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Christy Lynn Carroll was only 18-years-old when she died in 1995 & although the medical examiner determined that she simply froze to death & died from hypothermia, based on the evidence surrounding her death, her family remain adamant that she was the victim of murder. Sadly, those they fully believe were responsible for her death have never been brought to justice.
Christy was born on July 25, 1976 to parents Loyce Marie “Cricket” & Ted Carroll in Hohenwald, Tennessee in rural Lewis County. The town was small with a population of about 3,700 in 1995 & is about an hour & a half drive southwest of Nashville. While she was growing up, she split her time between her grandparent’s home in Lake County & her parent’s home. She was described as a friendly, outgoing girl who had a soft spot in her heart for animals & often rescued abandoned or injured animals.
In 1995, at 18-years-old, Christy was navigating through the confusing time of transitioning from childhood into adulthood. Since she was the mother of an 18-month-old daughter, Britney, this process was only sped along. Despite the challenges of being such a young, single mother, Christy adored her daughter & she thankfully had the support of her family who stepped in to allow her some semblance of a normal teenage life.
Saturday, February 4, 1995 was a frigid night in the town of Hohenwald, Tennessee with temperatures well below freezing. Christy had made plans to go out to the bar that night & then spend the night at her friend, Kim Burlison’s house. While they were out, Christy’s brother Ted & three of his friends popped over to the bar at 11:20 pm to see them & while they were chatting, she asked if they could give them a ride back to Kim’s house. However, Ted’s friend John was driving that night & since he had to pick his mom up from work at 11:30 pm, he told her they wouldn’t be able to.
While Kim found another ride home, Christy stayed with her brother, hoping she could convince them to drop her off at Kim’s later. However, after they drove around for a few minutes, they bumped into two local teenage boys, Daniel Lay & Eric Amacher, who offered to give Christy a ride over to Kim’s.
At 11:56 pm, Deputy Lloyd Sherman was out on patrol with another officer when they saw a car pulled off the highway roughly halfway between Kim & Christy’s homes. When they stopped to investigate, they found Daniel, Eric & Christy inside the car & they told the officer that the car had overheated, but indicated that they had the situation under control & didn’t need any assistance. With that, the officers left.
About two hours after the officers saw the three teens on the side of the road in their overheated car, police responded to a call that came through at 2 am in regards to a man who was seen wandering along the road close to the location where the car had been overheated. As officers responded to the call, they came upon Eric Amacher who had wrecked his car & was leaving the scene. However, not only had Eric been driving a different car than the one that was overheated two hours earlier, but this time, Christy & Daniel weren’t with him.
Christy had plans for that Sunday to go to her grandmother’s house at noon for lunch, but she never arrived. The family was initially frustrated with Christy when she didn’t arrive as expected, but their annoyance turned to grave concern when they started calling around & learned that she never made it back to Kim’s house on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
When they spoke with Kim, she hadn’t been concerned when Christy didn’t show up at her house on Saturday night since she just assumed that Christy must have just changed her plans & gone back home. The Carroll family spent the rest of Sunday, into Monday searching for her, but there was no sign of her. They didn’t report Christy missing at that point since they were under the impression that they had to wait 72 hours to do so.
When there was still no sign of Christy by Monday morning, her mom came to learn that her daughter had gotten a ride home on Saturday night from Daniel & Eric. She requested that officers speak with the boys about her daughter’s whereabouts, however, right around this time, a phone call came through with devastating news.
On Monday, February 6, the mail carrier found Christy’s lifeless body laying in the grass behind the mailbox next to the driveway of her home. Despite the frigid temperatures, she was barefoot & sprawled out on her back with her arms outstretched with her shirt pulled up & ripped at both the back as well as the front, exposing her stomach. Her pant legs were pushed up past her knees suggesting that she had been dragged by her feet & her shoes & socks were missing, but her jewelry was still on. Her body appeared to be battered, her clothes were filthy & there was blood covering her face.
Learning that Christy had been last seen with Daniel & Eric, they were immediately questioned by police, who noticed contradictions in their statements. They initially indicated that while they were with her, they propositioned her for sex, but she refused so they dropped her off at her house between 12:30 & 1 am on Sunday morning. Eric said that he walked her to the door & watched her go inside. However, less than two hours later, he gave another statement & this time, he said they dropped her off halfway up her driveway & as they pulled away, they saw her walking towards the house. Later, they changed their story again when they both said that as they were driving away, they saw Christy fall in the driveway. There were also unanswered questions as to why Christy had been dropped off at home when her plan all along had been to spend the night at Kim’s.
Eric later contacted investigators & told them he needed to tell them something. When they arrived at his house for a statement, his mother met the officers at the door with a phone in her hand & she told them that she had a lawyer on the line. He wasn’t able to tell officers what he wanted to say.
Christy’s autopsy was performed in Nashville by Dr. Charles Harlan, who, at the time, was officially barred from performing autopsies due to an ongoing investigation of wrongdoing or malfeasance. Not only had he not performed the most basic tests to determine if Christy had been raped, he also hadn’t suggested a time of death. The autopsy records list two entirely different blood alcohol levels with one documented at .01 & another at .10. 20mL of coffee ground fluid was found in Christy’s stomach which is another way of saying coagulated or old blood. There are various causes for this finding, one potentially being from a beating.
The autopsy report indicated:
“The body is that of a well developed, well nourished, unclothed, uncircumcised white female, consistent with stated age of 18 years. The height is 63 inches above the heel. The weight is 139 pounds. The eyes are brown. The hair is brown. Mustache and beard are absent. Rigor mortis is present. Livor mortis is purple and fixed. Cyanosis is present. There is bloody fluid coming from the mouth and nose. Seven rings are present on the fingers. There is an abrasion of the chin. There is a tomahawk tattoo present on the dorsum of the left wrist. Red contusions are present in the left inguinal (groin) area and on the anterior surface of the left thigh. There are scars present on the anterior surface of the left thigh. There are scars present on the anterior surface of the left knee. There is a blue cross tattoo present on the medial aspect of the left ankle. There is a blue heart tattoo present on the medial aspect of the right ankle. There is a peace symbol tattoo present on the right shin.”
Dr. Harlan concluded that Christy’s cause of death was from hypothermia, which wouldn’t explain why she was found with blood coming out of her mouth & nose, why old blood was in her stomach, why there were contusions found to her groin & thigh, why her shirt had been torn, her clothing filthy, her shoes & socks missing.
Meanwhile, the police incorrectly told the media that Christy’s body had been found in a ditch as no ditch exists on the property of the house where her body was found. There was no snow on the ground, no tall bushes or grass that would have concealed her body from clear view from her family or their neighbors as her body lay sprawled on the grass next to the driveway & just behind the mailbox from the early morning hours of Sunday until the mailman found her on Monday afternoon.
Throughout the time she was missing, Christy’s mom, Loyce Marie, had been in & out of the house four times on Sunday & she never saw her daughter’s body. She’d even stopped at the mailbox once to see if her income taxes were there before she realized it was Sunday.
A neighbor, Mr. Holt, had also been working on his truck in the yard & never saw Christy in the yard nor had anyone who passed the house or who had been inside the home which was not very far from where her body was ultimately found. Another neighbor, Eli, had visited the Carrolls & arrived on foot; he walked up & down the driveway & would have walked right past Christy, had she been there all along.
Although the sheriff’s department asked both boys to take a polygraph test, they refused. In October 1995, eight months after Christy’s death, Eric told police he wanted to make a statement about what happened that night if he would be granted immunity. The DA, Joe Baugh, refused & on the advice of his mom & his attorney, Eric provided no information.
Both Eric & Daniel’s families were well connected & respected within their community. TBI agent Jerry Tenery conducted a basically nonexistent investigation into what information Eric potentially had & he told Christy’s mom that he knew the Amacher family very well & that Eric was a good boy. Eric’s family was also on close terms with former assistant DA Donald Schwindemann. Their family also incidentally has a street in Hohenwald named Amacher Avenue. Daniel Lay also happened to be related to Lewis County Sheriff Dwayne Kilpatrick.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Department spoke with the investigator for the DA’s office & indicated they were willing to investigate the case. However, this was something the DA, Joe Baugh, would not allow. The Carrolls fought for the most basic forensic testing to be done, for instance, the mud that was found on Christy’s body didn’t appear to come from the location where she supposedly fell based on the statements provided by Eric & Daniel. Their requests for a comparative soil test was denied, an idea they dismissed as TV stuff.
When the DA’s General Conference Executive Secretary, Pat McCutchen, was asked by a representative of the Tennessee Crime Victims Coalition why Joe Baugh refused to properly investigate Christy’s murder, she consulted with him. When she came back to this person, Baugh indicated that the matter was not important to him & elaborated that Christy Lynn Carroll was nothing more than a whore.
The deputy assigned to the case, W C Hamm, told the grand jury that he was unaware that Christy’s blouse had been torn. According to Christy’s mom, Hamm’s memory was faulty & when she made audio tapes of various police interviews, he was often inconsistent & made blatant discrepancies.
Because of the lack of testing & proper documentation during the autopsy, paired with the lack of investigation, no charges have ever been brought for Christy’s death & her cause of death remains classified as an accidental death from hypothermia.
2025 marks the passage of 30 years since Christy’s life was cut far too short. Her daughter, a baby at the time of her death, is now an adult herself with children. Regardless of the passage of three decades, the Carroll family continues to pursue justice, something that is rooted in deep personal pain. They want to be a voice for her, something she no longer has & they feel a sense of responsibility to find the answers that Christy so desperately needs.
They want nothing more than for the DA’s office or the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office to reinvestigate Christy’s case with a fresh set of eyes & perspective, potentially exhuming her body. This would ensure that potentially overlooked details are thoroughly investigated & could also reveal any inconsistencies or inaccuracies from Dr. Harlan’s autopsy.
Meanwhile, during the decades that Dr Charles Harlan performed autopsies as well as testified in court as an expert on death, the complaints against him continued to pile up. There are accusations of tampering with evidence, incompetence & bizarre personal behavior.
His tenant, who was renting a house from him, found a jar of body parts in the laundry room & tissue samples that were stored in a chocolate box.
A man named James Suttle spent five months behind bars because Harlan testified that he fatally stabbed his cousin. Suttle’s case happened in 1999 when he spent the night with his cousin, Steve Hobbs. During the night, Hobbs staggered through the house & fell backwards through a glass-top coffee table. When Harlan looked at Hobbs’ back, he called the investigators & told them this was a homicide since there was a stab wound to the victim’s back. This call was placed before he’d even conducted the autopsy.
The defense was able to prove that Hobbs had fractured a rib one week before his death as a result of a fight. This caused his lung to puncture which then caused internal bleeding which triggered a seizure. Although Suttle sued Harlan for damages, the judge dismissed the case, saying that he acted in good faith.
Suttle later won an acquittal after spending thousands on his defense & has no doubt that there are other innocent people behind bars because of Harlan.
In 2005, ten years after he botched Christy’s autopsy, after two hearings, the state found Harlan guilty of 20 counts of misconduct & permanently revoked his medical license. This was the first time in anyone’s memory that something like this happened to a medical examiner.
Despite this, a then 57-year-old Harlan was still allowed to perform autopsies through his company, Forensic Pathology Associates Inc. in Nashville, as long as he didn’t sign his report as a doctor. He was also able to continue testifying in court & one day after his license was revoked, Harlan testified in a murder trial that involved a fatal gunshot.
Another complaint from 1999 involved a family who needed confirmation of death notice sent to a bank. Harlan responded by faxing a piece of paper with a short message that read, M.L. is dead. When asked for more information, he faxed a second short message, M.L. is dead. She is green & has maggots crawling on her.
In 1994, prior to Christy’s death, he resigned as medical examiner for metro Nashville after three female employees sued him for sexual harassment. He pleaded no contest in 2002 after being charged with putting a tracking device on the car of a former female employee.
Not only had he botched Christy’s autopsy, but the state proved he botched several autopsies that were part of criminal investigations.
James Daniel Lay, one of the two men Christy was seen alive with, passed away on December 29, 2005 at 29-years-old, leaving Eric Amacher the sole suspect in this case.
Officers came upon the overheated car that held Eric, Daniel & Christy at 11:45 pm on Saturday night somewhere between Christy & Kim’s house, they claimed they dropped Christy off at her house sometime between 12:30 & 1 am in the early morning hours of Sunday. At 2 am, Eric was found walking away from a different car than he’d been earlier that night after he wrecked it. Christy was missing all day Sunday until the mail man came upon her remains on Monday afternoon.
For the past thirty years it has been concluded that according to the original limited investigation, when Eric & Daniel dropped Christy off at her house between 12:30 & 1 am on Sunday morning, they saw her fall in the driveway. This is in one of their various accounts as to what happened after they propositioned her for sex, but she refused.
Investigators are suggesting that Christy had been laying next to the driveway behind the mailbox in plain view over the course of about thirty-six hours. This would mean that all of the neighbors & family members who came & went during those hours failed to see her despite the fact that the location was unobstructed by any tall grass or snow, including her own mother who had gone to the mailbox sometime on Sunday. According to Dr. Harlan, she simply froze to death despite the fact that she was barefoot & missing her shoes & socks, her shirt had been torn in the front & back, she had contusions to her groin & thigh, dried blood on her face from her nose & mouth & her jeans had been pulled up to her knees as if she had been dragged. Her clothes were filthy yet the mud on her body didn’t appear to come from the location where she supposedly fell. Since no rape kit had been completed, there’s no way to say if she’d been sexually assaulted before her death.
Unveiling the truth is about giving respect to Christy’s life & following the rule of law. Christy was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her when she died a sudden, tragic death. She was a daughter, a mother, a friend & someone that many people loved. Her life mattered & she & her family deserve justice regardless how many decades have passed. There is a petition that Christy’s loved ones are asking individuals to sign to encourage the appropriate authorities to take the necessary steps to have this case reinvestigated. Click here to sign the petition. You can also visit the Justice for Christy Lynn Carroll Facebook page.
References:
- Daily Herald: Odd behavior finally catches up to Tennessee’s medical examiner
- Middle Tennessee Mysteries: Lewis County: Christy Lynn Carroll
- Change.org: Request for a new autopsy for Christy Lynn Carroll’s 1995 case
- Angelfire: The murder of Christy Carroll
- iHeart: Justice for Christy Lynn Carroll
- YouTube: stuffedmemories: The murder of Christy Carroll
