Forensic Files (1996–…): Season 7, Episode 42 - Last Will - full transcript

[music playing]

NARRATOR: He allowed his
victim to write a last will

and testament to her family.

Then taunted them with
chilling phone calls.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE): Did
you receive the letter today.

HILDA SMITH (ON PHONE): Yes.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON
PHONE): OK, so you know now

that this is not a hoax call.

NARRATOR: A trace phone line
couldn't trap the abductor.

But scientists would find a
clue in the victim's last words.

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[music playing]

NARRATOR: 17-year-old
Shari Smith

had her whole life before her.

In two days, she
would have the honor

of singing the National
Anthem at her graduation

from the Lexington high school.

Then she would sail off on a
cruise with her classmates.

She was kind of the cement
that held our family together.

She was always the happy one.

NARRATOR: At 3:38
PM, on May 31, 1985,

Shari arrived home from
a graduation pool party.

She stopped at the mailbox
some 700 feet from her house.

Her father was watching from his
home office as she pulled in.

5 or 10 minutes had passed.



And all of sudden, I
was aware that Shari

had not come to the house yet.

So something just told me
that something was wrong.

And I ran through the
house and into the garage

and got in my car and cranked
it up and drove to the mailbox.

NARRATOR: Bob Smith found
the door of his daughter's

automobile open, the motor
running, and Shari's purse

on the seat.

I saw barefooted footprints
going to the mailbox

but none coming back.

And he said, honey, I don't
know how to tell you this.

But Shari's car is at the
end of the driveway, running,

and she's not in it.

And I can remember now, I
said, oh, my god, not my Shari.

NARRATOR: Panic-stricken, the
couple called the Lexington

County Sheriff's Office.

Near the mailbox,
on the ground,

was some mail, which indicated
to us that she had gotten out

of the car to pick up
the mail and was probably

abducted at that point.

If you find or spot
anything out of the ordinary.

NARRATOR: Lexington
County Sheriff Jim Metts

immediately organized
the largest manhunt

in South Carolina history.

We really didn't know whether
Shari knew her abductor or not.

We certainly had no reason to
expect that she had run away

or that she had left on her own.

Whoever it is that has
our daughter, Shari,

we want her back.

We miss her.

We love her.

And please, send her back
home where she belongs.

NARRATOR: All her parents
could do was wait.

The Smith family was
very influential family

in the community.

And there was no reason
that we could determine

why she would be kidnapped other
than maybe for ransom purposes.

So we anticipated that
the individual/individuals

responsible would make
contact with the family.

NARRATOR: The Sheriff's
suspicions proved right.

Two days after Shari
had been abducted,

the Smiths received
a phone call.

A man with the strangely
distorted voice

demanded to speak to Mrs. Smith.

To prove the call
was not a hoax,

he described the
black and yellow

bathing suit Shari was wearing
beneath her shorts and shirt.

He said he would release her.

He said that she was fine.

They were watching TV.

She was eating a little bit.

But he was giving
her lots of water.

And she was doing great.

NARRATOR: He made
no ransom demand.

But he told the Smiths that
they would be receiving

a letter in the morning.

My reaction was, an individual
who's got some sophistication

in the crime he was committing.

This was not the first
time that he has engaged

in a sex crime of some sort.

Probably has been thinking
about committing a crime

like this for quite some time.

NARRATOR: Agent Walker agreed
that the best hope of finding

Shari could come from the
letter her abductor promised

was coming.

SHERIFF JAMES R. METTS: We woke
up the postmaster in Lexington

on the weekend, went
over to the post office

and started looking
through the mail.

And everybody put
on plastic gloves,

and we all sorted
through the mail

till we found the letter
addressed to the Smiths.

NARRATOR: Inside was a letter
in Shari's handwriting.

At the top of the first
page was the heading,

"Last Will and Testament."

Shari Smith's abductor
had allowed the teenager

to write a two-page letter to
her family in which she told

them how much she loved them.

I had a very helpless
feeling come over me.

But I was not without hope.

I held out my hope to the end.

But I was totally helpless.

The word, "Last
Will and Testament,"

just knocked me back.

And I was totally helpless.

I did not know what
to do or what to say.

And then the tough
part was I had

to show the letter to my wife.

NARRATOR: "Please don't ever
let this ruin your lives,"

Shari's letter read.

"Just keep on living one
day at a time for Jesus.

Some good will come out of this.

My thoughts will always
be with and in you."

In parentheses were the
words, "casket closed."

Sheriff Metts immediately
sent the letter

to the South Carolina
Law Enforcement crime lab

hoping forensic
document examiner Mickey

Dawson could find some clues.

I was looking for
handprinting or handwriting.

I was looking to see if I
could find any trace evidence

to send to hairs and fibers.

NARRATOR: After
the letter arrived,

the abductor called
the Smith family again.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE): Have
you received the mail today?

HILDA SMITH (ON
PHONE): Yes, I have.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE):
Do you believe me now?

HILDA SMITH (ON
PHONE): Well, I'm

not really sure I believe
you, because I haven't

had any word from Shari.

And I need to know
that Shari is well.

LARRY GENE BELL
(ON PHONE): You'll

know in two or three days.

HILDA SMITH (ON PHONE):
Why two or three days?

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE):
Call the search off.

NARRATOR: Later that same
evening, he called once more

saying that Shari
was alive and implied

he would release her soon.

LARRY GENE BELL
(ON PHONE): I want

to tell you one more thing.

Shari is now a part of
me physically, mentally,

emotionally, spiritually.

Our souls are one now.

NARRATOR: The call was
traced to a public payphone

at a drugstore in
downtown Lexington.

But in 1985, trap
and trace required

15 minutes for authorities
to trace the call

and reach its location.

The abductor remained on the
phone for a very short time.

Five days after
Shari's abduction,

the kidnapper called
again and spoke

to both Shari's mother and
her 21-year-old sister, Dawn.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE):
OK, 4:58 AM-- no, I'm sorry.

Hold on a minute.

3:10 AM, Saturday,
the 1st of June,

she had wrote what you received.

4:58 AM, Saturday,
the 1st of June--

DAWN ELIZABETH SMITH (ON PHONE):
OK, Saturday, the 1st of June,

4:58 AM.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON
PHONE): Became one soul.

DAWN ELIZABETH SMITH (ON
PHONE): Become one soul.

HILDA SMITH (ON PHONE):
What does that mean?

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE):
No questions now, please.

To Sheriff Metts, search
no more. [inaudible].

HILDA SMITH (ON PHONE): Do
not kill my daughter, please.

I mean, please.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE):
She loves and misses y'all.

Get good rest tonight.

Goodbye.

DAWN ELIZABETH SMITH (ON
PHONE): Wait a minute.

He's gone mom.

NARRATOR: The next day,
he made another call.

HILDA SMITH (ON PHONE): Hello?

LARRY GENE BELL (ON
PHONE): Listen carefully.

Take highway 378 west
to traffic circle.

Take Prosperity exit.

Go one and a half miles.

Turn right at sign,
Moose Lodge number 103.

Go one-quarter mile.

Turn left at
white-framed building.

Go to the back yard.

Six feet beyond, we're waiting.

God chose us.

And I begged the
police officers.

I said, let me go with you.

Let me go.

I want to go with
you to find Shari.

NARRATOR: But investigators
insisted on going alone.

Shari's body was
found in the backyard.

On the body were the
yellow top and white shorts

she'd last been seen in.

The autopsy revealed Shari had
been dead for several days.

Investigators believe that
Shari's abductor inadvertently

revealed when he
killed her when he

corrected himself about the
time she wrote the letter.

They believe Shari died at
4:58 on the morning of June 1,

two hours after she
wrote the letter.

If that were the case, Shari
remained alive for only

12 hours after her abduction.

One line I'll never forget
when she says, casket closed.

Can you imagine what was
going through her mind

knowing what she
was going to face?

She knew, at that
point, that her body

would be in a condition that
the casket had to be closed.

NARRATOR: Agent Walker believes
the killer tried to buy time

while the body was
outside, diminishing

the chances to recover
crucial forensic evidence.

The medical examiner found
residue duct tape on her face,

suggesting that the cause
of death was suffocation.

Her hair was
substantially shorter.

He had to cut the duct
tape out of her hair

to keep from leaving it behind.

And that told me that he had
some experience, at least,

or some level of
criminal sophistication.

NARRATOR: Based on
knowledge gained

from past offenders
of similar crimes,

the FBI had this hypothesis.

The profile that we developed
of him described a white male,

prior married, unsuccessfully
married, probably not currently

married, mid to late
20s to maybe even as old

as early 30s, who had a
history of sex crimes.

NARRATOR: The signal analysis
unit of the FBI engineering

section told investigators
that the voice distortion

of the abductor's
voice was accomplished

by something called a
variable speed control device.

We believed, either
through employment

or through his
technical education,

he had some sort of background
or experience in electronics.

NARRATOR: Investigators believed
the killer had everything

planned out and was reading
from a script, clearly evident

when he corrected himself about
the time of Shari's letter.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE):
4:58 AM-- no, I'm sorry.

Hold on a minute.

NARRATOR: As a final
assault to the family,

the killer called them on
the night of Shari's funeral.

It was a collect call.

He wanted to tell us just
how he had murdered Shari.

And he said, well,
can you take it?

Who could take it?

But we didn't have a choice.

We had to try to keep him on the
line to find out where he was.

NARRATOR: A few weeks later,
the killer called again.

This time, he no longer
wanted to talk about Shari.

And that's her little sting
of Goldilocks, right there.

NARRATOR: After the funeral
of 17-year-old Shari Smith,

her killer continued to
taunt the family by phone.

But he no longer had
any interest in Shari.

DAWN ELIZABETH SMITH
(ON PHONE): Uh, no.

DAWN ELIZABETH SMITH (ON
PHONE): Uh, Richland County?

LARRY GENE BELL
(ON PHONE): Yeah.

DAWN ELIZABETH SMITH
(ON PHONE): Uh huh.

NARRATOR: Two weeks after Shari
Smith was kidnapped, Debra May

Helmick was abducted in
front of her parents' trailer

in Richland County, 24
miles from the Smith's home.

Her father was inside,
just 20 feet away.

A neighbor saw someone
pull up in a car,

get out, and grab Debra
before speeding off.

Like Shari, Debra was a
pretty, blue-eyed blonde.

Unlike Shari, Debra
was only a child.

I felt like we were dealing
with the same individual.

NARRATOR: Investigators
now knew they

were hunting a serial killer.

Based on vast criminal
research, authorities

believed that the killer would
be displaying more compulsive

behavior, losing weight,
drinking heavily,

not shaving regularly,
and would be

eager to talk about the murder.

At the South Carolina
Law Enforcement Division,

scientists were still
going over there

only piece of hard
evidence, Shari's

last will and testament.

It had been written on lined
paper from a legal pad.

Forensic document
examiner Mickey Dawson

believed latent
images or indentations

from a previous page
of the pad might

be revealed with the use of
an electrostatic detection

apparatus.

When I received a letter, I
took it into the laboratory

and opened it up
on a sterile paper.

And with gloves, took the pages
apart, looked at each page,

did the initial
examination, the intake.

And then each sheet
would individually

go into a humidified box.

NARRATOR: Increasing the
humidity of the paper

would yield a better result
from the conductivity

of electrical charges.

The document was then placed
on top of the brass plate

and the magnetic
field activated.

The paper was then
brushed with a substance

similar to the
fingerprint powder.

Through the combination of all
of this, latent images form.

Dawson's first try yielded what
appeared to be a grocery list.

There were some bills to pay.

And there was a list
of names and telephone

numbers left someone to call
in case of an emergency.

NARRATOR: Dawson was able to
make out what appeared to be

a partial telephone number.

The first set of numbers, 205,
was the area code for Alabama.

The next three, 837, was
the exchange for Huntsville.

But they only had three
of the last four numbers

to finish the sequence.

They just plugged the
nine digits for the seventh

and found a telephone number
that was a good number.

We finally called this
guy in Alabama and said,

do you have any relatives
in South Carolina?

He said, yes, there's
my mother and father.

NARRATOR: The man's father
was 50-year-old Ellis

Sheppard, who
lived just 15 miles

away from Shari Smith's home.

Telephone records indicated that
some of the calls to the Smith

family, after Shari's abduction,
were made from Shepherd's home.

Not surprisingly,
police wanted to hear

what Mr. Sheppard had to say.

50-year-old Ellis Sheppard
was an electrician.

And telephone records
show that some

of the calls to the Smith's
home, after her abduction,

were made from his phone.

I wasn't worried, but it
was a little bit of a shock

that they wanted to talk to me.

NARRATOR: Shepard had
no idea why his son's

telephone number was
found on Shari Smith's

last will and testament.

Sheppard said he and his
wife were on vacation

at the time of Shari
Smith's abduction,

an alibi which checked out.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE):
At the accessible road--

NARRATOR: Then police
played a recording

of the killer's voice.

LARRY GENE BELL (ON PHONE):
--half mile to Gilbert--

I said, dirty son-of-a-bitch,
because I knew that it was him.

And they said, what?

And I said, that's
Larry Gene Bell.

And of course, they got very
excited, because they knew then

that they had their person.

NARRATOR: Larry Gene
Bell, he worked for Ellis

doing electrical wiring.

Bell was house-sitting for the
Sheppards during the six weeks

they had been away on vacation.

I'd left Bell a
lot of phone numbers

that he may need to
call, in my absence,

while we were on our trip.

NARRATOR: Those pages were
turned over to investigators.

A transparency of the
Shepherds' original note

was superimposed over Shari's
last will and testament.

The Sheppards' note matched the
indentations on Shari's letter

proving that Shari
used the piece

of paper directly underneath.

The Sheppards also said that
when Bell picked them up

at the airport, all he
wanted to talk about

was the kidnapping and
murder of the Smith girl.

Bell had lost
weight, was unshaven,

and seemed highly agitated.

This is the police video taken
inside the Shepherds' home.

Investigators found
six blonde hairs

in the bathroom that
were microscopically

similar to Shari's hair.

The commemorative duck stamp
used to mail her last will

and testament matched a
sheet of stamps in Ellis

Shepherd's desk drawer.

My silent prayer,
it's food for thought.

NARRATOR: Bell was arrested
of the following morning.

He just seemed to be shocked
that law enforcement now

had centered in on him.

NARRATOR: As the
FBI had predicted,

Bell had been involved in
various sexual incidents

since childhood.

He had been in trouble for
making obscene telephone calls

and, at one point,
even attempting

to kidnap a young co-ed from the
University of South Carolina.

NARRATOR: When
questioned, Bell denied

any involvement in
the murders of Shari

Smith and Debra Helmick.

The only thing he wanted
to say, over and over,

was that this Larry
Gene Bell didn't do it.

It's the bad Larry Gene Bell.

NARRATOR: Larry Gene Bell stood
trial for the murder of Shari

Smith in January, 1986.

Well, in my closing
argument, I told the jury,

Shari Smith had the
fortitude and the courage

to write out her last
will and testament.

And I put the pen that we
took from the Shepherds' house

in front of jury.

I said now each one
of you, don't you

have the courage
to sign your name

on a death penalty verdict?

Ooh, it was electrifying.

NARRATOR: The jury
needed only 47 minutes

to return the verdict
of guilty of kidnapping

and first degree murder.

Larry Gene Bell was sentenced
to death by electrocution.

That was the only
punishment for him

and probably-- this is
horrible to say-- too

good of a punishment for him.

NARRATOR: He was tried
separately for the kidnapping

and murder of Debra Helmick.

That jury returned
the same verdict.

10 years after his
trial, Larry Gene Bell

became the last
man to die in South

Carolina's electric chair.

Without that letter
and without the ability

to bring up things on that
page that you couldn't see

with the naked
eye, it would have

been even longer before we would
have gotten Larry Gene Bell.

That piece of paper,
that indented writing,

is what made the case
and what sealed his fate.

He ultimately signed
his death warrant.

NARRATOR: Bob Smith
remains a chaplain

for the Sheriff's Department.

His wife, Hilda,
recently authored

a book, "The Rose of Shari," to
honor their daughter's memory.

Both are convinced, as Shari
predicted in her last will

and testament,
some good has come

out of their monumental loss.

That letter has been
more closure to me

than any kind of closure that
the courts could do for me.

Just that fact that she
knew where she was going,

and she had that kind of faith.

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