Variable being stored with additional characters

I am trying to store a string value to a temporary variable within my script. When I run the command manually it returns the expected value, but from the script an additional "\r" is at the end.

tCurrentStatus=`cat ${tPC_status} | grep 'Current status' | awk '{print $NF}'`

output:
cat ${tPC_status} | grep 'Current status' | awk '{print $NF}'+ cat /home/jr/EOF/pc_monitor_EOF_status.out
+ grep 'Current status'
+ awk '{print $NF}'
+ tCurrentStatus=$'EOF\r'

Why does the "\r" appear in the script, but not manually?

Thanks in advance for any help.

This:

tCurrentStatus=`cat ${tPC_status} | grep 'Current status' | awk '{print $NF}'`

my be wirtten like this

tCurrentStatus=$(awk '/Current status/ {print $NF}' ${tPC_status})