BONUS SERIES: Levittown Episode 4 | 'How Is That Not Illegal'

Olivia Carville (0:00)

A quick note, this is Episode 4 of a six-part series. If you haven't heard the prior episodes, we recommend going back and starting there. It should also be noted that this series explores sexualized imagery involving minors and violence. Please take care when listening.

Detective Timothy Ingram in New York was en route to make an arrest. He had been working the Levittown deepfake case for eight months, ever since a number of young women first called the police that New Year's Eve.

He had had enough. It was five o'clock in the evening when Tim and his partner drove through a quiet Levittown neighborhood and stopped in front of a small, light blue, Cape Cod style house.

Timothy Ingram (1:01)

It looked like a regular house. The grass was cut, you know.

Olivia Carville (1:04)

The house had a backyard that shared a fence with an elementary school.

Timothy Ingram (1:09)

It was just an everyday house where you wouldn't expect this to be going on.

Olivia Carville (1:15)

That morning, yet another young woman had walked into a local precinct to tell the police a now familiar story. One that matched the stories of so many others. This time though, the detectives had already received some key evidence. Evidence that showed the person behind the posts was a guy many of the women knew.

Someone they went to high school with, Patrick Carey.

Timothy Ingram (1:49)

And at that point, my partner and I at the time kind of looked at each other and, you know, this has to end now. Whether we go to his house and he clams up and doesn't say anything, or whether he admits to it, he was coming with us either way.

So when we got there, we knocked on the door and Patrick Carey answered the door. From what I recall, I think he was shirtless when he answered the door. We asked him to come outside after we identified ourself as detectives. So he turned around and he told his mom that we were there, and his mother came outside also. And he sat down on the front steps of the house, in front of the front door, and his mom stood next to him. And we asked him if he knew why we were there. And he said, no. And we said, okay, you know, we just want to talk to you about some things that are going on the Internet. And I said, I'm going to read this to you now.

I wanted him to hear out loud the things he was writing. And I wanted to see his reaction to other people knowing about what he was doing. And that's when we started to read this murder-rape fantasy. And maybe halfway through it, his mother asked us to stop. She looked at him. She had some choice words for him. And he looked at us dead in the eyes and he said, yeah, it was me. I did it.

Olivia Carville (3:08)

What are the choice words his mom said to him?

Timothy Ingram (3:10)

I believe she said, you're a fucking asshole.

Olivia Carville (3:14)

Wow.

Timothy Ingram (3:15)

Yes. And at that point, we didn't need anything else. You know, he admitted to everything without us asking a single question.

Olivia Carville (3:23)

We attempted to speak with Patrick and his family for the story, and they declined. Do you remember your reaction to his arrest?

SPEAKER_3 (3:34)

Yeah. I was shocked that they had built the case enough to be able to arrest him.

Olivia Carville (3:42)

It had been months since Patrick's off-and-on high school friend, Cecilia, had given her statement to detectives. She knew there was an ongoing investigation, but figured nothing would come of it.

SPEAKER_3 (3:56)

Because when it happened, I didn't think that it was enough. It was a threat and predatory and dangerous, but I didn't think that the law would see it that way.

I didn't think that they would validate. I didn't think that they would view it as something that needed to be punished and put away for. I had lost hope that this was going to turn into anything. So when I found out that he was arrested, I was so, so surprised.

Olivia Carville (4:35)

These concerns that Cecilia had about whether what Patrick Carey had done to her would be seen as a crime, those were the very same concerns nagging the prosecutors in charge of this case. Patrick Carey's behaviour was awful, but was it criminal?

Margie Murphy (4:59)

From iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope, this is Levittown. I'm Margie Murphy.

Olivia Carville (5:06)

And I'm Olivia Carville.

That night, Patrick was pulled off his front porch, handcuffed, put into the back of a police car, and escorted into a small 8x8 interview room at the Nassau County Police Department. There, he handed over his devices and signed a confession. One of the questions the detectives had for Patrick was, why? Why did he do this? Which was the same question Margie and I had for Patrick. Patrick and his former attorney declined to be interviewed for this podcast. But what we do have is the statement he gave the evening of his arrest.