I heard that an wrecked car was found In the same area where Janet's corpse was found. A Ford Falcon? Did It belong to her?
The Times-News
October 27, 1973
FBI PROBING POSSIBLE ABANDONED CAR, MURDER LINK
The Federal Bureau of INvestigation has entered the investigation into circumstances surrounding the wrecking and sunsequent abandonment of a car Oct. 14 on I-26.
Sources close to the investigation said FBI personnel were probing possible connections between the car, which was registered to an Alabama automobile dealership, and the death of an Alabama woman whose body was discovered on a roadside in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Oct. 7.
Edward J. Krupinsky, special agent in charge of the Charlotte FBI office confirmed late this morning agents are investigating the possibility of the strangulation murder of Mrs. Carter and the car being connected Krupinsky said, howeverthere had as yet been no confirmation as to the car's possible connection.
Sunday, October 15, Trooper T E Smathers was stopped by a motorist who reported a 1963 Ford Falcon had wrecked on I-26 south of the US 64 interchange. Smathers proceeded to where the car was wrecked but found no one at the heavily damaged vehicle. An occupent of the car had apparently gone through the windshield on impact as a hole was found in the front windshield and strands of blonde hair were found in the broken glass. A check of area hospitals revealed no one had been brought into any of them for treatment of a similar injury.
A woman's pocketbook was found in the car containing some money, a driver's license and identification with several different names included. A large amount of clothes were found in the car in sizes ranging from a child to adult.Food and kitchen utensils were also found in the vehicle, which was stored after it was found. No one has called to claim it yet.
A check of the license numberfound it to be registered to a used car dealership in Detroit, Ala.No telephone listing for the dealership could be found for the firm either in Detroit or surrounding cities.
The body of Janet Gail Carter, 24, whose hair was artificially colored blonde, was found by two photographers one week prior to the finding of the abandoned car. They located the body bound and placed inside plastic garbage bags. Mrs. Carter's most recent address was listed as Hueytown, Ala., 100 miles from Detroit. It took two weeksfor federal agents and pathologists to identify the corpse.
Since the identification of Mrs. Carter, the FBI is now seeking the whereabouts of her three-year-old daughter, Christina Lynn Carter. The estranged husband of the dead woman, who lives in Birmingham, Ala., reported the child missing in late September.
Informed sources said an FBI agent out of the Asheville office came to Hendersonville Tuesday afternoon and searched the abandoned vehicle, and is reportedly considering having the car processed by criminal laboratory technicians.
