A woman has spoken out after her former partner was found guilty of shooting her father to death – as well as three other victims in separate incidents.
Amber Carter was with Jeremy Harris for six years and had a child with him – but despite a tumultuous relationship, she had no idea what he was capable of.
The 34-year-old had been separated from Harris for two years when he killed her beloved dad, Blair Carter, ending his life at just 60 years old while hunting down Amber.
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The shock didn’t end there – with his ex-girlfriend later learning he had also shot three other strangers to death in a bizarre series of killings in the weeks leading up to her father’s murder.
“I never imagined Jeremy doing something to this extreme,” Amber, who works in healthcare marketing and lives in Dallas, Texas, US, told Need To Know.
“I was horrified and heartbroken that someone I loved so much at a time in my life could do something so awful.
“I feel like he is dealing with a lot of mental illness, and I’m glad he’s in a place where he can’t harm innocent people – or come find me and my kids.
“I thought something would inevitably happen to him first, like maybe he would get into a bad fight with the wrong people, or into a drunken car accident.
“I’m shocked and sad for the other victims and families.
“I think life in prison is the worst punishment for him.”
Amber had met Harris in 2013 through mutual friends, and found him “funny, charming and a great conversationalist”.
The two started dating and welcomed their first child together in 2015, but their six-year-long relationship proved tumultuous, and Amber claims Harris was violent towards her, and struggled with mental health and addiction issues.
She finally ended things in 2018, and later moved in with her dad for additional support with her four children.
Amber said: “He was the best dad ever.
“I grew up an only child, so I was his world, and he was my best friend.
“Many people say I was a daddy’s girl.”
Amber remained living with her father until his shock death on 18 November 2020.
In the days leading up to it, Amber had been in contact with Jeremy, who regularly demanded to know her location – which she refused to give.
The last day she and her father spent together had started like any other, with Amber returning from a night shift at work to take her children to school.
Amber said: “In our last conversation, my dad told everyone to have a great day while pointing at each of the kids, one by one, and telling them they were great.
“As the kids and I walked out the front door, we said our ‘goodbyes’ and our ‘I love yous’.”
Nothing was amiss until she returned to the home at 11 am.
As she pulled up to the house, she found police cars were blocking the road – and were parked directly outside her father’s home.
Amber said: “I really wasn’t sure what was going on.
“I was messaging and calling my dad, and he wasn’t answering, but I could see that his car was still in the driveway.
“That was my first big clue that something might have happened to him, but I didn’t want to think that yet.
“I was really starting to worry.”
When she told police officers that she lived in the affected house, they told her a body had been found inside, but had not yet been identified.
Amber said: “My mind couldn’t quite wrap around what the cop was saying.
“The same police officer asked me who all should be in the home.
“I told him there shouldn’t have been anyone else in my home at that time other than my dad.
“That’s when I was asked to turn my car off, step out of it, and sit on the curb.”
As it slowly sank in that her father was the likely victim, police asked Amber if she had any ‘disgruntled relationships’.
She said: “They asked if I could think of anyone that might want to harm my dad, or me.
“That’s what made me think of Jeremy – which I told them.”
The following day, while reeling from the loss of her father and temporarily living in a hotel with her children, Amber received a call from the police to tell her they had a suspect in custody.
It turned out to be her former partner.
Amber said: “I didn’t want to believe he did it, and I tried to figure out why.”
Within a few days, she had learned more shocking news – that he had also been linked to three other local fatal shootings in the weeks prior.
Harris shot 19-year-old student Jaden Urrea in late October 2020, killing him.
Two weeks later, he shot and killed 36-year-old Adam Gautreau and, 30 minutes later, shot and killed 57-year-old Kenneth Jerome Hamilton.
Days later, he fatally shot Blair Carter – Amber’s father – before setting his house on fire.
In 2023, Harris pleaded guilty to committing the four murders and is serving life in prison without parole.
Ever since, Amber and her children have been forced into their new normal – a world without their father and grandfather, and with the knowledge of what Harris had done.
Amber, who still does not know how Harris managed to track her down, said: “It has been stressful and overwhelming.
“[There is a] feeling of doing life alone.
“It made it even harder to trust people.
“I’m definitely more aware of who I let in and around my life.
“I miss my dad – his sense of humour, his daily rock concerts, and just the way he could get through the day.
“He was supportive, knowledgeable and hilarious – he never took himself too seriously.”
Amber had been in a new relationship at the time of the murders, and two weeks after the loss of her father, discovered she was pregnant with a son – later learning she had likely conceived with a day or two before the terrible incident.
Since then, her focus has been on healing and her family.
She added: “It has taken a lot of effort and time for my children and I to rebuild and adjust, but I feel that we are now doing as well as we can be.
“My hope for the future is that my children continue to grow in a healthy direction with clear boundaries on how to protect themselves and their hearts.”
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