An Alabama woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars for a crime so calculated and cruel that prosecutors say it shattered multiple families at once.
Loretta Carr was sentenced to life in prison this week for the murder of Mary Beth Isbell, along with an additional 20 years for kidnapping. Carr pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping in DeKalb County court, bringing a grim case years in the making to a close.
According to prosecutors, the violence began on the night of Oct. 18, 2021, when Carr and her daughter, Jessie Kelly, went to Isbell’s home to confront her over a romantic rivalry involving Isbell’s significant other.
That confrontation turned into an attack.
Authorities said Carr and Kelly assaulted Isbell, forced her into their vehicle, and drove roughly 75 miles southeast of Huntsville to the Wolf Creek Overlook at Little River Canyon National Park. There, prosecutors said, Carr tied herself to the overlook’s barrier with a rope, forced Isbell to climb over the railing, and then shoved her off the canyon.
Isbell vanished without a trace. Her ex-husband reported her missing in December 2021, but for more than a year and a half, there were no answers — only questions.
That changed in June 2023, when DeKalb County investigators received what authorities described as credible information about her disappearance. On June 28, 2023, Isbell’s remains were discovered in the canyon below the overlook. Two days later, investigators confirmed her identity. It was what would have been her 39th birthday.
Carr and Kelly were arrested shortly after.
Kelly, who was 22 at the time of the killing, pleaded guilty last year. Originally charged with capital murder, she accepted a plea to a lesser murder charge on the day her trial was set to begin. She was sentenced to 40 years in prison and was expected to testify against her mother if the case had gone to trial.
Carr, 45 at the time of the crime, ultimately pleaded guilty herself, sparing Isbell’s family from reliving the details in a courtroom trial.
“This is an example of a senseless act destroying a family,” said DeKalb County District Attorney Summer Summerford. “A mother is left without a daughter, sisters are left without their sibling, and a son is left without his mother.”
Summerford praised Isbell’s family for staying engaged throughout the investigation and prosecution, calling them responsive and supportive despite years of uncertainty and grief.
The case stands as a stark reminder of how jealousy and obsession can spiral into irreversible violence. What began as a personal dispute ended with a woman kidnapped, driven into the dark, and pushed from a cliff — and with two generations of one family now sentenced to decades behind bars.
