In October 2017, Ashley Flowers cold-emailed Sergeant Bill Carter calling herself a 'board member at Crime Stoppers' — her only credential — and asked to buy him a coffee. That awkward email led to the conversation that inspired her to found Season of Justice, the nonprofit that would ultimately fund the genealogy work that broke Carmen's case.
Where this was said
At 36:42 · chapter starts 36:10
Ashley reads aloud the cringe-worthy cold email she sent to Sergeant Carter on October 17, 2017 — signing herself as a Crime Stoppers board member, which she describes as the only thing she had going for her at the time. Carter, to his credit, met her for lunch. At that point he couldn't do much; the water was still politically hot. But that conversation — hearing exactly what testing needed to be done and how close the case was to cracking — planted the idea that became Season of Justice, the nonprofit Ashley eventually founded to fund precisely this kind of advanced DNA testing for stalled cold cases. [1] — Ashley Flowers "In October 2017, Ashley Flowers cold-emailed Sergeant Bill Carter calling herself a 'board member at Crime Stoppers' — her only credential …" 36:42 It's a small but pivotal moment in the episode's larger arc: a podcaster and a detective, sharing a meal, laying the groundwork for what would eventually become Carmen's Law.
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