Day two of the trial for an Evansville woman accused of rape and confinement concludes

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) - Day two of the trial for 37-year-old Heidi Carter was a busy day in court, just like day one.

Tuesday, the jury watched hours of video, including the entire interrogation of Heidi Carter after she was taken into custody last October.

That video alone was over two hours.

We also heard from multiple EPD Officers and an Indiana State Police Forensic Analyst.

The jury watched each of those officers’ bodycam footage from the night of the incident, and the ISP analyst went over how she examined different pieces of evidence from the crime scene, and she relayed her findings to the jury.

Of the over half an hour of bodycam footage, the jury witnessed officers entering the home on Stinson Avenue and not only retrieving the rape victim from the home, but also discovering Ivy’s body.

While the bodycam footage played and revealed Ivy’s corpse, Carter looked down and would not face the jury nor the video.

The jury also followed another officer’s bodycam as she patted down Carter and removed the revolver from her pants on-scene.

That gun was taken out of evidence and shown to the courtroom today as the defense cross-examined the officer whose bodycam footage was just reviewed, and the jury asked multiple questions about the firearm itself.

Perhaps the most revealing was that interrogation with Carter at EPD headquarters though.

In two hours and four minutes, she went through the events leading up the death of Ivy all the way to the shooting of Hammond.

The detective who did the interrogation says Carter was in the room for six to seven hours total before being taken to jail, and the video itself showed an agitated Carter going through the events of the previous 24-plus hours.

Until that point in the trial, we had heard testimony from the rape victim and the woman who had alerted authorities to the dead body in the home, but the interrogation video offered insight into Carter’s side of the story.

She highlighted the timeline of events, changing her story a couple of times after some hours of speaking with the detective.

Carter appeared to be frantic, and emotionally all over the place, going from crying to another clip of her sleeping after the detective left the room.

When the woman who says she was raped and beaten testified, she noted that Carter had put that revolver we saw in bodycam footage in her face, and had the gun in-hand, encouraging and instruction Hammond while the woman was being raped.

During her interview, Carter was adamant that she was never holding the gun while in the bedroom, and only had it on her after she left the home the first time, and then when she was arrested.

Throughout the interrogation, she continued to tell the detective that she didn’t want to hurt the woman and Ivy, and was only looking out for her own safety while trying to protect them as well.

The detective then questioned why she hadn’t alerted police to the situation while out of the home if that were true, and continued trying to poke holes in her story.

Carter ended up saying that while she herself was not responsible for any of the violence or restraining, she did play along with Hammond for her own safety.

She even went as far as to say she acted like she was restraining Ivy and the woman with Hammond, but says she didn’t actually do it.

In a direct quote from that interrogation, Carter says, “There are a lot of things that I should’ve done different.”

She also admitted to the officer that at one point she had mentioned something to Ivy and the woman that she knew people in Indianapolis that she could call that would help with the disposal of their bodies, and that she didn’t care if Hammond killed them.

After the interrogation video had concluded, the defense, during a cross-examination, showed the detective the supplemental document from his interview with the victim at the hospital after she had been taken from the home.

In it, the detective noted that the woman had told him Hammond put the gun and knife in her face during the ordeal, not Carter.

However, that contradicts her testimony on the stand, when she said Carter had put the gun in her face when she had tried to get Hammond to stop hitting Ivy with the bat.

At the recommendation of her attorney, Carter decided she would not be testifying on her own behalf Tuesday.

The jury stayed until a little before 5 P.M. to go over all the evidence so far, and come 8:30 A.M. Wednesday, they’ll get back together to do the same for the start of day three in the trial.

After that, we’ll hear final arguments from the prosecution and the defense, before things are turned over to the 14-person jury to decide what the future holds for Heidi Carter.

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