PANAMA CITY — Paul Thomas Carhart does not remember the night he allegedly beat, strangled and nearly killed his girlfriend, he said in a jailhouse interview.
Carhart, 63, was attempting to leave his Greenbriar Drive home at 3:40 a.m. in his car when deputies arrived in August. For more than four hours before that moment, he allegedly beat and strangled his girlfriend, Nancy Helms, before she escaped to the safety of a neighbor’s home, where she collapsed.
A small group of people in the neighborhood were pointing frantically at the car and calling out for the officers to not let Carhart get away. BCSO deputies were able to stop Carhart and put him in a patrol car, where he told them he had hurt his girlfriend, officials said.
However, in an interview Monday at the Bay County Jail, Carhart said he did not remember anything from that night before he was surrounded by the glaring flashlights of officers.
“It doesn’t sound like me,” Carhart said. “Stuff like that, that’s not me.”
EMS arrived and began to administer aid to Helms in a neighbor’s home. She appeared to be in severe pain and was going in and out of consciousness from having been struck several times in the face.
Helms was able to communicate to deputies that she and Carhart had been fighting for more than four hours and he had attempted to restrain her by taping her hands. He then struck her an unknown number of times on her face, while strangling her and telling her he was going to kill her, authorities reported.
When deputies spoke with Carhart, he stated he intended to kill his girlfriend and had fantasized about it for months. He planned to mutilate and torture her using various tools in front of a mirror so she would be forced to watch, BCSO reported.
Carhart said he could not remember anything that transpired since charges of domestic violence were filed against him months earlier in June, two months before the August incident.
However, he has read the police reports.
“They sicken me,” Carhart said. “It makes me shudder when I read them.”
Carhart has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted felony murder and false imprisonment.