The After Show: I Have Killed for You
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Hi there, everybody. I'm Debra Roberts with today's 2020 The After Show. It was a cold case for nearly a decade. Bonnie Woodward went missing in a small town in Illinois. She was 47 years old, the mom of four, and she just disappeared. The investigation revealed that Bonnie's 17-year-old stepdaughter had run away just weeks earlier.

Authorities later uncovered that Heather had been staying with a family from church, Roger and Monica Carroll and their 16-year-old son Nathan. Heather eventually shows up fine.

Police also discover later that Roger Carroll drives a silver car matching the description of the one Bonnie had been seen getting into. And his fingerprints were found on Bonnie's truck. But authorities didn't have enough to charge him with murder. That is until Roger's wife and son offered some valuable clues years later.

What a story. Well, joining me to talk about the story is my colleague, Juju Chang, co-anchor of Nightline, who reported on the story for 2020. And Juju, just the title alone stopped me in my tracks. I have killed for you. It's just chilling. It is a direct quote that the wife quotes two investigators when her husband suddenly attacked

her? And it raises a bunch of questions, but we're getting ahead of the story. Because that is sort of the tail end. And yet, that is the culminating moment when they catch the killer. Well, we want to talk about that because these titles that we choose for our program tell so much often about these stories. But

First of all, when we talk about small-town Illinois, and you and I have covered a lot of these stories, and oftentimes they are in small towns, rural towns, the places where people say this just doesn't happen here. So take me to Alton, Illinois, and tell us a little bit more about that.

the kind of place it is. We talked about the church-going family, so clearly it's that kind of a place too. Yeah, it's one of those Midwestern small towns where it looks like a scene out of, you know, sort of from yesteryear, this main street, the church steeple. And it's actually got the nickname of one of the most haunted small towns in America. But it's also one of those sleepy little towns, very working class, full of people who are salt of the earth. And that is definitely who Bonnie Woodward was.

Yeah, a woman who worked at a nursing home. What was it about this story immediately that kind of grabbed you? I think it's this idea of a single mom raising four kids. It's

In conflict with a teenager, a stepdaughter who she adopted and was raising from the age of eight when her actual biological father passed away. And so she becomes a runaway, which we learn early on in the 2020 episode. And when you realize that suddenly Bonnie goes missing, you have a story of not just one person, a missing person, but two people.

who vanished in the same family. Yeah. You and I have teenage children and we know, and I think many times we can relate to parents in these stories when there's been some familial conflict. And in this case, classic conflict between, you know, a mom and a, and a daughter. What,

What was it about Bonnie Woodward, the story that you reported on? She was this, you know, sort of salt of the earth woman. She worked at this job. She had just gotten her paycheck. She was on her way home, a stickler for routine, right? We talked to a number of people who loved and lived with Bonnie, right? And she was one of those by-the-book ritual people. She would, you know—

be found within five minutes of when she told people she was going to be there. When she checked out of her nursing home, she was a caregiver. And every Friday, by routine, she would cash her paycheck. And the fact that she just left the parking lot and disappeared into thin air had everyone wondering. She was the kind of person who would like be the social hub of her family. She came from a big rambling family, lots of siblings, lots of cousins. She was the one who was throwing the Fourth of July picnics and the, you know, social gatherings. So when she disappeared,

the social fabric of the family tore apart. She was not the kind of woman who would just up and leave. Yeah, yeah. We've got a clip of your interview with Bonnie's niece, Rachel Lee. Let's listen to how she remembers her Aunt Bonnie. She was the aunt that took a second to actually listen to you if something was going on. Like, she was fair. She listened. People describe her as somebody who had a really loving heart. I know. She definitely did, especially with family. Like,

Didn't matter what you did. She would figure out a way to just make it better. You described her as the glue. Yeah, she definitely was. Like, everything. Like, it just kind of fell apart after that. What did your family lose? I think they lost that steady presence that the family is still together. You really loved her. Oh, yeah. Like, she was great. I just miss being able to talk to her. Her niece told me that...

As soon as they found out that she didn't show up when she was expected, she and her mom got in a car and started driving 12 hours. They knew. They knew. Something was up. Yeah. And they were throwing out flyers the next day. So we talked about her stepdaughter. So she had four children. Kind of an interesting home life there as she embraced everybody in her family, right? Absolutely. And her adult daughter also had children. So there were two grandkids living under the same roof, plus the boyfriend, Gary Wilmer. So, of course...

who did the police want to talk to first? The boyfriend. The boyfriend. So they questioned him and they pretty quickly clear him. But then there's this ex-boyfriend who Gary had run out of town when he showed up. And so they brought in the ex-boyfriend, asked him a lot of probing questions. Pretty quickly, they were able to eliminate him as well. The one piece of evidence they had was Bonnie's car.

It was a red truck that she loved. And part of the reason why everyone knew she didn't just disappear is she left her car in the parking lot. Yeah, who does that? Who does that? And somebody eyewitnessed her with some guy they couldn't ID. And turns out that guy was driving a silver sedan. And so then, you know, puzzle pieces started to come together. There was a lot of smoke, but they could not hide.

find any real evidence. And so that's when the case goes cold. The case goes cold, and it goes cold for nearly a decade. Well, stay put, Shuju, because this is such a mystery. We've got to unravel this when we come back more about how law enforcement finally cracked this case.

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We're back now with Juju Chang talking about the story that she just reported on. And I want to briefly mention that, like so many of these stories, you know, oftentimes we get footage from police departments. In this one, we got a lot of footage. You talked about the interrogation tapes, which are often so fascinating to all of us. For the first time,

I don't know. A huge chunk of the investigation took place in that tiny little interrogation room where they brought in, you know, potential person after potential person just to get as much information about someone. Why would this woman disappear out of nowhere? Now, the stepdaughter, there's a development there, but not with Bonnie. Dun, dun, dun. She shows up.

out of nowhere at a library. And everyone's wondering, like, what is she doing there with a teddy bear in her hand? The police take her into an interrogation room. And I'm telling you, Deborah, these interrogation tapes are riveting. You literally cannot take your eyes off them, in part because here's a teenage girl who's just turned 18, right? So she said, I ran away. I was waiting till I was going to turn 18 so I could be out of Bonnie's hair. She was going to kick me out anyway. And yet she's acting...

And the prosecutor told me, I hate to be demeaning, he said, but she acted like a 10-year-old. She was clutching a teddy bear and talking about her disappearance as if Bonnie's disappearance meant nothing. Right. So Bonnie is missing and she hasn't cashed her check, as you said. So there's no signs of her. This happened in 2010. Police are still questioning people and they're questioning the family that Heather was staying with, Roger and Monica Carroll.

That's right. And what's amazing about it is they go to their house, they talk to them at length, and they really come up with nothing.

And all they say is we had heard that Bonnie was abusive. And so we took her in out of the kindness of our hearts. So police were really suspicious. And the daughter, Heather, apparently, according to what you reported, had butted heads with her mom, had even accused her of abuse. And so maybe he thought that the mom was not the best mom, but that was about it. Both Roger and his wife, Monica, said that these stories of abuse...

made them feel like, okay, we should take her in. She's suffering tremendous abuse. But prosecutors and investigators went later and investigated with Child Protective Services what these allegations were, and they found no evidence of abuse. And the prosecutors really feel that Heather may have committed

over-exaggerated in order to win the sympathy of adults around her. How did she even come to connect with this family in that way? Well, it's funny because, you know, we talked about how Bonnie was such a creature of habit. And on Sundays, she liked to clean the house. And so she would send the kids to church.

And that's where Heather met Nathan, the son of Roger Carroll. Well, let's talk about Roger Carroll then, because, you know, what was so interesting in your reporting was just, you know, how sort of ordinary all these folks were in this ordinary town. This guy was a church-going guy. Absolutely. And, you know, there's a reason why police went there, talked to them. He was able to

lie to them with a straight face that he didn't even know Bonnie, never met her, have no idea where she went. And it's always interesting when there's a cold case that's lying out there. You and I have covered these cases where, you know, 10 years, 15 years, and maybe there's a new person in town who decides they want to try to go and take another look. How does this story make its way back up on top of the list after 10 years? I mean, it was one of those cases that

stuck in the craw of a number of the investigators because they managed to get fingerprints off of Bonnie's car, which matched with Roger Carroll. But a new prosecutor comes in. Her name is Jennifer Mudge, and she's literally going through the list of cold cases. And somehow the one that ends up in her hand is the one about Bonnie Woodward. That's just the first one she just stumbles upon. Just the first one she becomes obsessed with. But before she could even do anything, they get a call from Monica Carroll, Roger allegedly...

his wife. And that's when it really takes off. So police now want to look into this because this guy's been on their radar and now they want to take another look at him. So when police now are starting to zero in on Roger, they almost...

maybe wouldn't have even brought him to court in the beginning. They might not have captured him because he had left a kind of a goodbye note on his car far away, and then he walked onto his property. He didn't want to be found, according to the note. There was another investigator I spoke to. His name is Sheriff Nick Manns. He didn't know about Bonnie Woodward's disappearance, but when he heard about the domestic violence case, he's the one who did the interview with Monica.

And he's the one who found Roger Carroll. And what he did was he went out into the areas where he grew up as a kid, hunting and, you know, running around on ATVs with his friends. So he knew these backwoods like the back of his hand. And he had gone off and served in the military and done the FBI. And he was at the, you know, the building at the Oklahoma City building. He's one of those like, you know, scouts.

Square-jawed, big-shouldered guys. Central casting. Exactly. And the night before, I went and interviewed him. He had been out all night on a DUI call, and they crashed up one of my cars. Now he's retired to this sort of small-town sheriff's role. And he went out to where he used to hunt as a boy, and he came across Roger Carroll, who had taken insulin and was pretty much dying on the side of the road and perhaps might never have been found had it not been for Nick Mann's

That's really, I mean, there's just so many twists and turns in this story. And that's what makes it so fascinating. And you mentioned domestic violence. We should also mention that if you need help or know of anybody who needs help supporting somebody, there is a confidential National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-SAFE and thehotline.org. Well, when we come back, there's finally a resolution in Bonnie Woodward's case. Stay with us.

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We're back now with my colleague Juju Chang talking about this mysterious case of Bonnie Woodward. So everything sort of explodes when Monica comes forward. And that sort of opens the floodgates to this investigation and actually leads to what will become a trial. What happens there? So the trial went on for a number of days. I think the star of the trial, obviously, was Nathan.

their son, who testified to all of the things that he had kept quiet. We have a clip from your interview with prosecutor Jennifer Mudd. She describes why she decided to grant immunity to that son in exchange for testimony. And what she remembers is a pretty powerful admission. Let's listen. Nathan was a 16-year-old boy living under Roger Carroll's thumb.

and in his house, and with his threats, and with the way he behaves. And he was going to do what his father tells him to do. At 16, most young boys do, but especially young boys living in a home like that. And he didn't have a choice. He knows what his father is capable of, especially after he saw all of this. And I think that as a kid...

He's not responsible for that. You give him immunity. You slowly start trying to pry the truth from him. What did he say that tipped his hand to you that he was about to spill the whole truth? He held up the immunity paper and said, this is good no matter what I tell you. And I said, yes. And he put his hands on the rail. I'll never forget seeing his hands on the rail. And he just started.

And boy, it was, it was, that testimony was gripping. It's like watching a young man, watching the weight of the world being lifted off this young man's shoulders. Some of the grand jurors afterwards reached out to me and said, I want you to know that what I saw was that young man telling the truth. There isn't a doubt in my mind he was being truthful. What stays with you when you go back?

And think about how he unburdened himself in that moment. There are a few things that stay with me. Some of his small descriptions during such a traumatic event, like when he saw her feet with the tan scrubs as soon as he walked out, and he remembers that he was eating leftover deli meat sandwiches from Heather's graduation party. And that's a small detail that you, if you're making a story up,

You don't go that detailed into what kind of lunch you're having.

I know. I know. It's just, I mean, there's so much in there. And as you said, he unburdens himself. And now he's a young man. He's no longer a teenager. So he's spilling the beans. And I want to know if he was remorseful, but also what he's telling them. Absolutely. I mean, my sense, obviously, I wasn't in the courtroom, but the prosecutor felt like there was real remorse there. But, you know, all of the investigators and the prosecutor told me that it was a real Perry Mason moment.

that there aren't very many moments like that in the courtroom where everyone is just, you could hear a pin drop. And she said, you could hear the clock ticking. It was that silent. And she said for a moment, you know, people referred to this immunity grant as a golden ticket. He could have said anything. And she was afraid for a second. Imagine if he had said, I killed her. My father had nothing to do with it. You granted me immunity. I'm free.

Oh, right. I never thought about that. But that could have happened. The prosecutor thought that for a split second. But then what Nathan goes on to describe is after his father shoots, he hears gunshots. He didn't witness the actual killing.

But he does say he saw Bonnie's feet in the scrubs pulled in. Then his father brings over like a front loader and pulls Bonnie's body onto a fire pit. He witnesses his father hiding the body and getting rid of the body. Could you imagine holding this for nine years?

As a teenager? I mean, a lot of people were very upset that the prosecutor gave him immunity from all of this. But she says, as you heard, he's a teenager. He's a teenager and he's growing up in a house where he knows what his father's capable of. And, you know, the reason why the jury believed him is because of a very interesting sidebar, which is a witness known as the sassafras tree.

A tree takes center stage in a trial. Absolutely. It was the most amazing thing. It's not that the tree was able to bear witness in any way, and yet the tree was able to put the exact time of when this sustained fire happened. You spoke with the investigator in this case, Scott Golicky, who described finding that unusual evidence. Let's take a listen. Nathan takes you out.

to the burn pile? Yes. During the course of this investigation and obviously after his grand jury testimony, he cooperates to the extent where he takes us out to the farm. He identifies the spot where the body was burned and there's a sassafras tree adjacent to the burn. And at some point, we cut that tree down. It had about, I don't know, several feet up the tree. It was scarred. The tree had been damaged, we suspected by fire.

We cut the tree down, we cut the cookies out of the tree, we set the cookies off to a botanist. Which is to say the slice of the tree. Right, sections of the tree we cut out, obviously the integral parts where the damage was. And then later the botanist returned the evidence and said that tree was damaged.

probably by fire, possibly by fire, but the damage occurred in the early growing season of 2010, the spring or early summer, which put us right in the timeline of this incident. It's as good as fingerprints on the side of a door? It's similar. It's good evidence, and the jury loves evidence, and prosecutors love evidence too. Like the defense pointed out, it doesn't prove who killed Bonnie Woodward.

But it does prove that the story of the fire on the hill is accurate. It's crazy because you and I have covered so many stories and covered so many trials where, you know, somebody is either speaking from the grave through their letters or comments. But in this case, a tree offers up evidence. And I think ultimately the fascinating thing is that

You wouldn't know if the sun, Nathan Carroll, was making up tall tales, except for they cut down this sassafras tree, which had a big burn mark on it. And a botanist was able to cut it down to its rings and analyze the rings and tell you exactly what season and what year this sustained fire took place. Because...

investigators said it had to have been burning all night and throughout the day for a very long period of time. So the tree was wounded. And that wound was part of the testimony that was brought into the trial. The fact that he could match that timeframe to Nathan's story was eventually what helped convince the jury. Yeah. Nature spoke out, but, but, but his defense actually, Roger's defense was that there was no body ever found. And Nathan,

The prosecutor surmised that he got rid of her body. He burned the body. Absolutely. And, you know, Nathan testifies that he took the bone fragments and the ashes and dumped it into the river. They did manage to find a few bone fragments. And yet they did not come back as a decisive match. In fact, some of the bone fragments were not even human. They were animal bones. And so that left a question mark, again, other than the fingerprints on Bonnie's truck.

Nathan's testimony and this sassafras tree, everything else was perfect.

You know, a lot of strong cases, you know this well enough, are built on circumstantial evidence, right? And so it's not like there was no evidence. It's just the prosecutors had to build together all of these elements. To make it very logical. Ultimately, in October of 2020, the trial court sentenced Roger Carroll, after finding him guilty, to 40 years for murder and for an additional 25-year enhancement for using a firearm. What was his reaction because he had maintained his innocence throughout the trial?

Throughout. I think it was like I've heard the prosecutor and others say that he had like a flat affect. He didn't react.

He said he didn't do anything at the sentencing, and he is appealing the charges. But the idea of I killed for you, we don't know quite what that means. His wife said, my husband told me he killed for me, but that makes no sense. Other people said, we think maybe he was trying to protect his family because Child Protective Services came around looking for Heather. Maybe he was doing it. But clearly this is disordered thinking. Like the motive is lost in the mind of a murderer, right?

Arguably, I've asked every investigator, every prosecutor, everyone I came in contact. What does that mean? What was the motive of the crime and the best that people were able to piece together? And each of these were, to some extent, speculation on the part of the prosecutor or the detective, because Roger Carroll still is denying that he had anything to do with it. He never talked about a motive. What do we know about Roger's family who helped him?

Solve this case. Monica was cleared with authorities saying that they had no indication that she was involved in the planning or in the act of the murder. So, you know, long after the crime, it appeared that Monica came to begin to suspect her own husband, saying in one of the police interviews that, you know, I honestly do believe he did get away with Bonnie Woodward's murder.

This story, just really amazing. Juju, I mean, you and I talk about these stories. Oftentimes in the hallway, we find each other. Absolutely. But we actually got a chance to sit down and chat today. Thank you so much for making the time to come by. Anytime, Deb. That's it for 2020 The After Show. We'll see you on Friday nights on ABC for 2020.

The 2020 After Show is produced by Amira Williams, Audrey Mostek, and Sasha Oslanian, with Matt Lombardi, Shana Druckerman, Karen Regan, Emily Moffitt, Tammy Shehery, Kieran McGurl, Kyla Milberger, Brian Mazursky, and Alex Berenfeld of 2020. Theme music by Evan Viola. Janice Johnston is the executive producer of 2020. Josh Cohen, the director of podcasting at ABC Audio. Laura Mayer is the executive producer.

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