She thought she was being pulled over for speeding, but it was the last mistake she would ever make. It was just after Christmas. A 20-year-old college student was driving home at night on a quiet stretch of highway in California. She just spent the day taking care of her sick boyfriend, and she called her parents and told them she was on her way home, but she never made it.
Instead, her car was found later abandoned at the bottom of a dark off-ramp, and her keys were still in the ignition. Her belongings were still inside, and her body was discovered beneath a bridge in a ravine. At first, police had no idea who did this, but then something terrifying happened. Women started calling in, saying that they’d been stopped in the exact same place by the exact same man for no reason at all.
And the person they were describing wasn’t a stranger. He was a uniformed highway patrol officer. Karen not was a 20-year-old student at San Diego State University. She was majoring in education because she wanted to be a teacher. On long walks with her parents, she would talk about graduating, working with kids, and having a family of her own someday.
Cara was a gentle, kind, and deeply loved person by everyone who knew her. At the time, she was in a serious relationship with her boyfriend, Wayne Batista. Their families were pretty close, and they visited each other’s homes pretty often, and in everyone’s eyes, Wayne was the one. Cara’s life felt stable, predictable, safe.
And then 2 days after Christmas, everything went wrong. It was Christmas of 1986, and Cara and her family had a wonderful time over the holidays. Everyone was gathered around for a good time, and time flew by. 20-year-old Carara, or really anyone for that matter, never expected that this would be the last happy Christmas that they would celebrate together.
2 days later, on December 27th, Wayne was down with a really bad case of the flu. Apparently, it was so bad that he couldn’t even get out of his bed and was at his house with a raging fever. When Cara found out about this, she was obviously pretty worried for it. But this was Carara, always looking out for the ones that she loved and trying her best to be as helpful as possible.
So Cara made plans to spend the day with her boyfriend and nurse him back to health. She knew that Wayne was probably feeling pretty miserable and would want someone to be with him. So that was exactly what she set out to do. She told her parents that she’d be spending the day at Waynees in Escandido and that she’d be back by the evening.
It was a pretty basic and routine thing for Cara to do. So her parents watched her hop into her white 1968 Volkswagen Beetle and they waved goodbye to their daughter. Now the distance between Wayne and Cara’s homes was approximately a 40minute drive south on Interstate 15. This is important later so just keep that in your mind for now.
But Cara reached Eskanito and she told her parents that she’d made it by calling from her boyfriend’s house. And that was that. Cara spent the day with Wayne, being by his side, helping in whatever way she could. And by the time evening rolled around, it was time for Cara to go home. Now, because this was the pre-Cell era, Cara called her parents once again from Wayne’s house, telling them that she was on her way.
This is also something to note about Cara. Now, I’m sure you’re pretty tired of hearing this by now, but Cara was pretty punctual. She didn’t have any last minute plans with anyone. And if she said she was coming home, then you best believe that was set in stone. she was going to be coming home. So, Carara’s parents were expecting her to be at home in about 40 minutes, give or take, but she didn’t come back home.
40 minutes passed, then a few more minutes went by, and then it was an hour, and then an hour and a half. Carara’s parents were starting to get anxious. Where was she? She should have been home by now, unless she somehow wound up in an accident on I-15. But that also didn’t make sense because Cara was usually the type to let her family know if she was going to be late or if she was stuck with some kind of problem.
If there was a pay phone nearby, then Cara would have called them by now to let her know why she was late. But that call never came. With each passing minute, Carara’s parents grew more and more uneasy. And they just had a really bad feeling. So when they thought that they waited long enough, Cara’s sister Cynthia and her husband as well as Carara’s parents took their cars and drove down the same route that Cara took to go to Wayne’s home.
Now maybe Cara was stranded somewhere. Maybe she needed help. Maybe her car ran out of gas. Maybe it was a flat tire. The Knots family’s minds were going through all kinds of possibilities that could logically explain Cara’s delay. They drove down the roads. They tried to search for Cara or her white beetle, but it was nowhere to be found.
While searching for Cara on their own, her dad Sam also called the police to file a missing person report. But the police pulled the whole wait 48 hours card and left the family helpless and on their own to search for their daughter. Cara’s mom, Joyce, made frequent stops at payoneses and called up the local hospitals for any casualties or accidents that may have rolled in at that time.
They were trying everything to cover their bases and search for Cara, but nothing came up. No one resembling or having Carara’s name was admitted to the hospital. No Volkswagen accidents were reported. Nothing. But the Nod family didn’t let up. They didn’t stop searching for Carara. As cliche as it sounds, this was highly unlike Cara. She was never late.
I know you hear about this in true crime cases a lot, but it’s a fact for a reason. If someone is inexplicably late to a very important appointment or they stray from their routine when they normally wouldn’t, these are signs that should never be ignored. So, the not family and even Carara’s extended family searched all the roads, the dirt paths, the parking lots, construction sites, and who knows where to look for Cara or her car.
The search for Cara was carrying on all night, and it would come to a stop the following morning when her own family made a chilling discovery. On the morning of December 28th, Cara’s sister Cynthia and her husband were driving down a remote road when suddenly they hit their brakes. They saw something in the deserted culde-sac near the Mercy Road exit of Interstate 15.
This was a road that led into a dark, dingy, and remote area of Interstate 15, the same route that Cara took to go to Wes. When the couple got closer, they saw a white car. It was Carara’s beetle and it was abandoned in this remote area. But there was no sign of Cara in or near the car.
The car’s driver’s side window was cracked open and through the glass the couple could see Cara’s car keys still in the ignition. Her belongings were in the backseat of the car and a Chevron gas card and receipt were on the passenger seat. The couple knew that Cara wouldn’t just leave her car like this in a place that wasn’t safe for anyone to be alone at night.
So without wasting any time, Cynthia rushed to the nearest pay phone and called the police. They alerted law enforcement of Carara’s car being found abandoned in that remote area and they demanded that officers come and take a look around. Well, finally the police took Carara’s disappearance seriously this time and a car was dispatched to the culde-sac to inspect the scene.
Now this place where Cara’s car was found was a vast area of land surrounded by thick bushes and trees. And in the distance, there was a 65- ft bridge that overlooked a ravine. The officers arrived at the scene, and a search began for Cara. They also found it weird for her car to be found deserted in such a remote area. During the day, this place wasn’t nearly as scary.
But at night time, you could barely even see where you were going, and there was not a living soul as far as the eye could see. So, this was as remote as a place could get in this area. The police also expanded their search to the bridge and the ravine, and that’s when they saw something in the water. It was a tinge of purple and white from far away, but up close, it was devastating.
The police went down to the ravine and recovered the floating figure in the water, and in no time, Cara’s missing person case entered the homicide territory. 20-year-old Carara’s body was found in that ravine. The purple and white sight was the clothes and the shoes that Cara was wearing. Now, I don’t know if I mentioned this already, but before going missing, Cara was wearing a purple sweatshirt and white leather boots.
And unfortunately, when they found her, 20-year-old Cara could not be revived. She was gone, and the search came to a devastating halt. Carara’s family and friends were notified of the discovery, and they were shocked and blindsided at the same time. Cara, who was alive, well, and smiling just a few hours ago, was now found below a bridge, left in the ravine like she was nobody.
Carara’s family’s world was turned upside down. They needed answers. They needed to know who had done this to their Cara, who had never done so much as her to fly, for that matter. An autopsy was later conducted on Cara’s body, and thankfully there’s no evidence of sexual motivation found, but she did meet with a terrible fate, and someone had taken her life with their bare hands and a rope.
There were also injuries on her face, as well as defensive wounds and DNA underneath her fingernails, and the police, as well as the entire community, were bewildered. They needed to catch the culprit before they struck again. The police had very few clues to go on in the investigation. I mean, sure, they had DNA evidence, but this was the 80s.
Advanced DNA testing was still a foreign concept, and the lack of, or rather the absence of surveillance cameras also didn’t help the police’s case. So, the investigators did what law enforcement agencies usually did back in the day, and that was set up a hotline for leads. They needed anyone and everyone to come forward with details about Carara and if anyone had seen anything suspicious on Interstate 15 on the evening of December 27th.
Meanwhile, the police traced Carara’s movement on that day. She went to Wayne’s and that was confirmed after talking to Wayne and his parents and then she left. While in route to her home, Cara stopped for gas at a nearby Chevron gas station about 10 mi north just off of I-15. The police talked to the employee working the register at that time, and according to them, they saw Cara pulling up to the gas station, filling up her car, paying for it, taking her receipt, which showed the time
of 8:30 p.m., and then getting back on Interstate 15 on the southbound ramp. Now, Cara was making her way home. She was not making any detours. She wasn’t going anywhere else. So, how did her car end up where it was found? All while this was happening though, the police also came up with a list of suspects which was pretty short.
But they did initially suspect Carara’s boyfriend, Wayne. But he had an airtight alibi and his reaction genuinely showed surprise and worry for Cara. There was also no reason for him to have been responsible for Carara’s disappearance, so he was ultimately ruled out. This also meant that the police were then back to square one.
They went through different leads coming from the hotline. And a couple of days into the investigation, several calls from various young women came in. But the weird thing is all these women were telling the exact same story. And all of these women mentioned the exact same name. The women who called the hotline following Carara’s disappearance were all in their 20s.
And coincidentally, they all drove the same cars as Carara. Not just similar, but the exact same. All the women had Volkswagen Beetles, and they were all the same model that Cara had. The women also bore a striking resemblance to one another. So, this was off to a very unnerving start for the police.
If this were truly a case of a serial criminal, well, he had a very specific type. The women told the investigators that they dealt with a very bizarre and uncomfortable situation in the same area where Cara’s car was found on Mercy Road. The women dulged that they’d be driving down Interstate 15 at night and to be stopped by an onduty California Highway Patrol officer.
But what was bizarre was that the officer would make the women pull over at the bottom of a secluded unlit off-ramp. And also, it wasn’t like the women were breaking the law or anything. They were driving under or within the speed limit. They weren’t being reckless. They were sober. So, they were all surprised when they were stopped by a highway patrol officer.
But what could they do? They couldn’t just put up a fight with an authoritative figure. They felt that they had to comply. Well, this was when things started to get weird. The officer would then proceed to detain these women for 90 minutes at a time. Not nine, 90. And that too, for no reason at all.
Then the officer would poke into the woman’s personal lives and ask really uncomfortable, out of the blueblue questions before finally just letting them go. The officer was not threatening, but he would cross the line at times and touch the women’s shoulder or hair, which obviously left these women in a state of shock and distress.
I mean, can you imagine being pulled over by a CHP officer when he did nothing wrong and having to deal with inappropriate questions and actions for an hour and a half? Well, the police checked in with other people who encountered this particular officer, and all of the women who bore a resemblance to Cara were detained unusually longer than necessary.
Whereas male motorists were often let go within 5 to 10 minutes of being stopped at the interstate. This was really bizarre, but there was something that led these women, who were also victims in a sense, to come forward. It was a TV segment talking about road safety that was televised following Carara’s disappearance. See, 2 days after Cara took the I-15 route to her boyfriend’s house and the very chilling discovery of her car and her body, a local news station decided to film a segment with a California Highway Patrol officer for safety tips and what
to do when a person gets stranded on the side of the road. The face of this segment was a model highway patrol officer, a 13-year veteran, Craig Payer. He was a middle-aged man who looked safe and like someone you’d run into for help if he got stranded on the side of a dark road.
And in the segment, Craig was seen driving down his usual route, Interstate 15, the same route Cara had taken. And he was doing so while talking to the cameramen and giving viewers safety tips to follow on the highway. This segment was all over TV and all men, women, the elderly, and children saw it, including the women who later called the hotline that was set up for Cara’s murder investigation.
They had seen this man before because this was the same CHP officer who stopped them at night for a suspiciously long time and acted unprofessionally towards them. This same creep was now on TV giving safety tips to motorists on the highway. But there was also another thing that a lot of people just couldn’t overlook. Craig had injuries on his face.
They looked like scratches and he didn’t even try to cover them up. They were out in the open. And even though people didn’t think too much of it at the time, now that the police had this new information that Craig, the model CHP officer with a mirror clean record, had been terrorizing women and making them feel distressed on remote roads of I-15.
Well, they knew they couldn’t let this detail go. So the police looked further into Craig. They basically wanted to check where he was at the time that Cara was also on I-15. It seemed an attendant from another local gas station, this one being close to where Cara’s car was found, was questioned by police about seeing Craig that fateful evening.
And well, this person had seen Craig. It was around 9:30, so about an hour after Cara filled her car with gas at that Chevron gas station. And according to the attendant, Craig looked really nervous and disheveled and he had injuries on his face, the same injuries he was now sporting on that TV segment.
When the attendant made small talk with Craig and asked how his evening was going, he replied that quote, “He had a rough night.” Craig’s wife also came forward and told the police that she also saw the injuries on his face when he came back home from work that night. And he gave her some sort of vague explanation. Then discrepancies in speeding tickets raised a lot of red flags for the police.
See, two brothers came forward and told the police that Craig had stopped them for speeding and had charged them at around 10:00 p.m. But when those records were checked, they showed that Craig had scratched off the original time and changed it to 9:20 p.m., giving him an alibi for that evening. It was all really weird. So, the police had a strong enough reason to arrest Craig on suspicion.
And wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly what they did. Craig Payer was arrested on January 15th, 1987. When asked about the injuries on his face, Craig tried to explain it away by saying that he fell a head first into a chainlink fence, but the police didn’t think so. The injuries were consistent with someone scratching him in an attempt to protect themselves.
Chainlink Fence injuries didn’t look like Craig’s injuries. Ultimately, the evidence against him piled and piled, and the police charged him with the first-degree murder of Karen. Craig’s possessions were also confiscated by the police. And in his car, they found a rope and a flashlight, both of which were things used to subdue and ultimately take the life of Cara.
It’s mind-boggling that Craig still had the murder weapon in his car, and both items turned out to be the ticket to convict him in the end. Also, forensic evidence placed Craig at the scene of the crime, and it pretty much cemented the notion that he was the one to have attacked Cara.
His DNA was found on her shoes, and Cara’s DNA was found on Craig’s clothes and body. Fortunately for the police, Craig had a very rare blood type, AB negative, and it was found on Carara’s clothes and body. So, there was literally no person involved in Cara’s attack other than Craig himself. By January of 1988, Craig’s first trial was held, but the result was a hung jury.
People at that time just couldn’t believe that a patrol officer would be capable of something like this. But after hours upon hours of deliberation, they couldn’t reach a verdict. The 12 jury panel deadlocked with seven of them voting for the guilty plea. So, while preparations for another trial were underway, Craig was free on bail. I can’t even imagine how Cara’s family must have been feeling about this.
It felt clear as day that this person was involved in Car’s attack. And even though he was charged with the crime, the trial ended in just confusion and disorganization. And now he was free and able to hurt other young women until his second trial. But finally, after a few months, that second trial was held.
The prosecutors worked relentlessly in this one, and they brought forth concrete evidence, witnesses, and all the things needed to finally convict Craig for his heinous actions, and the trial bore fruit, and the jurors reached a unanimous verdict. Craig Payer was guilty of first-degree murder. But Craig, on the other hand, didn’t even speak one word at his own trial and continued to maintain his innocence until the very end.
But finally on August 4th of 1988, Craig Pair was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 25 years. He since been denied parole two separate times, once in 2008 and then again in 2012. He is still deemed a danger to society and I’m not arguing here one bit. He’s currently serving his sentence though at the California Men’s Colony in California.
His next parole hearing is set for January of 2027, which honestly isn’t that far away. and Cara’s family, who’ve been present for every court date, trial, and parole hearing. They want this murderer to never see the light of day again. But what’s still unclear to this day is the reason why Craig attacked Cara.
He’s targeted women in the past and in the same way, but it only escalated to murder with Cara. Since Craig has kept his lips zipped, we really don’t know what happened that night that pushed Craig to do the unthinkable. And we might never know why. After all this time, this man hasn’t explained a single word of this. I really don’t know.
I guess he’s just hoping that at some point someone on a parole board will believe that he’s innocent or something. I don’t know. But Cara was just going about her evening, business as usual, and out of nowhere, Craig pulled her over, murdered her, then just acted like the whole thing didn’t even happen. It all feels pointless.
And I guess because in a sense it is or it was. Cara’s dad Sam and the rest of the KN family even lobbyed for the missing person time window to be shortened from 48 hours to help promptly solve these cases quickly and hopefully save other people from the same tragedy that they went through. I don’t know whether they were successful in this particular area or not, but I’ve heard from various sources that most police departments these days, well, they don’t even have a waiting period to report a missing person.
So maybe in some way their lobbying was successful. But what’s so heartbreaking about this case is that Sam, Carara’s dad, passed away of a heart attack just a few feet away from where his own daughter was found lifeless. See, the Knot family had set up a memorial, a beautiful oak tree memorial garden for their daughter.
And Sam was tending to it when his heart gave out on him. It’s a different kind of sad when you think of how Cara’s dad lost his life advocating for the safety of female drivers because his own daughter lost her life at the hands of someone who’s supposed to protect the citizens. The family has now suffered two losses all because one rogue highway patrolman just wanted to hurt someone.
