Edward Pehowic murdered 35-year-old single mom Carol Caswell by drowning her in a lake

Evil Lives Here profiles the brutal case of Carol Caswell, who was viciously beaten before being drowned in a lake near Dover, New Hampshire in August 1996.

Caswell, a 35-year-old single mother, went to the lake with Edward Pehowic and Merrill “Mickey” Tompkins; the two men had spent the night drinking. At the lake, Pehowic tormented and beat Caswell. He taunted her, suggesting she could live if she could swim across the pond.

In the end, he drowned her by standing on her head until she stopped breathing. Pehowic and Tompkins then disposed of her body across the state line in Maine.

Initially, police were left puzzled by Caswell’s disappearance, but they got their breakthrough in the case two years later in 1998 when Pehowic assaulted Patricia Landry. During this assault, he informed Landry that he had murdered Carol Caswell and dumped the body; she then passed on this information to investigators.

Accomplice turns state witness

Later that year, Tompkins turned state’s witness and revealed the location of Caswell’s body to investigators, he claimed he was motivated by fear in assisting Pehowic in burying the remains. He was sentenced to seven months for hindering an investigation, but authorities pursued no further charges against him.

Pehowic was brought to trial primarily based on a videotaped confession he gave to cops where, according to the prosecution, he supplied “details that were too twisted to make up.”

In September 1999, a jury convicted Pehowic of first-degree murder, and he was immediately given a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.

“This was a ruthless, brutal murder of the mother of a young child,” said Judge Mohl. “For your brutality and depravity in this crime, you are sentenced to prison for the remainder of your natural life without the possibility of parole.

Has Edward Pehovic killed before?

Edward Pehowic has also been linked to the killing of Sheila Holmes in the Dover area of New Hampshire. The 31-year-old mother of five was found on some railroad tracks in April 1990, she had been strangled and had suffered a blunt-force trauma to the head.

At one point, Pehowic admitted to killing Holmes only to later change his story. As of 2010, police said he was the only suspect in the case.

More from Evil Lives Here

Follow the links to read about more cases profiled on Evil Lives Here, such as when Joylynn Marinez unwittingly married serial rapist Robert Howard Bruce who was sentenced to 333 years in prison for a string of sexual assaults in multiple states.

Or read about Timothy Spencer, aka The Southside Slayer who raped and murdered at least five women in Virginia in the 1980s.

Watch Evil Lives Here at 9/8c on Investigation Discovery.