Psychogenically Fugued Up

Here's part of Carpenter's long-distance phone conversation with Detective Hamilton on Christmas Eve, according to police report: 

TC: How did you get this number? 

SPD: Tim, we need to talk to you. 

TC: How did you find me? 

SPD: We spoke with Melisa. At this point, Hamilton noted a crack in Carpenter's voice. He paused for several seconds. 

 TC: Oh. 

SPD: Tim, where have you been? Tim, are you okay? 

TC: I, uh . . . I, uh, don't remember. 

SPD: You don't remember? 

TC: No. 

One needn't ask Tim Carpenter for his definition of hell. It began when he finally opened his apartment door to allow his wife and pastor Lindell to enter on a dark Christmas Eve. According to Lindell, he "cowered like a wounded dog" and refused to recognize anyone. And then there was that long, dark drive back home to Springfield from Memphis during the wee hours of Christmas morning. 

When Carpenter first realized he was being taken to Cox North Hospital, he became very upset, according to the report. When he found out Pastor Lindell had already completed the necessary forms to have him admitted for mental evaluation, he became quite angry, but pastor had taken over at this point.

"We don't think Tim is in a situation where he is capable of making rational decisions," Lindell said in a public statement. 

Police were eager to interview Carpenter, but they were unaware of his arrival. On duty nurses at Cox North were apparently told by their supervisors not to tell SPD that Carpenter had been admitted. Somebody had tipped off SPD that Carpenter was in town, but they were unable to find him. One clever detective found out Carpenter's location only by leaning over the nurses' station desk and viewing the computer monitor while the nurse was away asking superiors what to do. 

On Christmas Day, pastor Lindell issued a news release to the public that presented the storyline about a head injury and lost memory. Here's an excerpt: 

"Thankfully, Tim has been found in Memphis, Tennessee. Unfortunately, Tim is not well. He has suffered a head injury apparently from one or more blows to the head. He has lost his memory, and he is disoriented. He does not know his wife, his children or his friends, including me . . . There are so many unanswered questions concerning Tim's current condition, the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, and what has occurred since he's been gone. Tim is totally disoriented." 

Lindell further suggested that Carpenter may have to go out of state for treatment and then added: "Those of us who have gone to Memphis to bring Tim home would be willing to hold a news conference to share the information that we have gathered, our personal observations, and to field questions . . . Requests for further information or a news conference should be faxed to . . . " 

Springfield Police were notified by Carpenter's attorney, Larry Bratvold, that same morning. Bratvold asked that no interviews with Carpenter should occur except in his presence. When police persisted, Bratvold repeatedly contended that Carpenter's doctors advised against any "police interrogation". 

Exactly who Tim's doctors were was a mystery. There was some mention of a psychiatrist from Bolivar, but no doctor contributed anything publicly regarding Carpenter's mental condition. Lindell later notified the media that Carpenter had been diagnosed with Psychogenic Fugue, a dissociative disorder in which a person forgets who they are and leaves home to create a new life. 

During a fugue state, there is no memory of the former life. After recovery, there is no memory for events during the dissociative state. A perfect description of Carpenter's behavior except for the fact that the "fugue" state didn't seem to begin until he realized, while talking on the phone to a Springfield detective, that his "abduction" caper had come to an abrupt end. 

Our best guess is that he continued the ruse of failed memory to avoid talking during his second very real abduction back to Springfield with pastor and wife. Police were never able to question Tim Carpenter, and the story died a merciful death in the media.

By the first week of January, he had been checked out of the hospital and, once again, his whereabouts were unknown. It's interesting that during questioning by police after Carpenter's hospital release, Rev. Lindell admitted that the tormented associate pastor had repeatedly asked to be allowed to contact Springfield police and submit to an interview and tell police the real story. 

It's possible that Lindell, who had invested a good amount of air time rallying media and prayer groups, didn't want the truth told quite so quickly. Carpenter also told Lindell that he had planned to contact his wife and explain the situation but had decided to wait a few days. Note: People in a fugue state don't do things like that.

So where are they now? The last we heard, and that was a long time ago, Tim Carpenter was living in Tulsa working for a home security company. He laid out a $10,000 check to local authorities for his official transgression, filing a false police report. As one might imagine, the Carpenters never worked it out and were divorced a couple of years after the incident. Oklahoma authorities tried to serve the divorce papers to Carpenter at home, but there was no such address in Tulsa. They finally located him at work. 

Pastor Lindell is still working God's agenda down highway 65 at James River Assembly of God Church, which has since dropped the A/G moniker for some reason. Our attempt for an interview a few years ago ended abruptly, though it did reveal Lindell's off-the-record grasp of what truly happened. "What he did was reprehensible," Lindell said over the phone, before uttering the ultimate Christian kiss-off, "We're praying for him." Click.

The Self-Abduction of Tim Carpenter

It was right before Christmas back in 1998. If I remember correctly, the word character was being tossed around a lot by folks here in God's country. President Clinton was being skewered by a GOP-led special prosecutor about cum stains on a woman's dress, and Osama Bin Laden was establishing a nice foothold in Afghanistan. 

Locally, the George Revelle murder trial was going on, and police were working to find out who shot a local man five times and dumped his body in the downtown quarry. This was the backdrop for a strange case of abduction on Springfield's south side. 

Tim Carpenter, associate pastor at James River Assembly, loving husband and father of two teenage girls, had gone missing. The founder of Christian Publishers Outlet and owner of Heir Press had failed to return home after a late night visit his Heir Press offices on South Campbell. Police were sent to Heir Press the next morning only to find mysterious blood smatterings, a tan left shoe that belonged to Carpenter on the sidewalk and stacked up office equipment inside. Nothing was stolen. Carpenter's Geo Tracker was nowhere to be seen, and there were no witnesses. 

 Despite a groundswell of prayer groups, billboards, posters, aerial searches and news releases emanating from James River Assembly, police detectives stubbornly insisted that there was no evidence pointing to an abduction. This did not dissuade James River Assembly pastor, Rev. John Lindell, from quickly establishing himself as the point man for local media for the Carpenter story. From his Sunday pulpit, Lindell asked for a "miracle from God" while Carol Carpenter pointed out that Tim "would be really embarrassed. He doesn't like attention," adding that "whatever happens, Tim is glorifying God." 

In a sense, she was right. What nobody knew at the time that Tim had gotten a job at Payless Cashways and was glorifying God with a cute little nurse living on the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee. Carpenter didn't meet Melisa at church or at a Christian publishing convention. They first met during the summer of 1997 at a local cowboy bar called "Diamonds & Denim". She later told police that he had been very polite at first, explaining that he was newly divorced and trying to start his life anew. Later in their visit, however, Tim apparently said something that made Melisa feel a little uncomfortable. She grabbed her stuff and walked away with Carpenter in tow, apologizing profusely. Undaunted, Carpenter kept after her with calls and visits, and within a few weeks was sending flowers, love notes and even some lingerie from Victoria's Secret. 

Back in Springfield, the Carpenter investigation seemed stalled. Local police had reported virtually nothing to local media, but they were making progress behind the scenes. When police discovered a bill from a pager service in Buffalo, Missouri, they noticed a frequent caller from the Memphis area. Detectives tracked down the number, eventually contacted Melisa and told her the bad news. She was, of course, shocked to learn about Tim's deceptions but was more than willing to give police his new cell number. 

The Christmas Eve long distance call from Detective Hamilton was one of the first Carpenter would receive on his new phone. He was sitting in his sparsely furnished apartment. "How did you find me?" was his first response. The detective told TC that he'd caused a lot of worry back home and that his wife and family were anxious to see him. He was stunned and stumbled for word. 

At this point, according to police reports, the SPD detective inexplicably asked Tim if he had hit his head. Carpenter replied that he had indeed hit his head. It was almost as if the detective was offering an out. The call ended.

From this point, reports are murky. SPD did send a detective to the apartment complex, but Carpenter wouldn't answer. At some point he busied himself hiding all his IDs (except his SS card). He then proceeded to, justifiably enough, beat the hell out of himself. One can imagine something along the lines of Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar - except Carrey played a man who was cursed with the inability to lie, while Carpenter had built a new life based on his selective inability to tell the truth.

Police contacted Carpenter's wife to tell her the news, and within a few hours she, pastor Lindell and a couple of James River friends were flying in a private plane straightway to Memphis where the Lord, with a little help from a UPS driver, helped Lindell and company find Carpenter's apartment. 

After hours of negotiating, they coaxed him into his own car, drove him back to Springfield late Christmas Eve and, on the down low, admitted Carpenter into Cox North Hospital on North Jefferson.

From this point Pastor Lindell became the self-appointed storyteller of Tim Carpenter's self-abduction.

Part 2: Psychogenically Fugued Up