Update • Fourth District Judge Derek Pullan denied Douglas Carter’s request for release on bail Sept. 16, finding that he posed a flight risk and that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence to keep him jailed. Pullan said questions about the evidence will be decided by a jury.

Provo • Tyler Anger was adopted when he was five days old. For a long time, he didn’t know who his biological parents were.

But after connecting with his biological mother as an adult, Anger testified in a Provo courtroom, he learned in his early 20s who his father was: Douglas Stewart Carter, who at the time, was sitting on death row accused of brutally killing a woman in 1985.

“It was a lot for me to hear,” Anger, now 43, said. “To find out who he was and what he was accused of. It messed me up pretty good.”

The victim, Eva Olesen, was the aunt of the then-Provo police chief. She was killed in her home, stabbed ten times and shot in the back of the head. Her husband found her body partially undressed with her hands tied behind her back after he said he had been out visiting a friend.

The revelation that his father had been sentenced to die for this crime sent Anger spiraling, he testified, and he “ended up at the bar every night.” He had some contact with Carter around that time, he said, but he didn’t pursue a relationship and they eventually stopped talking.

But last fall, Anger said he and his wife, Melissa, started speaking with Carter again, in near daily phone calls from the Utah County jail. He describes Carter today as a friend.

“I’m trying to learn more about Doug,” he said. “I’m sure Doug is trying to learn more about me.”

After Carter spent decades on death row, a judge reversed his conviction in 2022 finding Provo police engaged in misconduct. And new DNA evidence — which defense attorneys say don’t point to Carter as the killer — has continued to undercut the case.

Carter, who is now 70 years old, has asserted that he is innocent.

Now, the same judge who reversed Carter’s conviction — 4th District Judge Derek Pullan — is considering whether Carter should be allowed to post bail and be released from jail until he faces trial for aggravated murder.

If Carter is let go, it would be the first time he would be free in 41 years.

Anger and his wife testified on Wednesday in an effort to show Pullan that Carter has a support system, and to assure the judge he wouldn’t flee or harm anyone if released.

Melissa Anger said she has found an extended stay hotel that is close to their home, and she hopes to see Carter every day to help him if he moves in there. He would also receive help from the nonprofit Road 2 Reentry, which supports exonerees transitioning back into society.

“The world has changed in the last 41 years,” Melissa Anger testified. “I can only imagine the pressure, the confusion that will come with living in today’s world. He will need help. And I can help him. I want to do that.”

The woman testified that, though they have been in contact with Carter for a relatively short time, they care deeply for him — and believe in his innocence.

“He didn’t do this. I’m sorry, he didn’t,” Melissa Anger testified. “He’s a human being, and his life was taken from him because of some very unfortunate things.”

But Olesen’s family pleaded with the judge to keep Carter behind bars. They are convinced that he is Eva’s killer, pointing to a confession that Carter signed shortly after his 1985 arrest. (Carter’s defense team is trying to have this confession thrown out, saying he was coerced.)

“The possibility of Mr. Carter’s release brings renewed fear and distress to our family,” said Gary Olesen, Eva’s son. “He confessed to murdering my mother in her home. For over 40 years, his incarceration has protected our family and the community.”

Gary Olesen’s wife, Theresa, emphasized that Carter has not been found innocent — and that he still faces an aggravated murder charge and a potential death sentence. “He has not been exonerated,” she told the judge. “That distinction is important to our family.”

The judge said he would issue a written decision later about bail. He said on Wednesday that he will also soon announce dates for the trial, which is expected to take two months.

Carter wrote in a declaration that if he is released, he doesn’t want revenge or to “get even.” He said he wants to follow the case through, and if the charge is dismissed, he plans to file a factual innocence petition — which could result in a payout from the state. Acknowledging he has no savings or source of income, he said he hopes to use that money to support himself through the rest of his life.

Up to this point, Carter has spent most of his life isolated in prison, facing the possibility of a death by lethal injection.

“All I want is to clear my name,” he wrote, “be left alone and to finally be free to live my life.”