Justice in a murder case shouldn’t depend on the outcome of a private lawsuit, much less one that cost a survivor a million dollars to bring. Especially not when law enforcement have had only one real suspect and everyone knew for two and a half years where to find him.

Yet suing was the only avenue Marion Carter farmer Bill Carter felt he had left to get justice for his late wife, Shirley. She was murdered in their Lacona farmhouse kitchen in June 2015, but until this Dec. 17, no criminal charge had been filed. Then two days after a jury took two hours and change to award Carter and two of his adult children $10 million in a civil judgment against his son, Jason Carter was arrested and charged criminally.

That was two and a half years after Bill Carter, out hauling corn, was called by his daughter to rush home. There, he found his wife of 52 years in a pool of blood. Jason, who had notified his sister, was there and claimed to have stopped by and found his mother that way.

When I asked law enforcement officials and the state attorney general's office last spring, they wouldn't say even if they had a suspect. Yet in interviews lasting 11 hours three days after Shirley's death, two agents with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation accused Jason of killing his mother and lying to them in a timeline he gave of events.

A recording from the interviews was used as evidence in the civil case. In it, Jason denied the accusations but failed a lie detector test. In a seemingly leading question, Marion County Sheriff Jason Sandholdt asked Jason Carter if he suspected anyone else in his family, such as his father. Carter said he didn't know what happened to his mother.

Bill told me last year that his son and the sheriff were friends. Sandholdt didn't respond when I asked about that back then, but Jason Carter's lawyer acknowledged there was a friendship.

There were other anomalies. Why didn't Jason Carter call 911 before his sister did? Also, Bill Carter said the sheriff arrived that day within moments of him and asked Bill to leave, then sealed the house for several days. That prevented Bill from seeing the contents of office and bedroom drawers dumped on the floor, but nothing missing. He wondered whether it was staged to look like a burglary.

Bill also couldn't check his gun safe in the basement to see if a rifle previously given to him by Jason was still there. He believes Jason took it and used it to shoot Shirley. Bill has shown officers bullets fired from the gun previously that matched those that killed Shirley. The weapon was never found.

Something else was odd. In recently making the case for criminal prosecution, Mark Ludwick, a DCI special agent, said Jason had told a first responder the day of the killing that Shirley’s body had two bullet holes. But Ludwick said neither he nor other officers or first responders could determine that at the time. Also, Jason gave a false statement to conceal being in an extramarital affair, Ludwick said. It has been suggested money was a motive.

After being assured three times an arrest would soon be made and seeing none, Bill Carter sued. He has made at least three suicide attempts since Shirley's death. He also turned to media. In reporting on the case a year and a half ago, I heard him sob uncontrollably as we talked on the phone. I sat in his kitchen, heard the detailed account and like so many others, wondered what was taking authorities so long.

One suspicion is that they did a shoddy investigation early on and then dropped it to cover themselves. At a press conference on the criminal charges now filed, DCI Special Agent Michael Motsinger said while thousands of hours of interviews and investigative findings have been pored over, the civil trial gave authorities other important information and evidence. I tried several people at the DCI to ask if their own investigation couldn't have obtained that information. None were returned.

But now with the civil award, how could prosecutors defend not proceeding? Significantly, NBC's Dateline has been following the case and is expected to air its episode in February.

Matt Russell, a neighbor of Carter's who is with Drake's Agricultural Law Center, praised our 2016 coverage of Carter's case for giving him hope and the will to proceed when official doors were closing. As to the justice system's performance, he said, "I didn't think I lived in a country where it took personal funds to advance justice."

It's also worth recalling that until the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit, Marion County Attorney Ed Bull wanted to bring criminal charges against a 14-year-old girl for sexual exploitation of a minor (herself) after her suggestive photos on Snapchat were spread. Yet in two and a half years, he didn't take evidence in Shirley Carter's murder to a grand jury to decide if charges were warranted.

The credibility and integrity of our justice system are not just concepts to hold above other countries that lack independent courts. They're about human beings having a place to get validation. If people are given reason to believe in their justice system, they're less likely to take matters in their own hands in acts of vengeance.

As for Bill Carter, some days the quest for justice for his late wife may be all that has kept him alive.

Rekha Basu is an opinion columnist for The Des Moines Register. Contact: rbasu@dmreg.com Follow her on Twitter @RekhaBasu and at Facebook.com/ColumnistRekha. Her book, "Finding Her Voice: A collection of Des Moines Register columns about women's struggles and triumphs in the Midwest," is available at ShopDMRegister.com/FindingHerVoice



