The murder of Real Estate Agent Beverly Carter
The murder of Real Estate Agent Beverly Carter. This may seem like the title to LMV movie of Netflix mini-series, but unfortunately its a true story. Each year dozens of real estate agents across the nation are murdered simply by doing their jobs showing houses and condos.
Perhaps no crime sent more shock waves through the industry than the death of Beverly Carter.
Ms. Carter had just one more property to show on that September day before she could go home.
It was nearly 6 p.m., and the Arkansas real estate agent called her husband to tell him that she would be home for dinner before getting into her brown Cadillac and driving 30 minutes outside of Little Rock to show a home to a stranger.
She was never seen alive again.
Ms. Carter was 50 years old when she was murdered in 2014. Her killer, who lured her to the isolated property by pretending to be an interested buyer, kidnapped her, suffocated her and eventually buried her body in a shallow grave nearby. He later told reporters that he targeted Ms. Carter because — like most real estate agents — “she was a woman working alone.” He was sentenced to life in prison; his wife, who served as an accomplice, received a 30-year sentence.
Her son, Carl Carter, remembers being woken by the doorbell at 4 a.m. on the Tuesday detectives found her body. She had been missing for four days and a group of his mother’s colleagues, knowing that media was already camped out at the concrete plant where her body was discovered, came to his home to break the news to him personally.
The industry is operating without guardrails
In 2017 he began the Beverly Carter Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to creating more stringent safety measures for real estate agents. The same year, he and his family filed a lawsuit against Crye-Leike Realtors, the agency for which Ms. Carter had been working as an independent contractor, alleging the firm was aware of the dangers she faced but never offered any training or safeguards to prevent them. That suit was later dismissed because of the statute of limitations.
“No comment is needed,” said Harold Crye, president of Crye-Leike, in an email when contacted by a reporter about the case.
“I’ve been told by big-name brokerages: ‘Sorry about your mom. But I’m not here to keep people safe, I’m here to make money,’” he said. “It’s just very much a for-profit industry.” The National Association of Realtors has made other trainings mandatory in the past: in May, after mounting pressure over discriminatory practices and appraisal bias, the organization announced that agents must now take regular continuing education classes in fair housing and diversity, equity and inclusion.
On the group’s webpage, they offer safety strategy tips like “share your schedule with a colleague, assistant or family member”; “check your cellphone battery and signal before heading to an appointment” and “never go into attics, crawl spaces or garages where you could be trapped.”
The organization also conducts an annual survey on safety. This year, when agents were asked if they’d been a victim of a crime while on the job, 98 percent of respondents said no. While the organization has touted those numbers as a success, Mr. Carter views them differently.
“A few percentage points out of 1.5 million suddenly becomes a really different conversation when you realize it means thousands of people have been victimized,” Mr. Carter said.
She was still arranging brochures at an open house in the Denver suburbs in August 2019 when she heard a knock at the door. The tall man with a shaved head who stood outside said he was interested in potentially buying the townhouse she was showing. She let him in, and when he asked to see the upstairs, she led him to the primary bedroom.
Then he suddenly pulled up his shirt, revealing a 12-inch knife tucked into his pants. He also reached for a canister of bear spray and doused her in the face. But that day, she had her Springfield 9-millimeter gun hidden in an ankle holster beneath her pants leg. She fired one shot, and he fled.
Her attacker was arrested four days later, and later sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Ms. Hetzler now offers trainings to other real estate agents, some of which involve tactical skills including headlocks as well as how to handle a gun during an attack. But carrying a weapon, she said, is a deeply personal decision.
“If you don’t believe in firearms, it doesn’t matter to me, there’s no judgment. Just find another way to defend yourself,” she said. “Nothing is worth your life, including a sale.”
Source: New York Times
