Bob McCarty Writes

EDITOR’S NOTE: Continued from Part Three, below is Part Four of Carrie Fatigante’s six-part series about the still-unsolved mystery surrounding the death of Jarret Austin Clark, a young Oklahoma man, only days after his high school graduation.

By Carrie Fatigante

Below is the text of an email Tammy Slater, mother of Jarret Clark, received from a cousin of Courtney Manzer almost two years after Jarret’s death May 14, 2006. Supporting the conclusions of Jarret’s family and friends, Courtney’s cousin describes a scene that Courtney relayed to her shortly after Jarret’s death. Some punctuation has been changed for clarity of text. No other words have been changed.

Dearest Tammy,

I am still so very sorry for your loss. Jarret was truly a beautiful young man. I had met him once. I am much older than Courtney at 30 years old. My family would hate me if I ever said anything to anyone but as a mother of four beautiful children myself and one being an angel that?watches over us I am more than happy to tell you everything that I know. I am Courtney’s cousin. And she actually lived with my mom when all this happened. It was such a shocker and so you know the day your son went missing she came home and spilled everything. My mother called me scared and told me the horrid story which at that time was just Jarret missing on the news. But she told me so much more than that including where he was. She didn’t know what to do and was scared so she laid it out there for me.

I did call the police in Wagoner to tell them where they said they left him and I tried to tell them all that she had said. At that time I already knew they left him in the lake. And I also knew that they placed his shoe and jacket in a place to throw people off. I tried to tell them and turn her in at the time she was refusing to speak with anyone and hiding from police. Shortly after she went to speak with Wagoner Police. But I was told that a detective would be contacting me and they kinda blew me off. I tried to tell them that Jarret was in the lake and they ignored me. I was so sad it was true three days later when they found him. My heart aches for you.

The day after my mom called I invited Courtney over to try and talk some sense into her and we talked and she told me the same thing my mom did. And that is this:?? They were all out at the lake together. Courtney had always had a little bit of a crush on Jarret and apparently Brandon was being a jerk as usual. She said she was drinking and taking pills and smoking pot and so was Brandon but Jarret wasn’t a big partier. Brandon and Courtney got ?into it and he went off while she stayed at camp. Her and Jarret started to talk and ended up talking in a tent together. She says nothing sexual was happening but they did talk about liking each other. And then Brandon came and found them and he was very angry with Jarret. They ?got into it and from what Courtney said the two guys, Brandon and Tony, jumped on Jarret and they started fighting. She said that they dragged him to the water and after that Courtney said they left him face down in the lake. She didn’t go into detail about exactly what happened but she?kept saying “we left him face down in the water.” She saw what happened I know she did.

Continued in Part Five of “What Really Happened to Jarret Clark?”