Austin American-Statesman
AUSTIN, Texas — Judge Cliff Brown on Wednesday sentenced former firefighter Joe Carr to 60 years in prison for murder and 20 years for tampering with evidence, to run concurrently.
It took jurors less than an hour Tuesday before finding Carr, 29, guilty of murder and tampering with evidence in the June 2011 death of 22-year-old Veronica Navarro.
Witnesses said Navarro was last seen June 27, 2011, after a job interview for a medical assistant position at an East Austin pediatric center.
But dock workers found Navarro dead July 6, 2011, in Lake Travis near Pace Bend Park. Her body had been wrapped in a tent and weighted down by cinder blocks and paint cans. Three days later, Carr was arrested at a North Dakota port of entry because authorities said they believed he was trying to sneak into Canada to work illegally.
Carr was controlling, abusive and had long struggled with anger and alcohol issues, his former girlfriends and dating partners testified Wednesday in Travis County district court.
He was jealous and moved through relationships at a fast pace, offering them cars and proposing within months, they said on the stand in the sentencing phase of his murder trial. His friends and former co-workers recalled he was often rude and aggressive toward his first wife.
One fellow church member said Carr admitted to him he had assaulted his ex-wife and killed three of her dogs.
In retelling the incidents, Carr “seemed to get excited as he was reliving it,” said Micheal Lee Jackson, who met Carr through a youth group for young adults. “I didn’t see remorse.”
More than two dozen people, mostly friends and family members of Veronica Navarro, wept as they listened to the testimony.
According to court records, Carr has been charged in incidents of assault dating back to 2003 against dating partners and his previous wife.
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