Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, and this week on Pushing Up Lilies we’re peeling back the layers of a case that hit far too close to home, the tragic death of Carrie Zettel. On October 12, 2025 in Milwaukee, 64‑year‑old Carrie was brutally killed in her own backyard. Less than 12 hours earlier, she had called 911 and reported her daughter’s violent behavior. Join me as we navigate the heartbreaking story of domestic violence ignored for far too long, how restraining orders, mental‑health struggles, and warning signs blended into a deadly outcome. We’ll trace Carrie’s efforts to protect her family, the mounting threats she faced, and the night everything collapsed. This episode isn’t just about a murder, it’s about a mother’s final plea for help and the system’s failure to stop the carnage. * Listener discretion is advised. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:00:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I’m your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.  00:24 Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey guys, Julie here with Pushing Up Lilies and I’m happy to say that I am back after I’ve been sick for a couple of days. I missed work the last couple of days, I just felt crappy and literally laid around and did little to nothing.  00:49 I tried to do my homework, I just did not feel well at all, so I didn’t get a whole lot done, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just laying around and doing nothing every once in a while.  01:00 I honestly rarely get to do that, so it was kind of nice, kind of relaxing. You know, when you feel bad and you just don’t want to do anything, there’s always laundry and there’s always dishes. There’s always something to do, but when you feel bad and you just can’t or don’t want to, I don’t know, it’s just different.  01:21 I missed the days when I was younger and I was sick from school and I watched like Bewitched all day and my mom made me tomato soup and made me a grilled cheese sandwich and made me my favorite mustard potato salad and I just laid around and watched Laverne and Shirley, I Love Lucy and didn’t have a care in the world.  01:44 You remember those days when we didn’t have a bill? Our biggest worry was getting to school and turning in our homework so that we didn’t get in trouble when we got home. We thought that our lives sucked so bad and then we grew up,  02:00 it’s like man this sucks. Some days it really does. I feel better I’m gonna go to work tomorrow and then we are heading to North Dakota to a wedding and we’re super excited. We love going up north. We just don’t go as much now that my husband’s mom has passed away and it’s so blooming cold up there in the winter but I like it because we really don’t have winter in Texas so it’s not as everyone wants to get a little bit of snow and breathe in some fresh cool air.  02:34 I’m sure those of you that are there can vouch for me. It’s just a different but it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful up there and they have really nice summers too. If you can go in like September, it’s so pretty.  02:45 Everything’s green because it’s been snowing and raining all year long and it’s just things grow like crazy. And in Texas, we know that the ground is so dry. I can remember back when I was younger, I used to put bacon on the end of a string and actually run it down into holes in my front yard and catch little crawfish.  03:07 That’s so weird. I mean, times are just different. Times are different for sure. Last week, we were super busy at the medical examiner’s office here. We had a couple murder suicides. One homicide that I worked was in Carrollton, and the perpetrator actually went to another county and was surrounded by the SWAT team in his vehicle and ended up shooting himself.  03:34 One thing that I talked to her parents about is sometimes you don’t know that someone’s being abused. As someone who has been a victim of domestic violence, I can say that it’s embarrassing. It’s not something you want to talk about.  03:51 It’s definitely not something that you want to tell your friends about. You don’t want your parents to know because then they’re not going to lack your boyfriend or your husband, and that’s going to cause a whole new set of problems.  04:04 So not only do you have your husband or your boyfriend trying to keep you from your family, but you have your family trying to keep you from your husband or your boyfriend. And man, it’s exhausting. And it gets really old, and it’s hard.  04:20 It’s hard to keep that up. Another case that we had was a son who killed his mother, and that’s similar to a story that we’re going to talk about this week. But I want to mention first that Pushing Up Lilies actually placed 8th in our second Denton Day of the Dead coffin race.  04:41 And so, we did that this past Saturday, and I could not have done it without my pusher Coleman James and my mentor and coffin builder Lee Fitz. These guys were amazing and helped. me the whole way, this event is really hard to get into.  04:58 They only take 70 racers, 70 cars, and the day that this all starts is usually Cinco de Mayo. I set an alarm so that when it was time to register, my alarm went off, and I immediately got online and registered.  05:20 Now, I was