Previously on Bear Brook Season 2, a true crime story.

I wanted to trust him. I wanted to trust him.

I think he thought he was Tully Savalas. He had a shaved head. He's sucking on a lollipop,

and he's strutting around the courtroom like he owned it. He had a shaved head. He's sucking on a lollipop, and he's strutting around the courtroom like he owned it.

He had a reputation for solving cases.

When I first met Jason Carroll inside the prison, I could feel my brain trying to reconcile two different Jason's.

There was the 19-year-old I'd gotten a sense of through interviews, police reports, and old tapes, and then there was the 52-year-old in front of me.

Jason's bald, a goatee that's mostly gray, and he's huge, like he's spent the last three

decades lifting weights, which is kind of true.

Jason's not big on reporters.

He remembers how the newspapers covered his trials, how they reprinted again and again the most damning quotes

from his confessions. So it took some time for Jason to relax around me, if only a little.

There's a lot I could tell you about Jason. He's polite. Despite his obvious physical strength,

he has a gentle presence.

He's apparently quite good at handball.

He enjoys the woodworking program at the prison.

He's made dozens and dozens of bowls and vases and pieces of furniture,

a set of wooden lamps with little animal shapes cut out of them.

He gives them away to people he cares about. People like Debbie Ricker.

I met Jason back in 1989, and we kind of cruised Elm Street. Back in the day, that's kind of what

everybody did. Cruising Elm Street. It was something I'd seen references to in the police reports and court testimony.

But it wasn't until Debbie explained it to me that I could really picture it.

...