital, where she gave birth to a baby girl—a child who might or might not be Josh’s, some said. There were rumors flying that Emilia had slept with a friend of Josh’s while the two were fighting and that she had become pregnant to either spite Josh or trick him into thinking he was the dad so he would stay with her.

  In any event, the baby was quickly whisked out of Emilia’s arms and into state custody after she was born.

  Department of Children and Families (DCF) spokeswoman Elizabeth Arenas told reporters that Emilia’s healthy baby was released from Munroe Regional Medical Center and placed in foster care the same day she had been born. DCF was trying to find “possible relatives” to place the child with.

  “I don’t think the baby is mine,” Josh said when asked.

  CHAPTER 73

  ON JUNE 11, 2009, Detective Donald Buie received a copy of a letter Josh had written to Heather’s mother. In that letter, Josh apologized for killing Heather. He said he was sorry. He mentioned how he wished he could take it all back. And when his final judgment in a court of law came down the road, Josh hoped liked hell that the jury would see it fit within their hearts to sentence him to death. In Josh’s mind, that was the just sentence he deserved.

  A week later, Emilia’s mother called Brian Spivey and Donald Buie and said she had information about Emilia’s case. On that voice mail, Maria Zayas told a story of having spoken to her daughter just recently, and Emilia wanted to meet with Spivey and Buie right away to share what she knew.

  They sent a car to the jail to pick up Emilia.

  The effusive “other woman” in Josh Fulgham’s life had changed a bit since the last time Buie and Spivey had seen her. Emilia had her baby and had not yet lost the baby weight and, of course, was rather heavier than usual. Still, Emilia had always carried a bit of weight and it had never stopped her from being attractive. However, on this day, there was something else about her. Emilia had that weathered prison look to her already: braided hair, lighter skin, a certain swag in her walk, a touch of that prison slang in her voice, a terribly bitter chip on her shoulder.

  Emilia was now saying she was being railroaded. Once the facts of her case were made public, she would be released from prison.

  Buie and Spivey sat down with Emilia and caught up a bit.

  Then they got into it.

  Emilia said she didn’t need her attorney present to say what she wanted; she waived her rights in that regard.

  Buie read Emilia her Miranda rights and she formally agreed to speak to them without her lawyer present.

  This is never a good idea for someone facing felony first-degree murder charges.

  The gist of what Emilia wanted to get across came straightaway: “I lied,” she said.

  There was a bit of a lull among the detectives.

  Lied?

  “Lied.”

  Emilia went on to say she “lied about her involvement in the death of Heather Strong and that, in fact, she had no involvement and . . . she was not even present during [Heather’s] death.”

  Once again, Emilia Carr was changing her story.

  Buie and Spivey, not really surprised by this, terminated the interview.

  Emilia was driven back to her jail cell.

  CHAPTER 74

  ON JUNE 17, 2009, Josh Fulgham and Emilia Carr waived their right to a speedy trial, which meant that a year, at least, would have to pass before either saw the inside of a courtroom, a jury, and were allowed to present a defense. Yet, one thing was made clear by SA Brad King from the SAO: Joshua and Emilia would be facing a jury of their peers and fighting for their lives, because there was a good indication that the SAO was going to seek the death penalty in both cases.

  CHAPTER 75

  MURDER IS A vile, evil part of society. Most everyone agrees on that point. Each murder is vastly different from another, despite motive, modus operandi, method or means. The death penalty does not deter potential murderers, most will agree, whereas opponents of capital punishment will say there have always been and will continue to be innocent people put to death. Death penalty trials are an unpredictable and extremely tenuous facet of our judicial system. Just the two words strung together can rile some people up enough to hurl insults and make threats. Heated arguments ensue. Debates turn into shouting matches. Advocates believe strongly, same as gun supporters, in their cause; while opponents picket and use bullhorns and hold candlelight vigils at the scene of prison executions. It’s all very polarizing and split down the middle, as far as public opinion. The death penalty debate ranks right up there with the big ones, like abortion and euthanasia. These are taboo social issues that we, as a society, often don’t confront with any sort of educated or worthy discourse. Perhaps famed author J. R. R. Tolkien best put the challenge and weight of those choosing life or death in his wildly successful book The Fellowship of the Ring, when he wrote, “Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.”

  Without any doubt, Josh Fulgham was guilty of planning, plotting and carrying out the murder of his wife, Heather Strong. In fact, just two days after Emilia was arrested and charged with Heather’s murder, Josh summoned Detective Buie for yet another chat. Buie went. Josh, who had spent several days in solitary confinement staring at the walls by then, possibly contemplating his life and what he had done, sat down and explained to Buie that he was finished lying. He couldn’t do it anymore. It was time to speak the absolute truth.

  “I’m all ears,” Buie said.

  Josh proceeded to go through the lead-up to, and the actual moments of, the murder one more time, leaving no detail out and pleading with Buie to believe that everything he was now telling him was the truth, as best as he could recall it.

  Buie took it all down. He believed Josh. He also believed that Josh had shown some remorse and sorrow for what he had done.

  Emilia Carr’s role, on the other hand, with the kidnapping and potential assault charge aside, was questionable where the burden of first-degree murder stemmed. Had Emilia participated in the planning and murder itself—or was Emilia only there as a witness, as a bystander to help? Her story had changed so many times. Josh was sticking to his story of Emilia trying to snap Heather’s neck and placing the garbage bag, which ultimately suffocated her, over Heather’s head. But Emilia was now trying to proclaim that she was not even inside the trailer.

  Near the end of November 2010, Emilia was summoned from her cell and led into a room where her attorney waited.

 
; Emilia was now twenty-six years old. She had spent the better part of nineteen months in jail. She was a little more beaten down by the system; her baby face was rounder and further filled out. She was certainly a bit harder around the edges, more resolved to fight on and be proven not guilty, and a bit more apprehensive when it came to anything having to do with the justice system and cutting deals.

  “No,” Emilia said to her lawyer after listening to the proposal from the SAO.

  The state was offering life in prison for a guilty plea. Emilia could take her case to jury trial, which was scheduled to start in a few days, and open herself up to a possible death sentence—or she could give in, admit her role and responsibility and walk away with what many were saying was a sweet offer: life for a life.

  “The state told the court that if Miss Carr wanted to sign an agreement for life, they would go to the victim’s family and see if they approved,” Candace Hawthorne, Emilia’s court-appointed attorney, told reporters on Monday, November 29, 2010.

  After being turned down, SA Brad King and SP Rock Hooker went forward with the state’s plan to pursue the death penalty.

  It took days to sit the perfect jury for what was a rare female death penalty trial (even rarer would be for that same jury to sentence a female to death if/when she was found guilty). But by December 1, 2010, inside Judge Willard Pope’s Fifth Circuit Marion County courtroom, a twelve-member panel of seven male and five female jurors was seated by 3:00 P.M., paving the way for opening statements to begin.

  CHAPTER 76

  FIFTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD Brad King sported the look of a hard-nosed, seasoned prosecutor. He had the chiseled, handsome, albeit tough, appearance and solid build of a professional baseball player, with his thick mane of black hair against mahogany-tanned Florida skin. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, King had majored in finance and banking at the University of Florida, graduating with high honors in 1978, before applying his sights toward law at the same college. King was that perfect mixture of politician and civil servant; he knew how to handle the public side of being a prosecutor, but also the bureaucratic red tape that can sometimes come from dealing with cops. Most everyone he dealt with respected King, who had a reputation for demanding perhaps more evidence than necessary in order to take on certain cases. When agreeing to prosecute a case, however, King was prepared to wage a courtroom war he rarely lost. With regard to Emilia’s case, King was firm in his belief that Heather Strong had been singled out, chosen, kidnapped, tortured and then cruelly murdered in such a heinous and premeditated fashion that those responsible deserved to die. What is more, King also believed that a key participant in that crime—from the beginning planning stages to the later execution itself and cover-up that followed—was Emilia Carr. Here was a woman who, incidentally, throughout all of her denials and accusations, interviews with police and public appeals to be heard, had never, ever said anything remotely remorseful pertaining to any part of the crime. Nor had she ever said she was sorry that Heather had been killed, regardless of who it turned out the perpetrator(s) had been.

  For Brad King, who had seen scores of sociopaths and psychopaths pass through the hallways of justice he kept guard over, this alone said something important about Emilia as a human.

  King began with what had called them all to this house of justice on this particular day: the evidence. As he began his opening statement, King promised anecdotal, forensic, DNA, fingerprint, photographic, documentation, recordings and admissions, among other staple pieces of law enforcement, all proving that this woman was guilty of the crimes charged herein. He said the state was going to present twenty-two witnesses. He used heavy words when describing what the two defendants—Emilia in particular, seeing that Josh’s trial would take place after Emilia’s case had been fully adjudicated—had done to Heather Strong: “confined,” “terrorized,” “abducted,” “constrained” and, of course, “murdered.”

  The well-rehearsed SA then painted a picture of a love triangle—Heather, Josh, Emilia—but he also brought James Acome into that mix, telling jurors James’s story would be an important element of this trial, too. From there, he talked about how he was planning on presenting his case chronologically because it would help jurors better understand what would be, at times, a seemingly confusing mishmash of narratives. Yet, the “genesis” of the state’s case, King pointed out, as well as the apex of the law enforcement account, the single most compelling portion of this murder case jurors would soon hear, would be centered on the fact that Josh was living with Emilia back in early December 2008—a time when the seed of this malicious crime was planted.

  “Sometime shortly before Christmas,” King told jurors, “he kicks [Emilia] out and has Heather Strong come back and they reunite again.”

  And bang! That was the beginning of the end for Heather Strong, King snapped.

  According to the state, one piece of information summed up this case—that romantic situation, as it presented itself to Emilia, was the impetus for her to begin putting a bug in Josh’s ear to get rid of Heather for good. It wasn’t the fact that Heather had set Josh up for an arrest on gun charges later on. What had started the ball rolling for Emilia, King suggested, was the day she was booted out of Josh’s house and her romantic rival moved in, taking her place.

  SA King talked about how Emilia then finagled her way into Heather’s life after Josh was put in jail: how Emilia offered to babysit Heather’s kids, and, thus, Emilia confronted Heather and threatened her. Not to mention how Emilia then solicited two men to kill Heather—and, when none of that worked, Emilia Carr then devised a plan to do away with Heather for good.

  What King did perfectly in his opening was to work James Acome into the lover-swapping narrative, explaining to jurors that Emilia and James had a child together. After Josh went to jail in January 2008, Heather hooked up with James, leaving Emilia all alone. Connected to both James and Josh, Heather was the common denominator in Emilia’s life that caused her the most grief and personal pain—and here Emilia was pregnant (so she claimed) with Josh’s child. Emilia had no one. Heather always seemed to be in the way of Emilia’s happiness.

  Judge Willard Pope—with his silvery gray hair, groomed like a politician’s (tightly around the ears, short in the back, perfectly parted to one side)—looked on, listening very carefully to the prosecutor. For judges, death penalty cases are an added stressor. They need to be handled with kid gloves, and lawyers don’t get as much leeway in talking through their cases and questioning witnesses as they might in a non–death penalty trial. No trial judge wants his or her case to come back on appeal based on something that could have been avoided in the courtroom with a bit more attention to detail. Judge Pope, appointed to his position in 2003 by then-Governor Jeb Bush, had just been retained that August for a six-year term after running an unopposed reelection campaign. There was no better judge in the state of Florida to sit watch over a trial of this magnitude than Willard Pope.

  Brad King went through his case, point by point, using the technology available in the room, a PowerPoint-like presentation, to explain what each juror should expect to see and hear over the course of the trial. One important point King brought up during this portion of his opening was how, at any time during what had been nine different interviews Emilia gave to Detective Donald Buie, she could have come clean and told him where Heather was buried—and still stick to her initial tale of being there, but not participating. But Emilia never said anything about it. She allowed Heather’s body to decompose in a hole in the back of her mother’s yard, knowing full well it was there, while she tried slithering her way out from beneath mounting evidence against her.

  The constant bell King rang was that Emilia, whenever she had been presented with additional evidence against the story she was trying to sell at the time, would call Spivey and say, “Oh yeah, now that I think of it, I need to tell you something I might have overlooked. . . .”

  “And you can . . . see she’s whispering,” Brad King said of the nu
merous recorded interviews Emilia gave to Buie and Spivey, “like, you know, ‘I don’t want anybody to hear this, but here is all I know now.’”

  Time and again, when faced with the facts of the case, Emilia Carr opened up just a bit more. When they told her, for instance, they had located Heather’s body in her mother’s backyard, after Josh had led them to the grave, Emilia changed her story again and asked for immunity.

  Each and every time they looked at the evidence, King continued, the MCSO was more and more certain Emilia was involved.

  She mentioned duct tape.

  They found duct tape.

  She mentioned a black garbage bag.

  They found the bag.

  She mentioned a broken window.

  There was shattered glass on the ground.

  The more she talked, the more they felt she knew these things because she had been there when the crime happened. It wasn’t hard for Brad King to place the defendant at the scene of this murder. But then Emilia called Michelle Gustafson, Josh’s sister, and the case broke wide open.

  “And [Michelle] goes to Emilia Carr’s house, her mother’s house, picks her up,” King said in his sometimes-thunderous tone, hammering a point home, “and they have a conversation.... They drive up to a park ... and while they’re still there in the park, talking, Donald Buie and Brian Spivey are listening.”

  He next explained how Buie got “fed up” with Emilia’s lies and confronted her after she had that conversation with Michelle.

  “We weren’t there by chance,” Buie told Emilia on that day, letting her know they had been recording her and Michelle’s conversation, King told the courtroom.

  One indelible comment, which turned out to be extremely incriminating, which Emilia had made inside the car, King told jurors to listen for when they heard the tape. This turned out to be when Michelle asked: “‘Well, did she go peacefully, or did she’—and you can hear Emilia Carr break in and say, ‘Did she fight him? Yeah. Yeah. She fought him.’”