Carl Drew: Fall River Murders, Robin Murphy, and Satanic Panic

Carl Drew is a Massachusetts man who has been in prison since 1981 for the first-degree murder of twenty-year-old Karen Marsden, and the Fall River murder case that put him there now rests on testimony the state’s key witness has recanted more than once. Drew is serving life without parole. The witness whose account convicted him, Robin Murphy, was paroled in 2024 after telling the parole board that Drew “was not to blame” for Marsden’s death and that the satanic cult prosecutors described never existed. In August 2025, a court granted Drew access to previously sealed documents his attorneys argue could contain evidence supporting his innocence.¹

What Prosecutors Said Happened

Karen Marsden was reported missing in February 1980. Her partial remains were recovered in Westport, Massachusetts, that April.² She was one of three young women connected to the Fall River street prostitution scene killed between late 1979 and early 1980. Doreen Levesque, seventeen, was found dead in October 1979; no one has ever been convicted for that killing. Barbara Raposa, nineteen, disappeared in November 1979, and Andrew Maltais was later convicted of her murder and died in prison.³

Prosecutors alleged Drew, then twenty-five, led a satanic cult among Fall River’s pimps and prostitutes and killed Marsden as a ritual act to keep control of the women who worked the streets.⁴ According to the state’s account, Marsden was killed on February 8, 1980, at Family Beach in Westport by Drew, Murphy, co-defendant Carl Davis, and an unidentified woman. Murphy testified she dragged Marsden into the woods, that she and Drew struck her with rocks, and that Davis handed her a knife and told her to cut Marsden’s throat. Drew, she said, then snapped Marsden’s neck and decapitated her.⁵ Prosecutors told the jury Marsden’s “soul was offered to Satan” and that she was killed because she wanted to leave the cult.

A Conviction Built on Witnesses, Not Evidence

Drew’s trial took place in Worcester Superior Court in March 1981, moved from Fall River because of pre-trial publicity.⁶ The case against him was built almost entirely on witness testimony rather than physical evidence.

Robin Murphy, seventeen at the time of the killing, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on January 14, 1981, in exchange for testifying against Drew and Davis. She also received immunity for testifying against Maltais in the Raposa case.⁷ Lea Johnson testified that Drew described the murder to her while under the influence of drugs, including a detail about severing a finger to steal a ring. Carol Fletcher, twenty-four, testified she was present but did not participate, saying she “looked away” and returned to the car.⁴

Cracks appeared during the trial itself. The defense introduced a letter Murphy had written from prison calling the satanic cult allegations “bull—-” and accusing Fletcher of lying to send Drew and Murphy both to life sentences, possibly out of personal resentment. The letter contradicted parts of her own courtroom testimony.⁴ Drew was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.⁸

Robin Murphy’s Shifting Story

Murphy first recanted her testimony in 1985 and has offered varying accounts across more than four decades.⁹ At her 2022 parole hearing, she said she had lied about the “cult murders” to make sure Maltais and Drew went to prison, alleging Maltais had sexually abused her from age eleven.³ In March 2024, she told the board Drew “was not to blame” for Marsden’s death, denied a satanic cult had ever existed, and said she had tailored her testimony to match evidence prosecutors and police already had.⁸

Her credibility is contested from every side. The Massachusetts Parole Board has cited her “history of dishonesty.”⁷ Dennis Collins, chief of the Bristol County District Attorney’s Homicide Division, said she “continues to manipulate to get her way.”⁸ Alan Silvia, a former Fall River detective who investigated the case and later became a state representative, testified that Murphy participated in all three homicides. Henry Scammell, author of the book Mortal Remains, wrote that of the principal figures involved in Marsden’s killing he believed Murphy bore the most culpability.¹⁰

The judge who denied Drew’s 2003 motion for a new trial, John P. Connor Jr., described Murphy as “intelligent, controlling and violent” and primarily interested in “taking care of herself.” Even so, the judge noted, she had remained consistent on one point across her many changes of story: Drew’s role in the Marsden killing.¹¹

The Witness Walks Free, Drew Does Not

Murphy was first paroled in 2004, returned to prison in 2011 for entering a relationship with a convicted felon in violation of her conditions, and denied parole in 2012, 2017, and 2022.⁸ On May 13, 2024, the parole board granted her parole again, ordering release within two weeks to a long-term residential program with a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, ninety days of GPS monitoring, and mandatory counseling.⁹

Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn III opposed the release, saying Murphy “repeatedly lied in court proceedings and to the parole board” and “still does not accept the responsibility for her role in the murder of Karen Marsden.”⁹ The board’s written decision did not address Murphy’s statement that Drew was not responsible.¹²

The contrast is unusual. Murphy, who by her own testimony dragged the victim into the woods and cut her throat, pleaded to second-degree murder and became eligible for release. Drew, convicted on the strength of that same testimony, has no parole eligibility at all.

The Satanic Panic Framing

The Fall River case is now widely viewed through the “Satanic Panic” of the early 1980s, a period when law enforcement and prosecutors in various jurisdictions pursued cases built on claims of ritual abuse and devil worship that were later discredited. Critics of Drew’s conviction argue police pushed a satanic narrative without adequate evidence, and that the sensational framing led witnesses to tell investigators what they wanted to hear.¹³

A four-part docuseries titled Fall River, directed by James Buddy Day and executive produced by Blumhouse Television, premiered on Epix in May 2021. It featured interviews with both Drew and Murphy, highlighted the absence of physical evidence linking Drew to the crimes, and noted that multiple witnesses later said their original testimonies were false. According to reporting on the documentary, its investigation prompted a Massachusetts innocence program to begin reviewing Drew’s case with the aim of securing a new trial.¹³

Retired Detective Sgt. Paul Carey Jr., who worked the original investigation and later became convinced of Drew’s innocence, spent roughly 1,600 hours and $2,000 of his own money tracking down witnesses willing to recant.¹¹ Before his death in 2019, Carey told reporters Drew “is not the pillar of the community but he’s not a murderer,” and said the plea deal that gave Murphy a lesser charge in exchange for her testimony should never have been struck.¹⁴

Four Denied Motions and a 2025 Opening

Drew has filed four motions for a new trial, all denied. The first two were denied and affirmed alongside his conviction on direct appeal in 1986. A third, filed by Drew himself in 1992, alleged ineffective assistance of counsel; a petition for leave to appeal was dismissed in 1994 for failure to prosecute.¹⁵

The fourth motion, filed in 2003, was the most substantial. His attorneys argued that multiple witnesses, including Murphy, had recanted, that prosecutors had threatened to remove a state witness’s daughter if she refused to cooperate, and that Lea Johnson’s original testimony had been coerced by police. Judge Connor denied the motion in January 2005 after hearing from twenty-four witnesses over two weeks, finding the recanting witnesses not credible. He also rebuked Carey, noting the retired detective had paid witness Lea Johnson $100 for her participation and that Johnson’s relationship with Carey was “suspect.” Drew’s attorney, Michael D. Cutler, said he was “completely convinced of his innocence” and “extremely disappointed.”¹¹ The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the denial on November 9, 2006.¹⁵

In August 2025, a court granted Drew access to previously sealed documents related to his case. His petition argued those records contain information that could prove his innocence.¹ Whether that access produces a fifth motion for a new trial is not yet known. Drew remains in prison, forty-four years after the conviction, with the witness whose testimony sent him there having told the parole board he was not to blame.

1
Herald News. Carl Drew, Convicted Satanic Cult Killer, Wins Access to Court Files
2
Yahoo News. Robin Murphy, One Satanic Cult Murder Suspect
3
Herald News. Robin Murphy Convicted in Fall River Cult Murders Denied Parole
4
UPI Archives. A Prostitute Testified Tuesday That Alleged Pimp and Devils Cult Leader Carl Drew
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Massachusetts Parole Board. Robin Murphy Life Sentence Decision
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UPI Archives. The State’s Key Witness in the Murder Trial of Carl Drew
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Massachusetts Parole Board. Robin Murphy Life Sentence Decision
8
Herald News. Robin Murphy Carl Drew Testimony Satanic Cult Murderer Parole
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WPRI. Fall River Woman Convicted of Killing Girlfriend in 1980 Granted Parole
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SouthCoast Today. Cult Murders Killer Murphy
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SouthCoast Today. Judge Denies Convicted Killer New Trial
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Herald News. Robin Murphy Fall River Convicted Satanic Cult Murderer Parole Granted
13
Rolling Stone. Fall River Satanic Cult Murders Epix
14
WCVB. Bristol County Prosecutors to Review Satanic Cult Killings
15
FindLaw. Commonwealth v. Drew