Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.
Previously on Bear Brook, Season 2: A True Crime Story…
[Karen Carroll] I wanted to trust him… I wanted to trust him.
[Tom Dufresne] I think he thought he was Telly Savalas. He had a shaved head. He’s sucking on a lollipop, and he’s strutting around the courtroom like he owned it.
[Eric Wilson] He had a reputation for solving cases.
…
When I first met Jason Carroll inside the prison, I could feel my brain trying to reconcile two different Jasons. The 19-year-old I’d gotten a sense of through interviews with friends and old tapes, and the 52-year-old in front of me.
Jason’s bald, a goatee that’s mostly gray. And he’s huge. Like he’s spent the last three decades lifting weights. Which is kinda true.
Jason’s not big on reporters. He remembers how the newspapers covered his trials. How they reprinted, again and again, the most damning quotes from his confessions. So it took some time for Jason to relax around me, if only a little.
There’s a lot I could tell you about Jason. He’s polite. Despite his obvious physical strength, he has a gentle presence. He’s apparently quite good at handball. He enjoys the woodworking program at the prison; he’s made dozens and dozens of bowls and vases and pieces of furniture – a set of wooden lamps with little animal shapes cut out of them. He gives them away to people he cares about. People like Debbie Richer.
[Debbie Richer] I met Jason back in 1989. // And we kinda cruised Elm Street (laughs). Back in the day, that’s kinda what everybody did.
Cruising Elm Street. It was something I’d seen references to in police reports and court testimony. But it wasn’t until Debbie explained it to me, that I could really picture it.
[Debbie Richer] When you cruised Elm Street, people were cruising Elm Street from anywhere from seven o’clock at night to until one and two in the morning. And then you’d go hang out at Dunkin’ Donuts.
[mux in]
[Debbie Richer] If you’ve ever been to a car show, OK? That’s kinda what it was. But you would have cliques everywhere. You would have people who have louder stereos.
[mux post]
[Debbie Richer] If you had jeeps, all your jeeps were over here to the right. If you had a camaro, they were to the left. // It was, the guys would hang out at Meineke and they would wait for the hot looking girls to come on cruising by.
It was on one of these 1989 cruising nights, when Americana overflowed, that Debbie met Jason.
[Jason Carroll] I’m in the passenger seat and there she was, // blond hair flowing, California girl, blue eyes, smiling a big smile // and we’re going down the road and I about broke my neck looking at this woman.
[Debbie Richer] Jason was known on Elm Street // as, um, I’m going to put it as a pretty boy. Like, “Oh, wow, he’s hot. Let’s go after him.” ‘Cause he had the nice brown hair, nice smile, tan… So he was a good looking kid. He really was.
[mux out]
Unfortunately for both of them, Debbie already had a boyfriend. But Debbie and Jason – who she sometimes calls Jay – struck up a flirtatious friendship anyways.
[Debbie Richer] We had a lot in common. My dad was military, Jay was military. // We like mechanical things. // Yes, I can put the dress on and the high heels, but I can also get under and get my hands dirty and I think that that’s why Jason and I became friends. Because I wasn’t just that little delicate girl. I was somebody he could relate to.
[mux in]
It was around the time Jason and Debbie met, in 1989, that Jason says his life was starting to get on track.
Jason’s family had moved to New Hampshire a few years before from South Carolina. Jason’s stepdad, Jack Carroll, was in the military so they moved a lot.
Jason was 17 when they got to New Hampshire, and he says he quickly realized his new high school was way ahead academically of his old one, so he dropped out. He says money was tight in the family, so he started working. For a while, he bounced around from job-to-job.
[Jason Carroll] I tried going back to school – it just wasn’t happening. Nothing was working for me. So I was like, OK, military it is. And that was the best thing I ever did. And I would’ve made a career out of it.
When he was 18, Jason joined the National Guard. He went to bootcamp at Fort Dix in New Jersey, then moved back home to New Hampshire. He got a job as a mechanic at the National Guard Armory in Manchester – the same place his stepdad worked.
[Jason Carroll] I was proud. I was proud to serve my country. Even in what little capacity I did. I was proud as a peacock about it.
Jason finally felt like his life had a direction. He was fixing National Guard trucks by day, cruising Elm Street and making eyes at Debbie by night.
But things at home weren’t always so great. Jason says he and Jack didn’t get along. Jack has since died, but Jason’s mom Karen Carroll told me he treated Jason differently than the other three kids, who were all biologically his.
Jason says with a cop for a mom and a soldier for a dad, the house was strict. A lot of “yes-sir”s and “no-ma’am”s. According to one of Jason’s sisters, the family wasn’t great at communicating. She told me things just weren’t discussed.
Homelife was bad enough that Jason says he was considering asking his commanding officer to ship him off to Germany – or really anywhere that wasn’t New Hampshire. He was ready for something bigger. Jason’s favorite movie was “Top Gun.” He had dreams of going through the Army’s elite Ranger School.
[Jason Moon] And how long were you there, before…
[Jason Carroll] Just a year. I was only in a year – and then all this happened.
1989 was the last time Jason was free. He’s spent the last 34 years or so in prison. That’s longer than I’ve been alive. A few more years and Jason will have been inside prison twice as long as his life before it.
…
19-year-old Jason was like so many other teenagers – interested in girls, adventure. Jason in his 50s is harder to read. Probably because his life today is so profoundly different than most people’s. He’s separated from the world, literally, physically, but also sometimes emotionally.
I got a window into this when I talked with Jason about how he’s handling the renewed attention on his case. How, after living three decades in the obscurity of a New Hampshire prison, the spotlight is on him again.
He told me, over the years, most of his family moved out of state. Friends drifted away – and sometimes that was because Jason told them to. He says it was too painful to hear about their lives on the outside, while he was stuck in there.
[Jason Carroll] I said, “Listen, you got kids, you got a wife, and I love you to death, you’re my friend, but, go be with your family.” // And unfortunately, I’ve pushed a few people away like that. // It was easier for me and, like, in a sense, selfish, now that I think back on it, because I don’t have to live out there… I don’t have to know what’s going on. I don’t have to hear about, “Oh yeah, we went out and did this, got the motorcycles out, did the” – I don’t want to have to hear about that ‘cause all it does it is brings back – it puts a pit in your stomach.
This is part of how Jason has survived in prison. He withdrew – from most other people and from his feelings about what had happened to his life.
Of course, he was angry about what he says happened to him. But he couldn’t get by in this new, terrifying world of prison and be mad about it every second. So Jason made a kind of grudging cease-fire agreement with his emotions.
[Jason Carroll] You know, you kinda realize after a while nothing’s going to be done, nothing can be done, nobody has – you don’t have the money to do anything, you can’t fight anything, nobody tells you anything… So, you know, you just adapt to the situation you’re in and you go forward.
Jason adapted, he went forward. He got used to saying “it is what it is,” to describe his life.
And then, Jason heard about the New England Innocence Project from another guy at the prison. It’s a non-profit based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that works to exonerate people it believes are wrongfully convicted across New England.
Jason allowed himself to briefly imagine that his life was not simply what it is.
[mux in]
In 2016, Jason wrote the New England Innocence Project a letter. The innocence lawyers reviewed his case. They believed him. And now they fight for him. And he’s back in court. And reporters like me are calling to talk with him.
And with each step, Jason’s emotional cease-fire gets harder and harder to maintain.
[Jason Carroll] I never knew what an anxiety was, and now I have it. There’s just a lot going through my mind – it’s just a whirlwind. Because I thought that you know, this was it, you know, this was done. This is what I’m faced with. And now to have hope for an opportunity to live…? // But it’s hard. You know, you want to invest and put yourself into everything that’s going on, but in the back of your mind you know you can’t.
This is Bear Brook, Season 2: A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.
[mux up and out]
…
By the fall of 1989, Detective Roland Lamy suspects Tony Paff had played him. He thinks when Tony wore a wire and talked to Ken Johnson in Rhode Island, they were both acting. He thinks Tony and Ken must both be involved in the murder.
So Lamy starts to dig deeper on Tony’s background. And that’s how he ends up looking at work records for a place called High-Tech Fire Prevention.
Where Tony worked with Jason Carroll, during the time of Sharon’s murder.
[mux in]
High-Tech was one of the several jobs Jason had between dropping out of high school and joining the military.
It was a dirty job. High-Tech cleaned commercial kitchen exhaust systems at restaurants and fast-food places. One guy who worked there said the chemicals they used could put holes in your skin. And because they could only work when restaurants were closed, the hours could be terrible.
Because of all this, it wasn’t unusual for people to quit High-Tech. An employee would later testify that turnover there was always high.
But when Detective Lamy got his hands on Tony Pfaff’s work schedule for the week of Sharon’s murder, he noticed something. The night Sharon was killed, Tony and Jason were both scheduled to work together – but Jason never showed.
[mux post]
So this is why Lamy wanted to talk to Jason.
Lamy goes to interview Jason when he’s at work at the National Guard Armory. Their first meeting lasts five hours. Unfortunately, none of it is tape-recorded.
But there is another tape about what happened that day.
[mux post]
A bizarre, astonishing tape made a few weeks later by an unlikely group of people: Detective Roland Lamy, his partner, Detective Neal Scott, and Jason’ parents.
[mux out]
[Roland Lamy] (coughing) OK, this is Sgt. Lamy, State Police. Today prior to this taping, Sgt. Scott and I met with Mr. and Mrs. Carroll, who came to state police headquarters voluntarily to meet with us. (clears throat) The Carrolls have expressed a concern about Jason’s wellbeing, as well as his safety. // In discussing this entire situation with the Carrolls, a joint decision has been made // to establish a permanent record of all the events that have transpired to-date in this case.
A joint decision to make a permanent record, says Detective Lamy.
This is another tape I couldn’t wrap my head around when I first heard it. In a case that’s all about the power of words on tape, these words on this tape might be the most powerful – and certainly the most surprising.
This tape was recorded a few weeks after Jason’s first meeting with Lamy. After Jason has been arrested for murder. So here’s the lead detective in a murder case, sitting down with the parents of the suspect he just arrested – and they’re all working together.
[Roland Lamy] Today we have prepared an outline on a board in a conference room by which the outline will be utilized to present this taped statement.
Later, this tape would be dubbed the “Outline Tape,” because of the way Lamy uses an outline on a chalkboard to structure the discussion.
Using that outline, Lamy, his partner, Neal Scott, and Jason’s parents together narrate the story of Jason’s interrogations and arrest.
They start that story on November 24, 1989. The day of that first meeting between Jason Carroll and Detective Lamy.
[mux out]
It’s a Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. That afternoon, police arrive at the armory to talk to Jason.
Jason’s mom Karen also happens to come by the armory that afternoon to drop off some keys for Jason. Here’s Karen describing this moment in the “Outline Tape” to Detective Lamy.
And remember, the “Outline Tape” was recorded just a few weeks after the events Karen is describing.
[Karen Carroll, Outline Tape] I asked where Jason was and one of the officers in the office told me that Jason was in the break room with state police. He then proceeded to take me to the break room. I went in and saw Jason sitting at the table with three other individuals.
Karen sees her son sitting with three cops – Detectives Dana Finn, Neal Scott, and Roland Lamy. They're sitting around a wooden table that feels a little too big for the room.
Remember, Karen’s also a cop in the town where Sharon’s body was found, Bedford. And she already knows two of these guys. Detective Finn is with the Bedford PD, so he’s Karen’s coworker. And Detective Scott with state police had interviewed Karen for a job earlier that year. The only person Karen hadn’t met was Detective Lamy.
In the “Outline Tape,” Karen says the detectives told her they were there to talk to Jason about the Sharon Johnson murder. She says they told her she was welcome to stay if she wanted.
[Roland Lamy, Outline Tape] And do you remember that Jason was asked if he wanted you to stay or not?
[Karen Carroll, Outline Tape] Yes, he was asked.
[Roland Lamy, Outline Tape] And do you remember his answer?
[Karen Carroll, Outline Tape] I believe he said that he’d be ok. There was no need of me being there.
So Karen leaves. Now it’s just Jason and the police.
According to the police reports and the officers’ testimony under oath, here’s what they say happens.
The interview starts at 1:25 p.m. The detectives tell Jason why they’re there. The Sharon Johnson murder. Tony Pfaff. The night of July 28, 1988.
Then Lamy says Jason surprises them all by saying he remembers that night well.
Jason says that night, he was hanging out at one of the usual spots – the Meineke Muffler on Elm Street in Manchester. Jason says Tony drove up in a green Subaru – the same kind of car Sharon drove. Jason says Tony told him the car belonged to a girl who worked at the mall. Then Jason says Tony asked him if he’d follow him to the mall so he could leave the car there for this girl when she got out of work. Jason agreed.
[mux in]
Detective Lamy is hearing what sounds like a first-hand account of Tony driving the victim’s car the night of the murder. This is big.
Although, it doesn’t quite line up with what police know about the movement of Sharon’s car. Remember, they didn’t find the car at the mall until early Saturday morning. Here, Jason is telling them he helped Tony move the car to the mall on Thursday night.
Jason makes a handwritten statement of this story. It’s just a few paragraphs long.
It’s now 3:15 p.m. Almost two hours have passed since the interview began.
At this point, Detective Lamy says Jason is acting nervous - he says he looks frightened, shaky. Lamy starts to push Jason for more details. Jason starts to cry. And then Jason changes his story.
[mux post]
According to police, Jason now says the night before the murder, Tony came to him with an idea to play a practical joke on a woman that Tony knew. Jason says Tony wanted him to pretend to be someone named “Bob.” Jason agreed.
Jason says he and Tony met Sharon at the mall. He says Tony convinced her to drive to a construction site. Jason says he drove behind them in his truck.
Lamy stops the interrogation. He later testifies this moment stunned him. At the mention of a construction site, the type of area where Sharon’s body was found, Lamy reads Jason his Miranda Rights. Jason waives his rights and continues the story.
[mux post]
At the construction site, Jason says Tony and Sharon met with two men. Jason says he stayed back by his truck about 75 feet away and watched.
Jason says he saw one of the men with a black beard pull out a knife and stab Sharon in the back. Jason says he panicked – he got in his truck and drove away.
[mux out]
According to the detectives, Jason is shaking and crying intermittently as he tells this story.
Detectives ask him to write out the story on paper, but Jason is shaking so badly he can’t. So Detective Neal Scott writes out Jason’s statement for him. Later, Jason copies the statement again in his own handwriting.
It’s now almost 6:30 in the evening. Jason’s been talking to the detectives for 5 hours. Jason says he’s tired. He wants to go home.
The detectives call Jason’s parents to come pick him up.
When Jason’s parents arrive, they talk with the police. Here’s Detective Lamy and Karen Carroll talking about this moment in the “Outline Tape,” recorded just a few weeks later.
[Roland Lamy, Outline Tape] Do you remember generally what we told you that Jason had or had not admitted at that point?
[Karen Carroll, Outline Tape] You told us that (sigh) that Jason had admitted moving the car and was involved somewhat, as to what degree we didn’t know, but he was involved somewhat with the Johnson murder.
[mux in]
It’s a Friday night. Jason’s parents agree with police to continue the interrogation on Monday. Then they drive him home.
[mux post]
Jason Carroll just told police he helped lure Sharon Johnson to the site where she was killed.
The next morning, Jason tries to take it back.
[mux up and out]
************************MIDROLL***************************
[Roland Lamy, Outline Tape] OK, now, on the outline, moving on to the next day, Saturday, the 25th of November.
The day after Jason’s first interrogation, Saturday, at about 11 a.m., the Carrolls have something of a family meeting. Jason and his parents, Karen and Jack, all sit down at the kitchen table.
Jack Carroll, Jason’s stepdad, recapped the conversation for Detectives Lamy and Scott in the “Outline Tape.”
[Jack Carroll, Outline Tape] We just asked him what kinds of questions were being asked and he started telling us. And at that time, he stood up and he said it was a bunch of bullcrap. And that anything that he had said wasn’t true. He just said it because he felt that’s what the police wanted to hear, basically.
[mux in]
Later, Jack would say he tried to identify with Jason in this moment by saying that, as a Vietnam veteran, he had killed people and that if Jason had killed someone, he should get it off his chest. Jack says Jason became furious at this – slammed his fist on the table, stood up, and said he had nothing to do with it.
[Jack Carroll, Outline Tape] So we got concerned. So at that time we tried to call, as a matter of fact Jason tried to call the state police to talk to either one of you two.
[mux post]
Jason calls Detective Lamy. But it’s a Saturday and he’s not in. So Jason tries the local police department in Bedford. Captain Leo Morency comes to the Carrolls’ house.
Jason tells him the story about being there when Sharon Johnson was murdered was “a bunch of shit.” Jason says he made it up from the questions the detectives asked him. Jason says the only part that was true was that he helped Tony move a green Subaru to the mall.
Captain Morency tells Jason he doesn’t believe him. Then, the phone rings. It’s Detective Lamy.
[mux post]
Lamy learns what’s going on. And then he suggests they all meet up at the Bedford Police Department to talk it over. Jason agrees.
Jason and his mom, Karen, drive over to the police station together. Jason is brought into a room with detectives, Karen waits out by her desk.
The second interrogation of Jason Carroll begins at 1:30 that Saturday afternoon.
It starts with Jason telling detectives most of what he told them the day before was a lie. Here’s Detective Neal Scott, Lamy’s partner, describing that moment in the “Outline Tape.”
[Neal Scott, Outline Tape] Jason was still standing by his recanted statement. In so much that what he had told us the previous day was a bunch of bull. // We knew that he was now lying.
[mux out]
For about an hour, Jason tries to convince the detectives that the story he gave them was false. But it’s not working.
And then Jason tells the detectives he wants to see his mom.
[mux in]
Lamy leaves the room to go talk to Karen Carroll. In the “Outline Tape,” Lamy says Jason’s request put him in a tough spot.
[Roland Lamy, Outline Tape] This is a situation that, if we allowed her to come into the room we’d be open to scrutiny. And if we didn’t allow her to come into the room, we’d be open to scrutiny.
Lamy decides it’s better to bring Karen in than not. She enters the room just before 3:00 p.m.
According to the police, Jason’s denials started to waver just before Karen came in. And then:
[Neal Scott, Outline Tape] At approximately 3:05, uh, Captain Morency activates a micro-cassette recorder and Jason’s statement and the activities in that room are recorded from that point on.
Police interrogated Jason for a total of six hours this day. But only a little more than half an hour was recorded.
You’ll remember the audio quality of that recording is not great, and occasionally people’s names are bleeped. So I’ll read some parts of it.
From almost the minute the tape recorder is turned on, Karen takes an active role in the interrogation.
[Karen Carroll, Interrogation Tape] It’s over and it’s done with. (fade under)
Karen asks her son, “Will you tell these three men every last detail? Everything!”
Then, Detective Lamy jumps in: “You don't look willing to tell the truth, you don't look as if you've concluded that you have got to let it go. There is that breaking point.”
Jason says, “I have got to let it go, I’ve got to.”
(crossfade tracking into tape)
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] I have got to let it go, I've got to.
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] Well, let it go.
Lamy tells Jason again and again he knows Jason isn’t telling the truth.
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] You’ve got to tell it.
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] That night… no, how do you want me to start it?
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] How did it start? How did the whole deal start?
(fade under)
Lamy yells at Jason to tell him how the whole thing started. Jason says, “The whole fucking thing started when I was supposed to be, to play a practical joker as ‘Bob,’ to some woman by the name of Sharon Johnson, who you guys know.” Jason says Tony offered him $500 to do this.
He says he and Tony met Sharon at the mall and then Tony talked Sharon into going to the construction site.
Jason says Tony and Sharon rode in her green Subaru and Jason followed in his truck. But this time, Jason says when they all arrived at the construction site, he didn't stay back by his truck.
Jason says Ken Johnson met them all there. He says Ken and Sharon had a big argument. He says Ken accused Sharon of cheating on him. Then he says Sharon turned away and Ken pulled out a knife and stabbed her in the back.
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] And she turned her back and he pulled out a knife.
Jason says he watched as Ken continued to stab Sharon, while Tony took off her shirt and fondled her breasts.
Lamy asks if anyone else stabbed Sharon. Jason says Tony did.
Lamy doesn’t believe it. He tells Jason he keeps making himself look like an angel in the story. He says, “The jury will tear you apart if you’re not telling the truth, here.”
Jason says, “I’m telling the truth, Sergeant. I don’t want to go through no more bullshit. I just want to get this over and out of my life.”
Still, Lamy doesn’t buy it. He says, “But, OK, you can help us out more than this. Where is the shirt and where is the knife?” Police hadn’t been able to find either.
Jason says he doesn’t know.
Lamy asks, “Who moved the car? Why did the car show up Saturday morning at Sears?”
Jason doesn’t have an answer. He says, “I want so much to get this over with.”
Lamy is getting frustrated.
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] Why in god’s name would you tell us this much and still leave out the truth. The essence of the truth. I have not seen the breaking point in you. What in god’s name is the matter with you? Your mother’s sitting right here. The captain of detectives of Bedford Police Department is here, Sergeant Scott is here, and I’m here! What is it going to take?
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] I was threatened! I was told that if I opened my mouth I would be dead!
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] By whom?
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] Johnson!
[mux out]
Jason says after Sharon was killed, Ken threatened to do the same to Jason if he told anyone. Jason says that’s the reason he’s been scared to tell the whole story. He’s afraid for his life.
Detective Lamy and Jason’s mom Karen tell him they can protect him. But, they keep saying, they need the truth.
Jason says, “I am trying to be so fucking truthful.” Lamy fires back, “But why don’t you skip trying and just be truthful?”
Lamy says, “Come on, Jason, if you were paid $500 by Ken Johnson, you did a lot more than what you told us.” Then, Lamy adds, “And I suspect that is not the accurate amount you got.”
Jason says, “That’s right.” And then says, “I got about two grand.”
Then, Karen jumps in and asks what Jason did with the money. Lamy says, “Tell us that. Make something believable.” Jason tells them he spent it on marijuana.
And here, it seems like Lamy just totally loses his patience. He starts to raise his voice, telling Jason to imagine that a jury is listening. And meanwhile, judging by the sound of Jason’s voice, it feels like that “breaking point” that Lamy keeps mentioning is just around the corner. At one point, Jason is crying on his knees, arms wrapped around his mother’s legs.
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] The jury is listening to you! You sound like a criminal, not a guy that made a terrible mistake!
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] Sergeant, it’s not that easy. I hope you can understand that.
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] I understand that but what I don’t…
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] It’s not going to be just like I can spit it out. I can’t. I want to so much.
[Karen Carroll, Interrogation Tape] Then do it! Why can’t you? What are you holding back?
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] I’m scared! I’m fucking scared!
[Karen Carroll, Interrogation Tape] Of course you’re freakin’ scared! These guys are going to help you! We’re not going to sit and jump on your ass and shoot you down!
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] But I feel like I’m getting jumped on my ass and shot down now!
[Karen Carroll, Interrogation Tape] We want the truth out of you! Nobody is going to be able to help you any more until you come forth with all of the information that they need! Do you think that I’m going to love you any less?!
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] I don’t know! // I don’t know! (Jason sobs)
[Karen Carroll, Interrogation Tape] And I’m going to stand by you through this… You are the link that they need to put Johnson and Pfaff behind friggin’ bars! If you put a knife – if you put a knife in that woman, I want to know. You stabbed her, didn’t you?!
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] Yes I did, BLEEP.
[Karen Carroll] How many times did you stab her?!
[Jason Carroll, Interrogation Tape] I stabbed her three times.
[Karen Carroll, Interrogation Tape] Alright!
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] Who else stabbed her? Who else stabbed her, truthfully?
(Jason cries)
(fade out)
[mux in]
[Karen Carroll, Outline Tape] I-I… I just wanted him to be truthful.
Just a few weeks later, Karen described her role in that interrogation in the “Outline Tape.”
[Karen Carroll, Outline Tape] And the only way that anyone could help him get over these fears was they had to know the truth so they would know what they were dealing with. And I showed him that no matter what happened, that I still loved him.
[mux post]
Jason Carroll started the day recanting one confession about witnessing a murder. By the end of the day, he’s given a second confession about committing the murder.
It’s one of the many ways Jason’s story changes during his second interrogation. With each change, the story gets more and more incriminating.
Detectives ask Jason again and again about the murder weapon. At first, Jason says he destroyed the knife in a fire, along with the shirt Sharon was wearing – the one police never found. Then he says he threw the knife in a river. He says the knife belonged to Ken Johnson. Finally, he says it belonged to him. Jason’s mom asks, “Is it a small brown pocket knife?” Jason says yes. Karen realizes she has the knife at home. She’d recently found it in the laundry.
Jason also changes his story about who stabbed Sharon first. By the end of his second interrogation, after being questioned by police for about 11 hours over two days, Jason says he stabbed Sharon first.
When asked why Ken wanted to kill Sharon, at first Jason says he doesn’t know. Then he says it was because Sharon had caught Ken raping his adopted daughter, Lisa. Then he adds to that she’d caught him raping his daughter and discovered that Ken had murdered someone else.
For the police, all these changes in Jason’s story were evidence of its authenticity. They saw a young man who didn’t want to admit what he’d done. Who was fighting at every stage to not admit to the cops, to his mother, maybe to himself, the full extent of his involvement in a horrific killing.
[mux post & fade out]
Almost a year after Detective Lamy took over the Sharon Johnson investigation, he finally had the evidence he needed to take down the person he felt was most responsible: Ken Johnson.
At one point during Jason’s second interrogation, Lamy even airs his frustration about how Ken had so far eluded him. He tells Jason, “Ken Johnson is on the street in Warwick, Rhode Island laughing in our face with his lawyer… coaching him on how to avoid proper police homicide investigative technique. And that’s a fact of life. That’s what we in the police department have to put up with today.”
[mux in]
Detective Lamy let Jason’s parents take him home again that night after the interrogation. A pretty remarkable thing for a police officer to do. Two nights in a row, Jason had admitted to some level of participation in a murder, and police didn’t arrest him. They let him go home.
The thing is, when people get arrested, the constitution guarantees them lawyers. The first piece of advice any defense lawyer gives to a client who’s held in police custody: Shut up, stop talking to the cops.
Lamy of course would’ve known all this.
So Lamy let Jason go home that Saturday night, November 25, 1989. It was one of the last nights Jason was free.
[mux out]
…
It took several conversations before Jason would really talk to me about what happened during his interrogations.
[Jason Moon] I know this is a dumb question, but were you scared during that interrogation?
[Jason Carroll] Are you fucking kidding me? You’re being accused of first-degree homicide. Wouldn’t you be scared, knowing you didn’t do nothing?
I get the feeling that Jason’s emotions about it, even after 34 years, are so raw, so vivid, that he figures it’s just best not to go there.
But Jason also knows, for his innocence claim to have a chance, he’s going to have to talk about it. People want to know – if you’re innocent, why did you say all of that?
Still, it’s really hard for Jason. The first time he and I talked about the interrogation, I asked him a question that kind of set him off. I’m not going to tell you what the question was, only because it’s about something we haven’t gotten to yet. But just know: The way I asked it – listening back, I get why it got under Jason’s skin.
[Jason Carroll] When you’re fucking– you’re constantly being told, you know, you did this and you did this, when you know you didn’t, but you’re being told you did, after and after– see now you’re pissing me off. See, this is where the // PTSD kicks in, Jay. I cannot– I get so frustrated and I get so fucking angry because of what’s been done to me. And nobody gives a fucking shit what this fucking punk bitch did to me! And to sit here and try to describe it and explain it to you? I fucking can’t.
The spotlight that has swung back on to Jason’s case, the possibility of finally being believed, my casual sounding questions about possibly the most traumatic event in his life. It all finally broke the cease-fire.
There was an awkward silence. I suggested we talk about something else. And we did, or tried to, for a few minutes. But then, Jason wanted to explain more about how he was feeling.
[Jason Carroll] So I want to go back to my little outburst. And I guess I want to apologize for that. // Sometimes this is what happens when I try to talk about it. // It’s the scars that I have, and I don’t know– I don’t know any other way… It just frustrates me so much. It just… (sighs). I don’t know. I don’t how to– and it only lasts for a quick second…
[Automated voice on prison phone system] You have one minute remaining.
The prison phone system, with its terrible timing, reminded us our hour was almost up.
[Jason Carroll] This lady is going to cut us off, so, before she does, I hope you have a good day. // And again, I apologize.
The next time we spoke, Jason apologized again. Even though I kept telling him he didn’t need to. He told me the anger comes from a place of feeling humiliated by what happened to him.
[Jason Carroll] For me, it’s an embarrassing time in my life because, like I told you last time, I let somebody else take my will and bend it to theirs. And I feel embarrassed and I feel fucking ashamed. // You know, they took a fucking kid and they bent it to what they wanted. You don’t know how fucking ashamed I am of that.
[mux in]
According to Jason, Detective Lamy started bending his will from almost the moment they sat down together at the National Guard Armory back in 1989.
[Jason Carroll] I’m at the armory and they come in. And I’m stuck in a tiny-ass breakroom. And I remember them talking to me about Anthony Pfaff. I said, “OK” // And then the next thing you know, I’m being accused of murder.
[Jason Moon] How did it turn to that?
[Jason Carroll] I have no idea. You know, I don’t remember, they turn it to… “Your tire tracks down.” I’m like, “That’s impossible.”
[Jason Moon] What did they say about tire tracks?
[Jason Carroll] Yeah, they tried to say they found my tire tracks, I’m like, “That’s impossible!”
Jason says Detective Lamy told him police found his tire tracks at the construction site, which is not true. At trial, Lamy denied ever telling Jason this.
But either way, Jason says that was the dynamic of the interrogations. Lamy had all the answers and he was just guessing at what was right and what was wrong.
[Jason Carroll] They were already dead-set – in my opinion, they were already dead-set on tearing me a new ass. // I’m in there on my own. I got no help, no nothing – nothing. I’m trying to dig myself out of something I didn’t do, and nobody’s listening. I was already in over my head.
After his parents took him home from the armory that Friday, Jason says his mom gave him a valium to help him sleep.
The next morning, when Jason tried to take back his confession at the kitchen table, he says his parents didn’t really believe him. Then Lamy called and Jason and his mom went to the Bedford Police Department for Jason’s second interrogation.
[mux out]
[Jason Carroll] I do remember being yelled and screamed at. I do remember that asshole asking me questions and any time I answered the wrong way, he’d be like, “Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope.” // And it just kept going on and on and on. // I remember being so wiped out, I tried to go to sleep under the table, they wouldn’t let me.
Jason describes the experience as having his world turned upside down.
It didn’t make sense to him. He was a soldier, with a soldier for a dad and a cop as a mom – he was conditioned to revere authority. But now he says they were forcing him down a path that he knew wasn’t right.
Jason says the interrogations were more intense than anything he’d ever been through. Including basic training in the military.
[Jason Carroll] They take a person, they break you down, and they build you back up. But what I went through with these fucking people… sssshhhhhit. Military got nothing on that.
[mux in]
Here’s what Jason says he remembers about what actually happened the night Sharon Johnson was murdered.
Jason and Tony were scheduled to work together that night at High-Tech. They had a Burger King in Boston to clean out. Tony needed a ride to work, so Jason gave him one. But Jason decided that night – he was done with High-Tech. He decided to quit. So he dropped Tony off, but he didn’t go in himself.
[Jason Carroll] I hated that job. And that’s why I remember that part of it because I’d never quit a job… I hated that job.
Jason says it’s possible he gave Tony a ride to the mall that night to help him move a car, but he’s not sure. And that’s pretty much all he can remember.
Which is either suspicious or totally reasonable, depending on whether you buy his confession.
But if Jason didn’t do it, why would he remember that night? The first time he was interrogated about that night was almost a year-and-a-half after the fact. There would’ve been no particular reason to keep a detailed timeline or to have an alibi handy.
Or, of course, Jason could simply be lying. Or, of course, Detective Lamy could simply be lying.
But almost always, the word of a cop wins out.
[mux post]
On the next episode of Bear Brook, Season 2: A True Crime Story: another interrogation seems to add to the evidence against Jason and Ken Johnson.
[Tony Pfaff, Interrogation Tape] I need some help ‘cause I can’t remember everything that happened.
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] OK, well what you do remember–
[Tony Pfaff, Interrogation Tape] I don’t– the specific things you want to know I can’t remember.
[Roland Lamy, Interrogation Tape] OK. And tell us what you do remember, then, OK? Let’s continue what you were doing–
[Tony Pfaff, Interrogation Tape] I remember stabbing her and choking her, that’s the only thing I remember doing, OK?
And… Karen Carroll shares an alleged secret that changes everything.
[Cliff Kinghorn] Jason’s mom came in to meet with me. // And I knew right away that there was going to be a problem.
[mux up & into credits]
A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.
It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.
Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno-Booth.
Editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Daniela Allee, Sara Plourde, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian, and Todd Bookman.
Our News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.
Fact-checking by Dania Suleman.
Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com.
Additional photos and videos by Gaby Lozada.
Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon.
Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.