Coincidence

It’s been a couple weeks since Charlie and I spoke last. We started out by talking more about his boxing career. I also found out that Charlie was ranked 9th in the world at one time for karate. Crazy, right?

One of the main reasons people think Charlie killed Carmen Croan is because in November of 1981, three local radio stations ran reports saying that Charlie had been arrested and was in jail for her murder. The stories were run November 11-13. Charlie later sued the stations and received a settlement from one. Of course, that information never made it into the local papers. Charlie thinks that part of the settlement was to keep their wrongdoing out of the news.

Carmen’s body was exhumed right when the radio reports began, on November 11th. Odd, right?

Charlie found out that a girl he used to date thought that he killed a woman in 1984 – another unsolved Odessa murder. It was a girl that used to work with Charlie at the club. He never knew this, of course, while they dated. He found out when we was talking to one of her neighbors, Jackie, a few weeks ago.

Apparently, Odessa was the per capita murder capital of the United States at one point in the ’80s. It’s an oil town; workers come and go… and unfortunately, that sometimes equals violence – and unsolved murders. Odessa isn’t a bad place, though. Charlie still lives in the house he grew up in. He says that it’s actually a lot like what they portrayed in Friday Night Lights. Football is king. Charlie went to Permian and knows a ton of football players. I think he even played one year.

As we get more into this story, it seems like one thing is certain: there is no such thing as a coincidence. The exhumation… the radio reports… the boxer telling everyone that Charlie did it… It’s no surprise that the murder still affects Charlie’s life to this day.

Say a prayer for me,

K. E.