Death by the river: Coed murder leaves fisherman defenseless – until now
“There’s a car that’s run off an embankment and there’s a body … laying there!” – a terrified caller to 911.
The day in May when Ira Yarmolenko died on the bank of the Catawba River, an early-morning chill turned sunny and warm.
She was 20, a sophomore at UNC Charlotte, finishing up the semester and planning to transfer to UNC-Chapel Hill in the fall. On the morning of her death, Monday, May 5, 2008, she dropped off a carload of belongings at Goodwill and said her goodbyes at a coffee shop where she worked near the university.
Why she ended up dead two hours later, on a remote riverbank west of Charlotte, no one has ever been able to say for sure.
A Gaston County man, who was fishing nearby, was convicted in 2011 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
But Mark Carver, now 47, insists he didn’t kill Ira Yarmolenko.
This story was originally published April 3, 2016 at 8:45 AM with the headline "Death by the river: Coed murder leaves fisherman defenseless – until now."