Northwest Florida Daily News

Fault line

Jury will have to decide whether Daniel Carter acted in self-defense or is guilty of murdering his uncle, Jack Carter, of Navarre Beach.

By MICHAEL STEWART Daily News Staff Writer

Last July, Navarre Beach resident Jack Carter bled to death in his sister's arms. One year later, Carter's 15-year-old nephew, Daniel, is facing first- degree murder charges in his death. Friends of Jack Carter believe Daniel Carter was a troubled teen who savagely murdered his uncle with a rusty knife. Others believe Daniel Carter acted in self-defense and describe Jack Carter, 45, as a bodybuilder and kung fu expert who viciously beat his nephew that night during a raging attack fueled by drugs and alcohol. Three people were at the crime scene that night. One is dead. Another is in jail. The third, Cindy Carter, is the sister of the victim and the mother of the boy accused of her brother's murder. For Cindy, there are no bad guys. She said her brother came to help, to talk to her son who was headed down the wrong path some teenagers take. And, Cindy said, her son never meant to take his uncle's life.

Something went wrong

Everyone agrees something went terribly wrong the night of July 16, 2002. It all started innocently enough. Daniel had turned 15 the previous month, Cindy said, and had reached the point where his mom's opinion didn't matter. Daniel's father had never been in the picture and so she turned to her brother for help. Most agree, if Daniel had a father figure in his life, it was Jack Carter. Jack would often pick Daniel up for a day of fishing and camaraderie. "I wanted him to talk to Daniel and get Daniel to understand that he is just headed for trouble and headed in the wrong direction and doing all the wrong things," Cindy said. Cindy said Jack sounded angry when he called on his cell phone that night while driving from Navarre to Cindy's home north of Pensacola. Cindy had told Jack that Daniel had gotten into the surfing magazines Jack stored at Cindy's home. Cindy said Jack threatened to beat up her son but promised not to do so when she objected. When Jack arrived and went in Daniel's bedroom, he began yelling obscenities and threats at Daniel, Cindy said. She could occasionally hear loud noises and things breaking. "I was thinking, OK, this is how guys do it," Cindy said. "Jack's in there punctuating his anger. He's trying to be intimidating. He's really trying to make an impression on Daniel." Cindy said Jack told her he was "going to come in there making some noise" and for her to stay in her bedroom and let him handle it. Even though she had broken her foot two days before, Cindy said she almost got up to intervene three times. "Then Jack would calm down," Cindy said. "He would rage. Calm down. Rage. Calm down." During one of his calm moments, Cindy said, she heard her brother tell Daniel, "I love you man. I love you. I wouldn't be here if I didn't care." Besides, Cindy said, although she was alarmed at times, Jack was her brother and she trusted him. "I trusted he would do what he said and maintain control of the situation." The big turning point, Cindy said while choking back tears, was when she heard a dial tone over the speakerphone. Daniel later told sheriff 's deputies he was trying to dial 911. "Then I heard the phone like bounce off the wall," Cindy said. "I assumed at that point Jack had pulled the phone out of the wall. He followed that statement with, `You're not calling anybody. Nobody's going to help you.' " Then, Cindy said, she heard Jack threaten to cut off Daniel's genitals, with his statement soon followed by the sounds of a scuffle. At that point, Cindy said, she grabbed one of her crutches and headed for Daniel's door.

A gruesome discovery

"It couldn't have been more than 20 or 30 seconds," Cindy said. "When I touched Daniel's doorknob he said, `Mommy, Mommy, Uncle Jack's dying.' He just screamed it." Cindy said when she opened Daniel's door, she took one look at Jack, who had fallen to his knees, and knew from the blood gushing from his neck that the wound was fatal. "I knew I only had seconds," Cindy sobbed. "I tried to find the bleeders in his neck and pinch them off so I could have a few extra seconds to talk to him. "I'm talking all the time. He was conscious for me to tell him I loved him and I was sorry, that this wasn't supposed to happen. I held him until he took his last breath." Meanwhile, Cindy said, Daniel was running up and down the hallway screaming hysterically, "Oh my God. Oh my God. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. Mommy, Mommy, is Uncle Jack dying? " Cindy said Daniel later told her his uncle was beating him with his fists and hit him once with a flashlight before Daniel picked up a large knife given to him by his grandfather. Daniel told his mother he was using the knife as a bluff, to make his uncle back off. Cindy said Daniel told her the bluff didn't work and that his uncle just kept "coming and coming and coming," kicking him in the head with his "kung fu stuff." Then Cindy said Daniel told her, "We both had our two hands, my two hands and his two hands, on the knife. We had four hands on the knife and I was pushing him and saying, `Get off me. Get off me.' "And it was like the knife just slipped and it hit him across the neck and it just fell." "I know my brother," Cindy said. "I know he was thinking, `I'm going to take that knife from that little punk and I'm going to whip his butt.' "

Murder or self-defense?

Jack's friends question Cindy's narration of events. "I would like for someone to explain to me how Daniel stabbed my friend 10 times, walked away without a scratch and can call it self- defense," said Jack's close friend Rob Rockholz. Cindy said her son didn't walk away unscathed and that he had three fingers stitched up when he was cut, she believes, while struggling with his uncle for possession of the knife. "And he had bruises," Cindy said. "Jack was whupping the boy." According to the autopsy report, Jack Carter suffered multiple knife wounds to the head, neck, chest, abdomen and arms. Some are described as superficial incisions that cut skin but did not penetrate deeply. Other wounds, like those found on Jack Carter's bicep and forearm, cut into skeletal muscle. The autopsy report describes the fatal wound as a "sharp force injury to the left side of the neck" resulting in "complete transection of the left (carotid) artery and the left jugular vein." "Normally when you see those type wounds on the hands and arms, they are defensive type wounds," said Mark Burke, chief forensic investigator at the Pensacola Medical Examiner's Office. "The biggest wound on his arms was right here," Cindy Carter said, patting the inside of her arm. "You don't get selfdefense wounds on the inside of your arm. You get them on the outside of your arm. This indicates a close-quarter struggle." According to a statement recorded during Daniel Carter's interrogation after the incident, Daniel told investigators, "I was slashing. I was like, `Quit it. Just leave me alone.' And I wasn't going towards him, like, you know, I was just like freaking out." Whether the wounds were indicative of self-defense or not "will be up to a jury to decide," said Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer, who is prosecuting the case.Cindy believes her brother had good intentions that night but that his judgment was impaired by consumption of alcohol, Valium and anabolic steroids. Autopsy results reveal that Jack's blood-alcohol level was between .13 and .18, over the .08 limit allowed to legally drive under Florida law. "We're talking a few beers," Rockholz said. Toxicology results also revealed traces of ingredients in Jack Carter's blood also found in Valium and anabolic steroids. Burke said the diazepam found in Jack Carter's bloodstream is found not only in Valium, but also in muscle relaxers. "The results are consistent with therapeutic levels found if a person was taking the medication under a doctor's prescription," Burke said. Rockholz thinks Jack was taking muscle relaxers for a back injury he suffered two years ago after running into a flatbed truck while riding his bicycle. And steroids found in Jack Carter's system aren't used only by bodybuilders, Burke said. Doctors use them to treat water retention and other medical conditions. "Jack didn't do steroids," Rockholz said. "He liked to work out but he wouldn't go near the stuff."Cindy said, however, that Jack had a prescription for Valium and that she found two bottles of steroids, said to cause aggression, between the seats of Jack's truck. "She's trying to make it sound like Jack was some kind of drug- crazed man," said Jack Carter's longtime friend Karen Richard. "We want everybody to know that's not the kind of man Jack was." Much of the July trial is expected to center around the drug issue. Rimmer and Daniel's attorney, James Stokes, each plan to seek testimony from medical experts, and questions about whether doctors prescribed the drugs found in Jack Carter's system should be answered then.

A far different version

Jack Carter's friends describe him as an easygoing, nonviolent man. "I've known Jack for eight years," Rockholz said. "In all that time I've never seen him get violent — ever." Jack didn't stop for a drink at Barracudas on Navarre Beach often, said bartender Audrey Scott. But from past observations, he didn't seem the violent type. "From what I've seen over the years, he certainly didn't fit that stereotype," Scott said. Jack Carter's friends believe something far different from Cindy's version happened the night their friend died. They say Daniel Carter was a good kid gone bad. "That kid didn't kill Jack," Rockholz said, pointing to a picture of a clean-cut Daniel Carter dressed up in a baseball uniform. "That was a good kid. But he changed." Jack's friends say the uncle and nephew were once close. But Daniel began hanging out with the wrong crowd and doing drugs, they say, and he became increasingly angry and defiant. They say Daniel was kicked out of not one but two schools and was often in trouble at home and with the law. Daniel has also been involved in several incidents since his arrest and incarceration at the Escambia County Jail. "Apparently he's been in a lot of trouble while he's been in jail," said Escambia County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Rhonda Ray. "Picking fights, that kind of thing. It's not uncommon." Cindy Carter said other kids were the aggressors and Daniel had no choice but to fight back. "The older kids, tougher kids, kids that are more dysfunctional, kids with repeated arrests, they are going to say, `This is my cell and you are going to be my @$&*^. You're going to be my punk. You're going to do what I tell you to do.' "

`I know in my heart'

Friends of Jack Carter's say he had gone to his sister's house before to try to help the youth they describe as "troubled." "He went over there to help his sister like he had so many times before and he got killed for it," Richard said. The first person Laura Lawson met when she moved to Navarre Beach 10 years ago was Jack Carter. Lawson believes Jack went to his sister's house because he was afraid someone might get hurt. "I know in my heart that Jack was only there that night to protect Daniel and Cindy from themselves and from each other," Lawson said. Lawson believes it was Daniel, not Jack, who lost control that night. Cindy Carter said Jack's friends are angry and looking for someone to blame. "They blame Daniel," Cindy said. "What they've said to me is that Jack's dead and Daniel's not. That's the absolute truth. But there's a whole lot more to it than that." Jack's friends say Cindy Carter knows more than she's telling but that she is a scared mother trying to save her son. Cindy thinks Jack's friends blame her, too. They do. "This whole thing is Cindy's fault," Richard said. "Why did she call Jack? Why didn't she call the police? Obviously, she was just trying to keep her son out of jail." Staring out at Pensacola Bay from a picnic table, Cindy Carter said blame won't bring her brother back. "Jack could do that all day long," Cindy said, nodding at the fisherman casting lures in the murky water. "It didn't matter if he caught anything or not." Even Cindy, the one closest to the events in the house that night, said she doesn't know everything that went on in her son's room. "People ask me what happened in there," Cindy said. "I don't know. I wasn't in there. There's nobody knows now but Daniel and God."