My Thoughts: Carlos Perez-Olivo

Carlos Perez-Olivo was featured on Dateline: Murder on a long dark stretch of road. Earlier in the week, I asked you, my readers, to share your thoughts on Carlos.

I heard about this story when it broke in the news back in 2006, but unfortunately, I never got to see Carlos speak prior to or during his trial. I can tell you that the circumstances alone were a huge red flag to me. Here is an attorney who is out of work, who has been disbarred, who was in financial trouble, and he decides to go home on a dark, desolate side road to get cheaper gas late at night. Amazingly, he gets run off the road, and the attacker kills his wife, but forgets to finish him off. You have to admit, the odds are pretty unlikely, especially since he tells us he was the target of threats, not his wife. The attacker also didn’t do anything to conceal his identity either, which is notably odd.

Read moreThat aside, when I saw Carlos Perez-Olivo speak for the first time, I saw a man whose demeanor immediately struck me as inappropriate given the circumstances he tells us that happened the night his wife was murdered. When we recollect memories, especially difficult or painful ones, we feel the emotions again, as we think back. With that, we would expect to see Carlos express fear, panic, terror, worry and show a general sense of vulnerability after being attacked, but it is oddly missing.

Carlos’ details of his account are sparse and lacking detail, too. I would classify Carlos as a negative person.

Here are some of my thoughts when I watched Carlos speak:

1. Carlos talked to Dateline about getting old. His statement was very strange.
   

   Carlos: We wanted to enjoy ourselves while we were young. I think we were both deathly afraid of getting old, and ah, we saw too many people who, ah, became old, and couldn’t…they had money, but then couldn’t really enjoy themselves.

Does this statement make any sense? Notice how Carlos throws in the words “they had money” very oddly? It’s like it came out of no where. How does that even fit in with what he is saying? It’s like he wanted to talk about failing health, but thoughts of money derailed him. Didn’t prosecutors say Carlos had a 900,000 life insurance policy on his wife? Yet Carlos says money wasn’t important? This sentence above clearly hints otherwise…

• Carlos talks about the fuel status of his cars:
  

  Carlos: We were going to go in her car but it didn’t have gas. So we went in mine that had a little bit of gas.

  The words “a little bit of gas” stand out to me here as very unusual. Most people don’t talk like this. Most people would note that both cars were low on gas, and before embarking on a two-hour drive for the night, they would gas up. Is Carlos trying to set the stage for what happened that night?

• When it came to gasoline, Carlos said he was super cheap. So I wonder did his past purchases support this behavior? Was his car found on low like he said? So how low would it have been before he left his home, and drove to New York city that night? A two-hour round trip drive usually requires a little more than “a little bit of gas”, wouldn’t it? Ironically, Carlos managed to get to the hospital without running out of gas. Couldn’t he have made it home then, too, and got gas another time?
• When Carlos talks about spending 15 cents more for a gallon of gas, he thinks it is funny. He smiles as he talks about it. This is very perplexing. A man who honestly was run off the road and his wife was murdered by a stranger, would forever regret buying cheap gas on an off-beaten path. They would feel like their decision indirectly cause their wife’s murder. They would feel incredible guilt. They would have remorse that their cheapness cost them their wife’s life. Yet strangely, Carlos doesn’t seem to have any feelings of regret nor does he feel guilty. He doesn’t seem to feel anything negative. He thinks it is funny he likes to buy cheap gas. It’s flat out eerie and inconsistent.
• Notice how Carlos never talks of or uses the word murder with regard to himself or his wife? Is he sanitizing the situation? If you are victim, are you going to sanitize this monster’s acts? Acts which ruined your life?
• Look at Carlos’ account of of what happened:
  

  Carlos Perez-Olivo: I’m driving, and all of sudden this car kind of cut in front of me. My concern at the moment was not to get into an accident for the obvious reason that i didn’t want the cops coming because I had been drinking.

  This car “kind of” cut in front of him? Has that ever happened to you, where a car kind of cut in front of you? Give me a break. It’s the classic hedging, a dead give away, because Carlos is trying to tell us something that should be very definitive yet his words are anything but definitive. His words are hedging, which I suspect are a subconscious leak to what the truth really is.

• Carlos says the car cut in front of him, and his first fear was about getting in an accident. Then he says his initial reaction was to get out and yell at the guy. How did they come to a stop? Why doesn’t Carlos give us these details?Usually when a stranger tries to cut in front of us, they either keep on going or we go around them. Why did Carlos act differently? Why doesn’t he tell us what caused him to act differently?
• Next thing Carlos hints at is he saw someone who looked Colombian according to Dateline. If he didn’t recognize the guy, why wouldn’t he drive away? He knew he had enemies–he tells us so himself. As a defense attorney, you would think he would be a bit wiser, wouldn’t you? He dealt with criminals all the time.Later on, in the 911 call, he calls the guy a Hispanic. Did he use both terms? I’d be curious to know. Why would he switch terminology?
• Dateline reported, “But in an instant, a man wearing jeans and a baseball cap and who Carlos thought vaguely looked Colombian was standing by his car window pointing a gun at him.”Okay, why wouldn’t this guy conceal his face? Does this make sense to anyone? Also, where are the details in Carlos’ story (see below).
  

  Carlos Perez-Olivo: I froze. I should have put the car in reverse or I should have tried to hit the car, but I didn’t. And he got into the backseat. I then reacted.

• If Carlos saw a gun, why wouldn’t he take action to prevent this guy from getting in the back seat? Many cars today have doors that automatically lock when we drive. Did Carlos’ car have that feature? This would be interesting to know, because if he did, it would have meant that he had to unlock the doors for someone to get in if he just slowed to stop.
• When Carlos said he froze, he shrugs his shoulders. He talks without any emotion. Most people in this situation would be horrified, but clearly Carlos is not. He doesn’t seem to have any emotional memories from that night, which is a huge red flag, considering someone murdered his wife and supposedly attempted to murder him, too. If you didn’t know the subject he was talking about, you would think it was something benign. You’d never know he was talking about the last few minutes he spent with his wife. It’s a huge red flag.
• Carlos never talks of his wife, or his wife’s reactions during all of this, which is odd. If he was run off the road, she should have woken up. If some attacker got into the car, she should have woken up, but she seems eerily missing in this story. It flat doesn’t add up.
• Carlos also never recounts when the guy shot his wife, which he should recall. He should have been fearful of the gun since he saw it outside the car, and been very aware what was going on with the gun at all times. It was supposedly his central focus. How could he miss that this guy shot his wife? It’s ridiculous. He was in the car the whole time.I would have loved to have seen Carlos re-enact this crime for us.
• Here is a snippet from Dateline that I think is fascinating:
  

  (Dateline) Carlos knew he had been shot. Peggy still looked asleep in the passenger seat upfront.The gunman fled.

  Carlos got back in the driver’s seat.

  Carlos Perez-Olivo: I turned the car on. I picked up the phone. And I started to drive away, I called 911.

  We got shot by the side of the road … I’m going on 133, I’m trying to get to get to northern Westchester.

   

  How did he know “we” were shot, if Dateline’s account of the story is correct? If she still looked asleep and he doesn’t have any memories of his wife being shot, how does he know she was shot here? It’s rather perplexing, isn’t it? It doesn’t add up at all. Dateline could have edited this out, but I tend to doubt it by the other clues I see.

  Later to 911, he says, “I can’t stop, I gotta get my wife to the hospital. I think she may be…I think she may be…” Why didn’t he say he thinks she was dead, or murdered? Why doesn’t he say someone tried to kill him? Why are all of these details missing?

• Carlos laughs when he talks about the 911 operator asking where he was. Isn’t that creepy? What could possibly be funny about that? He wanted to give the operator the perpetrator’s car description instead. That was more important to Carlos…more important than getting his wife help, it appears. What would be most important to you when your spouse is dying beside you–getting the word out on the killers, or saving her life? Carlos priorities are notably off.
• I find it strange how Carlos hobbles into the ER. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t leave my spouse. I would start screaming for help as I stood by the car. Or I’d run in a panic screaming for immediate help. Carlos appears to slowly “hobble” in and seems content getting help for himself. He even walks quite notably calm to the front desk as if he was a normal visitor. He never makes a ruckus at all. Where did all his panic in the 911 call go? Was he giving his wife more time to expire??
  

  Carlos Perez-Olivo: They took me into a room and I remember being upset because i thought they were working on me and not doing anything with her.

• Carlos’ shirt is all tucked in. Dateline made a great point about this, and I concur it doesn’t fit with his scenario.

Carlos thought he was going to get away with murder, and thought he could beat the system, if you want my opinion, but now that he is in jail, and he is paying the price. Look at him here (thanks CD for sending me this today), after spending time in jail. Suddenly, Carlos is feeling remorse, for no one other than himself!! He should have felt this pain for his wife when he met with Dateline, but it was strangely and eerily missing.