Carrie Ann Jopek Murder: Where is Jose Ferreira Jr. Now? – Carrie Ann Jopek, 13, of Cudahy, Wisconsin, disappeared in 1982 after being suspended from school. Thirty-three years would pass before the case was solved. Her remains wouldn’t be discovered for over the years.
“Predator at Large: Such A Pretty Girl,” episode on Investigation Discovery, tells the horrific story of Carrie Ann Jopek’s murder in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in March 1982, when she was 13 years old.
The murderer didn’t confess to the crime until more than 33 years had passed when he did so to many people and a local news station. We have all the information you need if you’re curious about the case, the perpetrator’s identity, or where they are right now. So let’s get started, shall we?
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Carrie Ann Jopek’s Cause of Death
On August 17, 1968, Carrie Ann Jopek was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County, to Carolyn Tousignant and the late Robert C. “Beezer” Jopek Jr. The 13-year-old was a seventh-grader at Kosciuszko Middle School and resided at 1929 South 10th Street in Milwaukee with her mother and stepfather, Fred Tousignant. Carrie’s mother described her as a disobedient adolescent who wasn’t afraid to break the law to obtain what she wanted occasionally.
Carrie was expelled from her school on March 16, 1982, for “walking the hallways without a pass.” When Carolyn received a call from the school administration, they offered her the choice of picking up her daughter at the school office. She had, however, denied doing so, although they lived a block from the school, and she was said to have known that her daughter had been suspended on purpose to attend a house party, a choice she would live to regret.
Carrie’s mother reported her daughter missing to the police after she didn’t come home that day from the party because she thought she had fled the house. The March 16 house party that Carrie attended was hosted by her best friend, Robin Mandt. The investigators discovered that Carrie had been sent home from school around 1:30 pm that day. After the celebration, she was never seen alive again. On September 2, 1983, more than 17 months after she vanished, her body was discovered buried on the porch of the Mandt house.
According to the programme, Conrad Nisiewicz, a local builder, pulled up portions of the deck to discover the teenager’s decomposing body. Robin’s mother had intended to repair the deck. The jacket buried next to the body helped Carolyn determine that it belonged to her daughter. The teen’s internal bleeding inside her skull due to head and neck trauma was listed as the cause of death in her postmortem report. Police checked Carrie’s dental history and determined the body belonged to her on September 6, 1983.
Who Killed Carrie Ann Jopek and Why?
The cops had little supporting evidence. Everyone at the party was questioned, but no solid leads founded. The sole promising tip they came across came from a neighbour who claimed to have seen Jose E. Ferreira Jr. standing close to the scene where the teenager’s body was discovered on September 6, 1983. According to reports, he was seen “sobbing and raising his hands.” When questioned by the authorities, Jose vehemently denied any involvement in the incident.
The case was abandoned due to a lack of physical evidence and suspects. The case would have likely remained unsolved if Jose hadn’t admitted to the crime more than 33 years after it occurred. On October 11, 2015, he confessed to killing Carrie over the phone after they had met at the party on March 16, 1982. Her wife informed West Milwaukee Police about the confession. Jose also acknowledged to killing the teen more than three decades ago when he called a crisis hotline counsellor and later Milwaukee news station WISN 12.
On October 13, 2015, Jose was taken into custody by the police, and he narrated what transpired in great detail. At the party, he had met Carrie and had offered to provide her marijuana if she would follow him to the cellar. At the last minute, Carrie decided not to accompany him. Jose shoved her, and she went down the basement stairs, breaking her neck before passing away from internal wounds. In addition, he acknowledged that he had sexually assaulted her before realising she was dead. Jose then went ahead and buried her in a small cemetery on the Mandt family porch.
Different explanations exist for why Jose finally confessed after all these years. The prosecution portrayed Jose as a “pathetic individual who had sort of hit a rock bottom,” His constant drinking is thought to have contributed to his decision to confess. Jose’s defence attorney claimed that he had a mental disorder and intended to utilise the media attention to persuade his wife—who had already filed for divorce—not to leave him. Carolyn, however, thought that the confession was caused by his guilt and the eerie visions of Carrie.
Where is Jose Ferreira Jr. Now?
Because there was no physical evidence in the case when Jose Ferreira Jr. was first charged with second-degree murder in October 2015, the prosecutors chose to offer him a plea agreement. Jose decided to accept a bargain that led to his guilty plea to “attempted second-degree sexual assault, with the use of force, and wrongful detention, both as a party to the offences” before his murder trial got underway in January 2017.
Jose was given a maximum consecutive term in March 2017 of 5 years for attempted sexual assault and two years for false imprisonment. The sentence came after 35 years and one day after Carrie vanished. Additionally, Jose expressed regret to Carrie’s family, adding, “I can’t change how things happened… I apologise from the bottom of my heart. He completed his sentence in 2022 and currently lives in Glendale, Wisconsin, under active community monitoring as a registered sex offender.
Carolyn, her mother, remarked, “It’s been 33 years since she’s been gone. I’ve been praying for this day.”