The murder of Susan Carter

When Susan Carter and her daughter Alex disappeared in August 2000, they left no trail. The two had been living in Larry Webb's home in the Beckley area of Raleigh County, West Virginia, and after they vanished the case settled into the long silence of a cold missing-persons file with no bodies, no crime scene, and no charges. The investigation was revived more than two decades later. In August 2023, the FBI executed a search at Webb's residence, removing a section of wall from one of the bedrooms and digging in the basement. According to FBI Supervisory Special Agent Tony Rausa, a bullet was recovered from the wall of Natasha's former bedroom; laboratory testing determined that blood on the bullet belonged to Alex Carter, physical proof that the 10-year-old had been shot inside the house. On October 23, 2023, a Raleigh County special grand jury indicted Larry Webb on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Natasha 'Alex' Carter. Webb was taken into custody on April 12, 2024, after being medically cleared for incarceration. The decisive break, however, was his own admission. In the first week of April 2024, Webb confessed to investigators. Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Ben Hatfield described it as a detailed, undeniable, unconflicted confession that aligned with the investigative efforts. Webb told investigators he had noticed money missing from the home, believed Susan had spent it, and shot her during the resulting argument; he then said he killed Alex to avoid being caught for killing her mother. He recounted wrapping both bodies in bed linens, leaving them on his basement floor for two days while he dug a grave, and burying them together in the backyard. His account directed searchers to the spot. After several days of excavation at his former property at 100 Kyle Lane in Mabscott, investigators recovered human remains on April 22, 2024. That same day, Webb, who was being held at the Mount Olive Correctional Complex, suffered a medical episode and was pronounced dead at Montgomery General Hospital, hours before the remains were found. Because the confession both revealed where the long-missing victims were buried and supplied the full account of how and why they died, authorities credited the killer's own words, not forensic technology, as the factor that finally closed the case. The DNA from the bullet had confirmed only that Alex had been shot in the house; it was Webb's confession that explained the deaths and located the bodies. Webb was never tried, dying as the case against him reached its conclusion, but he had been identified, indicted, and arrested, and the State Police and prosecutor publicly declared the 24-year-old case solved.