Women Recount ‘One Hour of Terror’

The day began with a mundane “good morning” from Kevin Carpenter and a compliment about Sharon McKeag’s shoes.

It ended violently an hour later with McKeag running for her life on a quiet Newport Beach street as her boss, Dr. Carol A. Jackson, lay bound and gagged inside her burning house -- the fire allegedly started by Carpenter.

On Wednesday, Jackson and McKeag recounted their “one hour of terror” on Oct. 15, when Carpenter, a handyman who quoted Scripture and read the Bible during lunch breaks, reportedly exploded in a rage and attacked them with a hammer, knife and toy gun while holding them captive.

Jackson, a surgeon and single parent, and McKeag, her longtime personal assistant, said they still carry emotional wounds from their ordeal and wonder why “a friend” and “co-worker” allegedly came close to killing them.

“He was a trusted friend who I took into my house and allowed around my children,” Jackson said. “I believed I was going to die. I had accepted that and asked God to send an angel to watch over my sons.”

Carpenter, who is being held without bail at Orange County Jail, faces attempted murder, arson and kidnapping charges. He has declined requests for an interview.

Jackson said she recalled that Carpenter arrived that day to tackle a list of chores shortly after her sons, ages 17, 13 and 11, left for school. McKeag said that as she headed to the grocery store, she asked him if he needed anything. Ant powder, he said.

Jackson and Carpenter had known each other about 18 months. He lived in a residential motel in Costa Mesa, the next city over, living off a series of part-time jobs.

Although she had never felt threatened by him, in recent weeks Carpenter had gotten “more dependent on me than I wanted,” she said.

He talked about his divorce, an estrangement from his brother and the loss of his cook’s job at a Costa Mesa restaurant. He was becoming “more insistent that we listen to him,” she said.

Still, Jackson said, she had no reason to believe he would try to kill her.

Carpenter began working on Jackson’s task list that day while she prepared for a busy day at her medical office. She recalled that he asked her to hold a piece of molding in place while he hammered it in.

Jackson said she knelt on the floor to hold the wood in place, then Carpenter hit her on the head with the hammer, knocking her unconscious. When she came to, she was bound and gagged.

She noticed that Carpenter was waving a handgun. She saw that it was only a toy.

Carpenter “was waving the gun and hitting me on the side of the head with the hammer,” Jackson said. “He was ranting and raving that nobody listened to him, that Sharon and I treated him like a second-class citizen.”

She said Carpenter dashed to the kitchen, returned with a butcher knife and then disappeared for a few minutes, this time coming back with a container of gasoline. She said he splashed it on pillows and furniture, then emptied her liquor cabinet. She said he poured alcohol on her.

Then he went to the kitchen, she said, and returned with a burning paper towel.

He would soon set rooms on fire.

“He threatened to torch me, and said I was making him do this to me,” Jackson said. “It was the worst nightmare a person could have.”

McKeag said that when she returned from the market, Carpenter met her outside and said, “Come here. You’ve got to see this.”

Once inside the house, McKeag said Carpenter pushed her to the floor, hit her on the head with the toy handgun and tied her up with duct tape.

“I wasn’t going to go to my death willingly,” McKeag said. “I knew he was religious and played on this by screaming, ‘God! Please don’t let me die!’ ”

When Carpenter went to the other side of the sprawling ranch home to check on Jackson, McKeag managed to stand up and hop out of the house, freeing her feet and hands in the process.

She said she managed to escape, banged on two neighbors’ doors without response, then stopped a passing driver and commandeered his cell phone. She dialed 911.

Jackson said Carpenter became enraged by McKeag’s escape.

“He said, ‘I’m going to kill you, and I’m next.’ I interpreted that as meaning he was going to kill himself inside the house,” Jackson said.

He began running through the house setting fires in rooms, she said.

The flames were quickly fed by the gasoline.

As it happened, Newport Beach police were in the area on an unrelated matter when McKeag’s 911 call came in. The police said that when they arrived, they could see Carpenter inside the burning house.

Jackson, who had chewed through the tape, lay on the floor near the kitchen screaming for help as the flames spread.

There was a cacophony of smoke detectors from almost every room.

An officer carried Jackson to safety just before the house was engulfed.

Carpenter, who apparently ran from the house, was arrested the next morning when he returned to his motel, on Newport Boulevard in Costa Mesa.

Carpenter is set to be arraigned Dec. 19.

Jackson, who was renting the now-destroyed house, was not insured.

Since the fire, she and McKeag have returned to the house several times to rummage through the ruins, looking for anything salvageable.

“My family lost almost everything we owned, but I am thankful that my children are OK,” she said. “We’re living with three different families who were kind enough to take us in while we rebuild our lives. I still have my practice, but at the moment I’m concentrating on getting my family’s lives back together.”