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Another take on the disappearance of Brian Carrick – new podcast retells the mystery

On the evening of Dec. 20, 2002 in a small Illinois town near the Wisconsin border a 17-year-old boy went missing.Carrick Poster

To many this first sentence will spark a complicated web of details, names, courtroom testimony, rumors and alleged lies in the yet unsolved disappearance and presumed murder of Brian Carrick.

The story has been a part of my life since 2007 when I first sat down with Brian’s mother, Terry. Brian was one of her 14 children. She and her husband raised their large Catholic family in a white house that set across the street from Val’s grocery store. Many of the Carrick children had worked at Val’s at one time or another. Val’s is where her son Brian, 11th of her 14 children, was last seen alive.

Though his blood was found in and around a produce cooler at Val’s, her son’s body has never been found. Authorities say a fight over a drug debt led to the young man’s death.

Today, nearly 16 years later, there is no one serving prison time for Brian’s murder and lawyers are wrangling hoping to settle big dollar lawsuits.

The story has been the topic of many newspaper articles and TV news reports, as well as an hourlong episode of ABC’s 2020 entitled “Mystery on Johnsburg Road.”

And with each report of Brian’s story comes more confusion, a myriad of characters and perpetrators (depending on whose story you believe), but no definite answers. Stories change, memories fade, and still the family waits to learn the truth. The story has divided the small town of Johnsburg, in some cases pitting local families against each other.

Well yet another storyteller is investigating Brian’s case.

Just last week a 10-part podcast entitled “Framed” was released on iTunes. The producers gathered details from police reports, court testimony and other sources and created the podcast in the hopes of telling the story in a fair and complete way.

They tell the story by using voice actors to recreate actual moments in police interrogation rooms and courtrooms.

They ask the listener to keep close attention to detail and to consider all the evidence before deciding who to believe.

I admit when I first learned about the existence of this podcast I was skeptical about its purpose. But as I listen I am beginning to feel the producers are genuine and striving to tell the story without leaning the listener one way or another.

Knowing the story as well as I think I do I was surprised by a couple details I heard in the podcast. I do not feel the producers are trying to manipulate or sway me and I appreciate that.

I won’t rehash the confusing details of the crime and its aftermath here as many of you reading this know much of what I have written about Brian and all the others whose lives have been made so public. I do encourage you to reread past stories here on my blog, but I also encourage you to listen to Framed.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/framed-an-investigative-story/id1422906504?mt=2

I do hope that this new approach brings about something positive for the family of Brian Carrick. Sadly, his parents have each died, but I can’t help but believe they are with their son and they now know the truth.

Please leave a comment and review of the podcast here.

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Man who killed wife’s sex customer was just protecting her from a “400-pound knuckle dragger,” defense claims – judge to rule Aug. 30

Timothy Smith was protecting his wife from a “400-pound goon” when he accidentally shot and killed the man who came to have sex with her for money, his defense attorney said in a McHenry County courtroom this week.

But prosecutors rebutted that it was no accident and Smith is a liar who has rewritten history of the facts of the night. They said he is, in fact, guilty of first-degree murder and deserves to be resentenced to 50 years in prison.

Smith, 34, whose first conviction in 2013 was reversed on appeal, is again standing trial for the murder of Kurt Milliman. Authorities said he and his then pregnant wife, Kimberly Smith, had for about six months been posting ads on Craigslist offering sex for money with her.

On May 28, 2011 Milliman, 48, responded to one of those ads after exchanging messages with the Smiths arranging the meeting. Believing Timothy Smith was not at the home, Milliman arrived just after 11 p.m..

As Timothy Smith hid in a separate room, as he said he typically did when customers came to meet his wife, Kimberly Smith led Milliman to a back bedroom. The sex act started but soon Kimberly Smith decided she did not want to complete the act and showed the Spring Grove man to the door.

This is where things turned violent.

Milliman grabbed the woman and slapped her, she yelled out “Baby help me.” Timothy Smith quickly emerged from the room, ran out into the hallway with a loaded handgun and shot hm.

In closing arguments Matthew Haiduk said his client should be found guilty of lesser charges of involuntary manslaughter or second degree murder.

Haiduk said Smith was scared and protecting his wife from a “400-pound knuckle dragger” who was violent, had her “pinned against the wall … intent on having his way with her.”

“Kurt Milliman is twice the size of Tim Smith … he is bigger than most NFL players. He wore an XXXX L (shirt) … This is not a normal dude,” Haiduk said to Judge Sharon Prather who will announce her decision on the case Aug. 30. “This is a monster manhandling his wife because he didn’t get to have sex with her. … He had bad intentions. He was gonna get what he wants to get.”

Haiduk also said Milliman was shot from inches away as Tim Smith tried with his other hand to grab Milliman off of his wife. From the stand Wednesday Smith said the shooting was an accident.

Tim Smith and his wife also made a false report to 911 frantically saying there was an intruder in their home. The prosecution took issue with this saying that this false report showed “consciousness of guilty.”

Prosecutors also argued that rather than rush Milliman to the hospital which was less than a mile away Smith made attempts to cover up the crime and hide the computer on which the illicit arrangements were made. They said his emotions on the 911 call were fake.

To this Haiduk said though his words may have been a lie, Smith did not “manufacture emotion.”

“He’s scared to death,” Haiduk said. “This is a tragedy for everybody involved. Tim Smith did not intend to kill Kurt Milliman.”

But Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Zalud rebutted Haiduk’s arguments saying the state did prove that this is first-degree murder. Zalud said all the state needs to prove is that Smith pulled the trigger knowing it would cause great bodily harm. He noted expert testimony that the gun was not shot by accident because it would have taken 12 pounds of pressure to shoot it, according to Julie Steele from the Illinois State Police. Prosecutors also cited expert testimony that Milliman was shot from about two feet away, not inches as the defense claimed.

Zalud poked holes in Smith’s statement that he was scared for his wife in that moment of shooting Milliman, when earlier in the evening he wasn’t scared to let him go to a back bedroom with her for sex.

“This idea the gun just went off doesn’t make sense,” Zalud said. “He shot him right in the back .. He shot an unarmed man who he invited into his house … staged a break in scene … made a false 911 call …” and continued to lie during a six hour police interview.

“If he felt justified in shooting him he would have come clean right away,” Zalud said. “Tim Smith is a dangerous revisionist historian and he’s a murderer. … Kurt Milliman didn’t have a gun, knife, never knew Tim Smith was there … (Smith) overreacted. He ran around the corner and shot him in the back. Killed him without any thought. … Tim Smith is not the victim here.”

Smith was convicted by a jury in 2013 but his conviction was overturned on appeal because Prather, who also oversaw that trial, failed to instruct the jury they could consider the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. Timothy Smith started off the week going through jury selection but suddenly changed his mind and opted for bench trial. The Smiths have since divorced.

For more trial coverage visit:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-met-prostitution-customer-murder-trial-continues-20180801-story.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-met-prostitution-customer-murder-trial-continues-20180801-story.html