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by Jennifer
Squires
August 24, 2005
Ashland Daily Tidings
Terry Martin Carr,
62, accidentally suffocated his 9-year-old daughter, Arieka, to death when
he suffered a fatal heart attack on Aug. 1, according to Lake County
Sheriff’s Department chief deputy Russell E. Perdock.
The Los Angeles
writer/producer had moved to Ashland with his daughter and wife, Chikako,
in late July. On the afternoon of July 31, Terry Carr inexplicably
abandoned his wife at the Ashland Market of Choice and drove with his
daughter to Northern California.
The bodies were
found in the back of Terry Carr’s 2002 Jeep Cherokee around 1 p.m. in the
parking lot of the Clearlake Oaks, Calif., Tower Mart.
“Essentially, after
Terry Carr suffered a fatal heart attack he came to rest across the back
of his daughter, thus lessening her ability to breath fully and causing
the asphyxia,” Perdock wrote in a press release Tuesday.
Arieka Carr, who
weighed 53 pounds and was 4 feet 5 inches tall, was lying on her stomach
on the driver’s side of the cargo area with her head near the rear hatch
of the vehicle. Five-foot-9-inch, 212-pound Terry Carr was found on his
back in cargo area with his legs behind the front passenger seat but his
torso lying across his daughter’s back and his head resting over her right
shoulder near the interior wall on the driver’s side of the Jeep.
News the pair died
from natural causes and accident came as relief to old friends in Southern
California.
“The idea that a
homicide had been committed was first unthinkable, knowing those two ...
but to hear some weird and awful natural cause ameliorates that concern,”
said Dale Franklin, a friend of Terry Carr from Los Angeles whose daughter
had attended school with Arieka Carr.
Franklin, who had a
minor heart condition a year ago, did not know Terry Carr had heart
problems.
“We talked about it
and at one point we were saying, ‘It sure puts into perspective the value
of the time you have,’” Franklin said. “He never mentioned anything about
any kind of heart trouble.”
Terry Carr, a
screenwriter, worked on the production of 13 big-screen movies between
1972 and 1991, including “King Kong” (1976) and “Predator 2” (1991). He
was the producer of the 1981 award-winning film “On Golden Pond.”
The family had
rented an Ashland-area apartment on July 29 after telling friends in L.A.
they were looking for a fresh start. They had considered moving to Powers,
a small town on the Oregon coast, but chose Ashland instead. The same day
they signed an apartment rental agreement, Jackson County Sheriff’s
deputies received a report that someone had dumped bags of personal
belongings over a fence on a dead-end road off Valley View Road. The
belongings, which Ashland police detective Brent Jensen described as items
that would have had a sentimental value to the family, were linked to the
Carrs.
They had been eating
lunch at Market of Choice when, at 2:12 p.m. on Aug. 1, Chikako Carr went
to the restroom. When she returned, her husband and daughter were missing.
She filed missing persons reports for the pair the following morning, less
than three hours before they were found dead in Northern California.
Why Terry and Arieka
Carr left Ashland on July 31 remains unclear unless he had intended to
meet his brother, who lives in Clearlake Oaks, Calif. Terry Carr never
contacted his brother, leaving investigators in Lake County and Ashland
unsure they will ever determine the rationale.
Chikako Carr is
still in the Ashland area, but could not be reached for comment. Funeral
arrangements for the pair have not been announced.
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