Nigel Cawthorne - The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large

Posters carrying Carrie’s picture went up all over the state and a $10,000 reward brought in more reports. Some even claimed to have seen her alive. None panned out.

As months passed the missing person’s case turned into a criminal investigation with Vincent Doan as the chief suspect. On 27 March 1997, a Clinton County grand jury indicted Doan on four counts of kidnapping. Doan turned himself in and, after a few days behind bars, he was released on bail set at $100,000.

The trial was scheduled for 9 June 1997, but on 4 June two murder charges were added. One alleged that Down had killed Carrie Culberson while effecting the kidnapping. The other accused him of deliberately killing her to stop her testifying against him on the assault charges. There would be no more bail. Doan was returned to a county jail and the trial postponed until 14 July 1997.

When the trial opened, the prosecution conceded that the case against Doan was circumstantial, but nevertheless it was solid and conclusive. They had witnesses to prove that Doan was not only controlling and physically abusive towards Carrie Culberson, he was caught up in an escalating spiral of violence that ultimately ended, they contended, with her death. They also conceded they could not prove that she was dead. However, there was no evidence that she was alive, even though witnesses claimed that they had seen her. There were regular sightings of Elvis, but that did not mean he was alive.

They contended that Vincent Doan murdered Carrie Culberson in the early hours of 29 August 1996. Doan’s neighbour, Billie Jo Brown, said she had seen Doan chasing Culberson through her yard, cursing and threatening her. Then he had grabbed her, punched her in the face and shoved her into her car.

Another key witness was Lori Baker, the ex-wife of Doan’s half-brother, Tracey, who still cohabited with him. She said that Vincent Doan had knocked on her door at about 3.15 a.m., asking for Tracey. This was corroborated by Vicki Watkins, Lori’s twin sister, who was staying the night. Doan was dishevelled and covered in blood. He took a shower and changed into some of his brother’s clothes. The two men left in Tracey’s truck at around 4.30 a.m., carrying some garbage bags and a gun. When they came back at around six, Lori said both men had blood on them.

A few days later, Doan was at his brother’s house when a report on Carrie’s disappearance came on TV. He began rocking back and forth. He pulled his shirt over his head and told Lori she could not imagine “hurting someone and holding them until they died”.

The prosecution then produced Mitchell Epperson, Doan’s cellmate in the county jail. He said Doan had told him, that before he had murdered Carrie, he would “lie awake at night and think of a hundred different ways to kill her before he did it”. Doan thought that Carrie was cheating on him.

“When they do that, you can’t let ’em walk on you,” Doan had said, Epperson testified, “you’ve got to make them pay.”

Prosecutors said the circumstantial evidence was clear: whether motivated by obsession or a desire to keep Carrie quiet in the criminal case against him, Vincent Doan kidnapped and murdered Carrie Culberson on or about 29 August 1996.

In his own defence, Vincent Doan insisted that he knew nothing about Carrie’s disappearance and denied kidnapping or murdering her. His attorney maintained that Doan could not have killed Carrie Culberson, because the evidence suggested that she was still alive. Dozens of reports had come in that Carrie or her car had been sighted since her supposed disappearance. The prosecution dismissed these as unreliable, saying that people were confused after seeing her picture on posters or on the television. The defence countered by showing that some of those who had claimed to have seen her had known her before she went missing. But even if Carrie Culberson was dead, the defence argued there was nothing concrete to indicate that Vincent Doan killed her. The prosecution had nothing—no body, no murder weapon nor any other scientific proof. Hundreds of samples taken from Doan’s home and car, his brother’s home and his father’s scrap-yard had yielded not a single shred of evidence.

The defence also maintained that Doan’s neighbour, Billie Jo Brown, was an ex-convict with a record of writing bad cheques and, thus, an unreliable witness. Doan’s cellmate Mitchell Epperson had a long criminal history, with arrests for assault, theft, breaking and entering and violating probation. Lori Baker, they maintained, had a history of drug abuse and was a Satanist who repeatedly changed her account of what had happened on the morning of 29 August 1996. Her twin sister was a fantasist and a habitual liar who was not even there that night. Besides Doan had an alibi. Lawrence Baker and Doan’s stepmother Betty Baker testified that they had visited Doan’s home some time between 1.30 a.m. and two that morning. Lawrence Baker said he had found his son asleep on his living room couch. He then turned off the TV and lights without waking Doan and left the house.

The authorities had been frustrated that they had not been able to locate Carrie Culberson. They had failed to follow up on the sightings of her properly in a rush to pin unprovable charges on the defendant. During the trial itself, a woman claiming to be Carrie Culberson placed a 911 phone call in Cincinnati saying that an innocent man was on trial. A tape of the call was played to Debbie Culberson, who said the voice was not her daughter’s. In fact, the report of another sighting came in while the jury was out. A woman who looked like Culberson ran out of a convenience store after seeing newspaper headlines on the trial.

The defence conceded that Carrie and the defendant had had what they called “spats” in their three-year relationship. But lovers’ tiffs were far from evidence for murder. And it was ridiculous to imagine that Doan had killed Carrie to keep her from testifying against him. Although the assault charges carried a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, if found guilty he would probably have been given probation. Besides, he denied the charges.

On 7 August 1997, after four days of deliberation, the jury found Vincent Doan guilty of three of the four counts of kidnapping and one of two counts of aggravated murder. They determined that Doan had killed Culberson while effecting the kidnapping.

On his way from the courthouse, Doan protested his innocence and when asked if he would reveal what had happened to her body in exchange for a reduced sentence, he said: “If you don’t know where anything is, how can you explain where it is?”

In mitigation of sentence the defence called 20 witnesses including peers, family friends and his grade school teachers who all testified that he was generous, helpful and polite. Former girlfriends said that he was never jealous nor abusive. Even the guards at the county jail testified that he was a model prisoner. However, several witnesses said that he had suffered both physical and mental injuries in 1992 during an accident involving a collapsing crane.

Doan’s mother, Priscilla, begged the jury not to recommend the death sentence, saying: “He doesn’t deserve it. He’s innocent, and I would miss him.” Then Doan himself made an impassioned plea for his life in a 20-minute unsworn statement.

“As her friend, and somebody who still loves her, I’m not going to give up hope that she’s safe somewhere,” he said. “I would still like to do anything that I could do to help out the Culbersons, and help out Carrie as much as I could… I miss her tremendously, even though we couldn’t have a relationship… when she comes home, I still would not turn my back on her as a friend.”

In response Debbie Culberson told the court: “By not knowing the truth of what really happened that night, we will be forever tormented.” And she pleaded with Doan to tell the authorities where her daughter’s body was so that she could have the “humane and Christian burial that she deserves”. All Doan could do was protest his innocence once again.