This is my current thinking about what happened. It is just my own theory, no one knows for sure (except maybe Carol). However, my theory is based on assumptions which are mostly factual (where it is speculation I try to make that clear).
Here are my thoughts:
1. Carol has told the same story, with great consistency, for 40 years, including testimony twice under oath, and passed two lie detector tests including recently. I still think it’s possible her story may be largely invented (several people, including some at the time in 1975, have said she was a pathological liar), but we need to consider the possibility that much if not most of the basic elements of her story are true. She is, in my opinion, hiding a few things, as I will discuss below.
2. Pam Brown (Newell’s niece) also passed a lie detector test. Her story is consistent with Carol’s in that she places Christie alone at the guardrail at Woolco. Pam Brown adds, of course, that her uncle Henry Newell confessed to her that he saw Christie at the guardrail, “chatted her up,” and persuaded her to follow him to the woods where he committed the crime. So we have two stories by people who’ve passed lie detector tests, both placing Christie alone at the guardrail while Carol was inside Woolco.
3. Newell was a small time drug dealer (marijuana and sopors in particular). Many sources confirm this. He offered drugs to girls from his position running the Stop N Go carryout at Kanawha and High Street. According to one source he also sold drugs from the tree house near the murder site. Newell had a modus operandi of offering drugs to younger girls to try to get them to have sex with him. (this according to several people).
4. I believe that Carol was jealous of Christie. Christie was prettier and had a more positive, sunny disposition. Carol’s boyfriend that summer (one of several), Steve Neal, who lived in Broadmeadows, also showed interest in Christie and, according to Steve, this upset Carol. Carol also was interested in Jimmy Bateson, who also showed interest in Christie (it’s not clear whether Christie was interested in Jimmy; she had briefly “dated” Jimmy’s brother Tom.) Bottom line is there was probably some friction between the two girls, a sort of love-hate relationship. They did hang out a lot together that summer—much more than previously reported. Although Christie may not have liked Carol all that much personally, I think she saw Carol as an entrée to a more exciting (and dangerous, or at least reckless) world.
5. I believe that Carol and Christie both knew Newell—maybe not well, but enough to be familiar with him and, importantly, not fearful of him. We have heard the story, perhaps true, of Newell swimming in the pool at night, in the nude, with Carol. But I think the statement of Donny Schlichter is more telling. Here is what he told me:
Donny said he was the boyfriend of Delenda ("Dee Dee") Harrison, who lived near the Mullinses on Rosslyn. He met Dee Dee through Carol Reeves, her friend, who was dating Bobby Starner at the time. Bobby was a friend of Donny. Donny said he remembered Christie, although he did not know her well. She was quiet whereas the crowd Donny hung out with were "rebels and outlaws." He did say Christie hung around with Carol. Carol was a "doper" (pot and sopors). So was Dee Dee.
Donny said that Christie's father was very protective of her and almost stalked her. He described him as a "loud obnoxious guy" and "very verbal" who always insisted that "he's the man and what he says goes." He said that her father worked in a "carryout" at the corner of High Street near Kanawha and could get booze or drugs (sopors and ludes) for anyone who wanted them. He said the guy who ran the carryout used to change his temperament whenever girls entered, he would always flirt with them. He said he saw Carol and Christie in the carryout with her "loudmouth" father on a number of occasions.
It was then I realized that Donny had confused Norman with Henry Newell and that in fact he was describing Newell. Newell worked at the Stop and Go at Kanawha and High and others have said he offered to sell them drugs from there. Newell was loud and aggressive, Norman was not. I sent Donny a picture of Newell and he said he thought that was the guy he remembered from the carryout, especially based on the 1950s greaser hairdo.
That Donny would confuse Newell for Christie’s father is telling: it suggests there was a degree of familiarity between Newell and Christie and that he was not a complete stranger to her.
6. Newell also said that he had seen Carol “several times in the woods with 3 or 4 other guys” and that “apparently she (and Christie) had smoked pot there” and had been busted by the state police for smoking marijuana at the Blind School a few weeks before the murder. [the part about the Blind School is documented in the police report. Carol also admitted in her deposition that she and Christie smoked pot at least 5-10 times together that summer, both in the woods and in the Broadmeadows apartments of friends, including Kathy Kennedy’s apartment in the 465 building]. Both Steve Neal and Tom Bateson have said they were among the guys they smoked pot with in the woods. I wouldn’t be surprised if Newell was also one of those “3 or 4 guys” or at least had run into the girls there and made small talk with them and other kids they were with. Whatever else one can say about him, Newell did seem to have a good rapport with teenaged kids and an ability to make himself seem like one of them.
7. According to Newell’s stepson Bobby Saultz, Newell often made prank phone calls to people, posing as someone from a radio station. He would say things like “guess which president is on the dollar bill” to win money and when the person answered and got all excited and asked what they won, he’d say “a bucket of cow manure.” He also made phone sex calls.
8. According to Carol, the “disc jockey” who called her about a “cheerleading contest” told her that on her way to the contest, she should pick a couple leaves from a tree and when she got there, if she could identify the type of tree they came from, she would win $50 to $1,000. This sounds a lot like the kind of prank calls Newell made (think about it: she was allowed to select the tree from which she picked leaves, so all she had to do was know what kind of tree it was—about as easy as saying which president was on the dollar bill.)
9. Carol said the caller had a “hillbilly accent.” Henry Newell had a southern (Alabama) accent, but it wasn’t an especially thick accent. His brother Tommy, though, had a very thick accent. Tommy was home at the Newell house in bed that day with a hangover from the night before. My suspicion is that Henry put his brother up to making the phone call to Carol and gave him a rough script of what to say. This would explain why, according to Carol, the caller sounded nervous and stuttered a bit. That wouldn’t be Henry; it would be his brother, trying to remember what to say (especially since the “contest” was nonsensical). If Henry knew Carol (as I believe he did), then he wouldn’t want to make the call himself since she might recognize his voice. So he had Tommy do it. Henry may have been home at the time, or he may have already been along the path or hiding near Woolco, waiting for Carol to emerge from the shortcut path, which the caller told her to take.
10. Carol said the phone call with the disc jockey came at 1 p.m. and lasted 15 minutes. That can’t be right. All the DJ supposedly said was there was going to be a cheerleading contest at Woolco at 1:45 and to be there by 1:30; to take the shortcut path; and to pick a couple leaves for the contest. He also may have said there would be a photographer from Olan Mills studio there. How long could all of that take? 2 minutes? 5? Surely not 15, especially if he was a total stranger, as Carol claimed. If the call was only a couple minutes, that means Carol and Christie would have gotten to Woolco earlier than 1:30, which is when Carol said they got there. Instead it would have been more like 1:20 or even a couple minutes before that. This 10-minute or so difference becomes extremely important later.
11. The telephone cord that was found around one of Christie’s hands matched the cord found on a “Y” shaped pole near the empty, unfinished condominiums that were being built just north of Woolco in the woods. I suspect that Henry grabbed some of the cord on the way from his house to a hiding spot near Woolco, and that he had it in case he needed it to subdue Carol or some other girl he intended to pursue that day.
12. Now we come to the timeline of Carol and Christie’s movements on that day. Carol testified that she went to the pool around late morning or noonish in search of Jimmy Bateson, who had promised to meet her there. He wasn’t there. But Carol did run into Christie and her sister Kim at the pool. Both Carol and Kim agree that before long, Carol and Christie left the pool together, leaving Kim there. [according to Kim, Carol also called Christie earlier that morning to try to convince Christie to hang out with her]. It was during this brief time at the pool that Kim remembers seeing Carol talk to some older boys in a white car. Who they were remains a mystery, although I don’t think it has anything to do with the murder.
13. After leaving the pool, Carol and Christie went to the apartment of Jackie Rozman in 440 Broadmeadows, where her nephew, Steve Neal, was living that summer with her. No one was home. Then Carol and Christie went across the street to Kathy Kennedy’s apartment in 465. Kathy was there and they went inside. Somewhere during this time period, between noon and 12:30, Carol and Christie ran into Barb Kerns, a friend of both who lived in 500 Broadmeadows next to the pool. Barb remembers them asking her to come to Woolco with them. They didn’t say anything about a cheerleading contest (which makes sense, since Carol hadn’t yet had the call from the DJ). Barb had a “feeling”, not based on anything the girls said, that they might have been going to Woolco to shoplift, since that had happened before.
14. Once inside Kathy Kennedy’s apartment, Carol went outside to the lawn in front to see if Jimmy Bateson had arrived at the pool yet (he had not). It was at this point, Carol said, that her younger sister came up to her and said “that man is calling again” about a cheerleading contest and would call back at 1 p.m., which was 20 minutes away. [Carol, her sister, and mother all have said the guy had been calling for the past week, although Carol had never spoken to him yet]. Carol then went home to 356 Kanawha, just a few minutes away, to wait for the call [note that Carol did not go back into Kathy Kennedy’s apartment to tell Christie she was leaving to go home]. The call came at 1 p.m. as promised and lasted 15 minutes according to Carol although as stated above I think it couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes. After the call, Carol said she changed her clothes out of her bathing suit into something appropriate for a cheerleading contest, including new saddle shoes which her mother had bought her specifically for the contest. [I very much doubt that; I suspect Carol may have shoplifted the shoes].
15. Carol said that she took her sister with her and headed to Woolco (even though the caller had said the contest was for 13 to 17 year olds and that no one outside that age group should come. Carol’s sister was 9 or 10.) Carol told her little sister that if the contest turned out to be something else, she should “run.” Carol had suspicions that the contest was not “on the up and up.” Then Carol said she and her sister ran into Christie, heading south on Riverside, at the intersection of Riverside and Kanawha. Carol said Christie was coming to find Carol to see if she was coming back to Kathy’s [I am dubious about that; I think it just as likely that Carol may have called Christie at Kathy’s and told her to meet her at the corner of Kanawha and Riverside, although I’m not sure it’s that important.] Carol then filled Christie in on the DJ’s call, sent her little sister home, and she and Christie proceeded to Woolco, picking a couple maple leaves along the way for the contest. [Carol’s younger sister later corroborated Carol’s account of meeting Christie and sending her sister home]
16. Everyone seems to agree that Christie had no interest in cheerleading, and I think that’s true. However, remember that Christie was not going to Woolco to participate in a cheerleading contest. For one thing, she wasn’t dressed for it (she had on a bathing suit and blue jeans and was barefoot). She was just along for the ride to accompany Carol (and maybe to make fun of her?). Although people have said Carol hated cheerleaders, I think Carol was just vain enough and perhaps flattered herself into thinking that maybe she could be a cheerleader. She also told Barb Kerns later that going to Woolco was more about the maple leaves contest than the cheerleading contest, presumably because of the prospect of winning up to $1,000, as ridiculous as that sounds. Of course the whole cheerleading story may be fiction, too.
17. Under Carol’s timeline, she and Christie meet up at Kanawha and Riverside around 1:20 and get to Woolco at 1:30 [it takes about 10 minutes to make that walk, maybe even a minute or two less if you really know your way. I just tried it]. Under my theory, they actually got to Woolco around 1:15-1:20 because the DJ phone call didn’t really take 15 minutes.
18. In any event Carol said that because she and Christie saw no evidence of a cheerleading contest, she went inside Woolco about 1:35 to check on the time and left Christie alone at the guardrail, brushing her hair with Carol’s blue comb. Carol also said she left her new saddle shoes (which she was carrying not wearing) and left them at the guardrail and went inside barefoot because she didn’t want anyone inside Woolco to think that she had just stolen the shoes. This is bizarre and, to me, signals a guilty conscience or, more likely, the fact that Carol planned to shoplift inside Woolco and didn’t want to be accused of stealing the shoes, too, if she got caught stealing something else. Or else she didn’t want someone to suspect her of stealing the brand new shoes and then, as a result, catch her stealing other, smaller stuff.
19. Carol says she was only inside Woolco for a couple minutes, saw the time as 1:40, and was back at the guardrail a minute or two later, where she discovered that Christie was gone (but the shoes were still there). But I don’t believe that Christie would have left the guardrail and abandoned Carol after only a couple minutes. Even if somebody came along who she knew, Christie wouldn’t have left with him or her just a couple minutes after Carol went inside.
20. Instead, this is what I think happened. I think they got to Woolco, as I said, around 1:15-1:20. Carol then told Christie she was going inside the store to check the time and would be right back in a couple minutes. Or maybe, Carol even told Christie she was going to shoplift a few items, or maybe she said nothing but Christie inferred that was Carol’s plan. In any event, Carol wasn’t back in a couple minutes. Instead she’s in there 5, 10, even 15 minutes. It’s hot out (93 degrees) and sitting on the guardrail is uncomfortable and now Christie is starting to get worried (and even mad, possibly). What’s taking Carol so long? Did she get caught? If she got caught, maybe she’s telling the store security that she was shoplifting for her friend who’s waiting outside? Maybe she even tells security that it was her friend who asked her to shoplift some things for her? That would be just like Carol.
21. Christie isn’t going to go inside for fear of getting implicated. But she’s also tired of waiting around. Remember, Carol has been dragging her all over the place—first from the pool to Jackie Rozman’s in search of Steve Neal, who’s not home; then to Kathy Kennedy’s where Carol abruptly leaves without even telling Christie, then to a dumb cheerleading contest which, it’s now apparent, isn’t taking place. In effect Carol has been wasting a good Saturday for Christie. So Christie is ripe to leave.
22. Enter Henry Hester Newell Jr., who’s been lying in wait nearby, expecting to see Carol coming through the path. Except that it isn’t just Carol, but also Christie. Newell watches Carol go inside and sees Christie stewing there on the guardrail. He ambles by and starts “chatting her up,” just as his niece said. Tells her she’s a fool for waiting for her friend, maybe even plants the idea in Christie’s head that Carol is going to blame her for the shoplifting. He says “screw Carol, let’s get out of here,” go back to the woods by the tree house and smoke some pot. This conversation takes place either at the guardrail, or maybe Christie left by herself to go back home and ran into Newell along the way. Perhaps he was on his dirt bike and offered her a lift and then diverted to the tree house.
23. I’m sure Christie would not have gone to the remote tree house area in the woods alone with an older man who was a total stranger to her. But as I said above, I don’t think they were total strangers. Maybe not bosom buddies, but familiar enough that she wasn’t afraid of him and viewed him as “one of the guys” to smoke pot with in the woods. We should also consider that studies show that upwards of 80% of all murder victims know their killer. It’s also possible that she went to the woods with someone else she knew and then ran into Newell back there. But that introduces another element, another moving part, and another participant who somehow has managed to keep it secret all these years. What happened to the other person—did he/she run off? Witness the crime? Where have they been all these years? Yes, it’s possible, but not as likely, in my view, and certainly not as simple, as her having gone with Newell alone.
24. In any event she ends up near the tree house with Newell. He starts to get fresh and she resists. He gets rough with her and hits her, maybe tries to tie her hands with the telephone cord (only one hand was tied, which suggests a struggle. He did tell his niece, she said, that there was a struggle and that Christie resisted). Maybe he even draws blood. She was found with her bathing suit top pulled down to her waist and her jeans unzipped (but her jeans still on), so that may indicate an aborted rape attempt (or maybe he staged it to look like a rape). According to Pam Brown, her uncle told that Christie wouldn’t stop screaming. She might also have blurted something out threatening to tell the cops or at least her dad on him. As Newell later was quoted as saying, “that’ll teach her to keep her damn mouth shut.”
25. At some point, Newell realizes that if he lets her go, she can identify him to the police and send him back to jail, where he’s been several times (and escaped several times). He will do anything to avoid going back to the big house, this time on a charge that could put him away for decades. So he decides the only possible course of action is for him to eliminate the victim as a witness, and he strikes her repeatedly with the 2 x 4 (of the same type used to build the tree house, probably originating from the condo construction site).
26. Under Carol’s timeline Christie left the guardrail around 1:40 which means she wouldn’t be back to the crime site until between 1:45 and 1:50 (it’s about a 7 minute walk from the guardrail to the crime site). Under my theory Christie left the guardrail between 1:25 and 1:35 and is at the crime site by about 1:35 to 1:45. The murder is completed by 1:50 or a bit earlier. Newell races home (less than 5 minutes on foot). As Nellie Newell, Tommy’s wife, said in her recent statement to CPD (and passed a lie detector test), Newell came into hers and Tommy’s bedroom where they were still in bed, said he’s found a dead girl in the woods, and had blood on his shirt. He went down to the basement to throw his shirt in the wash, and changed into a light blue shirt. Then he talked to his wife Pam, loaded up the car with the kids, and drove to Woolco for the famous alleged “nature walk.”
27. The Newells and kids leave their house at 343 Kanawha by about 2 p.m. and are at Woolco by 2:05 (it takes 3-5 minutes to drive there, I’ve tested it). They walk back to the woods because Henry is afraid he left incriminating evidence at the scene (his sandal, among other things). As Bobby Saultz, his stepson, testified, while walking Newell said aloud, “It isn’t here.” (referring probably to the body, or maybe the sandal). They then find the body around 2:10 or so. (this is about the time Newell said he saw Jack Carmen swinging the board, which is fiction). Henry takes off his shirt and drapes it over the body; the shirt, according to the CPD files, but never made public before, is blue (thus corroborating Nellie Newell’s story). He picks up the board and throws it. He also finds the blue comb (the one Carol lent to Christie) and throws it, too, so no one can find it (it is later recovered, however, and Carol identifies it as hers, which corroborates at least one aspect of her story). It’s also possible that this is when Henry pulls Christie’s top down and unzips her jeans to make it look like a rape.
28. Around 2:15 the Newells run to Woolco, where Pam calls the police (the dispatcher recorded the call at between 2:20 and 2:25). Henry, now shirtless, runs to the men’s department, where Sheila Foster, Jim Foster’s daughter, is working. She sees him take a shirt off the rack. He’s not worried about somebody saying he stole it; he’s a hero, right, who discovered the murder in progress and identified the assailant!
29. Officer John Cherubini, who was one of the first officers at the scene, took Newell back to the body and began asking him questions. When Cherubini began searching for the murder weapon (the 2 by 4 board), Newell became very nervous and agitated. Cherubini told Newell he thought he was lying and that he’d better pull himself together. Somehow this information was not passed up the chain, or if it was, it was ignored.
30. Mary Winniestaffer, the five year old daughter of Pam Newell, said that when they went on the “nature hike” Newell said something to the effect that he “wanted to show them what he had found.” That indicates Newell had earlier seen the victim’s body and was coming back a second time.
31. Sly Edwards (a potential business colleague of Newell’s) also said that Newell told him that he had seen the body in the woods but went back home to gather up his wife and kids to return there because “no one would believe him” if he said he discovered the body but was not involved in the murder.
32. Another friend of Newell’s said that Newell’s father told her that Jr. had killed a little girl because she “had something on him.”
33. One of Newell’s drinking buddies said Newell confessed to him that he had murdered Christie Mullins although he hadn’t intended to kill her.
34. Newell’s daughter Judonna also said he confessed to her that he had killed Christie.
35. Another daughter of Newell’s (out of wedlock) said her mother told her Jr. had confessed to her that he once killed a girl.
36. Several people quoted Newell as saying he hated his wife’s two kids (Bobby and Mary) and that he’d never taken them for walks previously or spent any time with them.
37. The bottom line is that there is multiple evidence that the nature walk was Newell’s effort to return to the scene of the crime, and that the alleged sighting of Jack Carmen committing the murder was a fabrication. And if Newell fabricated that story, it was only because he was himself the killer.
38. How did Newell so accurately describe someone whose sketch so closely resembled Jack Carmen? And how did both Newell and Pam, his wife, pick Carmen out of the lineup?
39. A couple different theories. One is the “lucky guess” theory, which is that Newell randomly described a long-haired hippie type of which there were many at the time. Another theory (per Jim Yavorcik) is that he sketched someone who looked like Jesus, whom Newell had drawn many pictures of in his house. You may also recall there was testimony at trial that the Newells were allowed to view Carmen at Graceland before they went downtown for the lineup. CPD hotly denied that. The evidence on this is inconclusive, but suspicious. Sgt. Ralph Arnett told Detective Ron Price to take the Newells to Graceland at the same time it was known that Carmen was being held there as a suspect.
40. My own theory is that Newell knew who Jack Carmen was, had seen him before, and knew he could easily pin it on him. Pam Brown (the niece) said that Jr. told her that Carmen was a “drinking buddy” and he knew he could easily take the blame because of his mental impairment. Indeed, Carmen frequented the same seedy downtown bars where Newell often drank. Or possibly Carmen was at Graceland that day and the idea popped into Newell’s head to describe him to police. The only thing we know for sure is that it wasn’t Jack Carmen swinging the board.
41. An extremely close friend of CPD officer Ron Price (one of the leads in the original investigation, since deceased) said that one night during the investigation Price came to his house and said, “I can’t do this anymore. This kid (Jack carmen) they’re blaming . . . I know he didn’t do it.” Price’s wife confirmed that if Price told this to this particular friend, it was probably true because they were so close (it should be noted that Price obtained the taped “confession” of Carmen).
42. The first two hours of the questioning of Carmen at CPD headquarters are not summarized in any memo, which is contrary to CPD practice. It was later memos which began laying out the case against Jack Carmen and the self-incriminating statements he made. This suggests that the initial questioning of Carmen was not helpful to the case against him and thus was not recorded.
43. One of the lead detectives on the case who questioned Jack Carmen was Robert Litzinger.
Litzinger also was one of the main detectives who questioned Carol. He was a friend of her father and had gone to school with him.
44. During the re-investigation by CPD in 2014, Litzinger said he spent the first several hours with Carmen and was convinced that Carmen did not kill Christie. (for one thing, Litzinger said Carmen had trouble finding his way in the woods but could be led easily anywhere they wanted to take him). After Carmen confessed, Litzinger told his boss, Ralph Arnett, that he was concerned whether it was enough to support an indictment, and Arnett told him not to worry about it. Litzinger also said that he made a couple attempts to re-interview Pam Newell, but that Arnett told him to “stand down” and leave the Newells alone. Litzinger said Arnett (since deceased) only cared about solve rates and wanted to get the case off the front page. Litzinger said that Arnett and Price “railroaded” Carmen.
45. Litzinger also said that while he initially regarded Henry Newell as a good, cooperating witness, he later concluded he was a bad witness and likely involved in the murder. Litzinger did sign an affidavit at the time saying that Carmen was guilty. He explained that if CPD had a confession and two eyewitnesses, it was practice to charge the suspect so he was basically forced to sign the affidavit even though he didn’t believe it. [note: this is what Litzinger says today. There’s nothing in the CPD files that indicate he had doubts back then, although there is a reference to him saying that there were some “discrepancies” in Carol’s initial statements]
46. Another retired CPD detective, James Carr, said that he wanted to follow up on additional leads after Carmen confessed but was told by a superior (Richard Hartman) to “stand down.” According to Carr, Hartman said that additional followup might provide a defense attorney with ammunition to attack the case against Carmen.
47. Information from the file indicates that Henry Newell was a confidential informant, or “snitch,” for at least two Columbus police officers on a regular basis. There are many statements attributed to Newell to the effect that he could do anything he wanted and was “protected” and “no one would touch him.” There is no specific evidence, at least in these files, that CPD went easy on Newell in the Carmen case because of his value to them as an informant. That would be inference or speculation.
48. At the police lineup, Henry and Pam Newell were allowed to sit near each other in the same room. That was contrary to CPD standard procedure, which required separation of lineup witnesses.
49. Another woman, Margaret Barton, identified Carmen at Graceland. She later retracted her identification and called CPD to tell them, but her retraction was disregarded.
50. Why did CPD try so hard to pin the crime on Carmen when it seemed obvious it wasn’t him? And why did they turn a blind eye to Newell? Even after the trial and acquittal of Carmen, CPD seemed to want to exonerate Newell. Was it just incompetence and shoddy practices, and a bureaucratic refusal to admit mistake, or was something more nefarious involved? We may never know.
51. Likewise, we may never know whether Carol’s story is mostly true, somewhat true, or completely fabricated. We don’t know if there was a DJ call at all that day, and if there was, whether it was Henry Newell, Tommy Newell, or somebody else. We don’t know if Henry had an accomplice (other than maybe Tommy as the phone caller). Carol allegedly told Mr. and Mrs. Mullins that “two were involved,” although she denied that in her polygraph test when asked that exact question. She also denied saying something along the lines of “it was never supposed to go that far,” which several people said they overheard her say the day or so after the murder. Assuming she did say something like that, was it an admission that she knew of some plan to get Christie to the woods? Or was it a more innocent statement to the effect that it was just a stupid (and ultimately non-existent) cheerleading contest she was going to, and she never dreamed that Christie would end up dead by following along with her. Carol also allegedly said, “I think it was intended for me,” which is a logical assumption if, in fact, there was a DJ phone call to Carol and the caller was involved in the murder as perpetrator or accomplice. Under Carol’s story, Christie only ended up going to Woolco by chance, so naturally it wasn’t intended for her. But what was the “it” Carol was referring to? We don’t know for sure. Lastly, Carol told Barb Kerns shortly after the murder that she “lied about Steve [Neal].” We don’t know what the lie was. Did she tell Christie that Steve would be at Woolco in order to convince her to go along? Did she falsely accuse Steve of being somehow involved with the murder? Who knows.
52. I don’t expect everyone to accept my theories, especially about the trip to Woolco, the guardrail, and Christie following Newell to the woods. But this explanation has the virtue of simplicity and requires the fewest deviations from sworn testimony and passed lie detector tests. Sometimes the simplest explanations are the best ones. If you throw out all of the testimony and polygraph tests, you’re left with an infinite number of possibilities about what really happened. Those who believe the entire Woolco story is an invention still need to come up with a viable theory, based on evidence and not just speculation, of how Christie ended up alone with Newell back in the woods.
53. The only thing we know, beyond a reasonable doubt, is that Henry Newell was guilty of the crime. And that CPD totally blew it.
