Carr suffered heart attack

By Jennifer Squires
Ashland Daily Tidings

Terry Martin Carr, 62, accidentally suffocated his 9-year-old daughter, Arieka, to death when he suffered a fatal heart attack on Aug. 1, according to Lake County Sheriff’s Department chief deputy Russell E. Perdock.

The Los Angeles writer/producer had moved to Ashland with his daughter and wife, Chikako, in late July. On the afternoon of July 31, Terry Carr inexplicably abandoned his wife at the Ashland Market of Choice and drove with his daughter to Northern California.

The bodies were found in the back of Terry Carr’s 2002 Jeep Cherokee around 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the Clearlake Oaks, Calif., Tower Mart.

“Essentially, after Terry Carr suffered a fatal heart attack he came to rest across the back of his daughter, thus lessening her ability to breath fully and causing the asphyxia,” Perdock wrote in a press release Tuesday.

Arieka Carr, who weighed 53 pounds and was 4 feet 5 inches tall, was lying on her stomach on the driver’s side of the cargo area with her head near the rear hatch of the vehicle. Five-foot-9-inch, 212-pound Terry Carr was found on his back in cargo area with his legs behind the front passenger seat but his torso lying across his daughter’s back and his head resting over her right shoulder near the interior wall on the driver’s side of the Jeep.

News the pair died from natural causes and accident came as relief to old friends in Southern California.

“The idea that a homicide had been committed was first unthinkable, knowing those two ... but to hear some weird and awful natural cause ameliorates that concern,” said Dale Franklin, a friend of Terry Carr from Los Angeles whose daughter had attended school with Arieka Carr.

Franklin, who had a minor heart condition a year ago, did not know Terry Carr had heart problems.

“We talked about it and at one point we were saying, ‘It sure puts into perspective the value of the time you have,’” Franklin said. “He never mentioned anything about any kind of heart trouble.”

Terry Carr, a screenwriter, worked on the production of 13 big-screen movies between 1972 and 1991, including “King Kong” (1976) and “Predator 2” (1991). He was the producer of the 1981 award-winning film “On Golden Pond.”

The family had rented an Ashland-area apartment on July 29 after telling friends in L.A. they were looking for a fresh start. They had considered moving to Powers, a small town on the Oregon coast, but chose Ashland instead. The same day they signed an apartment rental agreement, Jackson County Sheriff’s deputies received a report that someone had dumped bags of personal belongings over a fence on a dead-end road off Valley View Road. The belongings, which Ashland police detective Brent Jensen described as items that would have had a sentimental value to the family, were linked to the Carrs.

They had been eating lunch at Market of Choice when, at 2:12 p.m. on Aug. 1, Chikako Carr went to the restroom. When she returned, her husband and daughter were missing. She filed missing persons reports for the pair the following morning, less than three hours before they were found dead in Northern California.

Why Terry and Arieka Carr left Ashland on July 31 remains unclear unless he had intended to meet his brother, who lives in Clearlake Oaks, Calif. Terry Carr never contacted his brother, leaving investigators in Lake County and Ashland unsure they will ever determine the rationale.

Chikako Carr is still in the Ashland area, but could not be reached for comment. Funeral arrangements for the pair have not been announced.