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Speaker 7: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 7: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 7: written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 7: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 7: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 7: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 8: Baptist deacon, family man, pillar of his Florida community, and
Speaker 8: serial killer of prostitutes. Chilling true crime from the author
Speaker 8: of Lobster Boy by Day. Sam Smithers was the deacon
Speaker 8: of his Baptist church in Plant City, Florida, a respected
Speaker 8: neighbour to many, and a devoted husband and father. But
Speaker 8: after the sun set, he became something else, a violent
Speaker 8: attacker and killer of prostitutes. Smithers twisted double life came
Speaker 8: to light when a local woman who had hired him
Speaker 8: to take care of her property, found him in her
Speaker 8: garage cleaning an axe and then discovered a puddle of blood.
Speaker 8: Through exclusive interviews with Smithers's wife, who described her spouse
Speaker 8: as nothing but a doting husband and father, author Fred
Speaker 8: Rosen learned why this man of God raised in an
Speaker 8: intensely religious Tennessee home was the last person anyone with
Speaker 8: suspect of committing these savage crimes. Rosen reveals the details
Speaker 8: behind the deaths of Chrissy Cowan and Denise Roach after
Speaker 8: Smithers picked them up in Tampa, and the fate of
Speaker 8: a man who seemed holier than now but was actually
Speaker 8: guilty as sin. The book they were featuring this evening
Speaker 8: is Deacon of Death, Sam Smithers, The serial Killer next
Speaker 8: Door with my special guest, journalist and author Fred Rosen.
Speaker 8: Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much
Speaker 8: for agreeing to this interview the incomparable Fred Rosen.
Speaker 3: Only the Hey wait a minute, only Captain America or
Speaker 3: the Mighty Store incomparable. You know, no, I appreciate that, Dan,
Speaker 3: and I love being with you because you're the best.
Speaker 8: And thank you, Fred, You're the best.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. But you know, I gotta tell you
Speaker 3: this book, I spent a lot of time rereading it. Wow, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I love and I was going, oh, that's a good line,
Speaker 3: you know, because I wrote it a while back. But
Speaker 3: what's so interesting to me is how this guy's behavior
Speaker 3: with women is typical of what today we call the
Speaker 3: knee to movement where a guy is harassing women and
Speaker 3: here it's only you know, it's fifty twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: It wasn't considered a big deal. So, you know, I
Speaker 3: think we've come a bairful ways, you know, which is
Speaker 3: a good thing, obviously, you know. Anyway, Yeah, tell.
Speaker 8: Us spread because for people that are fans of Lobster Boy.
Speaker 8: And we've talked about Lobster Boy in the program, among
Speaker 8: about twelve or fifteen other books, or at least twelve
Speaker 8: other books that you have, but one of the more
Speaker 8: fascinating obviously because of Lobster Boy with the actual lobster
Speaker 8: clause born to and in this book Gibsonton, Florida. Again
Speaker 8: at least you open in Gibsonton, Florida and you explain
Speaker 8: what that is and the relation to Lobster Boy, which
Speaker 8: is Grady third. You know. So tell us about the
Speaker 8: Lobster Boy connection and what you were doing in Gibson Gibsonton,
Speaker 8: Florida at that time.
Speaker 3: Well, here's what happened. I put all this together. It
Speaker 3: took about four years. Okay, in nineteen ninety four, I
Speaker 3: was in Florida in Gibsonton, which is the home of
Speaker 3: the Carneye off season, and that's where I was investigating
Speaker 3: the murder of Lobster Boy, who'd been a Carneye freak
Speaker 3: and was killed in a murder for horst scheme by
Speaker 3: his ex wife and her son. And I had gotten
Speaker 3: involved in the case and came up with the evidence,
Speaker 3: but led to the fiction of the killer, two of
Speaker 3: the killers. Anyway, the point is that four years later
Speaker 3: I was talking to a woman named Villa Bean who
Speaker 3: was a public information officer in the Saint Police Department,
Speaker 3: Hillsborough County. You know, maybe these four years, three years,
Speaker 3: I don't know what it was, but anyway, I was
Speaker 3: asking her, Hey, you got any other interesting cases. Next
Speaker 3: thing she knows, she's telling me about Sam Smithers and
Speaker 3: I went, I don't believe this. I just don't believe this.
Speaker 3: You know, a church deacon who's a serial killer. We
Speaker 3: didn't have that back in Brooklyn. Dan. It was just
Speaker 3: really weird, and I said, I really got to get
Speaker 3: into it. And as I did, what what I really
Speaker 3: got into? This is the first Yeah, this is the
Speaker 3: first time I was doing a book, A better serial killer.
Speaker 3: I got very Lucky, you know, the just lucky, the
Speaker 3: the serial killer, Sam Smithers, that was his name, the
Speaker 3: guy serial killer. His wife was willing to talk to
Speaker 3: me extensively. Oh boy, and that really, you know, it
Speaker 3: really gave me an understanding about how these people of
Speaker 3: their psyches are formed. This is not something that just happens,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, It's not out of the blow.
Speaker 3: And quite frankly, I don't believe it's just a question
Speaker 3: of of DNA. I think of the combination of things,
Speaker 3: but especially background.
Speaker 8: Sure, now with that incredible access, but you take us
Speaker 8: early in the book, the November two, nineteen nine three,
Speaker 8: and then they've found a woman with ligature marks around
Speaker 8: her neck beating about the hands. They concluded probably a
Speaker 8: strong man strangler with a belt, but they put the
Speaker 8: prints through the system, no match. Later on the news,
Speaker 8: Susan Cowell had called her niece Rosalind Cruz. So you
Speaker 8: talk about this, Larry LINGO, Yeah, you know, tell us
Speaker 8: what tell us a little bit about Rosalind Cruz and
Speaker 8: what they found out quickly about her background.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, the bottom line is this, I forgot you were
Speaker 3: pulling me in, but I forgot that what happened was
Speaker 3: four years after doing those interviews and Gifts, and I
Speaker 3: realized that on the day that I finished the interview
Speaker 3: with the family of Grady Styles Junior, who was lobster
Speaker 3: boy in Gifts, I was driving back on the main
Speaker 3: drag on which the body was found. Shortly after that
Speaker 3: starts the story, and that's and eventually it's identified as
Speaker 3: Rosalind Cruz, who was a someone who was working as
Speaker 3: as as a prostitute. And I actually drove by the
Speaker 3: body without realizing it was there. I mean it was night,
Speaker 3: you know, and you know, but I was able to
Speaker 3: pinpoint and on the basis of the time frame that
Speaker 3: the police established and what I knew, you know, when
Speaker 3: I when I had interviewed these individuals in in in
Speaker 3: giveson tent and so I knew the area, you know,
Speaker 3: I knew the area real well, and also I knew
Speaker 3: the police real well, and those things will help.
Speaker 8: It's interesting too you talk about initially with the investigation
Speaker 8: and a detective Lingo, very colorful, Larry Lingo two years old.
Speaker 8: You talk about that initially that there was different suspects
Speaker 8: with the cruise case, the pat and Linda Ryan, so
Speaker 8: as many cases do is we find out in these
Speaker 8: books that that's what happens, then the police have to
Speaker 8: follow those logical lines, those logical leads. So what does
Speaker 8: what does it? What does? How do they proceed with
Speaker 8: this case?
Speaker 3: Well, you you the in this particular case, and that
Speaker 3: Lingo was with the same police department that subsequently investigated
Speaker 3: the death of these two of of the two absolute
Speaker 3: known victims one and ten percent of Sam Smithers, and
Speaker 3: so he was able to eventually put it together even
Speaker 3: though the DNA wasn't one hundred percent. They had, you know,
Speaker 3: they had myochondrial DNA, but it was really enough to
Speaker 3: prove it was a match. So they already got him
Speaker 3: at three. And then there was one in the Florida Panhandle.
Speaker 3: As I recall that also they suspect that he had
Speaker 3: committed when he lived up there. You know, I don't
Speaker 3: think we'll ever know exactly how many people this particular
Speaker 3: this is one of those cases. I don't think we'll
Speaker 3: ever know exactly how many people this individual.
Speaker 6: Murdered.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, it's it's but it's all
Speaker 3: very very sad, and that's what gets to me more
Speaker 3: than anything. Damn the individuals that were murdered, you know,
Speaker 3: and you know, but it just bothers me. And then
Speaker 3: the wife and son. Oh my god, I've never ever
Speaker 3: had a situation where I talk to you know, it
Speaker 3: was a son of a serial killer.
Speaker 9: Excuse me.
Speaker 3: You know that doesn't usually happen in real life. Maybe
Speaker 3: on investigation discovery, you know, but you know, not for me.
Speaker 8: Let's before we go into his life and then and yeah,
Speaker 8: of course the incredible access and information you gained from
Speaker 8: talking to his wife Sharon and the son. Let's talk
Speaker 8: about how he got to be a deacon of a
Speaker 8: church and his background before that, living with his father
Speaker 8: Alvin and his mother Lenny. What was the Again, we
Speaker 8: don't get to see this in the book till much
Speaker 8: later when his brother testifies. Later, we will want to
Speaker 8: jump ahead. Tell us about his early life in this house.
Speaker 3: Well, he grew up in Chanttanoo suburb of Chattanooga, Tennessee,
Speaker 3: Sam Smithers, and he was a He grew up in
Speaker 3: a very uh in a church going family. And the
Speaker 3: thing is we can bottom line it, which is Sharon,
Speaker 3: his wife told me that he was physical He and
Speaker 3: his and his siblings were physically abused by his mother.
Speaker 3: So let's start with that. You know what I mean,
Speaker 3: we're not talking about he's going around the rats and
Speaker 3: things like that, you know, like you know you see
Speaker 3: with certain profiles serial killers. Now what's happening here is
Speaker 3: he's getting abused physically by the mother. It's also possible
Speaker 3: to may have been some sort of uh, you know,
Speaker 3: other abuse, but in any case, I mean, there's no
Speaker 3: evidence of that, but it's anything's possible. But the bottom
Speaker 3: line here is this. He went to church, he on
Speaker 3: a regular basis, and he was very active in the church.
Speaker 3: That's where he met his his eventual wife. But he
Speaker 3: also had so many problems from what was going on
Speaker 3: in his life that he eventually became I don't know,
Speaker 3: I guess you'd call it a firebug. Where he'd set
Speaker 3: fires that would he would he'd set the fire and
Speaker 3: then be the guy that put it out and therefore
Speaker 3: he was a big hero. That happens and they eat
Speaker 3: and while there was what he called some therapy involved
Speaker 3: after that, curd Is never left.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's very interesting. We just did a program with
Speaker 8: Frank Girardo and his book Burned, and it was almost
Speaker 8: the same thing. A volunteer fireman, person involved as a
Speaker 8: firefighter starting the fires, then getting that congratulations for being
Speaker 8: the genius to put out the fire. In this case,
Speaker 8: you say, he finally gets caught by this inspector Hayes
Speaker 8: after a woman's cars on fire. He bangs on the door,
Speaker 8: Oh my god, your car's on fire. So finally, even
Speaker 8: though you say he's probably got got aided by the
Speaker 8: community in terms of leniency, finally he's arrested for that.
Speaker 8: And of course not given much for this arson not
Speaker 8: taken too seriously.
Speaker 3: Bottom line is he he made oh man.
Speaker 6: Set fires at his church. People could have reary, rearly hurt.
Speaker 6: And it luck that it didn't work out that way,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, walk that were able to
Speaker 6: put all that out and and and uh, you know,
Speaker 6: and nobody was heard.
Speaker 8: There was also signs again you referenced the me Too
Speaker 8: movement in and so maybe we should talk about that.
Speaker 8: There was some events that would be disturbing today and
Speaker 8: but at that time we're treated a little bit differently.
Speaker 8: What are the kinds of things that some of the
Speaker 8: people that volunteered for community service at this first Baptist
Speaker 8: church reported to the authorities.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, what happened was he was he was the
Speaker 6: what do you call them, the Cnstodians, Yes, Sir Custodian
Speaker 6: at the First Baptist Church. And what happened was that
Speaker 6: that included working with women who was serving community service.
Speaker 6: And I mean it's like the last thing in the
Speaker 6: world to be thinking of, I mean, prior to the
Speaker 6: V TOO movement certainly. And what happens is women come
Speaker 6: forward and they say, okay, he he came on to me.
Speaker 6: A couple of times, they say, put hands on them
Speaker 6: physically a sexual way. And the church then has to,
Speaker 6: you know, to make a decision about what it's going
Speaker 6: to do out there. By the way, again, the guys
Speaker 6: a den. We're not talking about you know, where you're
Speaker 6: a reverend or anything, you know. But you know, but.
Speaker 3: It's funny, Dan, you know, whenever I do one of
Speaker 3: your you know, I'm lucky enough to be interviewed by you,
Speaker 3: I got to go back and read the whole book
Speaker 3: because if I don't do that, uh, I don't know
Speaker 3: what the hell I did.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, and so I was, you know, and
Speaker 6: and you know when I look at this thing, you know,
Speaker 6: oh man, what's what's that word? I don't know. I
Speaker 6: don't know if the word is enay blame.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: Here look but you know, yesterday I'm reading about less
Speaker 6: Moon deft.
Speaker 3: Okay, right, you know, let's.
Speaker 6: We okay, But here's a guy now, not saying it's
Speaker 6: the same situation, obviously, but here's the guy he's doing,
Speaker 6: who's coming on to women in exactly the way that
Speaker 6: some of these individuals have been who've been indicted the
Speaker 6: a serial killer. Now, I'm not saying that Harvey wat
Speaker 6: Stand is a serial killer or something. That's the point,
Speaker 6: the point we let this stuff slade for so long
Speaker 6: because women with second class citizens, at least, you know,
Speaker 6: for United States, I always have to believe that their
Speaker 6: candad is you know, further further along than ours.
Speaker 8: Stand, well, the citizens aren't. So the thing is is
Speaker 8: that you still have the same sort of mentality everywhere.
Speaker 8: I mean, it's it's a universal mentality that now has
Speaker 8: come in to light. It's been a radical shift with Weinstein,
Speaker 8: you know, and Cosby and so you know, you have
Speaker 8: the situation now, but back in this in this case,
Speaker 8: in this story, what it really indicates is that people
Speaker 8: were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt
Speaker 8: because he was a deacon, because he was a family
Speaker 8: man and that and that helped him, like you say,
Speaker 8: enabled him to be able to continue with If he
Speaker 8: started with arson and he could and he had the
Speaker 8: sexual harassment, then that emboldened him to believe he could
Speaker 8: get away with a lot of other crimes. And then
Speaker 8: that's why he was Even though it seems like he's
Speaker 8: a little bit organized, he was sloppy when it counted
Speaker 8: so luckily.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, is your s What
Speaker 6: gets to me is that no names, no nhing. But
Speaker 6: it seems to me that since we have a pattern,
Speaker 6: and again this is you know, it's not through crime
Speaker 6: per se, but it looks to me maybe it is
Speaker 6: that you've got a pattern of people enabling a guy.
Speaker 6: What happens at the end of the day, two individuals
Speaker 6: are murdered, and of course, you know, when those individuals
Speaker 6: happen to be prostitutes, their lives are not considered to
Speaker 6: be the same by a lot of people. Okay, but
Speaker 6: that's not the point. Lives or lives, you know.
Speaker 8: And well the first person, the first person that disregarded
Speaker 8: them is Sam Smithers. So the thing is and then
Speaker 8: then from there. From there, we don't care as much.
Speaker 8: But the first person was able to do that was this.
Speaker 8: You know, what's interesting in your book is that you
Speaker 8: go back and you talk to his wife, but you
Speaker 8: weave it into the story. This guy is and I
Speaker 8: mean lots of other women that have been married to
Speaker 8: serial killers associated with serial killers said he was really
Speaker 8: great in a relationship. Again, this one is even more
Speaker 8: detailed than that. He wasn't violent. When he got angry,
Speaker 8: he went for a walk, he went outside, He never
Speaker 8: he never spoken crude language. His sex was normal, even
Speaker 8: though he was frequenting prostitutes. He always made it home
Speaker 8: for supper. And he was a good father. And the exaggeration, that's.
Speaker 9: You're putting all this together from what I wrote.
Speaker 6: And I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, gee, why is
Speaker 6: it the world Canadian now that please hired as a
Speaker 6: spoken you know, you you put it all to scuriously.
Speaker 6: It's amazing, isn't it. I mean, it's you know, he see,
Speaker 6: I'm not as I'm not adversed. You do a lot
Speaker 6: of interviews. He talks to a lot of writers, certainly
Speaker 6: a lot more than me, So I'm not as versed
Speaker 6: as you are on you know some of this stuff.
Speaker 9: I have to say that this guy, the Ellen, his son. Yeah,
Speaker 9: I'm a baseball.
Speaker 6: Fan, and so when I found out the son was
Speaker 6: I just looked this up. I wrote a note to
Speaker 6: tell Dan this. I wrote a note. You're ready for this?
Speaker 6: His son drafted by the Boston Red Dogs, right, and
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety eight. Okay, And I'm looking through the
Speaker 6: list of names, you know, and he didn't go with
Speaker 6: him because he wanted to go to college and all
Speaker 6: that stuff. But I'm looking through the other names. Who
Speaker 6: else is drafted that year? Mark Tashera who wound up
Speaker 6: as the New York Yankees first place. And I'm going, okay,
Speaker 6: Fred doing a lot of any other instances in American
Speaker 6: criminal history where the son of a serial killer is
Speaker 6: drafted by a baseball team, let alone the Boston Red Sox.
Speaker 3: And we have to let our grid friend Hank Garfield
Speaker 3: know doubt that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know what I mean, but but you know
Speaker 6: it's it's But I guess.
Speaker 9: What got me is when I talk to Sharon, she
Speaker 9: humanized everything for me.
Speaker 6: That's why I was so lucky. This was not This
Speaker 6: is a book about a guy who was a serial killer,
Speaker 6: but he is a human Dan, that was is he
Speaker 6: even a day sitting on death row, but he's still
Speaker 6: a human Dan.
Speaker 8: We got to tell people too that Sharon has an
Speaker 8: even more unusual and extraordinary rule in this story, in
Speaker 8: this case because later when he is questioned, even in
Speaker 8: the arson, he demands that she is in the room.
Speaker 8: And when they did get the arson, which is foreboding
Speaker 8: of what happens later, his denials turned into a full
Speaker 8: blown confession with Sharon at his side. Isn't that true?
Speaker 3: Isn't that fascinating? I've never seen him by the way,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, the cops were very specific with
Speaker 3: me because again these are the Hillsborough County detectives who
Speaker 3: work loops the boy. For my money, it's one of
Speaker 3: the best police departments, maybe the best that I've ever
Speaker 3: worked with, detective fishers to the country. So they gave
Speaker 3: me full access to everything. It was, you know, unbelievable,
Speaker 3: and they explained to me that basically what was I
Speaker 3: think here was that Sharon, Oh, rather Sam. When they
Speaker 3: got Sam into custody, he wanted Sharon there, and as
Speaker 3: it turns out, when he was charged with arson, you know,
Speaker 3: fifteen twenty years earlier or whatever. It was, the same
Speaker 3: thing happened. He wanted Sharon there. And the other thing
Speaker 3: that was really cool about this case was that it
Speaker 3: was and I'll just say it, it was a female detective.
Speaker 3: That's not common. Okay, let me just say this. Okay,
Speaker 3: I realized that we you know, we all watch TV
Speaker 3: and all this stuff. But I got to tell you
Speaker 3: guys that it isn't very common to have a lead
Speaker 3: investigator in any case is a woman in my experience. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's changing, of course, but in this case, it was
Speaker 3: a woman named Dorothy Flair, who was so friggin good.
Speaker 3: And the other and the other detective on the case
Speaker 3: was Mike Wilette, who had sawtwaps the boy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and I'm you know, I'm laughing. You know. It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: small world, you know. I you know, it isn't very
Speaker 3: often you get to do more than one book in
Speaker 3: nonfiction where you're writing about the same cop, you.
Speaker 8: Know, yeah, absolutely well, and the same the thing is
Speaker 8: the same county too. And we should get to this
Speaker 8: story that really broke this whole thing. That really was
Speaker 8: again it's very very movie esque, And we talked about
Speaker 8: him being a caretaker at this at his church, this
Speaker 8: east Ridge Baptist Church. But the thing is it doesn't
Speaker 8: pay all of the bills, so he needs another type
Speaker 8: of job. And through his history he's been hustling, and
Speaker 8: you know, just the nature of the economy. He had
Speaker 8: jobs and they lost jobs and the economy change. But
Speaker 8: he was working for a woman named Beth Modene who
Speaker 8: had a property and he was a caretaker. So tell
Speaker 8: us about this story where he's a caretaker for her
Speaker 8: and he has all these duties. He has a garage
Speaker 8: or some tools. Let's just take it.
Speaker 3: Gets the number one on this question.
Speaker 8: Dan, Just get to just for for us, because we're
Speaker 8: skipping over some of it, but get to what she
Speaker 8: sees before what what later is realized because he sees
Speaker 8: something and then realizes something and he reacts.
Speaker 6: Here's what happens.
Speaker 3: Here's what happens. As we have discussed, prior to any
Speaker 3: known homicides, there is already he sort of a suspect
Speaker 3: kind of individual because of the way he's been acting
Speaker 3: toward women. But only certain people know about it, all right, Well,
Speaker 3: to make ends meet, it's got a job as a
Speaker 3: private caretaker for a property out in the country, and
Speaker 3: and I went out there to look at it while
Speaker 3: I was writing a book, because you know, you got
Speaker 3: it when you you know the read you know all
Speaker 3: the readers that are listening tonight, and listeners, you guys
Speaker 3: expect me to do this stuff. Of course I'm going
Speaker 3: to do it, you know. And so I go out
Speaker 3: and I take a look in this, that and the
Speaker 3: other thing, and then I put it together with with
Speaker 3: you know what's you know, what actually happens. Oh and
Speaker 3: I almost forgot it. As Dan used to be a
Speaker 3: TV series called Colombo. It is Columbus. You know, you'd
Speaker 3: always say I forgot one thing. Oh boy, the cops
Speaker 3: said in a report. See I got all the documentation.
Speaker 3: You know, this is a period of time where you know,
Speaker 3: you can still do it in Florida. It's one of
Speaker 3: the few places they'll give you everything. And they gave
Speaker 3: me the documentation about this place called Hillsboro Avenue. What
Speaker 3: why know, you know, I'm from Brooklyn. So when I
Speaker 3: was down there investigating, you know, it said that, well,
Speaker 3: there's all these prospits, and I wrote down that avenue
Speaker 3: and I went, oh my god, I've never seen ben
Speaker 3: in New York you know, reminded me of what forty
Speaker 3: second Street used to look like, you know, Okay, And
Speaker 3: it was quite interesting because it gave me a feeling
Speaker 3: for what I was writing about, which of course is
Speaker 3: the most important thing, you know, and and for the
Speaker 3: individuals I was writing about. Did I get too far
Speaker 3: off track?
Speaker 8: So we were talking about Beth modin Discovery, Sam smithers
Speaker 8: at her home, which was not unusual, but she does
Speaker 8: see some things that are very unusual, especially in retrospect.
Speaker 3: Right, let me talk about that. What happens is Sam,
Speaker 3: let's just talk about it from Beth's point of view.
Speaker 3: That's better. Yeah, Beth shows up because it's her property,
Speaker 3: you know, and she's you know, Sam happens to be there.
Speaker 3: He's not there were all the pine, but he's there.
Speaker 3: She goes into like this sort of like a barn
Speaker 3: kind of structure and she sees some.
Speaker 6: Blood on the walls.
Speaker 3: And then they're on the floor, and she figures that
Speaker 3: it's maybe an animal or something, but she doesn't like
Speaker 3: she's getting bad vibes. Oh, and there's one more thing,
Speaker 3: which is there's a trail. Oh man, you can't write
Speaker 3: this stuff, I mean, you can't make this stuff up. Rather,
Speaker 3: there's a trail of like potato chips of doritos, is
Speaker 3: something leading outside the blood. Well, she realized, you know,
Speaker 3: she looks at him and she goes at Sam Smithers,
Speaker 3: and she says, I better get to take out of here.
Speaker 3: And she does. She leaves. She goes down to the
Speaker 3: highway and then she from there she calls the police.
Speaker 3: So and eventually spinding, they go back to the place
Speaker 3: and they find some interesting things.
Speaker 8: There is a pond behind the home, behind this home,
Speaker 8: and they, as you say, it looks like drag marks,
Speaker 8: like a drag path. They call it to this pond. Yes,
Speaker 8: when the mcglory comes and they look at this pond,
Speaker 8: what are they what do they find?
Speaker 3: Well, then when the police respond to Modine's you know
Speaker 3: request trail. By the way, that's the first time I've
Speaker 3: ever heard that term. I don't know about you, but
Speaker 3: I'd never heard drag trail. Sounds like something from an
Speaker 3: old western, you know, with Jimmy Stewart. But anyway, you've
Speaker 3: watched me Stuart in the westerns Okay, anyway, try Winchester
Speaker 3: seventy three. But anyway, but here's what happens. Cop the
Speaker 3: cop follows the drag trail over, you know, with the chips.
Speaker 3: Oh man, oh man, to this pond. Pond guys, you know,
Speaker 3: it's like you know, it's it's a small pond. What's
Speaker 3: in it? They find a body. They find a body
Speaker 3: is newly dead. And then they continue to look in
Speaker 3: the pond and they bring in the dive team, which
Speaker 3: I got to kick out if that got me, that
Speaker 3: get me a couple of lines from the book, now, right,
Speaker 3: And so they bring in the dive team, and they
Speaker 3: find a body at the other end. And now they
Speaker 3: got to take a look at these two bodies. See
Speaker 3: what the heck is going on?
Speaker 8: Now? They look at that, they find two bodies. Obviously
Speaker 8: one's more decomposed. Of course, they go through prints for match.
Speaker 8: Why do they come about the go ahead?
Speaker 3: Go ahead, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, keep going to keep going.
Speaker 3: They go for they go for prints, keep going.
Speaker 8: So they eventually get an identification of what they're calling
Speaker 8: Jane do number two, the first person in the water.
Speaker 10: Yes, and what happened It's interesting this is this see
Speaker 10: I find out that stuff the This is actually the
Speaker 10: case where I started.
Speaker 3: Understanding, Oh boy, I'm gonna sound sound like I'm a scientist.
Speaker 3: I don't need to by body, how long it takes,
Speaker 3: the conditions, and so forth and so on, because these
Speaker 3: the the the the these people in Hillsborough County will
Speaker 3: talk to me about this, and it was fascinating. You know,
Speaker 3: some of this is going to be obvious to most people,
Speaker 3: I suppose, but you know I never think of that
Speaker 3: it Dan, I mean, I don't know if anybody does.
Speaker 3: But if you're in a warm human climate, a body
Speaker 3: is going to decompose faster than in a cooler climate.
Speaker 3: Number one. Number two, if the body is in water,
Speaker 3: warm water, well, thank god. In this particular case it
Speaker 3: was a pond. If he dumped the body in you know,
Speaker 3: the ocean or something, the sharks would have gotten it.
Speaker 3: You know, this was different. They were able to use forensics.
Speaker 3: And if this was late nineties.
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Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, it's let's talk about you.
Speaker 3: No, go ahead, No, I'm just you know, it's funny Dan.
Speaker 11: You know when we talk.
Speaker 3: By the way, I said to myself, I have to
Speaker 3: tell this to Dan. Uh, you know, it's it's a
Speaker 3: lot cheaper to talk to you than to my therapist.
Speaker 3: Would I ever tell you that? Go ahead?
Speaker 8: But still not great results? Maybe? Uh, Let's talk about
Speaker 8: Christy Cowen because this case demonstrates everything and also really
Speaker 8: demonstrates to the reader and our audience tonight the incredible
Speaker 8: access you have to be able to get this is
Speaker 8: beyond behind the scenes. This is when we talked about
Speaker 8: Beth Modem and at this property and at the pond,
Speaker 8: Christy Cowen is still alive in this pond with an
Speaker 8: axe wound chopping the head. He had tried to strangle her,
Speaker 8: and she was still making noise. He says. Later, as
Speaker 8: we find out from you, Fred, from your incredible research,
Speaker 8: that she's still moaning in the back, So he goes
Speaker 8: and he hits her with pieces of wood. Finally she's
Speaker 8: still moaning. He goes out and gets a hole, aids
Speaker 8: in the water and chops her till she's dead. This
Speaker 8: is the kind of information that the police eventually find
Speaker 8: out that this is Christy Cowen. Yeah, they find out
Speaker 8: the other identification of the other woman, and now they
Speaker 8: have Sam Smithers arrested, and how they proceed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as you're just as you're laying it out, Dan,
Speaker 3: it's very interesting because in a way you're almost laying
Speaker 3: it out like a prosecutor would. I'm not saying you're
Speaker 3: the prosecutor. I'm just saying. And what I find interesting
Speaker 3: about this is this is somebody You're sitting here and
Speaker 3: I'm shaking my head. You see, I felt the same way,
Speaker 3: and we'll talk about it eventually. I feel the same
Speaker 3: way about this guy and still do as the judge
Speaker 3: that sentenced him to death, which is there was a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff going on here. And look, there's no
Speaker 3: surprise to you to your listeners that you know I'm
Speaker 3: not a death penalty guy for a lot of different reasons. Okay,
Speaker 3: you know what, I prefer studying these guys under microscopes,
Speaker 3: so we could prevent future crimes. But in any case,
Speaker 3: you know what happens here, you know, when we talk about,
Speaker 3: oh boy, see these prostitutes. You know, I was trying
Speaker 3: to decide when I was when I should tell you this.
Speaker 3: Christy Cowen and Denise Roach jk new York, New York.
Speaker 3: She came originally from Jamaica, went to New York, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Callen was in Connecticut after I published the book. Originally
Speaker 3: I was contacted by Oh my god that this shocked me. Dan.
Speaker 3: You know, I was actually talking to somebody who had
Speaker 3: walked away, you know, had found a way in life.
Speaker 3: I don't have any words, you know, because she could
Speaker 3: have been evicted, but you know she turned it around,
Speaker 3: you know, and and that and what what that gave
Speaker 3: me an appreciation of, is how easy it is for
Speaker 3: people to fall from you know, wherever they are to
Speaker 3: someplace else, money, not getting a job, the illness, you
Speaker 3: name it, and then having to be so desperate. And
Speaker 3: I keep it and I've seen this in a number
Speaker 3: of instances.
Speaker 8: Yeah. You you include in the book that you talk
Speaker 8: about Hillsbury County and Hillsbury Hillsboro Avenue, and this is
Speaker 8: the strip. These women work on it, and they had friends,
Speaker 8: and so they were looking out after each other, and
Speaker 8: so when they weren't around for a while, they knew
Speaker 8: that something was up. But also they had rudimentary precautionary techniques,
Speaker 8: like they wouldn't go to a John's house per se
Speaker 8: because it would be less control. But in this case,
Speaker 8: in this case, it was unless there was plenty of crack,
Speaker 8: unless there was plenty of money.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's how this happened. Yes, he was able to
Speaker 3: use drugs to lure the women to go with him
Speaker 3: what he wanted to go to, so he could. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know it's you know not you know, we're dealing
Speaker 3: with somebody. When you start dealing with somebody like a
Speaker 3: Sam Smithers, all logic goes out the window. You're dealing
Speaker 3: with a killer and his You know, you could keep
Speaker 3: you know, you could say it, you know this happened,
Speaker 3: that happened in his life, blah blah blah. But you
Speaker 3: still don't know what's going on. The fact is he's
Speaker 3: a killer. You know, this is somebody that you know
Speaker 3: needs to be put away.
Speaker 8: You introduce a character that's again very colorful. There's Pop's
Speaker 8: baker A very yeah. And so he's a corporal and
Speaker 8: so he's he's in control of people like Dorothy Flair.
Speaker 8: And so when they finally put this together with Sam Smithers,
Speaker 8: they have to question him. Of course, they have the approach.
Speaker 8: Again we talked about Sharon's role, his wife's role in this. Yeah,
Speaker 8: what was that question? Like again, what was what did
Speaker 8: they what did they get from that? And we alluded
Speaker 8: to it already, but tell us what happens in this question?
Speaker 3: I like, I'm sitting here, I got a big smile
Speaker 3: on my faith because when you mentioned Pop's baker. What
Speaker 3: happened was when I first started working in Hillsborough County.
Speaker 3: This is the third book I wrote about Hellsborg County.
Speaker 3: It was another one.
Speaker 12: But what I'm getting at.
Speaker 3: Is that Pop's baker was that is ahead of everything.
Speaker 3: So I knew, this is the dude. You know, he
Speaker 3: he knew what he was doing, and he was signed
Speaker 3: so and so to do this, and he has signed
Speaker 3: so instead to do that, and so forth so on.
Speaker 3: So that that's number one. I knew that, you know,
Speaker 3: they knew what they were doing here. Now, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: what was your other question? I'm sorry, Uh, well, we talked.
Speaker 8: About you know, Pop spoke with with Sharon he wanted
Speaker 8: and she was. She was there right with him, right
Speaker 8: there at the at the police station. But she wasn't
Speaker 8: in an interrogation room. But Dorothy Flair as you right question. Sam.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's what happens. We go back to what happened
Speaker 3: back in chadd and Newgad, Tennessee, was when Sam and
Speaker 3: I sometime in the early eighties had tried to burn
Speaker 3: down his church and that call are and soboard, and
Speaker 3: he wouldn't talk to the cops unless they put Sharon in. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, fade out fit in. He says the same
Speaker 3: thing here. So what happens is, I've never seen this
Speaker 3: Flair brings in, Uh you know, if there's flaring will
Speaker 3: at too many cops, they're gonna split up ones canna
Speaker 3: interview uh Smith that Sam and the others can interview Sharon.
Speaker 3: And what happens is they you know, they bring them
Speaker 3: both in and they send them down and they start
Speaker 3: talking to them. And what happens is eventually they get
Speaker 3: Sam to talk with Sharon in the room and then
Speaker 3: Sam starts.
Speaker 8: Contest of course, like any psychopathic serial killer, he'd rather
Speaker 8: try to avoid total responsibility. And so in fact, there
Speaker 8: is ye is there. There's no denials, but there is
Speaker 8: a sanitization of why this happened as well, isn't there? Oh?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 3: See the thing is when you see sanitization, boy, that's
Speaker 3: a hell of a good word. You're dealing with a
Speaker 3: situation where this guy was it ha been with church taking.
Speaker 3: He was a pillar of his community. People don't want
Speaker 3: somebody like that, you know, who they supported to be
Speaker 3: reported as a serial killer for God's sake, you know.
Speaker 3: And again what's so interesting to me is that what's
Speaker 3: happening at the point, and you mentioned it earlier, now
Speaker 3: that he's brought in and they're questioning Smithers. Larry Lingo
Speaker 3: is the investigator on the on the earlier homicide with Cruz.
Speaker 3: He's sitting there and they and you know, they wind
Speaker 3: up using forensics, you know, to get Smithers DNA and
Speaker 3: they get what essentially is a mitochondrial DNA match, which
Speaker 3: simply means that they don't have them one hundred and
Speaker 3: ten percent, but they've got him over fifty percent, you know,
Speaker 3: without going into what you know, you know, I'll let
Speaker 3: your next for ends six scientists going to DPLs on this.
Speaker 3: But the point, the point is, uh, they tied them
Speaker 3: into that. So now you've got three, then you've got
Speaker 3: to suspected one and that. In other words, we've got
Speaker 3: three people dead that we can't tie into Sam Smithers. Three. Now,
Speaker 3: then we've got a four, which I don't deal with
Speaker 3: too much in the book because we don't have too
Speaker 3: much information in the Florida Panhandle. But even at three
Speaker 3: to say, isn't it Steven? You know what? You know, Dan,
Speaker 3: As I get older and I get more experience, these
Speaker 3: are people's mothers, sisters, brothers, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: We have to have a certain amount of compassion about
Speaker 3: what we're doing, and I think we do do have that.
Speaker 3: You know, I think we do have that. But you
Speaker 3: know this, but you know again, the good news here,
Speaker 3: good news here is that the the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department,
Speaker 3: they're fantastic And I what else to say. And you
Speaker 3: know they're not saying you of anybody you know. And
Speaker 3: by the way, they live right there, live they're only
Speaker 3: down the blocks from this place. That makes great Cuban cigars,
Speaker 3: so if they could buy me off in a heartbeat.
Speaker 3: But hey, there you go.
Speaker 8: Just what's interesting is in the book you detail this
Speaker 8: dogged effort by police, this Dorothy Flair. She even wrote
Speaker 8: the president of Trojan Condom Company wasn't the president, but
Speaker 8: somebody important that Trojan Condom company to get a match
Speaker 8: to put Sam at the murder scene for that number three.
Speaker 8: So this is over and beyond police work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, oh man, you know what you're
Speaker 3: giving me perspective seriously, because you talk to people you
Speaker 3: know more than I do, you know, all over the place.
Speaker 3: And yes, here's what happens. Dorothy Flair, who is the
Speaker 3: investigator in a case, becomes aware that there is a
Speaker 3: what he called a like like a rap thank you,
Speaker 3: a rapper from a condom at the at the crime
Speaker 3: scene where he was, you know, at this at this
Speaker 3: place out in the country that he was where he
Speaker 3: killed these two women. But he also made love sit
Speaker 3: them there. So they found this rapper and it turns out,
Speaker 3: old man, it was a good what a piece of
Speaker 3: detective work.
Speaker 12: Oh man.
Speaker 3: They went back and they talked to one of the victims,
Speaker 3: I think it was Denise's. I think it was Denise,
Speaker 3: but it's not even relevant. It's like it's one of
Speaker 3: the two victims friends who said she gave the victim
Speaker 3: ten bucks. The flair. The detective on the case finds
Speaker 3: this wrapper at the scene of the crime, checks it
Speaker 3: with the company and is able to trace it back
Speaker 3: and eventually find out that it was that it was given.
Speaker 3: It was the same condom given to the victim by
Speaker 3: her friend. And that is a piece of exculpatory incriminated
Speaker 3: evidenced against Sam Smithers that puts sh essentially into the
Speaker 3: death chamber, though he's of course still alive.
Speaker 8: You talk about that as well, that most times that
Speaker 8: have defended will not take the stand, even in a
Speaker 8: death penalty case. Of course, in this case, after denying
Speaker 8: that Sharon, the confession he gave with Sharon, he tried
Speaker 8: to say it was course, so of course we go
Speaker 8: through the obligatory attempts to nullify what has already been done,
Speaker 8: what has already been said, and then they try to
Speaker 8: do a diminished capacity defense, of course, everything that they
Speaker 8: can death penalty opponents, A couple of people are accused,
Speaker 8: so he has different legal aid attorneys, but really gets
Speaker 8: up on the stand, and what kind of story does
Speaker 8: he weave when he has the opportunity. What does he say?
Speaker 8: Sharon has been with him till another person gets in
Speaker 8: her life, but she had been loyal to him, well,
Speaker 8: regardless of what he thought was a course confession he
Speaker 8: gets on that stand. What's his version, Well, he has
Speaker 8: to say.
Speaker 3: Just too weird. He claims she's the victim of a conspiracy.
Speaker 3: Some mysterious individuals trying to convict.
Speaker 8: Him controlled them. He was threatened, he had to do
Speaker 8: the duty, but he also got paid. It was really interesting,
Speaker 8: he says. The guy forced me, threatened me to kill
Speaker 8: these be disposed of the people he killed, but then
Speaker 8: he gave me four hundred bucks from my effort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, no evidence to that. He's full of cracks.
Speaker 6: It hits.
Speaker 3: But it was good, Joe, it was good. Hey, I'm
Speaker 3: going to get a political comment in there. It's good,
Speaker 3: especially if you say you're gonna pay with cash. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but I don't probably I didn't get I'm
Speaker 3: okay on that one, right, Dan?
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, yeah, the oh.
Speaker 3: No, no, it's important Dan, you know. And and by
Speaker 3: the way, Dan, I have to tell you something since
Speaker 3: you're you you are, thank god, a Canadian citizen. The
Speaker 3: New York Mets lost twenty five to one or something
Speaker 3: last night, so the Washington Nationals used to be the
Speaker 3: expos Okay, Dan twenty five runs. Excuse me, let's move on.
Speaker 3: I know, off track.
Speaker 8: The well we talk about this death penalty. We have
Speaker 8: always always had opponents, obviously, and people trying to save
Speaker 8: this guy's life regardless of what. But there are mitigating
Speaker 8: circumstances and other things called aggravators and mitigators. There wasn't
Speaker 8: any mitigators in this was there There was attempts.
Speaker 3: But if you're you know what as it you know what,
Speaker 3: You're forcing me to be objective, which is important as
Speaker 3: a journalist. And at the same time it reminds me
Speaker 3: of the decision that Bill Twente, the judge in the case,
Speaker 3: when I interviewed, which is very rare.
Speaker 11: For me, and that is that, according to the law
Speaker 11: of the God, was guilty.
Speaker 3: There's nothing else to say. Okay, I'm not for the
Speaker 3: death penalty, as I've said, but i will tell you
Speaker 3: that here in Florida where I do live, but one
Speaker 3: of the things they do is with someone's in that situation.
Speaker 3: And I'm not kidding on this one. They'll give them
Speaker 3: over a million bucks to defend themselves, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. So this was not something with the mitigating circumstances.
Speaker 3: You know, you know how many people you know, how
Speaker 3: many people that are listening to our show tonight, to
Speaker 3: your show tonight, not our show, to your show tonight,
Speaker 3: across the world. How many of you have faced abuse
Speaker 3: as a child, but you grew beyond it. That's not
Speaker 3: an excuse. No, that is not an excuse to commit Sorry, guys,
Speaker 3: it's not an excuse.
Speaker 8: At the same time, there is there was an examination
Speaker 8: in here, and at least the defense lawyers tried to
Speaker 8: paint a portrait that the mother Lenny and the father.
Speaker 8: The father was an alcoholic and then the mother beat
Speaker 8: the kids. But it was mixed in with religiosity so
Speaker 8: that when he became a deacon. Again there's again I
Speaker 8: don't agree with any kind of blame. I agree with
Speaker 8: you that again, there's if you have to take responsibility,
Speaker 8: and that's it. I don't want to hear too much
Speaker 8: about how this would create it. But the thing is
Speaker 8: that this humiliation again, whether you know, lots of people
Speaker 8: have been humiliated. I've had humiliation. You've been humiliated. I'm
Speaker 8: sure at least what we thought was humiliation. But it
Speaker 8: seems that this is the reoccurring theme with these guys,
Speaker 8: that they're such a fragile ego that can can't get
Speaker 8: over that mother's domineering control. He would use as you're
Speaker 8: writing a book. She was still controlling in his marriage.
Speaker 8: When they want a bigger, beautiful home, she was still
Speaker 8: It's very weird. She would stay in the house and say, well,
Speaker 8: I don't know if I could feel comfortable. You've overpaid
Speaker 8: for this house. Obviously, I don't know. You might be
Speaker 8: the house might be taken away. I can't really feel comfortable.
Speaker 8: And he still conceded to his mother even through his marriage.
Speaker 3: Do you see what you're saying? You're you know, my god, Yes,
Speaker 3: this guy's making excuses. Sure, okay, and you know when
Speaker 3: you look at it, the city yourself. Wait a second,
Speaker 3: how many I'll say the end, how many people listening
Speaker 3: to us tonight have been through these situations? You guys
Speaker 3: are fine individuals, otherwise I'd be tracking you down. So
Speaker 3: the thing is, the thing is, we got it. You know,
Speaker 3: there's other aspects, and again, you know we you know
Speaker 3: my god. I mean, you know, we could talk about
Speaker 3: this forever about there's got to be some other ask
Speaker 3: It's not just a question of nature and not nurture. Rather,
Speaker 3: there's got to be some other aspects involved here. And
Speaker 3: I suspect, I've always suspected that when it comes to
Speaker 3: serial killers, you're talking about something genetic and eventually, you know, eventually,
Speaker 3: you know, whenever you know, these larship enterprise gets around
Speaker 3: to it, they'll figure out what happened.
Speaker 8: Well, you know, I think the thing is our treatment.
Speaker 8: Like we said that, people don't really care the police. Again,
Speaker 8: I hate the pay up on, but police historically will
Speaker 8: tell people, or have told people nermously numerous times. Listen,
Speaker 8: they've probably just gone away, You've got nothing to worry about,
Speaker 8: and they're probably well intended, but it's not good advice,
Speaker 8: and it ends up at least most people's experiences that
Speaker 8: they don't seem to be as concerned. And I can
Speaker 8: seem to understand because they don't have any leads. They're
Speaker 8: leading a dangerous lifestyle. And again there's no leads, so
Speaker 8: there can be less, less effort or more effort has
Speaker 8: to be put into something that people will agree that
Speaker 8: there's less effort in finding these people, in caring about
Speaker 8: people that seemingly, according to the police that work with
Speaker 8: these people all the time, they're not helping themselves, they're hurting,
Speaker 8: they're putting themselves in danger. But also that the idea
Speaker 8: that we know that over and over again these serial
Speaker 8: killers target these people, and yet as a society, once
Speaker 8: a person falls through that cracks of addiction, then is
Speaker 8: selling themselves on the street. Then the serial killer takes
Speaker 8: out all his frustrations in his life. But the thing
Speaker 8: is that these prostitutes and prostitution, you open up a
Speaker 8: phone book, even in innocent fantastic Canada, it's just like
Speaker 8: a pizza that is accepted. So the street prostitute that's
Speaker 8: fifteen year olds and sixteen years old again is tolerated somehow.
Speaker 8: It's illegal, it's immoral, it's important, it could be our daughters,
Speaker 8: it could be anyone involved with us, but it's not
Speaker 8: a priority. And the serial killer, over and over and
Speaker 8: over again goes there to vent and then in the courts,
Speaker 8: of course we can put them to death, but these
Speaker 8: problems still exist, and we can raise awareness, but I
Speaker 8: don't know how much more aware of this we can
Speaker 8: get your book. Everyone's book tells about this, so you know,
Speaker 8: we are again.
Speaker 3: No, you know what I love about what you're saying.
Speaker 3: You're really getting into morals and ethics. And I totally
Speaker 3: agree with you, obviously, I mean, we are. You want
Speaker 3: to know something, I'll just say it. I don't know
Speaker 3: how it is in other place, you know, I'm you know,
Speaker 3: I try to keep up with what's going on. What
Speaker 3: I find is hard is that, yeah, we're talking about murder,
Speaker 3: we're talking about serial killers. We're the good guys. In
Speaker 3: other words, there was a period of time when when
Speaker 3: there were there were role models to be heroes, good guys,
Speaker 3: and that doesn't exist anymore. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: All I can say is you know the when I
Speaker 3: you know, I when I was reading again what I
Speaker 3: wrote about Sam Smithers, and I was reading it today,
Speaker 3: and it's been a long time, you know since I
Speaker 3: read it. Dan, I was reading this and I was going,
Speaker 3: why the hell did somebody stop this guy earlier? You know?
Speaker 3: That's what got me.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, I think the only thing you can do.
Speaker 8: And I was speaking to somebody just recently talking about
Speaker 8: sex trafficking, and I said, the courts have a responsibility
Speaker 8: and recognizing the kinds of personalities by their proven behavior
Speaker 8: that exhibits and and distance selves or separates from less
Speaker 8: serious Again, I hate to use that less serious criminals.
Speaker 8: There are some criminals, you know, that are obvious to everyone,
Speaker 8: it seems, except that that conviction record that this person
Speaker 8: is a dangerous person. And this is the kind of
Speaker 8: person we need to recognize as having this kind of behavior.
Speaker 8: Because we see stalking, and we see breaking enter, and
Speaker 8: we see some of these things turned to murder. So
Speaker 8: of course you can't prosecute people for a break and
Speaker 8: enter where no one is hurt. But when there is
Speaker 8: a recognized violent act. I think, if you look at
Speaker 8: all these true crime cases, if that were the case,
Speaker 8: then it would have been intervention before more bodies. Let's
Speaker 8: put it that way.
Speaker 6: You know, I.
Speaker 3: Couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I keep seeing
Speaker 3: this in various cases. I've written it down, and I go,
Speaker 3: what is somebody intervene over here? What is somebody intervene
Speaker 3: over there? You know? And I'm especially talking about serial killers,
Speaker 3: you know, And so you know, look, it is what
Speaker 3: it is. But when I wrote, when I wrote the
Speaker 3: Deacon of death. I guess the thing that got me
Speaker 3: the most was that, and I mentioned it earlier, enabling
Speaker 3: this guy from a very young age. That's what's interesting,
Speaker 3: you know, when you actually get access to background information
Speaker 3: on a serial killer and you can sort of report
Speaker 3: that sort of, but you report to the reader, but
Speaker 3: what the person's about, And that's what I did here.
Speaker 8: What kind of information you know, because people really don't
Speaker 8: see the kind of information that you've gathered because it's
Speaker 8: just interwoven into the into then air of what exactly
Speaker 8: did you get from Sharon? I mean again, is very
Speaker 8: unique for you to talk to a wife of a
Speaker 8: serial killer, and especially this kind of wife that was
Speaker 8: supportive yet couldn't believe, especially for a long time, that
Speaker 8: her husband could ever do any of this. So she
Speaker 8: was a very naive woman from a particular sort of
Speaker 8: background as well. What kind of stuff? Tell us more,
Speaker 8: even just tell us more about the actual meeting with
Speaker 8: her and what she actually gave you.
Speaker 3: There was no physical meeting. What happened was I was
Speaker 3: able to track her down through records. I called her,
Speaker 3: I told her what I was doing, and we just
Speaker 3: started talking for quite some time, which is the way
Speaker 3: any journalist would do it. I'm thinking of Ronan Pharaoh,
Speaker 3: but my father is not Woody al or you know.
Speaker 3: But anyway, but I just called her and we started
Speaker 3: chatting and we formed a relationship, and I just told
Speaker 3: her I was just trying to you know. I told
Speaker 3: her what I learned from Carl Bernstein maybe a lecture
Speaker 3: once that I was at Bernstein said that the idea
Speaker 3: journalism is the best obtainable version of the truth. That's
Speaker 3: what I told her. I was trying to find the
Speaker 3: best detainable version of the truth. So she helped me
Speaker 3: in telling me what her life was like with her
Speaker 3: husband and so forth. And it was a very unusual situation, certainly,
Speaker 3: you know, it was the first time I ever had
Speaker 3: that kind of a situation. And she was forthcoming, very forthcoming,
Speaker 3: and you know, impressed me as just a really nice
Speaker 3: human being.
Speaker 8: It's interesting, you right, that they met when she was
Speaker 8: twelve and he was fourteen, and I guess school or
Speaker 8: religious settings, yes, And they never were apart until he
Speaker 8: was questioned and one of the detectives said, listen, we
Speaker 8: think that you should call somebody, not stay with him tonight. Then,
Speaker 8: so she was convinced and then he kept saying, after
Speaker 8: for an incredible amount of time, you left me. He
Speaker 8: was incredulous that she had actually left him, because they
Speaker 8: hadn't been a part for years and years.
Speaker 3: And years, grade point, grade point. What happened was they
Speaker 3: met at such a young age. They were together sort
Speaker 3: of like the I'll think of the country western singer
Speaker 3: in a second, but it was they were together every
Speaker 3: day of their lives from the age of the ba
Speaker 3: twenty or so. Okay, when they got married. I think
Speaker 3: she was seventeen, he was twenty, and that was it,
Speaker 3: you know, and they they were always together. They had
Speaker 3: this relationship where every day they were together, they were
Speaker 3: never apart. That is, neither one of them ever traveled
Speaker 3: per se. She also was a very obviously trusting individual
Speaker 3: and trusted that he was doing anything unusual, event you know,
Speaker 3: late at night, and of course that wasn't the case.
Speaker 3: He was leaving late at night and going out making
Speaker 3: it the workers and did it in the early morning
Speaker 3: hours and so forth and so on.
Speaker 8: What's interesting too, is that he had this secret life
Speaker 8: and then she had no idea of this. He was
Speaker 8: successful in keeping that, but he did have a quite
Speaker 8: a bit of a different character, even scared off that.
Speaker 8: It's noted that even scared off a couple of people
Speaker 8: with some of his demands. So he couldn't really reach
Speaker 8: out to regular women for an affair. He had to
Speaker 8: go to these streets to these people that were desperate
Speaker 8: for some of the things that he wanted, wanted to
Speaker 8: do sexually. Correct, you know, that is a.
Speaker 3: Really excellent observation. That's absolutely true. He he he wanted
Speaker 3: saying is sexually that you know, I don't We don't have,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of details, but he certainly was
Speaker 3: into a certain amount of physical stuff. And the guy had,
Speaker 3: you know, he had a screw loose, and and now
Speaker 3: we could try to analyze it from now into doomsday
Speaker 3: regarding the mother, but it's a waste of time. It's
Speaker 3: really a waste of time because what it all comes
Speaker 3: down to is he was an abusive individual who would
Speaker 3: eventually commit at least two murders that we know of,
Speaker 3: possibly three.
Speaker 8: There was an inmate that was involved, and like many
Speaker 8: of these cases, there's always somebody it seems ready to
Speaker 8: come forward. I thought that, oh, maybe it's going to
Speaker 8: be talk of other murders, but it wasn't. But what
Speaker 8: was that talk that sort of seemed to conflict with
Speaker 8: what Sharon thought and some other people thought about the
Speaker 8: former deacon, just.
Speaker 3: That he'd done it. He said that he'd done it,
Speaker 3: and he was you know when he went into some
Speaker 3: detail whatever it might be, but he was just saying
Speaker 3: that he'd done it. And that's where it is, you know,
Speaker 3: where he was dating from, you know, his story to
Speaker 3: the police later where he said it was some strange individual.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Look, you know, I think it's interesting too when
Speaker 8: the psychopathic nature of these guys is evident. When they
Speaker 8: make that decision to take the stand. Somebody says, well,
Speaker 8: that's a last ditch effort and they might as well
Speaker 8: try to defend themselves, but they really it is an
Speaker 8: ultimate I think in the narcissism that the psychopath has
Speaker 8: that he thinks, well, I think I might be able
Speaker 8: to do this. I'll get that director examination, I'll get
Speaker 8: that story out there, and then I'll go to toe
Speaker 8: to toe with these people.
Speaker 3: Oh. I agree with that, absolutely. There, there is the narcissism.
Speaker 3: You're talking about. This classic absolutely class.
Speaker 8: If you talk about Sharon as well, that the spell
Speaker 8: that he weaved on her. She even visited him in
Speaker 8: prison every day for many years. But there was a
Speaker 8: person named Rex.
Speaker 3: Boy.
Speaker 8: I don't know if you talked to her on the
Speaker 8: phone about this, but she was able to break away
Speaker 8: from this life of being dependent upon Sam Smithers, wasn't she.
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 11: She had.
Speaker 3: She found a boyfriend and eventually after he was in
Speaker 3: prison for a while, and she wound up forcing him
Speaker 3: and marrying this other fellow.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and that's what happened, you know.
Speaker 3: She was able to find a way to.
Speaker 6: Move on.
Speaker 3: But obviously it must have been terrible difficult.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and she knew at some point too that she
Speaker 8: needed to shield her son from this as well. When
Speaker 8: she did realize well, despite thinking she knew him, she
Speaker 8: needed to protect her son.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the problem was our son was approaching adulthood.
Speaker 8: Mhmm.
Speaker 3: In fact, one of the things I was I was
Speaker 3: able to research was that their son. And I'm not
Speaker 3: going to give his name. I'd rather he keep his anonymity.
Speaker 3: He is now a physical therapist in Boston, So while
Speaker 3: he never played for the Fox, he's up there doing
Speaker 3: physical therapy, which is cool.
Speaker 8: He was convicted for denise Roach and he was Christy
Speaker 8: Cowen and and Cruse.
Speaker 3: Not cruise.
Speaker 8: No, not cruise. So only he was he was convicted
Speaker 8: for for cowen and roach. Yes, was there. They just
Speaker 8: did not were not able to make have enough evidence
Speaker 8: to get any more convictions. I know that you write
Speaker 8: in the book that there was other police from other
Speaker 8: jurisdictions looking into that h Was there any leads from that?
Speaker 8: Was there any results from that at all?
Speaker 3: No, there weren't. If they'd got him, they would have
Speaker 3: done it. But no, they didn't get it. They couldn't
Speaker 3: nail him on anything else. The cruise situation was such that,
Speaker 3: as as I mentioned, it was not DNA matchable, but
Speaker 3: it looked like you know, they did it with the
Speaker 3: monochandrial DNA, which is about a fifty percent match, which
Speaker 3: essentially says it's frombody, it's from someone in a particular family.
Speaker 8: Duh.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but it's not enough for a conviction, right, Well,
Speaker 3: for that matter of execution, what was.
Speaker 8: The you alluded to the conviction was the death penalty?
Speaker 8: And just tell us about the state itself. Why he
Speaker 8: doesn't have a quick order to be put to death
Speaker 8: or didn't have a quick order.
Speaker 3: Well, there is no such thing as a quick order
Speaker 3: in Florida. Basically, you know, the way it works in
Speaker 3: Florida is the at the time this occurred, the jury
Speaker 3: votes on whether or not to convict the individual, and
Speaker 3: then the jury votes whether the individual gets death. However,
Speaker 3: what has changed here since this so that, in other words,
Speaker 3: all the individuals who are condemned to death on the
Speaker 3: basis of just you know, the jury saying it, it
Speaker 3: doesn't work. They're going back to having a jury look
Speaker 3: at it. The point is right now, SAMs others.
Speaker 9: Yeah, he's on.
Speaker 3: Death broke, but he's not gonna be executed for a lot. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's not gonna happen for a while. And yeah, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of guys and the further ahead.
Speaker 8: Have you heard of any movement or anything, any any events, anything,
Speaker 8: any stories emanating from the cell of Sam Smithers, as
Speaker 8: he've made any statements, any anything publicly that he's done,
Speaker 8: any word from them.
Speaker 3: Nothing, nothing, quiet, very quiet.
Speaker 8: Yeah, interesting, very quiet. And you said that this was
Speaker 8: the Hillsbury County was It's been a source of stories
Speaker 8: for you three times now for three books. Very interesting.
Speaker 12: Yeah, they lost the Boy and then of Death and
Speaker 12: then this book, which is.
Speaker 11: The can Death.
Speaker 3: And I've also written.
Speaker 6: You know better.
Speaker 3: I wrote a book called uh Well, I read a
Speaker 3: book about a murder case up at Tallahassee, Flora, which
Speaker 3: is trail of Trails of death. But this is different
Speaker 3: because this particular police department is extremely open. Now the
Speaker 3: state of the state itself is because we have an
Speaker 3: open records well, but these individuals I find to be
Speaker 3: the best out.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's it. All the the accumulative things that have
Speaker 8: happened in this case, the incredible access you had, and
Speaker 8: like you say, the open records policy of Florida has
Speaker 8: created this book. It's just incredible graphic detail. And then
Speaker 8: we get the incredible background of Sam growing up and
Speaker 8: his odd family, including his mother Lenny, and just the
Speaker 8: again the sad and disheartening life of these prostitutes on
Speaker 8: the strip. Here you even include, I mean, the sexual
Speaker 8: activities that these people offer, the meager prices, and just
Speaker 8: the heartbreaking thing of the protection that the Christy Cowan
Speaker 8: had to say that she was not going to go
Speaker 8: to these John's apartments, and then quickly soon as he
Speaker 8: offered a little bit of money, and and then there
Speaker 8: they're you know, their fate was sealed. So I want
Speaker 8: to congratulate you on I know it's a book that's
Speaker 8: in the past, but again a true crime classic, Deacon
Speaker 8: of Death. I want to thank you, Fred for coming
Speaker 8: on and sharing the story with us. For those they
Speaker 8: might want to talk to you, I mean they you're
Speaker 8: out there and you're out on message boards and you're
Speaker 8: out there on discussion boards. But for those that just
Speaker 8: heard you for the first time, tell us about your say,
Speaker 8: website and Facebook pages.
Speaker 6: Fred.
Speaker 3: I my Facebook page is you know, Fred Rosen whatever
Speaker 3: they call it at Facebook, and I'm just I'm just
Speaker 3: putting up my site, which is Fred Rosen dot com.
Speaker 8: So there we go.
Speaker 3: Look forward, I look forward to talking to people and
Speaker 3: I can't thank you enough for giving me the opportunity
Speaker 3: to talk to your one million listeners across the world.
Speaker 8: Well, thank you very much, Fred, And it's always nice
Speaker 8: because we always, as you know on Facebook, there's been
Speaker 8: always talk of how people love our interviews, the banter
Speaker 8: between us and just talking about your fantastic through crime books.
Speaker 8: So thank you very much. Fred. You have a great
Speaker 8: evening and I know I will be talking to you
Speaker 8: again real soon.
Speaker 3: Okay, you take care and now audios, how do you
Speaker 8: Hold Fred good night, bye,