The Child Found Dead in a Fridge
By: Oskar Bogdanowicz
Tags: Mystery, Murder, Crime, History, Nima Carter

The Child Found Dead in a Fridge

The unfortunate story of 1.5-year-old Nima Carter and the uncanny resemblance to another case of children found in a fridge

Nima Carter Photo: https://youtu.be/uieuNgYv4bk

On the 31st of October 1977, the Carters placed their 19-month-old daughter in her cot and left the room. Just before they left the room the child started to cry hysterically, a fairly common occurrence for the young Nima however the parents had figured out simply letting the child cry would tire her until she would fall asleep a few minutes later.

In the morning when Rose Carter entered her child's bedroom, her baby was nowhere to be found. In a fit of panic, the parents started to frantically search the home, still, the child was not there. Young Nima's bedroom window was intact and still locked from the inside so if anyone had broken in, it couldn't have been through there. The culprit must have got in through a different route.

Nimas bed Photo: List OMG/ https://youtu.be/3HFlinOz66o

The police were immediately called and were as baffled as the parents due to there not being any obvious signs of anyone breaking in, all the doors were locked from the inside and none of the windows were broken.

After assessing the scene police pointed to the large wardrobe in Nimas’ bedroom, it was large enough for a grown adult to comfortably hide within. The parents hypothesised that shortly after they had left the room Nima saw the kidnapper and started crying as a call for help.

As time went on and no new evidence could be found speculations started to emerge that it was the parents who had staged a kidnapping. Fortunately, after several hours of interrogation and tests with a lie detector, they were found to be innocent.

While being interrogated the Carters recalled that two months prior they had found their dog dead from poisoning and two days later their house had been vandalised. The police didn't find the culprit and the couple were left baffled as to who could have done this since they had no enemies and got along well with their neighbours.

Seventeen-year-old murderer?

The police started observing people who were close with the family, those who might have known the insides of the home or even known Nima’s routine. Very quickly, their attention turned to seventeen-year-old Jackie Roubideaux, Nimas’ babysitter.

Nima Louise Carter Photo: The Angel Project https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=142739525

Jackie was summoned to the station and appeared surprised that she was on the suspect list. During the questioning, she didn't raise any red flags with the officers and due to the lack of evidence was eventually released.

The case lay dormant for about a month until a breakthrough happened when a new report arrived at the police. Some children were playing in a local abandoned building when they found a fridge. As curious as children are they decided to investigate and open the fridge. Within, they found the dead body of a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, the children rushed home and told their parents and the case went to the police.

It was discovered that the child had died from suffocation in the fridge and a few days later Rose Carter identified the body as her daughter, who had been kidnapped only a month earlier on the 31st of October 1977. However, it was still a mystery as to who could have performed the kidnapping and murder.

Photo: Anatologia del Terror / https://youtu.be/zrcIj2gO8-s

A year prior: twins in a fridge

Nima’s case was eerily similar to a case from a year prior. On the 8th of April 1976, the four-year-old Carpitcher twins disappeared from their grandmothers home in Oklahoma. Two days later children playing in an abandoned house nearby heard the cry of a child coming from a closed fridge. They investigated the cry and upon opening the heavy fridge door found twins, unfortunately only one of them was still breathing.

The children alerted their parents and the police, the twins were identified as the missing children, which had been gone for forty-eight hours at that point. The twins were rushed to hospital where young Augustine Carpitcher was found to be stable, however, unfortunately, Mary didn't make it. Augustine managed to survive by breathing through a small crack in the fridges door.

The surviving twin was asked who did this to her and she pointed to their sixteen-year-old babysitter, Jackie Roubideaux.

Mary and Augustine Carpitcher Photo: Funny Videos/https://youtu.be/0NAHkjpgciM

Jackie was interrogated but defended herself by claiming the twins were playing in the garden in front of the house and she took her eyes off the children for a few moments. When she returned the twins were nowhere to be found. The babysitter seemed very shaken by the whole ordeal and helped the search efforts before they were found.

Unfortunately even with Augustine having literally pointed at her wrongdoer the police didn't have any other evidence to convict or interrogate Jackie further. The police concluded that a four-year-olds testimony was not trustworthy enough to get a conviction and Jackie was released.

Jackie moved on from the Capitchers, following the twins' demise, to work with the Carters’ young daughter Nima. Even having been a suspect in the twins' murder she never received a ban for working with children.

A witness

A few months later, once Nima shared Maria's fate, a witness came to the police station to give a statement as she believed she knew who had murdered Nima.

Her name was Thelma McCraig and she was a neighbour of the Carpitchers. She testified that on the day of the twins’ disappearance she saw their babysitter drag them out of their house by force. She assumed that Jackie was trying to merely take them somewhere where they didn't want to go, like the doctor, and didn't think much of it.

It was only after she found out about Jackie being a suspect that she realised what she had seen on that fateful day. If Thelma had informed the police during the search for the twins there is a chance things could have ended differently, her withholding information was found to be highly irresponsible however the information was crucial.

Thanks to Thelma's eyewitness account there was enough evidence to conclude that the murders of Nima Carter and Mary Carpitcher were not just a coincidence. Two years later, Jackie was charged with murder.

One of the witnesses testifying in court was the now six-year-old Augustine Carpitcher, she had to mentally go back and retell the story of how she lost her beloved sister. She explained how Jackie took the twins to a white house by the railroad tracks, a place where neither of the twins had been before, but they trusted their babysitter. After a while, they grew increasingly distressed as there was a mess in the house and all of the furniture was destroyed. Jackie told the pair to get into the fridge and promised them that soon their auntie would come to take them out for ice cream.

Photo: Anatologia del Terror https://youtu.be/zrcIj2gO8-s

It seemed inevitable that Jackie was guilty on both counts of murder. In the 1976 case there were two witnesses, however, in the 1977 case, there was no evidence or witnesses. So Jackie never stood trial for the murder of Nima Carter.

In 1979 Jackie Roubideaux was found guilty of murdering Mary Carpitcher and was sentenced to life in prison. She died in 2005 after having appealed her innocence several times, she was denied every request to shorten her sentence.