11/10/2025
In the sweltering, humid air of a New Orleans summer morning in 2002, a family waved goodbye to a beloved couple. Robert and Martha Carson, on a five-day visit from their home in Chicago, were heading to the airport for their flight home. They were the picture of a life well-lived: he, a 34-year-old civil engineer on the verge of a major promotion; she, a 31-year-old psychologist with a thriving private practice. Married for seven years and planning to start a family, their lives in their comfortable Wicker Park apartment were as stable as they were full of promise.
