It was late in the evening on Thursday, just before Arkansas real estate agent Beverly Carter, 49, planned to show a home to a potential new client. She did exactly what she was supposed to do and called her husband to tell him where she would be.
Carl Carter didn't think much of it, but then hours passed and he hadn't heard from his wife.
'By 8 o'clock, I knew something was wrong, but I gave it until 8:30,' Carl Carter said, according to KARK4 News in Little Rock.
At around 9 p.m., Carl Carter pulled into the driveway of the Scott, Ark., home that Beverly Carter was supposed to be showing to find his wife's brown Cadillac parked in the driveway with her purse inside. The door to the home was wide open, and Beverly Carter was nowhere to be found.
'I would just like to have my wife back,' Carter told reporters as family, friends and law enforcement launched a massive search for his wife. On Facebook, friends and relatives prayed for Beverly Carter's return.
On Tuesday, nearly five days later, police found Beverly Carter's body buried in a shallow grave on a property outside of Little Rock. Aaron Lewis, 33, has been charged with capital murder in Carter's death, police said.
'We are devastated at the loss of our precious Beverly,' her family said in a statement, according to KARK. 'There is now a hole in our hearts that will never be filled. Mr. Lewis robbed us of an amazing wife, loving mother and grandmother. Her grandkids will never get to the know the magnitude of her greatness.'
It is a case that has been like a tragic cat-and-mouse game from the beginning.
On Sunday, police acknowledged that their person of interest in the case, Lewis, a parolee, had been involved in a suspicious car accident but wasn't arrested.
Witnesses said he was driving so fast on Sunday evening that his car fishtailed and hit a slab of concrete on the side of the road, according to CNN. When police deputies arrived, they said Lewis's face was bloodied and bruised from hitting the windshield of his car.
Lewis said that another driver had driven him off the road, but he couldn't describe the vehicle, authorities said. When he was taken to Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock for his injuries, a deputy followed behind the ambulance to issue a citation for reckless driving. Lewis went to get a CT scan and disappeared, authorities said.
Another 24 hours passed until Lewis showed up at a shopping center near Little Rock, looking nervous and suspicious, a witness told 911 dispatchers. Minutes passed, and bystanders began taking notice. Lewis took off.
'The guy ran off, and we just took off after him,' one witness told KARK in an interview. 'My buddy followed him around one way, and I went the other way to make sure he couldn't double back.'
'We all got him cornered in the office building, and the police showed up,' he added.
But any hope that Lewis's capture might have brought to Carter's family was short-lived. Hours later, Lewis admitted to kidnapping Carter, authorities said, and her body was found in the shallow grave. Police have not said what contact Lewis might have had with Carter before her disappearance.
By its very nature, it can be a solitary, and vulnerable occupation. Agents often travel to show unfamiliar homes, sometimes with new clients, a decision that has sometimes been fatal.
Carter did at least one thing agents are encouraged to do for their safety: keeping loved ones updated on their location. They are also urged agents to use a buddy system to show homes, something that isn't always possible.
This latest case has sent a collective shiver down the spines of real estate professionals nationwide.
'I have been a realtor for 36 years, and it gets more dangerous all the time,' wrote Patricia Schmitz Manos, according to CNN.
Fellow realtors out there...be careful. This could easily be one of us. #FindBeverly http://t.co/XNcDGBSvjw via @AOL
- BarbSinister (@barbaramorden) September 29, 2014
'This is always a fear I've had,' Nancy Israel Valene, another Realtor, wrote online. 'I am praying you find Beverly. She is me, she is you, and she is the entire Realtor community nationwide. Who could have imagined that this is a dangerous job? Not me.'
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