Alabama Woman Facing Death Penalty For Pushing Mother Off Cliff and Sharing Photo

Loret­ta Carr, a woman from Alaba­ma, is fac­ing the death penal­ty for alleged­ly mur­der­ing anoth­er woman by push­ing her off a cliff in 2021.

Carr, aged 44, has been charged with cap­i­tal mur­der along with her daugh­ter Jessie Kel­ly, aged 22. They are accused of killing 38-year-old Mary Isbell of Hart­selle, Alaba­ma on Octo­ber 18, 2021 by push­ing her from a cliff.

Author­i­ties had been search­ing for Isbel­l’s body for over a year before her remains were final­ly dis­cov­ered in June 2023. It came to light that Carr had shared a pho­to of her­self at the mur­der loca­tion — a cliff at Lit­tle Riv­er Canyon Nation­al Pre­serve — back in Jan­u­ary 2019.

Pros­e­cu­tors in Alaba­ma have now filed doc­u­ments inform­ing Car­r’s defense team that they will seek the death penal­ty against her. Carr and Kel­ly have been detained since three days before Isbel­l’s remains were found by search teams.

Not much is known about the rela­tion­ship between Carr, Kel­ly and the vic­tim Isbell. DeKalb Coun­ty Sher­iff Nick Welden thanked var­i­ous law enforce­ment agen­cies and vol­un­teers who assist­ed in the lengthy search and investigation.

Carr insists there is no evi­dence against her, but pros­e­cu­tors believe they have a strong case and will pur­sue the harsh­est pun­ish­ment if she is con­vict­ed — the death penal­ty. Kel­ly was arrest­ed in Penn­syl­va­nia and extra­dit­ed to Alaba­ma to also face mur­der charges.

The time­line of events in Isbel­l’s dis­ap­pear­ance remains unclear. She was last seen in Sep­tem­ber 2021 but not offi­cial­ly report­ed miss­ing until Jan­u­ary 2022. Her ex-hus­band raised con­cerns about her where­abouts on social media in Decem­ber 2021.