The Murder Years: Ep. 4 - Charlotte

This series is inspired by true events. The stories you're about to hear are fictional, and so are the characters who are played by actors.

Student Body of Mount Pine Principal Palumbo. Here, remember tonight is the homecoming game and tomorrow night is the homecoming dance. Please conduct yourselves like the young ladies and gentlemen that you are. Let's represent ourselves and our community. Well, okay, that's it. Have fun and let's go Mountaeers.

It's October nineteen eighty five and we're juniors at Mount Pine High School. I cannot wait for the homecoming game and dance. I'm going with Lance Simpson. We've been going out for a few months. When he asked me, eh, it was whatever about the dance.

It was the game I couldn't wait for today.

Lance is fifty two years old, married kids, and has a lawn cunning business. Back in nineteen eighty five, he's fifteen about to turn sixteen like me.

Like I said, the homecoming game was what I was excited about.

But man, after that game, nothing was the same ever.

I'm Nancy Clark. This is The Murder Years, Episode four, Charlotte. It's Friday, October fourth, nineteen eighty five and our homecoming game is against our number one rival Northgate. They've beaten us the last three times we've played each other, which is going to make this homecoming game extra crazy. My boyfriend Lance sits with me for a little while, then he goes and sits with his JV football buddies.

I wanted to talk football.

You know, at halftime we're losing. The second half of the game is good but close, too close for comfort. And then for you.

One by one field goal, but we ate one man. That felt great. We finally beat Northgate.

So after the game, I headed over to the to the concessions, then to meet everyone.

My good friend Carla is on the dance team with the marching band, and we decide to meet after the game.

As I was walking over there, I could see some guys wearing Northgate jackets were yelling at some of our guys. Then all of a sudden, it's a full blown fight.

It's total chaos. Teachers and parents rush over to try and break it up.

That macho shit was so immature. I was ready to leave anyway. I told my mom i'd after the game. I told my mom we won and I would be heading home. We lived close to the school. It was like a five minute walk. She asked if I could stop and get her some asprin, which, of course I said I would do.

Carla says goodbye to all of us and heads to Buddies, the convenience store and ice cream shop on Miller Road. That's the same place where Lisa Anderson used to work. You may remember her tragic murder from episode one. I still can't believe she's gone at Buddies.

I think I bought some gum and ice cream in addition to my mom's as friend.

Minutes later, nine one one, what's your emergency?

Oh my god?

Sit, help, what is happening?

Where are Buddies?

There's so much blood?

Shut her?

Oh my god, she's pleading.

She's pleading a lot. Who's bleeding?

My co worker?

Hi friend, Heygod.

Becoming Charlotte pign.

It's around ten pm when Mount Pine police and paramedics arrive at Buddies. The victim, lying in a pool of blood, is rushed to the hospital. Detective Tom Wallace, who today is retired from the force, was the lead investigator on the Lisa Anderson murder. He agrees to speak with me again It's not lost on him that he worked Lisa's murder only sixteen months before.

Yeah, man, that murder haunts me, and I couldn't believe. I was at Buddies where she used to work, responding to another brutal attack on a young person.

When Detective Wallace arrives on the scene, he sees a woman talking to officers. She's sobbing. She's the woman who called nine one one.

I told them the guy was masked.

You know, he had a mask.

Over his face back in nineteen eighty five. Thirty two year old Angie Foster works nights Monday through Friday. She's been employed at Buddies for the last seven years. Today, she's a sixty nine year old grandmother of two.

Yeah, it was a regular, normal kind of night. I was at the register and I was scooping ice cream also, and Charlotte was in the storeroom getting the chips we needed to stalk.

At that time. Eighteen year old Charlotte Murphy is a senior at Mount Pine High School. Smart, super nice, and very pretty, with thick, naturally blonde hair and cheekbones like Fara Faucet. She wears sort of short skirts, so some of the mothers would gossip that the way she dressed got her pregnant and kicked off the school dance team. It was kind of big news at school and around town.

Charlotte bless her Heart was four and a half months pregnant, and she worked Friday and Saturday nights, you know, to try to save some money for the baby. I remember she was in the back getting the chips, and everything just seemed like a normal night. And then this guy came in. He had a mask on and he pulled a gun out of his coat. It was a shotgun, and he said, give me all the money. So I went to the register. I was fumbling. I just I

Angie tells police the guy was wearing a black sweatshirt, in jeans and a black jacket. He was kind of tall, but because he had on a mask, she couldn't say much more.

So.

As Angie was giving me her statement, an officer came up to me with a horrible message. Charlotte and her unborn baby had both been pronounced dead. The last thing I wanted is a go tell Charlotte's parents and her baby were dead.

God damn, I hated that part of the job.

Just then I turned around and saw this young man and woman trying to cross the police tape.

It turned out to be Charlotte's parents.

Mary and Samuel Murphy had Charlotte when they were in high school. They're only around thirty four thirty five years old. They heard there's been a shooting at Buddies. Now they're at the scene demanding answers.

This was the last way I wanted to do it, but there was no getting around it. I asked them to go sit in my car and I told them what had happened. I will never ever forget the sound of their cries, their pain.

I asked them if they'd come to the station with me.

At Mount Pine Police Station, the Murphy's followed Detective Wallace into interview room Wine. Today, the murphys are retired and have since left Mount Pine. They agree to share their story with me in the hope it can help others.

You know, when you fall on your back and you can't catch your breath, you know, you get the wind knocked out of you. Well, that's how I felt. Maybe that's how I still feel. I remember I was just begging, begging the detective to tell me what happened. I wanted to understand what happened to our daughter.

Charlotte's mother Mary does most of the talking to Detective Wallace. Her husband Samuel is just too distraught.

I told them it looked like a robbery, but I had to look at all possibilities. So I wanted to know more about Charlotte and her pregnancy.

I told the detective we were not happy when Charlotte got pregnant. Her life was pretty perfect before that. She was on the dance team. She'd been hoping to get a dance scholarship to college. Her dream was to move to New York and dance on Broadway. And then she started dating this guy at the end of the last school year.

And once she got pregnant, it was very hard for her and us. She knew she had to give up her dream in order to have.

The baby, but she decided the baby was what she wanted more than anything. And the father of her baby, well, let's just say he did not want her to have it. Nope, that was the last thing he wanted.

Mary and Samuel Murphy are at Mount Pine Police talking with Detective Tom Wallace about their daughter, Charlotte, who has just been murdered during a suspected robbery at Buddy's convenience store. But the Murphys didn't just lose their eighteen year old daughter, they also lost their unborn grandchild. Here's Charlotte's mother Mary.

The father, well, he didn't want her to have the baby at all.

It was.

Okay, it was a real problem. But then he eventually came around and said he would help. At least he would help financially. She had baby names already picked out Brittany, Brittany if it was a girl, and Nicholas if it was a boy. I knew if Alex had anything to do with Charlotte's murder, my husband was going to kill him.

The father of Charlotte's baby is eighteen year old Alex Nielsen, a foreign exchange student from Denmark. Although Detective Wallace believes it's simply a robbery gone wrong, he'll need to talk to everyone close to Charlotte. But first, the owner of Buddy's Convenience Store is at the police station. Back in nineteen eighty five. Buddy Wilcox, a widower, is a pillar of the community. He helped sponsor many of the high

Okay, So first we lost Lisa, then Charlotte, who was shot at my store. I mean, I couldn't understand what was happening to our town.

But he was very upset when I interviewed him, understandably, so I asked him if he'd been having any troubles at the store.

You know, we would get choplift or something once in a while, you know, and they'd take a little lighter or maybe some slim gems, but nothing like an armed robbery.

Got nothing ever like that.

We didn't even have security cameras.

Mountain Pine was safe, well, it was. At one time. I just kept.

Thinking about Charlotte's poor parents. He was all just so incredibly tragic.

My wife's since passed away. We didn't have any kids of our own. Charlotte had always been like a daughter to me. I'm sorry.

I told Buddy if he thought of anything that could help the investigation the police call, he.

Said he would, then he left.

I remember it was late at that point, like go two am, and we needed to talk to Charlotte's friends. But first we needed to start with the father of Charlotte's baby.

Detective Wallace gets the name and number of Alex Nielsen's host family, Thomas and Karen Potts. They have four kids of their own. Alex is a third exchange student they've hosted over the years. Alex and the Potts arrive at the police station around two am. Detective Wallace will talk to Thomas and Karen Potts first. Today, Karen agrees to speak with me by phone from their eldest son's house in Florida.

Well, it was just the most awful thing to happen. I couldn't process that Charlotte and the baby were dead, and there had been a lot of death around us. My husband's uncle died the week before in a freak hunting accident. Look, I was an am on, god fearing woman, and it made me wonder what had we in Mount Pine done to deserve all these tragedies. My husband doesn't believe this, but in that moment, I could believe that town was cursed.

Maybe I still do after all these years, after all these deaths.

I asked the Pots about Alex, and they both said he was a very good student. He was polite, helped with the chores around the house. They couldn't have asked for a better exchange student.

But we were very upset when Charlotte got pregnant. And don't even get me started on how upset Alex's parents back in Denmark were when he told them the news.

Detective Wallace tells the Pots he'll need their phone number.

I wanted to know why was Alex to suspect there was no way he could have done anything to Charlotte. They were in a good place, all things can. He had been working at my husband's shoe store and would give Charlotte half of his pay for the baby. It wasn't a lot, but he was trying to help as much as he could.

Oh, and he.

Had an alibi. We were all at the homecoming game then went straight all right after together.

Detective Wallace then brings in eighteen year old Alex.

Alex was upset, but seemed to be cooperative. There was a little bit of a language barrier, but he answered all my questions. He said he wasn't thrilled about the baby at first. He said although he didn't want to be a father or raise the kid, he and Charlotte agreed that he would help with it financially, and he said he couldn't think of anyone who would want to hurt Charlotte. I told Alex and the Pots at that point, I may have more questions, but they were free to go.

Just twelve hours later, it's Saturday night, and word has spread around town about what happened to Charlotte Murphy. Everyone is in shock. There's talk of canceling the homecoming dance.

I didn't even want to go to the dance, and I mean I didn't want to make it about me, but from what I heard, it happened right after I left Buddies. I could have been killed that night too. I honestly felt like it was all too much.

To everyone's surprise, school officials decide not to cancel the dance, my friends and I ditch our dates and hang out together.

Everyone was dressed up, but no one was dancing.

We wanted it to be a fun night. We wanted to be talking about winning the game, our corsages, or where we went to dinner. But all we could talk about was what happened to Charlotte. They should have canceled the dance, I mean, or at least postponed it.

Yeah, the dance is really weird. Then it gets even weirder. Alex walks into the gymnasium. He's at the dance, and he's not alone.

I was thinking, holy shit, Alex came to the dance with a date. I mean, I think everyone thought the last place he should be is at the dance, like he should be home crying or devastated or something.

And dude, he was with Ellen, eighteen year old Ellen Grover. Everyone is looking around at each other, like, what the hell? The girl is striking the type that gets discovered by a model scout. She's every high school boy's dream. You know, he was dating Ellen? How could he?

She was one of Charlotte's friends.

Okay, so I'm thinking maybe Alex and Ellen are at the dance's friends. Maybe they're consoling each other. We don't know, so how can we say, right? I mean, they aren't holding hands or anything. It's just weird Alex is there at all. I think everyone feels the same, and we're all completely fixated on them and whispering about them. And after a few songs, Alex and Ellen end up leaving. We all leave soon after.

So Saturday night I was going over interviews and trying to retrace Charlotte's steps that day leading up to the shooting. Sunday morning, I heard from the coroner the cause of death was blood loss due to a severed carotid artery, and the shot to her torso killed her unborn baby, a girl. Almost immediately it was determined the weapon used was a twenty gait shotgun. Our team dusted for fingerprints, a buddy's and gout at least thirty five. I mean it was a store and people come.

In and out of there all day long.

There was a partial print on the counter where Angie said she put down the money.

In the days that follow detectives talked to Charlotte's friends and family, including her boyfriend before Alex. They investigate all the tips that come in, but none of them seemed to go anywhere.

It was two weeks after the murder. We got a call from the owner of High Stakes pawn Shop over in Summerland. It's about twelve miles down the road. He said, someone just came in who pawned a shotgun.

Then someone just came in who pawned a shotgun.

And because I heard about the shooting and buddies, I thought I'd call in.

About thirty minutes later, Detective Wallace gets to High Stakes. He's greeted by the owner.

He told me a guy came in wanting to pawn a shotgun. I asked him to show me the gun, but not to touch it. He showed me by the counter where it was emph It was a twenty gage shotgun. I asked what the guy looked like for his personal information, ID, address and phone number are required when you pawn something. The owner said he was a white guy, but couldn't remember much what he looked like. He handed me the record book. It said Jesse, but the last name was

This guy might just be our killer.

Detective Tom Wallace is at high stakes pawn shop reviewing security footage of the guy who may have pawned the murder weapon used to kill eighteen year old Charlotte and her unborn daughter.

So I was watching this fuzzy, grainy, black and white video of the guy, and from what I could tell, he had on jeans and a plaid shirt. Thankfully, the pawnshop also had a camera outside, and in that footage I could see he arrived and left in a white Toyota and looked like a at tercell.

Detective Wallace takes the video, the contact information, and the gun back to the station and runs what he has through the system. He's looking for a Jesse, last name starting with a C or G who drives a white Toyota.

We got a hit. Jesse Grover, twenty.

Year old Jesse Grover. He dropped out of Mount Pine High School three years before. I heard he was a burnout when he was in school. I think he also went to rehab at one point, but I'm not sure.

So a few officers went down to his house.

He was living with his parents at the time, and they asked him to come down to the stae talk about the gun he pawned.

Jesse arrives at the station. He's about five to nine, dark, greasy hair. His clothes looked like he'd slept in them for weeks, and he reeks of pot. A policeman brings Jesse to interview Room three. Detective Kurt Peters helps Detective Wallace with his interview. Looking back over his notes, Detective Peters takes me back to that day.

Jesse Grover looked nervous and a little out of it. I asked him where he worked. He said he didn't have a job. I don't have a job. We asked him how he spends his days.

Mostly hang out.

I look for work here and there. Then we told him we wanted to know more about the shotgun he pawned at high stakes. It wasn't registered in his name, where to get it, and why did he pawn it. That's when he asked, do I need an attorney? We said that was up to him. We just wanted to ask him a few more questions. He thought about it and agreed to continue. Okay, the gun was my dad's, had pondered, without him knowing.

Jesse said the gun was his dad's, and he pondered without him knowing. I asked him why he needed the money. He got weird. I told him we didn't care if it was for drugs or anything like that, so he said, yes.

Yes, I needed the money for weed.

I spoked a lot of weed and wanted beer.

I then asked him where he was that Friday night, and he abruptly ends the interview.

I want my parents and a lawyer.

Well, he was twenty years old, so he didn't have a right to have his parents there, but I thought, okay, maybe maybe they would talk him into talking to us. So Jesse's parents arrived in about an hour with an attorney Intel, and as soon as Jesse saw his dad, he broke down.

He then said these words and it was odd. He said she made me and I was like, who made you do what?

The attorney piped up this interview was over and told Jesse to stop talking, but he didn't.

He said he couldn't keep it in any longer. He was dying inside and he was sick and not strong enough. I asked him what he was talking about. Then he started sobbing. He said, she made me do it. She told me it would be a good way to get money. She told me to scare her and maybe she'd miscarry.

He was sobbing. At this point I got freaked out. It just shot.

It was an accident. We asked him who he was talking about. Who told him to do it? Did Charlotte want to Misscary? He said Ellen. Ellen made me do it because of Alex. They were dating and she didn't want Charlotte to have his baby. She didn't want me to shoot her. There was an accident, I swear.

I asked him who is Ellen, and he yelled out my sister.

Well the room erupted. Jesse was fine, His parents was speechless and confused. The lawyer was trying to get everyone to shut up.

In the middle of all this chaos.

I asked him if Alex knew about any of this, and he said he didn't know, so we needed to find Ellen and Alex.

I think it was a Tuesday.

In any case, it was a school day, so that's where they were supposed to be.

About twenty minutes later, police descend on Mount Pine High School. I remember seeing them pull up, unmarked cars and patrol cars. It was like a movie. In the main office, police learn Alex is in study hall and Ellen is in Spanish.

Officers split up and went to their classrooms at the same time. They got Alex, cuffed him and put him in the back of the police cruiser.

But when they went to get Ellen, she wasn't in Spanish class.

We're obviously all freaking out looking through that little window in the classroom door, trying to see anything we could. The teacher is telling us to get back to our.

Seats, get back in your seats.

Cops are running through the school, going room to room. It was insane.

After about ten minutes, we found Ellen in the home neck room, just sitting there one of the sewing machines. We read her rights, placed her under arrest and put her in another police car.

There were so many people in the station we had almost every interview room in use.

Detective Peter stays with Jesse and his parents to wait for Alex's host parents, the pots.

Jesse wasn't room with his parents in their attorney. Then when Ellen arrived, she was brought into another interview room, and because she was a minor, her parents and attorney left Jesse and went to her.

That's when we were informed Ellen would not be answering any questions.

And we had Alex an interview room two with his host parents, Karen and Thomas Potts. It was chaotic. Host mom Karen talks.

I told the detective. We called Alex's parents in Denmark and they advised us to tell police he wouldn't be answering any questions until they arrived in the States. But they wanted detectives to know that Alex was innocent, he wouldn't do anything to hurt Charlotte or the baby.

We took that with a grain of salt. I mean, what did Alex's parents had Denmark know. They didn't even know their kid got I'm girl pregnant. At this point, we were pretty sure of Ellen and her brother Jesse's involvement, but Alex's role, if any, was not as clear. Because he was not a US citizen, had a passport, and was a flight risk.

We kept him on a forty eight hour hold.

Jesse Grover is arrested and booked on a felony murder charge. That's because Charlotte was killed during the commission of the armed robbery, which is a felony, and he's held without bail. Police decide to hold Ellen for forty eight hours, hoping that buys them time to find more evidence they can use to formally arrest her as an accessory.

So a few hours later we get a call. During Ellen's medical evaluation, we learned she too was four months pregnant. Was stunned. I didn't see that coming. That made me think about what her brother, Jesse said that she wanted him to scare Charlotte so she would miscarry. She didn't want Charlotte to have Alex's baby because she was having Alex six's baby. She was jealous. That pointed the motive.

Late the next night, Alex Nielsen's parents arrive in the States and they come with news the government of Denmark can't do anything to keep their son from being charged with a crime and going to trial in the United States. The following morning, Alex's lawyers encourage him to speak with the police.

So we got word that Alex wanted to talk, and he did.

He told us everything he knew, like how upset Ellen was that she and Charlotte were both having his babies, and how Ellen was obsessed with coming up with way as Charlotte could carry, but he never took her seriously. He offered to take a polygraph test, which he passed.

The DA decides not to charge Alex with anything, but they charge eighteen year old Ellen Grover with felony murder, conspiracy, and various weapons charges, and Ellen, like her brother Jesse, will be held without bail. Almost one year later, the trial begins. Ellen Grover and her brother Jesse Grover will be tried together. After five days of testimony and one

All these lives destroyed, and for what Because of some deranged, jealous young girl.

Angie the cashier that night, could never bring herself to work in a store again. Today she's a private dog trainer.

Oh.

I was so glad that jury came back with guilty verdicts. But I'll tell you that was never going to bring back that poor sweet girl. And I will never be able to get that gruesome image out of my head.

I never got to see my little girl as a mom. I never got to meet my granddaughter. Oh maybe she would have grown up to be a beautiful.

Dancer just like herm.

And let us not forget that there was another baby who was collateral damage in all of this.

The trial is over, the healing can begin. Alex Nielsen and his parents fly home to Denmark and he never returns to the US again. But the tragedies in Mount Pine don't leave with them.

I used to think all these murders were a coincidence or bad luck, you know, I mean, bad things happen all the time in places like Mount Pine, but there were just too many.

I changed my mind.

Next time on The Murder Years.

Nine one one.

What's your emergency?

Oh my god, my daughter, she's gone.

A Valentine's Day turns tragic.

I asked him if I could come in and ask him some questions, but he told me, in no uncertain terms, no, without a search warrant, I couldn't come in.

Who killed Victoria?

I've never done anything to wood child, any child. I never did anything to her.

The Murder Years is a production of AYR Media and iHeartMedia. Executive producer Elisa Rosen for AYR Media, co Executive producer Paulina Williams. Written by Leah Rothman, directed by Michael Seltich. Original concept developed in partnership with Anne, Margaret Johns and Greg Spring. Casting by Eisenberg Beans Casting Senior Associate producer Eric Newman, Associate producer Jill Pushesnik. Editing and sound design by Tristan Bankston, Mastering by Cameron Taggie, Audio engineering by