Emelia and Joshua

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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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you for taking the time to listen
to ten Minute Murder. If you're brand

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new here, make sure you hit
subscribe. Also connect with me on social

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media where you see all the things
about the podcast, and also go to

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the website ten minute Murder dot com. That's where you'll find everything, like

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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.