[1][2] He formed bad associations, and when he began work, he did jobs for river men, brickyard hands and colliers.
Carr claimed that he was intimate friends with a John H. Burns and his accomplice Oscar Myers, who had murdered a woman named Mary Montonie.
During his military career, Carr was frequently arrested due to misconduct, and twice sentenced to be shot for violating regulations.
[1][2] Shortly after, while a prisoner in Columbia, South Carolina, Carr had learned that a man named Edward Berringer was attempting to join the Confederate States Army.
[3] After his release, he rejoined the 18th Ohio Infantry and was discharged to Mississippi, where he shot two rebel soldiers, one of them while on picket duty.
When his time expired in the 18th Regulars, Carr turned towards the 4th Ohio Infantry, serving his duty without much trouble, except once, when he shot at an Annie Whalen in Clarksburg, a prostitute whom he had connections to.
Following this, he fought in the city of Wilmington, North Carolina at a place called Wise's Forks, where he crouched behind a pine log and killed an unaware rebel sergeant, who had just passed by.
Carr also claimed that he was one of a gang of 11 men who raided a sutler's shop in Petersburg, Virginia, stamping the owner to death in the process.
Carr claimed that the soldiers searched all rooms of the residence, but found no men, only the women who were left by the rebels.
Finally, the gang descended into the cellar, where they found a soldier hanging from the ceiling, clothed in "Union Blue".
However, they then gang raped and tortured the girl in a brutal way, leaving her for dead in a nearby orchard without any assistance.
He had also thrown a colored waiter who refused to give him any food overboard while on a steamer travelling from Morehead City to Fort Monroe.
[3] In Newark, Ohio, after finishing a bottle of whisky, Carr threw it, hitting a random stranger who was standing on the platform, splitting the man's skull open.
Early the following morning, while strolling around town, Carr met a German traveller by the name of Joseph Eisele (alias John Schaefer).
Eisele told Carr that he wanted him to help kill his companion, a fellow German named Aloys Ulrich.
Following this murder, he felt very uneasy, even considering giving himself up, since Carr was afraid that after the coroner's inquest, Eisele would implicate him.
[1][2][3] Following this, Carr considered peddling the money, but this murder began haunting him and so he decided to join the Methodist Episcopal Church, headed by Reverend Ball.
[1][2] Carr soon moved back to Belmont County, where he came into contact with a 13-year-old girl named Louiza Catharine Fox in Sewellsville where she was employed as a house worker at the home of Alexander Hunter, a local coal mine owner who also employed Carr in the mines.
He stole a razor from the shoe shop of an Alexander Williams, and turned towards the house of a Mrs. Hunter, for whom Fox was working for as a servant girl.
Learning that Fox was going to go to her grandparents', he got the stolen razor and went on to the road, deciding to wait by a large oak tree.
He asked her if it was enough for a man to commit a crime, with her crying out that she wished for death due all the problems she was facing.
[7] After leaving the body, Carr started going up the hill, considering cutting his throat near a white oak tree, but then deciding to go back in Sewellsville with a gun and kill Mrs. Hunter.
Continuing to observe the people entering and leaving, he saw Louiza 's body, remarking that she was "looking very pale; but [he] thought her's [sic] was the most beautiful corpse [he] ever saw."
", and immediately upon hearing this, Carr grabbed the stolen razor and began cutting his throat, before jabbing it straight into his windpipe, almost severing it completely.
He then made a long speech, telling his life story and how he was harshly disciplined as a child, and that the future generations should not be like him.
He blamed most of his confessed murders on his heavy drinking, saying the following:[12] "The bitter cup they call whisky has brought me here.
And concerning the Ulrich murder, he claimed that he had mashed the man's head with a stone, while Justice Johnson noted that the skull wasn't broken, except for the part where Eisele had struck it with the hatchet.