On November 5, 1997, after a day-and-a half of deliberations, a jury recommended that Vincent Doan be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Despite his sentence, Doan's lawyers reportedly plan to appeal his conviction and ask for a new trial. Doan's formal sentencing is scheduled to occur November 17.
Doan was convicted for the disappearance and presumed murder of his girlfriend Carrie Culberson on August 7, 1997. Culberson mysteriously disappeared in August 1996 and has been presumed dead. Her body has never been found.
Doan was accused of kidnapping and murder in the disappearance
of Clarissa Ann ("Carrie") Culberson. Shortly before her vanishing,
Culberson had filed assault charges against Doan stemming from
a violent altercation between them.
Vincent Doan denied knowing anything about his girlfriend's disappearance and apparent murder. Doan's attorneys suggested that Culberson may be still alive because there is no concrete evidence that she is dead. And if Culberson is dead, defense attorneys said no physical evidence links Doan to Culberson's murder. If convicted of the charges, Doan faced the death penalty.
Morrow. After the game, Culberson and her teammates rode around
Blanchester, searching for something to do. Around 11:30 p.m., Culberson was dropped off at her home, which she shared with her divorced mother and 15-year-old sister. Allegedly, this was the last time anyone saw Carrie Culberson alive.
The next morning, around six o'clock, Carrie's mother, Debbie Culberson, awoke and noticed that both Carrie and Carrie's car were missing. Debbie and her younger daughter, Christina, drove around Blanchester looking for Carrie. Although Carrie's father, Roger Culberson, and the friends who were with Carrie that previous night later joined the search, their efforts were futile. Over a week after her disappearance, more than 300 volunteers spent a weekend looking through wooded areas, grassy fields, and abandoned buildings trying to help investigators find Carrie.
Weeks dragged into months, and still there was no trace of Carrie. As news of Carrie Culberson's mysterious disappearance spread, Inside Edition, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and The Montel Williams Show all featured stories on the missing woman. A $10,000 reward was offered for any information that led to the whereabouts of Carrie and/or her car. Several people reported seeing Carrie and her car, but none of the sightings could be confirmed. Although Debbie Culberson believes her daughter is dead, the search for Carrie Culberson continues until this day.
A Mother's Suspicion: A Deadly Obsession
When Debbie Culberson discovered her daughter missing, the first person she questioned was Carrie's boyfriend, 24-year-old Vincent Doan. Doan and Carrie had been dating for several years, and Debbie assumed that Doan had seen Carrie sometime that evening. However, Doan said that he had not seen Carrie that night and denied knowing Carrie's whereabouts.
Nonetheless, Doan became the focus of investigation. Several of Carrie's friends claimed that Doan was obsessed with her. Carrie's co-workers at the beauty salons where she worked said that Doan called her at work at least 5 times a day. Friends, former roommates, co-workers, and relatives also believed that Doan physically abused Carrie. Carrie's parents claimed that after an alleged beating by Doan in April 1996, Carrie's face was very bruised and swollen. Doan claimed that Carrie's injuries came from bumping her head on the roof of the car after he had hit a pothole in the road. A month before her disappearance, Carrie told several friends that during an argument with Doan, he attacked her with a space heater, causing a gash in the back of her head that needed five staples to close. Doan told Carrie's mother that she had fallen on the front of his house porch and hit her head. However, Debbie Culberson did not believe this story, and took her daughter to the police to file misdemeanor assault charges against Doan.
Despite the signs of abuse and the pending assault charges, Carrie and Doan continued to see each other. Although friends said that Carrie privately feared Doan, she was could not get away from him. According to some friends, Carrie was afraid that Doan would kill her and her family if she ever tried to end their relationship. On the evening she disappeared, after Carrie had been dropped off at home by her friends, one neighbor claimed that she saw a girl whom she couldn't identify as Carrie enter her car and drive off somewhere. (This neighbor testified that she could not clearly see whom entered Carrie's car. She assumed it was Carrie.) Investigators believe Carrie Culberson went to see Doan.
When originally questioned by Debbie Culberson, Vincent Doan told the mother that he had not seen her daughter in three days. Then, Mrs. Culberson claimed, Doan changed his story and said that Carrie stopped by his house around 12:30 a.m, that she was drunk and honking her horn. Doan said that he ignored her and closed his front door without speaking to her. When the mother confronted Doan a third time the day after Carrie's disappearance, he told her that Carrie drove by his home at 12:30 a.m and that they had argued. Doan claimed that Carrie drove away after he told her that he did not love her anymore.
Prosecutors charged Vincent Doan with aggravated murder and kidnapping. The case against Doan was purely circumstantial, meaning that there was no physical evidence linking Doan to Carrie's death. There was not even decisive evidence that proved that Carrie Culberson is dead. But prosecutors had two theories about Carrie Culberson's disappearance and alleged murder. They felt that Doan's history with Carrie show that he is hot-tempered and was abusive toward his girlfriend.
On Sept. 15, Lawrence Baker, Doan's father, was charged with obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence in the murder of Carrie Culberson. Prosecutors allege that Baker and Doan's half brother, Tracey Baker, tried to help Doan cover up the murder and dispose of Culberson's body. Tracey, a truck driver, was on the road trip when he was indicted but was arrested in Kentucky.
