This website was established to examine the case surrounding Ira Yarmolenko's death. The following is a timeline of events. Much of this information was taken from articles published by Gaston Gazette, but these articles were put behind a paywall in October 2012 when the newspaper changed ownership and switched to a new web publishing system. With an online subscription to Gaston Gazette, articles surrounding the dates listed below may still be searched and viewed, and microfiche copies are available for free viewing at the Gaston County Public Library. Multiple other media and private sources also contributed information posted here and elsewhere on the website.

• May 5, 2008 - Jet skiers reported to police the scene of Ira Yarmolenko's body and wrecked car on the bank of the Catawba River shortly after 1 p.m. The same day, Neal Leon Cassada, Jr., and his cousin Mark Bradley Carver had been fishing downriver from the scene, about 100 feet away by water and 100 yards away by walking. The locations were obscured from each other by trees and underbrush. Cassada had come to fish and pick up a salt block that Carver had brought for him in his Chevy S10 Blazer. Cassada left the river around 1 p.m. to put out the salt block for his goats and to mow his lawn. Carver was joined at the riverbank by brothers John and James Beatty, and all three of them were interviewed by police who were canvassing the vicinity. Carver told police Cassada had been with him earlier. Police looked at Carver's driver's and fishing licenses and looked through his car, but they hardly mentioned him in investigative reports from the day. Carver left around 2:30 p.m. to go pick up his daughters from East Gaston High School and Highland School of Technology. He returned to his fishing spot later in the day to retrieve fishnets he had set but was denied access. When questioned by police several days afterward, Cassada and Carver said they had never met Yarmolenko and had no knowledge of her death.
• May 6, 2008 - DNA swabbing was conducted on the interior of Yarmolenko's car. The exterior of her car had been swabbed the previous day at the scene according to an interview given by Mount Holly Police Sergeant Fred Tindall. On this day, the autopsy was also performed on Yarmolenko's body at the morgue facilities at Gaston Memorial Hospital. The body had been wrapped to preserve DNA evidence. During the autopsy, three ligatures were removed from her neck and sealed to be sent for DNA testing.
• May 15, 2008 - The University of North Carolina Charlotte announced a $10,000 reward for information helpful to the investigation of Yarmolenko's death. The reward would come from Chancellor Philip Dubois' discretionary fund in the UNCC Foundation, a privately funded account, and would be handed out by Crime Stoppers of Gaston County. A source familiar with the investigation claims that also on this date of May 15, police debated whether to close the case as a suicide. The decision to classify the case as a homicide and keep it open was probably based on the medical examiner's report which listed the death as a homicide. The Charlotte Observer published in Chapter 2 of its April 2016 report, "Ira’s brother also heard 'a little bit of conversation' about suicide from investigators." Visit our research page to learn about questions relating to the medical examiner's assessment.
• June 16, 2008 - The office of North Carolina Governor Michael Easley announced that a $5,000 reward would be offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Yarmolenko's murderer or murderers. This reward would be added to the $10,000 amount already offered by UNCC. Ultimately, neither of the rewards were ever claimed.
• June 24, 2008 - Three officers pulled Yarmolenko's car out of the Belmont Police Department garage and examined it for black box data. The officer in charge of collecting black box data was told that the car had already been swabbed for DNA, so neither he nor his assistant wore gloves. The third officer in attendance later testified during trial that the car had been kept secure prior to DNA swabbing on July 10, 2008 (March 16, 2011, beginning at page 160).
• July 10, 2008 - [Note that some sources also place this date as July 5, 2008.] Another swabbing of the exterior and interior of Yarmolenko's car in 22 places was conducted.
• October 15, 2008 - Cassada submitted to a polygraph examination and passed it, denying any involvement with or knowledge of Yarmolenko's death. Because Cassada passed his polygraph, police did not give one to Carver, even though Carver requested to take one. Both men voluntarily offered DNA samples when requested by police.
• Friday, December 12, 2008 - At 4:30 a.m., Cassada and Carver were arrested and held at the Gaston County Jail with bond set at $1 million each. This step was taken based on lab reports from the July 10 (or July 5 based on some sources) DNA swabbing of Yarmolenko's car. The lab analyst said two touch DNA mixtures appeared to contain a predominant profile of Cassada and one appeared to contain a predominant profile of Carver. All of the touch samples said to match the men were mixtures, containing DNA originating from more than one contributor which brought into question placement by transfer or the possibility of incorrect analysis. The samples had been taken two months after the car had been towed from the scene. District Attorney Locke Bell offered Carver a second-degree guilty plea of 8 to 14 years in prison according to The Charlotte Observer. Another source told this author the plea deal was "6 to 8 years depending on record and behavior." Carver refused immediately, recounting his words in a 2016 interview, "I told 'em I wadn't pleading guilty to somethin' I didn't do. I'm not guilty and ain't goin' to plead guilty." Note that The Charlotte Observer incorrectly listed the date of arrest as December 11, 2008.
• February 2, 2009 - Media reported that Christopher Lemont Cooper, sometimes incorrectly spelled "Lamont," had written a letter confessing that he and seven other people had caused Yarmolenko's death. After a thorough investigation including failing to match Cooper's DNA to any of the samples from the scene, police declared his confession to be false.
• February 5, 2009 - Judge Timothy Patti lowered bond from $1 million to $100,000 each based on multiple DNA samples from the scene that excluded Cassada and Carver. Cassada posted bond the same day, Carver the following day. Both men remained on house arrest with electronic ankle monitors.
• May 7-8, 2009 - Attorneys filed requests for removal from house arrest for Cassada (May 7) and Carver (May 8) based on the State's release of further DNA testing. According to news reports at the time, the DNA tested on two of the three ligatures around Yarmolenko's neck and underneath her fingernails on both hands showed only her own DNA and were excluded as a match to Cassada and Carver, and the third ligature, the bungee cord, returned an unidentified DNA result that excluded both Cassada and Carver. Beginning in 2016, The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence reported that unidentified male DNA was contained in the fingernail scrapings, but testing of the remaining scrapings in 2019 yielded no further results. The requests for removal from house arrest were denied.
• October 10, 2010 - Cassada, born November 20, 1954, passed away at age 55 the day before his trial was set to begin. The probable causes of death listed on his autopsy are "heart disease" and "smoking." His family witnessed him collapse at the breakfast table while having trouble breathing. Cassada had previously suffered a major heart attack on May 20, 1993, and doctors at the time told him he may have had a minor heart attack the day before, leading to media confusion over reports of "two prior heart attacks" despite a 17-year gap between 1993 and his death.
• October 11, 2010 - Charges were officially dropped against the deceased Cassada, a routine proceeding.
• March 14-18, 2011 - Carver's trial occurred at the Gaston County Courthouse. On March 17 at the close of presentation of the prosecution's evidence, the judge granted the request of the defense to dismiss the charge of felony conspiracy. The defense then presented no evidence and called no witnesses, relying entirely upon cross-examination of the prosecution's witnesses and closing arguments to defend Carver.
• March 21, 2011 - After 5 hours of deliberation spanning 2 days, the jury issued a first-degree murder verdict against Carver. Superior Court Judge Timothy Kincaid, who presided over the trial, handed down a sentence of life in prison without parole. Carver was transferred to Lanesboro Correctional Institution in Polkton, North Carolina, a close security facility.
• March 28, 2011 - Defense attorneys Brent D. Ratchford and David A. Phillips filed a motion to request that Judge Kincaid reconsider the evidence and overrule the jury based on lack of sufficient proof to have required a trial. The attorneys outlined six reasons why they believed in Carver's innocence. This was the first time in Phillips' over 20-year career he had ever filed such a motion. Members of the audience who had seen Judge Kincaid visibly upset when the jury's verdict was read, afterward taking off his robe and throwing it down before leaving the courtroom, expected him to take the opportunity to reverse the jury's decision. Judge Kincaid dismissed the motion.
• July 9, 2011 - Dateline NBC aired Mystery on the Catawba River, an hour-long report that examined the possibility of Cassada's and Carver's innocence. According to producer Michael Nardi, the episode was one of the most popular he had ever done based on viewer responses. Discovery Communications re-aired the episode on its family of channels dozens of times over the next few years.
• June 5, 2012 - Two out of three justices at the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld Carver's conviction. In a rare dissent, Justice Robert Hunter, Jr., recommended that the trial jury's judgement be reversed based on the unreliability of touch DNA as the sole basis for a conviction. From the dissent, "The State’s second expert on touch DNA testified at trial that touch DNA testing is a relatively new technique and is not as reliable as saliva and blood DNA testing. The expert also described a phenomenon known as secondary skin cell transfers, where if person A touches person B, and person B touches a pen, person A’s DNA can be found on the pen." Justice Hunter's dissent also referenced investigative errors (NCcourts.org).
• September 2012 - The website irinayarmolenko.drupalgardens.com was established and moved permanently in January 2016 to FreeMarkCarver.com courtesy of Mark Carver's friend and supporter Gregory Jordan who originally reserved the domain and offered it to the author when a permanent home for the website became necessary.
• September 14, 2012 - Carver's appeal briefs were accepted by the Supreme Court of North Carolina. The appeal was expected to set a precedent for whether touch DNA identification is acceptable as the sole basis for a conviction. As dissenting Justice Hunter from the North Carolina Court of Appeals wrote, "I cannot find even one case in North Carolina that has reviewed the sufficiency of touch DNA evidence to establish the identity of an accused, much less any case in this state that even discusses the accuracy of touch DNA" (NCcourts.org). The Supreme Court of North Carolina was required to rule in Carver's case because his appeal did not receive a unanimous decision from the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
• January 8, 2013 - Oral arguments were held for State v Mark Bradley Carver at the North Carolina Supreme Court. Attorney Gordon Widenhouse, a specialist in appeals, argued on behalf of Carver.
• January 24, 2013 - The Supreme Court of North Carolina upheld the conviction of Mark Carver without issuing a formal opinion on the reliability of transfer DNA for sole identifying evidence, a use unprecedented in the state of North Carolina. Media reporting on the North Carolina Supreme Court decision noted that the court passed up its opportunity to issue a formal opinion on what had been expected to be a precedent-setting case for the state regarding touch DNA.
• June 2013 - The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence (NCCAI) accepted Mark Carver's case for an in-depth review.
• January 13, 2014 - Aaron Habel examined the Yarmolenko case during an episode of The Generation Why Podcast, one of the first media outlets to go into depth about the possibility that Yarmolenko may have committed suicide. The episode ranked among the series' top five most downloaded podcasts.
• June 19, 2014 - Discovery Communications, LLC, made the gracious decision to discontinue television re-broadcasts of Dateline NBC's "Mystery on the Catawba River" about the Yarmolenko case from its family of channels. This was done in response to a request from the author of this website to either correct around a dozen factual and suggestive errors or cease airing the report. Overall, the episode provided enough information for critical thinkers to question Carver's conviction and was the original motivation for the author of this website to launch a public campaign for finding out what had really happened to Yarmolenko.
• September 2014 - District Attorney Locke Bell fought the release of the only legible copy of the DNA lab report in existence which NCCAI requested for two independent experts to examine. In September 2014, several local media sources reported that NCCAI sought to obtain a judge's ruling requiring the report to be released, however, he eventually voluntarily released the report as a favor to his friend Bill Stetzer, one of the original prosecuting attorneys on the case. NCCAI had a photocopy that was illegible, so they needed a clean copy of it. District Attorney Locke Bell's actions delayed progress on the case for about six months. As an interesting side note, if the Yarmolenko death occurred today, Bell would not be in charge of it due to redistricting that occurred after 2008.
• October 22, 2014 - Carver (born June 4, 1968, inmate profile here) was moved to a medium security facility, Mountain View Correctional Institution, in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
• January 2015 - The Charlotte Observer reporter Elizabeth Leland began research for a series of articles about the case that would be published over a year later. Leland wrote in April 2016, "When I first met Chris Mumma of the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence a year ago, she had only recently begun her investigation into Mark Carver’s conviction and wouldn’t say whether she believed he is innocent. Now she feels certain. She believes Carver was fishing when Ira Yarmolenko died. She believes he had nothing to do with her death and that he told the truth when he said he did not touch her car. And, she believes 'there is evidence that will definitively prove his innocence.'"
• November 13, 2015 - Viewers of TLC, a channel of Discovery Communications, LLC, began to notify us that Dateline's "Mystery on the Catawba River" was being re-aired in violation of an agreement made and communicated to the author of this website by NBC's legal department. The episode retained around a dozen major factual and suggestive errors regarding the case. The re-airings ceased by March 2016.
• February 8, 2016 - News anchor Jamie Boll of WBTV Charlotte aired a video report, article and podcast entitled WBTV Investigates: Pardoned by Public Opinion that examined the "crowd sourcing of justice" shown by the amount of attention that Carver's conviction continues to generate among the public. NCCAI Executive Director Ms. Chris Mumma and Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell participated in interviews for the report. Bell stated at the time, "I have no doubt whatsoever that Mark Carver is guilty of first degree murder." This was the last interview Bell would grant about the case until 2019, declining successive requests for interviews with The Charlotte Observer, radio station WFAE 90.7 and ABC 20/20. Mumma stated during WBTV's accompanying podcast starting at 21:20, "I actually think the DNA wasn't challenged very well at that trial, and that's one of the things we're looking at is how accurate was that DNA evidence and going deep into the test results and reconsidering that. . . . We are looking at the case now. . . . It's in investigation. I have been in touch with the district attorney, and as with any other case, my approach will be to pull together our findings and our questions and present those to the district attorney before it goes anywhere else."
• April 3-8, 2016 - Reporter Elizabeth Leland and her editor Gary Schwab along with photographer Todd Sumlin of The Charlotte Observer renewed work that had already begun in January 2015 on an in-depth story about the case and published it in a series of well-researched articles that exposed new information pointing toward Carver's innocence. Links to the articles along with the Free Mark Carver website author's response may be found here.
• April 12, 2016 - Mike Collins of WFAE 90.7, Charlotte's NPR radio news source, hosted an interview with The Charlotte Observer and NCCAI staff about the case which provided the most comprehensive overview of the touch DNA component of the case to date. Highlights are quoted on our DNA page.
• December 8, 2016 - NCCAI filed a post-conviction motion asking for the conviction to be vacated and charges dropped against Carver for numerous causes including ineffective defense counsel, lack of a forensic expert testifying on behalf of the defense and failure to show the jury interrogation video during which a North Carolina SBI agent fed Carver information about Yarmolenko's size and height.
• December 9, 2016 - ABC 20/20 broadcast an hour-long special about the case that they had been developing since May 2016. Several pre-broadcast articles and videos were published online that revealed District Attorney Locke Bell continues to withhold DNA evidence from being re-tested at NCCAI's request and also refuses to allow the State lab to give NCCAI the electronic DNA data for evaluation. See the ABC 20/20 page for a fact-checking response to the episode.
• January 9, 2017 - In response to NCCAI's December 8 post-conviction motion, Justice Jesse Caldwell III granted an evidentiary hearing which was eventually set for April 20, 2017.
• March 9, 2017 - District Attorney Locke Bell filed a response on behalf of the State asking for NCCAI's motion to be denied.
• March 22, 2017 - NCCAI filed another post-conviction motion to "preserve and produce evidence," requesting that prosecutors and law enforcement agencies turn over all evidence including electronic DNA data.
• April 20, 2017 - Justice David Lee presided over a hearing at the Gaston County Courthouse that lasted about ninety minutes. NCCAI attorney Ms. Chris Mumma argued on behalf of Mark Carver, who was absent. District Attorney Locke Bell argued on behalf of the State. Both sides agreed that five law enforcement officers will be asked to voluntarily to provide DNA samples to help trace possible transfer of the touch DNA mixtures swabbed from Yarmolenko's vehicle. Bell agreed to hand over the files Mumma had requested, including electronic DNA data that she is asking to be re-evaluated by the SBI lab according to current standards. Mumma said she expects the findings to be inconclusive as to whether Carver's DNA exists in the sample. In a post-hearing interview, Mumma said she was happy with what the judge had ruled. Based on court documentation and interviews reported by media, it seems that this hearing would not have been necessary had the district attorney complied with NCCAI's prior requests, and it also appears that the district attorney has refused to meet with Mumma privately to review NCCAI's findings as Mumma told WBTV in 2016 that she would seek to do prior to pursuing court action.
• June 13, 2017 - NCCAI filed a motion asking the court to hold District Attorney Locke Bell in contempt after he failed to meet a May 6, 2017, court deadline ordering him to "provide" NCCAI with complete files of all law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies involved in the case. This is the third time since 2014 he has delayed the release of information requested by NCCAI. The next day, Bell told Gaston Gazette the files are sitting in his office and that he has been waiting for NCCAI attorney Ms. Chris Mumma to call him and arrange to come get them, which would be about a six-hour round-trip drive for her. Bell also claimed NCCAI still owes him Carver's medical records, but a medical records release had already been signed by Carver and given to Bell in a previous filing, and the May 6 deadline to release records applied only to the district attorney's office, meaning NCCAI owes Bell nothing. The June 13, 2017, motion states that Mumma provided Bell with information on how to share the files though a secure electronic system. Bell claimed to The Gaston Gazette that CDs and DVDs couldn't be shared through the electronic system and that he had not mailed the files because of his concern that evidence might be lost in the mail. Mumma emailed the author of this website in response, "The discovery was supposed to be given to us by the 6th. He never called, he never emailed to ask about mail v. pick-up v. delivery v. electronic." Bell did eventually provide the records after this motion was filed, and the motion was dismissed.
• July 3, 2017 - NCCAI represented Carver before the Honorable David Lee in a hearing related to DNA data and delays by District Attorney Locke Bell in providing files to the defense. According to The Charlotte Observer, forensic biologist MacKenzie DeHaan, a special agent of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, testified for the prosecution that the NC SBI Lab "is no longer set up" to reinterpret the touch DNA based on new standards. DeHaan said that new DNA testing must be conducted on any remaining material if it is to be evaluated according to the new standards. Media interviews from 2016 stated that NCCAI had already hired two independent experts to re-evaluate the written touch DNA reports according to new standards, and both said results were "inconclusive" as to whether or not Carver's DNA was ever present, so it is possible that DeHaan misunderstood that NCCAI was requesting only a re-evaluation of existing data. Also during this hearing, it was indicated that NCCAI is still waiting to receive DNA profiles of five law enforcement officers in order to help identify possible placement of Carver's touch DNA by third-party transfer. This topic was never again mentioned in subsequent court proceedings up through the April 2019 hearing wherein the defense used other methods including testimony by an expert to illustrate the lack of credibility of the touch DNA results.
• September 10, 2017 - The Charlotte Observer reported that Carver's previous defense attorney Brent Ratchford had both withheld files from Carver's current defense team as well as provided files to the district attorney's office which may have been protected under attorney-client privilege law. The article stated that NCCAI had filed a motion the previous week asking for protected files in the possession of the district attorney to be destroyed.
• Fall 2017 - Hearing Postponed - The date for a full evidentiary hearing was postponed from September 25 at the request of NCCAI to allow time for further DNA testing and review of case files recently received.
• February 3, 2018 - The Fayetteville Observer reported that a reason why Mark Carver's next hearing has still not been scheduled may be due to a new law enacted in June 2017 that required a change in judges, thus requiring additional time for the new judge to review case files. NCCAI had requested a postponement of the September 25, 2017, hearing, but executive director Ms. Chris Mumma who was quoted in the February 3, 2018, article indicated that the extended delay is due to the change in judges.
• May 5, 2018 - The 10-year anniversary of Ira Yarmolenko's death was Saturday, May 5, 2018. She died on a Monday in 2008.
• July 2018 - The Charlotte Observer reported that NCCAI filed a motion in late July citing two potential suspects who had never previously been investigated in connection with Yarmolenko's death nor reported to Carver's defense attorneys. As in previous court filings, NCCAI again asked for all charges to be dropped due to lack of evidence, in which case Carver would be permanently released and wouldn't be retried. An interesting note about the new filing is that many people and construction workers nearby, both at the top of the embankment and at the scene of Yarmolenko's death, were also present and never questioned by law enforcement.
• August 10, 2018 - David Phillips, defense attorney to Cassada and co-defense attorney to Carver, gave up his law practice to be sworn in as a Gaston County Superior Court judge. He would later be called as a witness in Carver's April 2019 hearing as NCCAI cited his and his co-attorney Brent Ratchford's lack of presenting any evidence or calling any witnesses during the trial as a cause of wrongful conviction. Ineffective assistance of counsel is a violation of one of the Sixth Amendment constitutional rights of criminal defendants.
• February 19, 2019 - - Superior Court Judge Christopher Bragg of Union County, the new judge assigned to Carver's appeal, granted a request for Y-STR DNA testing of Yarmolenko's remaining fingernail scrapings that might isolate male DNA from an unknown contributor (Carver and Cassada had already been excluded as contributors to the fingernail scrapings from testing in 2008). NCCAI posted fundraisers on Facebook and GoFundMe which successfully raised the $5,000 needed to rush the testing in time for the next hearing. On March 20, 2019, NCCAI announced via Facebook that the lab obtained no DNA results due to degradation and the limited amount of material remaining.
• April 2-12, 2019 - An evidentiary hearing took place with Carver himself present in court for the first time since his trial. Witnesses testified during the first two days about Carver's mental and physical disabilities which the defense says would have made his commission of a ligature strangulation murder leaving no DNA evidence an impossibility. The third and fourth days centered around law enforcement mistakes made during the investigation and trial that the defense claims altered the verdict. While this was not part of the hearing, news broke on the third day that juror John Little recently signed an affidavit to recant his guilty vote. On the fifth day, a DNA expert stated his opinion that the conclusions presented during trial were taken from low-quality samples he considers invalid as a match based on scientific standards. Police Captain Scott Wright who was formerly an officer with Mount Holly PD also testified about an alternate suspect he reported seeing the area, information that was never given to the defense. On days six and seven, Carver's original attorneys defended their handling of the trial in which they called no witnesses and presented no evidence. Carver testified for about two hours on the eighth day, primarily about his movements on the day of Yarmolenko's death, before the State called several witnesses. Both sides presented closing arguments on the final, ninth day. The judge announced he will take several weeks to write a formal opinion.
• June 5, 2019 - In a brief hearing at the Gaston County Courthouse with Carver present, Judge Christopher Bragg announced his decision based on the 9-day evidentiary hearing in April to set aside Carver's conviction and grant a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel and problems with the touch DNA evidence. District Attorney Locke Bell stated to the press that he will appeal the ruling and re-try the case if necessary, though it remains to be seen if the State could meet its burden of proof to bring a new trial given the lack credible evidence to date. Carver was transported to this hearing from the medium/minimum security Piedmont Correctional Institution in Salisbury, North Carolina, meaning that he had moved from the medium security facility where he had previously been held, marking at least his third location since his 2011 trial.
• June 11, 2019 - Carver was released from Gaston County Jail custody on $100,000 bond which was paid by NCCAI board member and beneficiary Dwayne Allen Dail. Earlier conflicting reports circulated about the terms of the release even from people involved in the proceedings, but on the actual day, it became clear that Carver had returned to Piedmont CI temporarily after the judge's order and that rather than house arrest, he would only be required to wear a GPS ankle monitor and be permitted to move around freely within the state of North Carolina while awaiting further developments in his case. The reduction in restriction from house arrest to GPS monitoring only was negotiated by Carver's lead attorney, Ms. Chris Mumma, who accompanied him from prison on the day of his release. Even though Carver was released on June 11, later court filings would list the date of the order for his release as June 12, 2019.
• July 12, 2019 - Prior to a 30-day deadline after the June ruling, District Attorney Locke Bell filed formal notice of his intent to appeal. It would be later revealed in a December 9, 2021, court filing that Bell had lacked the right of appeal in this instance and should have instead petitioned for a writ of certiorari, had he desired for the decision to be reversed. Progress on the case would stall for 2 1/2 years as a result of improper appeals.
• April 20, 2021 - The North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously denied the State's appeal of the June 2019 ruling that vacated Carver's conviction.
• June 30, 2021 - District Attorney Locke Bell served his final day in office before retiring. Many observers of the case had hoped he would drop remaining charges against Carver before leaving office, as he had managed the case since its inception, but this was not to be.
• July 1, 2021 - Travis Page, an attorney who had previously served as assistant district attorney for Gaston and Wake Counties, took office as the new district attorney in Prosecutorial District 38 serving Gaston County. He was appointed by Governor Roy Cooper to fill the vacancy created by retiring District Attorney Locke Bell. As of December 9, 2021, he told WSOC TV reporter Ken Lemon that he was still planning to re-try Carver.
• October 27, 2021 - The Supreme Court of North Carolina denied the State's petition to hear Carver's case.
• November 2, 2021 - The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence filed a motion on Carver's behalf to dismiss the standing indictment and charge.
• December 8, 2021 - A petition for writ of certiorari to repeat the review of the June 2019 order that vacated Carver's conviction was filed with the North Carolina Court of Appeals by the North Carolina Attorney General's office. This petition revealed that the district attorney's office had tied up the case for 2 1/2 years with a series of appeals it had no right to bring, and based on that, the petition argued that a second review via writ of certiorari should be granted even though past the filing deadline. Criteria of "new evidence," "ineffective assistance of counsel," and "prejudice" were not met in the opinion of the NC Attorney General's office. NCCAI attorneys representing Carver met the deadline to reply within 15 days. In the opinion of this author, several omissions stand out in the December 8 filing, among them the split decision of the appeals court in June 2012, the failure to utilize touch DNA standards in force at the time of Carver's trial which would have discredited the data more than any expert's opinion, a formal recantation by one of the trial jurors, and numerous new items of interest presented during a 9-day, post-conviction evidentiary hearing which included additional witnesses and videotaped interrogation which were not presented to the jury and could have influenced the verdict.
• Mid-January 2022 - The North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld its decision to reverse Mark Carver's conviction and grant him a new trial. Whether or not the State can meet its burden of proof to bring a new trial is questionable at this time, given that all the evidence upon which the previous trial was based has been discredited. Additionally, NCCAI filed a motion on November 2, 2021, asking a judge to dismiss the standing indictment and charge, which would negate any further trial, and that motion is still awaiting a ruling. Carver is currently free to move about within the state of North Carolina with an ankle monitor as he awaits further developments in his case.
• August 12, 2022 - District Attorney Travis Page dropped the murder charge against Mark Carver due to lack of evidence. Carver's ankle monitor was removed the same day at the Gaston County Courthouse to widespread media coverage. Carver is a free man now. This website has been a labor of love for precisely 10 years in the hope that justice would be served to all involved in the case. That task is completed, and the author is seriously considering removing the site soon. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered time and funding to see this case to its conclusion.