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Emilia and Joshua · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Discretion two thousand and eight. The early two thousands were a time of great
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change. The Dark Knight was in cinemas, the BlackBerry Storm became the new
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popular mobile phone to have, and yet in Boardman, Florida, a tale
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as oldest time was playing out yet again. In November of that year,
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a man named Joshua Damien Fulgum got down on one knee and he proposed to
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his girlfriend, Amelia Lily Carr. But what they shared was far from a
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dreamy relationship that had just reached in absolute romantic height. Joshua and Amelia were
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the type of couple who were on again, off again, but that didn't
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stop Amelia from saying yes to the man that she wanted to become her third
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husband. Amelia was about twenty five years old when Joshua proposed to her,
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and by then she had already lived to a very colorful life. There was
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surely some good mixed in there, but in Amelia's past there was also a
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whole lot of bad. The conditions in her childhood home were notably unstable and
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neglectful, and just how bad things actually were it came to light when Amelia
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was only fifteen. It happened one day in school, when Amelia approached her
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teacher and said that she was being sexually abused by her own father. Her
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teacher took Amelia's claims very seriously and reported the abuse to authorities, who in
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turn began investigating and found evidence to suggest that Amelia was not only being sexually
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abused by her father, but by her grandfather as well. This could have
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been the turning point in Amelia's life, and she could have been removed from
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a home where she was experiencing terrible abuse. But Amelia was only fifteen,
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and when the investigation began to get serious, Amelia withdrew her statement. We
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don't know for sure why Amelia did this, and unfortunately, this happens in
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investigations with Familio sexual abuse all the time. Children usually don't want to see
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their parents get into trouble, or they can easily be pressured into saying the
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right thing to stop investigators in their tracks. Amelia was only a minor herself
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when she reported her own father for abuse, and it didn't take much imagination
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to figure out why she backed out so suddenly. That statement is doubly true
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when we know that Amelia's father was arrested and can victed only a couple of
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years later, after Amelia confided in her teacher. This time it wasn't trouble
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with the law for sexually abusing his own daughter, but for another completely wild
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and traumatic change that had devastating consequences. In February two thousand and four,
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just about four years before Amelia said yes to the man of her dreams,
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her father was sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to solicit someone else
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to murder his family. It looked like her father's intentions toward Amelia had gone
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from abusive to downright murderous. With her father now out of her life and
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behind bars at least for the time being, Amelia struck out on her own
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path, but it was a path with familiar obstacles. She married twice and
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even filed a restraining order against one of her ex husbands for domestic abuse and
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violence. She was also sentenced to two years probation for her involvement in one
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of his grand theft schemes, which involved stealing exotic birds, and that brings
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Amelia's story to November two thousand and eight. By now, She's survived abuse,
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been married, twice, has three children, and is now staring down
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at Joshua who's asking her to marry him, and Amelia says yes. It
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was here that Amelia's life could have turned again. This could have been the
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start of a new path for Amelia, a clean break from the cycles of
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abuse she'd found herself in. And that's probably what Amelia was thinking it would
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all turn out to be when Joshua walked down the aisle only a month later.
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The only problem was that Joshua was on his way to marry a woman
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named Heather Strong and not Amelia Carr. And I know this is getting confusing,
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so stay with me. Speaking of fawn and off again, Joshua and
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Heather's relationship had been up and down for years. They'd first started dating when
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Heather was only fifteen and Joshua was twenty two, but they were currently on
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the outs when Joshua proposed to Amelia in November two thousand and eight, but
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by December they were very much back on again. Joshua and Heather already had
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two children together, and when Heather made it clear that she wanted to take
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the children and move to Mississippi in order to be closer to her family.
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Joshua had a change of heart. Not wanting to lose contact with his children,
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he asked Heather to marry him, and Heather agreed. What began then
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was a whirlwind of changes. Amelia, who'd already moved in to live with
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Joshua, was kicked out of the house and Heather and the children moved back
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in. But by February two thousand and nine, everything changed again. Only
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two months into the marriage, Joshua was back with Amelia and Heather was seeing
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someone else. It's straight out of Jerry Springer. She found work at a
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local iron skillet restaurant to support herself and the children while she and Joshua went
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to court over custody of their children, and there was also one more child
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on the way. In February two thousand and nine, Amelia was about seven
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months pregnant with Josh's child, meaning she had been pregnant when Joshua proposed to
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her back in November and when she was kicked out of the house in December
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of two thousand and eight. As far as Heather was concerned, this was
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the end of things with her and Joshua, especially now that he was having
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a child. With another woman. The only thing that really mattered to Heather
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now was sorting out custody of the two children she shared with Joshua and moving
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on. That was until Heather went missing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, investigators didn't have
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to look far when it came to suspects and Heather's disappearance. In January two
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thousand and nine, only a month into their marriage, Joshua was arrested for
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threatening Heather with a shotgun. These were charges that would have come with serious
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consequences, especially in the middle of a custody battle, so investigators were surprise
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when Heather dropped them only a few weeks later. They would later find out
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that Amelia had shown up at Heather's home with a knife and threatened Heather into
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dropping the case against her current husband. It was only a few weeks after
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that Heather went missing. When interviewed by the police, both Joshua and Amelia
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claimed to know nothing about how or why Heather had suddenly vanished, but the
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investigators were suspicious. They kept tabs on both of them and struck gold when
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they recorded Amelia talking with Joshua's sister. In the taped confession, Amelia admitted
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that she and josh had lured Heather out to a storage trailer owned by Amelia's
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mother. There, they had done the unthinkable to the twenty six year old
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mother of two. First, they trapped Heather and taped her down to a
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computer chair so that she couldn't escape, and then Amelia took things a step
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further. She first tried to kill Heather by breaking her neck, but Amelia
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wasn't strong enough to do that with her bare hands and was heavily pregnant at
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the time. Instead, she found an easier way to get rid of her
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rival and put a plastic bag over Heather's head. Heather was then left to
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slowly asphyxiate. Armed with this new information, authorities arrested both Amelia and Joshua,
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who'd already been picked up on suspicion of fraud for using Heather's credit cards
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after she was reported missing. All that was then left was to find Heather.
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On March nineteenth, about a month after she first went missing, detectives
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uncovered Heather's remains in a shallow grave near the storage trailer where she'd been murdered.
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Convinced that they could beat the courts despite the evidence against them, both
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Amelia and Joshua waived their rights to plead guilty and chose to face the jury.
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The prosecution then warned them that they would be seeking the death penalty at
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trial. Both the prosecution and the defense agreed that the motives behind Heather's killing
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had been jealousy and betrayal. Amelia's defense then argued that she'd been confused and
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traumatized by her terrible upbringing and asked for a more lenient sentencing. The jury
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then voted seven to five for the death penalty. Amelia Carr became the first
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woman to be sentenced to death in Florida in over ten years, a sentence
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she's been desperate to have overturned. In a later appeal, she claimed that
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her previous confession to investigators had been actually false. She first claimed that the
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authorities had threatened her children in order to get a confession out of her,
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and then she changed her explanation. She then claimed that she had confessed because
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she believed that it would help her regain custody of her children. Quote.
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I was trying to get all these details because they kept wanting details before they
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would go to the state attorneys with immunity. Details details, so I made
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up stories, she said, in an attempt to evade her previous statements,
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but so far it has not worked. Amelia still remains on death row,
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where she awaits execution. Her three older children were taken in by Emilia's family.
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Her youngest, a daughter who was born behind bars, has since been
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adopted. Joshua received a life sentence without the possibility of parole for his role
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in Heather's murder. That's ten minute Murder for today brief and binge able true
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crime. I'm Joe, that's my name. I'm the host, and thank
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literally everything to do with the podcast. You can find it at ten minute
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murder dot com, including how to get in touch with me like Tammy and
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Georgia did Hi Joe, I saw on TikTok where you created a video talking
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about oj Simpson and the book he wrote the hypothetical of if he killed his
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ex wife and her friend. Does this mean we can expect a new episode
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about that case? I hope. So that's Tammy and Georgia. First of
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all, Tammy, thank you for taking the time to reach out with your
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email and to answer your question. It's both yes and no. I didn't
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upload that video. I didn't do that video with the intention of doing an
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episode on Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman being murdered by more than likely OJ
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Simpson. I did. That wasn't my intention. I just thought that it
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was interesting that not a lot of people talk about that interview that he did
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to support the book that he wrote or maybe didn't write. There's a lot
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of controversy about whether or not he actually wrote that book the hypothetical of if
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he killed his ex wife and ron Goldman. I just thought it was interesting
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and that not a lot of people have noticed that. At that time,
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I did not plan to do an episode, and then OJ Simpson up and
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died, so I decided, yeah, I'll do an episode, so you
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can look for a new episode coming soon about OJ Simpson. So there you
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go. If you'd like to get in touch with me, like Tammy did.
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Joe at ten minute murder dot com is my email address. Thank you
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so much for listening. Let's see you on the next episode.