Found Deceased KS - Marilane Carter, 36, Overland Park, enroute to Birmingham, 1 Aug, call from Memphis, 2 Aug 2020

[NoSI]

I do wish a mental health expert would weigh in here but here’s what I think. Depression, generalized anxiety, it’s stuff many deal with. But when it progresses to idealization of suicide : that one is tough to pick up on. IMO once the sufferer decides upon that escape route, they can be focused and cunning. The last thing they want is to be thwarted. Remember the case of Kristin Westra in Maine? Several years ago? She was asked, mere hours before, iirc, if she felt suicidal. She smoothed everything over. She expressed she’d be fine.
What should her husband have done differently?? Would my intuition have been any better? Doubt it. Bless him, he’s a victim who will never be the same.

To me it’s a catch-22. The loved one , even if they have fears, certainly doesn’t want to plant ideas by insisting that, yes, I believe you ARE suicidal!

I guess it just breaks my heart to imagine the agony of self-reproach the family goes thru, and yet so often it’s not deserved or fair. And God forbid any finger pointing. As if the loss and the shock wasn’t enough to endure.

All just my opinion from a heart that cares.

Thank you for your thoughtful post. I don't consider myself an expert, but will give it a try. I have worked in psychiatric nursing my entire nursing career and now practice as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner and see outpatients for medication management and work in a general medical hospital on the psychiatry consult service team.

To answer your question about the predictability of suicides... I would say that nobody can, including the most experienced mental health provider. We can assess for risk factors, warning signs, current symptoms etc. all we want, but in the end we have have to go by what the pt tells us. If the pt denies active suicidal ideation, plan, and intent, he or she is not holdable for involuntary hospitalization under "imminent risk to self". Just like you said, if a person has made up their mind, they say whatever they need to in order to be able to carry out their plan. It becomes their focus. We often call family members for collateral information in the hospital/ED setting and sometimes we can justify putting a pt on a hold and hospitalize based on collateral info. Over the past several months, i cleared 2 pts for discharge from the hospital that were back within days after they overdosed. Thank goodness they were minor overdoses, but I felt and still feel terrible everytime it happens. We have 2 Psychiatrists and 2 NPs on the team and it has happened to all of us. So to sum this up, if someone is determined to attempt/complete suicide there really is no realistic way of stopping them because nobody can be watched 24/7 for extended periods of time. Our inpatient psych hospitalizations are also so short that it is unlikely that a newly prescribed medication has fully kicked in by the time of discharge. Average lengths of stay in the inpatient psychiatric setting is 3 to 5 days and medications like our SSRIs that target depression and anxiety can take 6 to 8 weeks to fully kick in. And, most importantly, a large percentage of individuals that complete suicide are also not under the care of a mental health speciality provider.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Sorry if this seems like a disorganized post. Been walking and thinking/typing at the same time.

 

[NoSI]

I really, really wonder if she was the type of woman that knew much about carbon monoxide poisoning. She seems like a very gentle sweet woman. A loving mother and the kind of woman that relied on her husband for car stuff and technical things.

I think it's safe to say she never in a million years knew she was going to stumble upon unlocked shipping containers while being lost. And I really doubt that stumbling upon an unlocked shipping container made her right then and there decide that suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning was the thing to do.
No goodbye note. No 'mummy loves you so much, this is not your fault' etc.

Something is just not right.

It is terrible to say, but the internet can give step to step instructions on how to do things like this. I see mental health patients in the outpatient and hospital setting and have to say that people that you would never expect may struggle with very dark thoughts. And based on my experience, kind and caring souls are more at risk.

But this is MOO. I respect your opinion and can totally understand and appreciate your reasoning.

 

[DutchTreat]

The doors wouldn't need to be fully closed for a person to accidentally die from carbon monoxide, especially if the car actually was backed in although I still can't imagine how a person could close the container doors without going to excessive effort to do so and it would negate the only reason I could imagine to back in in the first place, which is to be able to make a quick exit.

If someone really did know a lot about carbon monoxide I guess it might be an especially effective way to kill themselves but I really don't think that's what happened. I think she just wasn't thinking straight from lack of sleep, pulled in to try to rest and just didn't think about the carbon monoxide if she even knew about it to begin with.

This case keeps reminding me if Elisa Lam and in THAT case, I think someone came along and shut the door without looking in the water tank but I don't think someone would just shut the door off this shipping container without realizing there was an SUV inside. As far as the visibility of the tire tracks though, I'm sure those tracks are from the removal of the vehicle not from it initially being pulled in. There could have been week old tracks from Marilane that had blown away by now

Her backing in doesn't even make sense to me. Backing a SUV into a narrow container when you're dead tired and lost doesn't make sense. She could have parked next to it.

You know what this looks like to me, especially the tire marks?
Like a third party was pushing a SUV, with an unconscious person inside, into a shipping container. That would perfectly explain the tire marks.
A correction of the steering wheel from the ouside of the car after it's rear was inside. And then pushing in a straight line. Who's footsteps are those?

 

[Kmactx2]

This vibrant, 36 yr old wife and mother of 3 young children was traveling "home to Birmingham" to see her family-- celebrate the birth and delivery of her sister's new baby.

I can relate - I live in the PNW and for me, "home" will always be 1500 miles away where my mother lives.

MC's mother said she was having sleeping issues, and wanted to see her family doctor in Birmingham.

I think it's perfectly understandable that the Lead Pastor's wife did not want to seek treatment where her husband ministers. As if the Pastor's wife is not already a fishbowl!

I've traced the "mental health issues" statement to ABC News, and I'm mostly disappointed that it came from her husband.

It begs the question of whether the Pastor has ever been sleep deprived, carrying for 3 children full-time? And who doesn't *intervene when a wife with alledged "mental health issues" takes off on a 700-mile drive, alone?

"She was seeking some mental health care and she didn't want to go to any place in Kansas City, but she wanted to go to a place she was familiar with," Adam Carter, who works as a pastor in Kansas, told KMBC on Saturday.

Kansas mother of 3 goes missing on trip to visit family in Alabama

ETA: *

The main tagline was that she was going to Birmingham to be with her sister who was having a baby and possibly she would seek medical attention there for a sleep disorder. Then when her husband and her husband’s brother spoke, the story changed saying the trip was to have her mental health treated in her hometown. The part about being with her sister for the birth of the baby got totally lost and everything was about her mental health problems. Something seems off with such different stories being told.

 

[Herat]

I don't think I could back my car into a shipping container and keep the side view mirrors intact without a huge deal of concentration.

At some point you would be relying on the backup camera and I don't know how easy that would be inside a long dark box.

Just seems, really difficult

 

[TruthIsStranger]

He came across three large shipping containers partially hidden by tall grass in a field. The door on one was opened, and the uncle found the vehicle inside. He then called the sheriff’s department, and deputies, Arkansas State Police and the FBI secured the scene. A woman's body was found in the driver's seat.

This is what threw me for a loop at first. The 'ed' made it sound like he opened the doors. But whoever just posted with it rephrased to the doors were open makes me think - why the hell didn't they see a vehicle in there if they were in the area?

I'm saddened and disappointed that another life is simply gone. This poor family. I'm going to go with the fact that she didn't really know what she was doing.

Shipping containers are much longer than a car. She had a very dark car and she probably drove all the way in. No one would notice it due to the fact that the vehicle blended into the darkness of an unlit container.

 

[TruthIsStranger]

I am no expert in carbon monoxide poisoning, but could she have possibly prepared the car in a way prior to driving it into the shipping container where it didn't matter that much if the doors to the container were not closed? e. g. routing hose from exhaust through window into car and then blocking air of partially open window with something. Just thinking out loud.

There is no need to be inside a closed container AND a closed car in order to die from carbon monoxide. You can put your head in an oven and do it, for example. That's a large, open space. I know of a couple who pulled their car into their backyard and ran a hose into their car. One died. So it doesn't matter if the door was closed or not.

 

[NoSI]

There is no need to be inside a closed container AND a closed car in order to die from carbon monoxide. You can put your head in an oven and do it, for example. That's a large, open space. I know of a couple who pulled their car into their backyard and ran a hose into their car. One died. So it doesn't matter if the door was closed or not.

Makes total sense! So she wouldn't have had to get outbof the car. I just remembered a case where several young adults died in a cabin in the winter from carbon monoxide poisoning because they ran a defective oven.

Source:
Carbon monoxide killed German teenagers

 

[VanillaSky1970]

This is my first post here, and I hope it is okay to share my thoughts.

But... Marilane left on a Saturday night. Last contact with her her mom and husband was Sunday. Phone pinged at 802 PM.

Husband reported her missing... at 3 in the morning? And was that call placed from home?

No one knows when her car got into the container. When did members of her family all start arriving in W. Memphis?

 

[BayouBelle_LA]

Her backing in doesn't even make sense to me. Backing a SUV into a narrow container when you're dead tired and lost doesn't make sense. She could have parked next to it.

You know what this looks like to me, especially the tire marks?
Like a third party was pushing a SUV, with an unconscious person inside, into a shipping container. That would perfectly explain the tire marks.
A correction of the steering wheel from the ouside of the car after it's rear was inside. And then pushing in a straight line. Who's footsteps are those?

What’s the motive?

 

[mlhenn]

2011 gmc acadia dimensions - Google Search

Dimensions that may be useful:

2011 GMC Acadia = 78” W x 70” H
Storage container= 96” W x 96” H

 

[mlhenn]

Merely my opinion:
I don’t see her backing into the container. That just doesn’t make sense, but a lot of this tragic incident doesn’t make sense.
I think the marks we see in the photos of the container are from when officials had the car removed/towed.
It’s possible she went out of the back of her suv or used the door. Not easy but possible. That’s if she closed the doors (not locked them, just pulled them to best she could)...but it’s also possible she didn’t close those doors. They could have been opened enough for her to drive into the container & we don’t know how much time passed, but wind CAN close doors on those containers.

 

[DutchTreat]

What’s the motive?

I don't know.

 

[Seattle1]

The main tagline was that she was going to Birmingham to be with her sister who was having a baby and possibly she would seek medical attention there for a sleep disorder. Then when her husband and her husband’s brother spoke, the story changed saying the trip was to have her mental health treated in her hometown. The part about being with her sister for the birth of the baby got totally lost and everything was about her mental health problems. Something seems off with such different stories being told.

Thank you.

I trust her mother that provided the very first account of her daughter having trouble sleeping.

Show me a sleep-deprived woman carrying for 3 children full-time, and I'll show you at least one man that will claim she has mental health problems.

The first statement I read about mental health issues was an actual QUOTE attributed to MC's husband!

And this same man tells us exactly what time she drove away into the night in her vehicle, all alone, on a 700-mile journey.

Yeah, I'll sign-off when I see the suicide note.

MOO

 

[DutchTreat]

How could she be so lost if she had navigation?

 

[DutchTreat]

First she supposedly had trouble keeping her car on the road. And then does the ultimate parking job.

 

[Clair Louise]

DBM. I broke the quote.

 

[Denniece]

First she supposedly had trouble keeping her car on the road. And then does the ultimate parking job.

Right?! It looks like she backed straight in with no hesitation. That would be so difficult to do; there is not much room for error.

 

[Clair Louise]

Thank you.

I trust her mother that provided the very first account of her daughter having trouble sleeping.

Show me a sleep-deprived woman carrying for 3 children full-time, and I'll show you at least one man that will claim she has mental health problems.

The first statement I read about mental health issues was an actual QUOTE attributed to MC's husband!

And this same man tells us exactly what time she drove away into the night in her vehicle, all alone, on a 700-mile journey.

Yeah, I'll sign-off when I see the suicide note.

MOO

Me too. And it still seems strange to me that she would set off on a journey like that at night. The fuel for that trip and the overnight stay would cost almost as much as a ticket to fly, wouldn't it?

 

[Clair Louise]

Right?! It looks like she backed straight in with no hesitation. That would be so difficult to do; there is not much room for error.

Men back cars really well.