The Murder of Carla Terry (Connecticut)

During the late 80s and early 90s, multiple women from Hartford, Connecticut were found dead in remote areas of the city and surrounding towns. After identifying a suspect in one of the cases and bringing it all the way to trial, police thought they might have a serial killer on their hands. But all the suspicion in the world was proven false when years later, advanced DNA analysis challenged what investigators thought they knew.

January 12 & 13, 1991

It was January 12, 1991 and 28-year old Carla Terry was getting ready for a night out on the town. She was the mother of two children and often helped out with other kids in the neighborhood, so Carla was ready to blow off some steam and take a night for herself.

As she got dressed, Carla asked her sister Laverne for help adjusting her bra. Carla was borrowing it from a family member and it was a bit too loose, so Laverne found two safety pins and poked them through the black fabric, affixing the right side of the band to the left. Carla then put on a pair of jeans and a blue shirt, a pair of boots and a white hat. With a few layers of jackets to defend against the New England winter night, Carla was ready for the evening’s festivities.

Carla typically stuck around Hartford’s North End, a neighborhood that abuts Keney Park just west of the Connecticut River. That evening was no different. Andrew Julien and Gina Brisgone report for the Hartford Courant that Carla first hung out at the St. Lucia American Society on Albany Avenue before heading to a bar on Barbour Street. At some point during the night, Carla met up with a man and they went to Keney Park Cafe around 1 a.m. now January 13th.

Although they arrived together, they went their separate ways for part of the night and Carla was seen speaking to a different man while she was there. Carla ended up leaving the Cafe around 2 a.m. and getting a ride with the same man she walked in with earlier that night.

Another one of Carla’s sisters, Rhonda, heard a car pull up outside her apartment a little after 2 a.m. and she could see Carla getting out of the car. Carla had been planning to stay at Rhonda’s place that night but she didn’t head straight inside after she was dropped off. Instead, Carla called up to Rhonda through the window saying she’d be right back and then Carla walked across the street and out of sight.

Almost three hours later, around 4:45 a.m. a Hartford police officer patrolling near the University of Hartford pulled over along Mark Twain Drive Extension at the sight of something unusual in a snowbank. The heap had a vaguely human shape, but when the officer called out from his cruiser there was no response. As he got out and stepped closer, he discovered a body covered by a brown garbage bag from the neck down.

The body was that of a woman and she was partially dressed, but her clothing was in disarray. The officer could see that she had abrasions on her neck and bruises on her face with a swollen eye. He checked for a pulse but found none. Paramedics arrived a short time later and found that the woman was still warm to the touch. They attempted life saving measures at the scene but eventually transported her to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. The woman was later identified by fingerprints as Carla Terry.

Investigation & Charges

The deputy chief medical examiner found during the autopsy that Carla Terry died as the result of asphyxia by manual strangulation. In addition to the bruising and abrasions on her body noted by the officer who found her, Carla also had distinctive crescent shaped bruises around her breasts that were consistent with bite marks. A forensic odontologist, Dr. Lester Luntz, confirmed that they were indeed bite marks, possibly caused by her killer before she died.

As reported by Theresa Sullivan Barger for the Hartford Courant, Hartford Police detectives learned from witnesses that Carla had been at Keney Park Cafe that night and staff there said that Carla was talking to a man while at the bar and he bought her a drink. The guy happened to leave some business cards behind that night – he’d supposedly been handing them out to women. The cards gave investigators a name: Alfred Swinton.

Two detectives from Hartford PD found 42-year old Alfred Swinton at his home in Stafford Springs on January 19. When Alfred greeted Detectives James Rovella and Stephen Kumnick at the door, he allowed them inside and spoke without hesitation. They informed Alfred they were looking into the death of a woman and asked if he knew someone named Carla Terry. Alfred said he did know her but according to interviews with detectives in an episode of A&E’s Cold Case Files, Alfred told them he wasn’t in town the weekend she was killed. The detectives knew that wasn’t true though – they’d already spoken to witnesses who placed him at the bar on that Saturday night and early Sunday morning.

About a month and a half later, Detectives Rovella and Kumnick spoke with Alfred again, this time picking him up for a ride-along around the greater Hartford area. Josh Kovner and Dave Altimari report that the route included the spot where Carla Terry’s body was discovered. Alfred said he recognized the location and referred to it as his backyard. It was about a quarter mile from his old home on Granby Street and he knew the area well.

With suspicion building, on March 5, 1991, police returned to Alfred’s Stafford Springs apartment, this time with a search warrant. During the search, police found a black bra in the basement of the building and they noticed it had holes in the fabric along the band that, at first glance, could have been created by safety pins. Later, when Carla’s sister, Laverne, saw the bra, she said it looked like the same one she helped Carla pin up before she left the house on the night she was last seen alive.

In addition to the bra, court records state that investigators found brown garbage bags, the same kind of bag that was wrapped around Carla’s body when she was discovered. They also located a newspaper in Alfred’s apartment dated January 13, the date Carla was murdered, but no other newspapers.

The search warrant did not stop at Alfred’s residence. Given bite marks were found on Carla’s body during the autopsy, investigators also requested molds of Alfred’s teeth. A Hartford Police Lieutenant transported Alfred to have the dental molds taken and Alfred was talkative during the drive. He went on about how women, “bore the seed of…evil.” He also expressed his opinion that women had nothing to offer except sex and they were always trying to ask for money or rides or other favors in exchange for sex. He stated that women like that get what they deserve.

At that point, the case against Alfred was still circumstantial. He was with Carla at some point on the night she was killed, he was familiar with the location where her body was dumped, the bra found in his basement was identified as the one Carla was wearing, and his statements about women gave investigators the impression he had a degree of motivation to commit a violent act against a woman. But it would be the dental molds that finally pushed the case over the edge.

A forensic odontologist found that Alfred’s teeth were a visual match to the bite marks left on Carla’s body. With that, a warrant was issued for his arrest and Alfred was taken into custody on June 25, 1991 for the murder of Carla Terry. But it wasn’t a done deal. A little over a month later, the state’s case against him totally unraveled.

Carla Terry’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.