00:00:00
♪♪ ♪♪ -When you're dealing with
a 30-year-old cold case... ♪♪ ...it seems like there's
not a lot of hope.
00:00:20
♪♪ That's a great photo of Robin. -Mm-hmm. -But look what happened
in the Robin Lawrence case.
00:00:28
-Something sparked it...
-...that nobody ever expected that just caught everybody
off guard.
00:00:34
♪♪ Her husband, Ollie,
had been trying to reach Robin all weekend. Ollie was out of the country.
00:00:49
-Who else was in the house? -Nicole...her baby. -Well, Ollie contacted me. He said, "Would you mind
going over to the house
00:00:58
and checking on her?"
And I was like, "Yeah, sure." There's no answer
at the front door,
00:01:03
so I went around to the back. -So, when you go around to the
back deck, what do you notice?
00:01:10
-That the window screen is cut. ♪♪ That was the first time
I thought, "Oh, my God,
something is wrong here."
00:01:20
I had to climb in
through the window, and Nicole comes down the hall. Her eyes were just so big,
and her little face was just --
00:01:28
There was no expression on it. I'm going down the hall, and I
can see into the master bedroom,
00:01:34
and I can see on the wall these large splatters and swaths
of blood. I was terrified, and I went
and I called the police.
00:01:48
♪♪ -There was a very,
very violent attack on Robin. She was stabbed 49 times. It looks like a personal attack.
00:02:01
It looked like Nicole
had been kind of roaming around the house. Clearly, she had been
in that room with her mom.
00:02:10
It's hard to think about. ♪♪ -It's like a horror movie,
but it's not a movie. This is our family.
This is our lives.
00:02:20
This was Robin's life. -I did think that maybe
it was someone she knew. That always
kind of sat with my mind.
00:02:27
Like, who did she know
that could have done this? -Here's the photo
of the washcloth, where...
00:02:34
The key piece of evidence
is a washcloth that they find in the bathroom,
and it has blood on both sides.
00:02:41
I knew that we had
a really strong DNA profile, which obviously stood out. So detectives just kept
waiting to get that phone call
00:02:49
from the lab saying
that we have a match. And, unfortunately,
that call never came.
00:02:56
And then just another year
would go by and another year would go by. So you switch tracks and try
what we call genetic genealogy.
00:03:06
And that was becoming
really big at that time. ♪♪ That's when we turned
to the help of a volunteer.
00:03:14
And she said,
"Genealogy is a hobby of mine. I dabble in it on the side. I'd be willing
to do this case for free
00:03:22
when I have spare time." -I knew it was gonna be
a needle in the haystack, but I felt it was worth trying.
00:03:28
6, 7, 8, 9, 10 generations away from even these people. -And I think it's
August of 2023.
00:03:36
She sends me an e-mail. She says, "I think I found
someone of interest." -What happens
as you start looking into him?
00:03:44
-Well, we find out computer
programmer up in New York, married to a defense attorney,
two kids in high school,
00:03:51
nice house in the suburbs, not so much as a speeding ticket
on his background. ♪♪
00:04:06
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Birds singing ] -So, here's
the crime-scene pictures. There's a bunch
of contact sheets in here.
00:04:54
You can tell it starts
from the pictures from the outside of the house
and then moves in...
00:04:58
-Cold-case detectives
Melissa Wallace and Jon Long of the Fairfax County
Police Department
00:05:05
began reviewing Robin Lawrence's
murder case in April of 2021. -That's like your
worst nightmare.
00:05:12
-Here's the bedroom. Obviously, her body's here,
but you can see... -They were struck by the sheer
violence of the attack
00:05:19
on the 37-year-old mother. -It looked brutal. Is that blood on the book? -That's the reason
why you tell your loved ones
00:05:27
to make sure that your doors
are locked at night. He is the boogeyman. ♪♪ -On November 20, 1994,
00:05:39
Robin's friend Laurie Lindberg
had entered her home to check on her and saw blood
on the bedroom walls
00:05:47
and Robin's 2-year-old daughter,
Nicole, wandering around. Alarmed, Laurie called 911
00:05:55
and then rushed the little girl
to the hospital. Although Nicole
did not appear hurt,
00:06:00
she had undergone a liver
transplant after she was born, and her health was fragile.
00:06:07
-Because, of course,
she's taking immunosuppressive medications. I mean, this is life-saving
medication.
00:06:12
She needs to have it. -'Cause you don't know how long
she's been in that house by herself.
-Right.
00:06:16
-Lead crime-scene detective
Mark Garmin was one of the first on site. -This is what we determined to
be the entry point to the home.
00:06:29
-According
to Detective Garmin, who photographed the evidence, the intruder came through
that window off the back deck --
00:06:37
the one Laurie had used
to get inside. He entered the house
the same way. -I had no idea what
the scene looked like
00:06:45
until I walked around the corner
into the master bedroom. ♪♪ -Tell me the state that
Robin was in when you saw her.
00:06:54
-Very damaged. A lot of knife wounds. Severe gaping knife wound
in her neck. ♪♪ Unbelievable number
00:07:04
of defensive wounds
on her hands, knife wounds in her back,
on her legs. -He says signs of a struggle
were obvious in the room.
00:07:14
-This is the phone that was
on the floor near Mrs. Lawrence. The phone cord was cut.
00:07:19
She was assaulted in the bed and then fought her way
out of the bed and continued to fight
and struggle.
00:07:27
-Garmin says one of the first
things that stood out were bloody tissues
scattered around the house
00:07:33
and near Robin's body. He believes it was Robin's
daughter, Nicole, who left them behind,
trying to help her mother.
00:07:41
-Even at that age,
kids know what blood is and blood come
from wounds and cuts, and they know that Mom puts
tissues on them or Band-Aids.
00:07:49
I think she was trying
to stop the blood. -And there was another
heart-wrenching discovery.
00:07:54
Empty baby bottles had been left
around her mother's body. -Having kids,
when they got hungry,
00:08:00
they brought you
your baby bottle. And that's what I'm thinking. Nicole would have taken it
to Mom.
00:08:06
♪♪ -While investigators
process the scene, officers at the hospital ask
Laurie to call Robin's parents.
00:08:17
-Robin's dad answered. I think I said, "Robin is dead." But...what I remember is, um...
00:08:29
Jessie, her mom, m-must have just been in the -- or overheard
'cause she was just --
00:08:35
just wailing, just a... sort of primal... anguish. -Mm-hmm. -That was really horrible.
00:08:45
That's probably the
most horrible thing [Voice breaking] that's ever
happened to me, is calling.
00:08:49
[ Sniffles ] -Robin's father,
Robert Warr Sr., a World War II veteran
and now 101 years old,
00:08:58
says he tried
to forget that call, but one memory
has never left him. -My granddaughter...
00:09:07
was right next
to where she was murdered. I'll never forget that -- never. -He had to break the news
to his surviving children,
00:09:17
including his daughter
Mary Warr Cowans and his son Robert Warr Jr. -After the words
"Robin is dead,"
00:09:25
I -- it was like...
-...a nightmare. -Yeah. You're just like --
Your world shattered.
00:09:31
-Mary says
in those first few days, they didn't have a clear picture of what had happened
to their sister.
00:09:39
-The details were very sketchy and slow to come, and the police asked,
"Well, do you know anybody
00:09:47
who had a grudge or something
against Robin?" And, of course,
the answer is, "No."
00:09:53
♪♪ -Robin was a gifted artist with a fine arts degree
from Carnegie Mellon University.
00:10:01
After college, she was selected
to mold the first medal for the Martin Luther King Jr.
Nonviolent Peace Prize,
00:10:09
which was awarded to Rosa Parks. -That was a big deal. And for my parents, who grew up
in Memphis, Tennessee,
00:10:18
during Jim Crow and they could not ride
in the front of the bus, they could not go to the zoo
except on Tuesdays,
00:10:28
that was a big deal. -Robin's father, Robert Sr., says his daughter's
accomplishments
00:10:34
were his greatest source
of pride. -She was a powerful lady
in this world. Her drawings
are not just paintings.
00:10:44
They are powerful. ♪♪ -Laurie first met Robin
in ballet class. -I was like, "Oh, my God,
this woman is beautiful."
00:10:54
But what was really fun about
Robin was she's very personable, very fun-loving,
just very down to earth.
00:11:01
-Laurie and Robin shared an
apartment in Washington, D.C., around the time Robin was dating
her future husband, Ollie.
00:11:09
Laurie says they were
a great match. -Ollie is a very calm
and kind demeanor, and you kind of feel
very confident around him,
00:11:20
very at ease with him. -The couple were married
on New Year's Eve 1989. Three years later, they
welcomed their daughter, Nicole.
00:11:30
At the time of her death, Robin
was working in advertising. Ollie, who was away on
a business trip in the Bahamas,
00:11:37
was an executive at an airline. -I think they had a relatively what I call "normal" [Chuckles]
00:11:46
family life. They were working
on doing home improvements, getting the yard fixed up.
00:11:54
-Now that home
with so much promise was an active crime scene. -There were valuables
that were in the bedroom.
00:12:01
There was cash.
There was jewelry. There wasn't anything stolen. -Investigators suspected Robin
was killed by someone she knew.
00:12:11
-They started looking
at the family dynamic. They started looking
at the marriage.
00:12:15
-Was Ollie cooperative? -He was. -But as authorities dug
further, they learned something.
00:12:23
Ollie had been having
an affair with a colleague. -Then what does that mean? You think, "Oh, how convenient.
00:12:30
The weekend you go out of town
for three days, your wife is brutally murdered." ♪♪
00:12:42
♪♪ -It just was surreal. It really was like, for me, walking in a --
through a dream state
00:12:58
'cause you just can't
make sense of it. -Yeah. -Just three days
after what would have been
00:13:05
Robin's 38th birthday, on November 26, 1994, her family and friends
gathered for her funeral.
00:13:15
-We were still very much
just... bewildered... and lost. -Mary says Robin's injuries
were so severe,
00:13:25
the family had a closed casket. -And that was hard for me 'cause I never got a chance
to see her one last time.
00:13:33
I always wanted to be able
to say goodbye and see her. ♪♪ -As Robin's family
mourned her death,
00:13:44
investigators
pieced together a timeline and determined
that the last time anyone had heard from Robin
was around 6:00 p.m.
00:13:53
on Friday, November 18th. -We believe Robin
was killed around 9:30ish. -Her body was discovered
two days later.
00:14:03
Investigators zeroed in
on her husband, Ollie, who they had discovered
was having an affair.
00:14:09
They followed up on his alibi. -The detectives flew
down to the Bahamas, confirmed that he was on the
flight he was supposed to be on.
00:14:16
He was at the hotel
he was supposed to be at. -Detectives also interviewed
Ollie's lover
00:14:23
but found no evidence
she was involved. Robin's sister and brother were surprised to learn
about the affair,
00:14:30
but they say they never believed
Ollie had anything to do with Robin's murder. -I never thought that Ollie --
that he...harmed her.
00:14:40
-And how 'bout you?
Did it ever cross your mind, "Maybe he's involved
in this somehow"?
00:14:45
-No, I didn't think that.
He's not that type of person. -Ollie chose not to talk to
"48 Hours" about his experience.
00:14:53
Investigators didn't have
much else to go on. The killer left no fingerprints. But something had caught
00:15:01
crime-scene detective
Mark Garmin's eye while he was documenting
the bathroom. -On the towel rod
to the sliding tub door,
00:15:09
there's a washcloth. I do notice a small stain on this towel right here -- small brownish stain.
00:15:18
-That brown stain
turned out to be blood, and authorities extracted DNA
from it.
00:15:23
But it didn't match anyone
close to the case, including Ollie or the woman
he had had a relationship with.
00:15:31
Detectives believed
it belonged to Robin's killer and uploaded it to the FBI's
national database.
00:15:38
The suspect's DNA
is uploaded to CODIS. -Yes. -But CODIS also returned
no matches,
00:15:45
and with no new leads,
the investigation stalled. How much did
the adults tell you?
00:15:53
-Nothing. -Mary's daughter,
Lauren Ovans, was just 8 years old
when her Aunt Robin was killed.
00:16:00
-I remember her being angelic. -She says even though
her family avoided the topic,
00:16:07
she could feel the void
Robin's murder left behind. -Out of all
of my family members,
00:16:13
she was the most like me, so everybody
always called me "Robin." I just knew that they
were still thinking of her.
00:16:21
-Can you describe what you lost
when you lost Robin? ♪♪ -[Voice breaking] I think I lost
an extension of myself...
00:16:30
♪♪ ...'cause she was the one who just taught me to be
comfortable with who I was,
00:16:38
so...you -- you -- I lost a piece of me. -Lauren says she stayed close
with her cousin Nicole,
00:16:46
who rarely spoke
about her mother. -I think she didn't know
much about her mother,
00:16:52
so there wasn't really much
to share. And I didn't want to
ever bring it up because I didn't want
to make her anxious
00:17:00
or make her nervous. Um...it was better
just left unsaid. -The family eventually
resigned themselves to the idea
00:17:09
that the case
may never be solved. -When my mother died,
that was kind of like, "Well, she went to her grave
not knowing..."
00:17:17
-Right.
-"...what happened to her child." And at that point, I said, "Well, just -- I have to just
kind of let it go.
00:17:26
I have to let it go." -Then, decades later, in 2019, investigators turned
to Parabon NanoLabs,
00:17:34
a DNA-technology company, hoping genetic genealogy
could identify Robin's killer.
00:17:41
Ellen Greytak is the director
of bioinformatics at Parabon. -We take DNA from a crime scene.
00:17:48
We upload it to GEDmatch
and to Family Tree DNA, which are two databases. And what they give us back
is people in our database
00:17:57
who share DNA
with your unknown person. -Greytak says that while their
analysis showed Robin's killer
00:18:04
likely had European ancestry, tracing him
through his relatives proved nearly impossible.
00:18:11
-So, in this case,
the -- the database matches were just really distant. They only shared
little tiny pieces of DNA,
00:18:19
which means that their shared
ancestor with our unknown person was pretty far back in time,
00:18:27
and that means that those people
had a lot of descendants today. -Parabon gave us a solvability
rate of zero on the case
00:18:34
and essentially said, "You do not have the time
nor the money to get it moving forward."
00:18:40
-Investigators say
they could have walked away. But Liz, an amateur genealogist and volunteer
with the police department
00:18:49
who asked
that her last name not be used, offered to take on the case
in her spare time
00:18:55
for free. -I just felt I wanted to give
something back to the community, and I believed
that I could actually be helpful
00:19:02
in solving some of these cases. -Investigators gave Liz
everything Parabon had uncovered
00:19:07
about the suspect's ethnicity... -It was about half Eastern
European, about 25% Irish.
00:19:13
Another 25% was a combination
of, I think, English and Italian
and Scandinavian.
00:19:19
-...along with a list
of cousins who shared his DNA. -So what I got was
approximately 1,500 cousins.
00:19:26
I was not certain
that I could crack it. There were no first cousins
or second cousins.
00:19:30
There was really more fourth
to sixth. -As Liz worked
to trace the suspect through his family tree,
00:19:36
Detective Wallace turned
to another DNA tool and asked Parabon to produce
a phenotyping sketch
00:19:43
of Robin's killer. -DNA phenotyping --
it means actually predicting what that person looked like
00:19:51
from their DNA. -But would anyone recognize him? ♪♪ ♪♪ -In 2021, nearly 30 years
after Robin Lawrence's murder,
00:20:16
Parabon NanoLabs was tasked with producing a composite
of the man investigators believed
was her killer.
00:20:24
-So I get a report from
our bioinformatics scientists, and it lays out all
the predictions from the DNA.
00:20:32
-Scientists created
this facial model based on the DNA predictions. -It starts off
with his skin color,
00:20:39
which he's predicted to have
very fair or fair skin color. He's most likely gonna have
a larger chin than average,
00:20:45
wider jaw or cheeks
than average, kind of a narrower nose
than average. -Tom Shaw,
a forensic artist at Parabon,
00:20:55
says his job was
to refine the model by applying other details
like hair and eye color.
00:21:01
-I've kind of outlined
where his eyes are because I'm gonna be putting
new ones in.
00:21:06
So here's one kind of that
dark blue that are predicted. I'll do eyebrows. We're looking at
kind of almost like
00:21:17
like a lighter brownish hair, and so I gave him
a little bit lighter eyebrows to match what his hair color
is gonna be.
00:21:24
I'll go and find a hairstyle,
something generic. -Shaw says DNA
doesn't reveal a person's age,
00:21:32
so the composites
are generated as a young adult, typically around 25 years old.
00:21:38
-So this is him. -Does this look like
their mailman? Was this the neighbor's kid?
Was it somebody from work?
00:21:45
-Detective Melissa Wallace
set up a video call with Robin's husband, Ollie, to see if he recognized
the man in the composite.
00:21:53
-I was really hoping
that when Ollie saw that, that he would go, "Oh, my gosh, that looks exactly like
so-and-so."
00:21:59
-And did he?
-He did not. He said, "That doesn't spark
my memory at all. Looks like nobody I know."
00:22:06
-The investigation
stalled again. But behind the scenes, volunteer genealogist Liz
00:22:12
kept working with that list
of 1,500 cousins distantly related
to the suspect. Liz had eventually traced some
of the suspect's ancestors
00:22:23
to Canada,
where they had settled. That's where she found
two cousins that were not related
to each other.
00:22:30
-And so I ended up with two
trees that were highly reliable, and they were the people
00:22:35
that were truly cousins
to the suspect. Where did their two trees
come together?
00:22:40
-Liz says
if she could figure out where those two trees
were linked through a marriage,
00:22:46
the suspect would be
a descendant of that couple. -And what I found was
this woman on this tree
00:22:52
married this man on this tree. That was it.
That was the "Aha!" moment. That was when I realized
that he is a descendant
00:23:00
of this couple right here. -After 3 1/2 years, Liz finally had a lead, and it pointed her
to a man named Stephan Smerk.
00:23:10
♪♪ -I felt like
this really was him. I didn't know it for certain,
but I believed it was.
00:23:16
Contacted the detectives. -So, she sends me an e-mail. She says, "I think I found
someone of interest."
00:23:23
-What happens as
you start looking into him? -Well, we find out computer
programmer up in New York,
00:23:29
married to a defense attorney,
two kids in high school, nice house in the suburbs,
00:23:35
not so much as a speeding ticket
on his background. I'm thinking, "There's no way
this is our guy."
00:23:40
-But according
to Detective Jon Long, things got
a bit more interesting when they found
his yearbook photo at age 16.
00:23:49
-It looked very similar
to the phenotyping sketch. We're like, "Well, you know,
maybe this does make sense."
00:23:56
♪♪ -Stephan Smerk
lived in Niskayuna, a town in Upstate New York, so investigators decided
to pay him a visit.
00:24:12
-Does he know you're coming?
-No. No. -They were hoping he would
cooperate and provide his DNA.
00:24:19
Wallace and Long say
he appeared to be home alone, so they knocked on his door. -All we said is,
"We are detectives
00:24:27
from Fairfax County, Virginia, and we're looking
into a cold case from the '90s.
00:24:32
Do you mind if we come in
and talk to you?" He said, "Sure."
He invited us in and --
00:24:38
-Okay. Hold on a minute. So, you say,
"We're from Virginia. We're investigating
this murder."
00:24:44
His initial reaction? -No reaction. None. Stone-faced.
-None. There was no surprise.
There was no fear -- nothing.
00:24:53
-They found his demeanor
unusual. -When we're asking for DNA, this conversation typically
takes a solid 45 minutes.
00:25:02
People generally have
a lot of questions, like, "What do you mean,
someone in my family
00:25:06
has committed a murder? Who was killed?" There was not
a single question from him.
00:25:11
We were in and out of his house
in five minutes with his DNA. -Yeah.
-Consent form signed,
00:25:16
swab collected, packaged up.
That was it. ♪♪ -After the visit, detectives
checked in to their hotel.
00:25:24
But then Detective Wallace
got an unexpected call. -It's Steve Smerk calling me,
00:25:30
and he says, "I'm at the police
department to turn myself in." ♪♪ And I said,
"Turn yourself in for what?"
00:25:40
And he said, "I'm here to turn
myself in for the murder." A million things started
going through my mind.
00:25:45
-Smerk told detectives
he was having trouble getting into the Niskayuna
Police Department,
00:25:51
which was locked. -So then I'm thinking it must
be a smaller police station. And I said, "Okay.
What I need you to do
00:25:56
is we're gonna hang up. I need you to call 911 and tell
them that you're there."
00:26:01
-Stephan Smerk's call
was recorded. Wow. So, when do you tell him? -Oh, my God.
I was freaking out, so I'm on --
00:26:23
-She freaked me out. -I run down to his room,
and I'm banging on his door. I'm like, "We gotta go
to the police department.
00:26:30
He's turning himself in." -Wallace also reached out
to local police, and Stephan Smerk was taken
into custody.
00:26:39
-The adrenaline was pumping
so hard because the reality hit, and it sounds like
he's gonna talk to us about it.
00:26:47
-Detective Long says
they had to refocus fast and figure out
how they would handle
00:26:52
Stephan Smerk's interrogation. -We need to make sure
this is a sound interview that could potentially be used
in court down the road.
00:27:02
-When they finally sat down
with him... ...investigators say
he didn't need much prompting.
00:27:14
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -When investigators met
with Stephan Smerk on September 7, 2023, they were skeptical.
00:27:42
-This doesn't happen every day, so we -- we had
to really think through, "Well, why is he doing this?"
00:27:48
-Detectives had not yet received
the results of the DNA sample
Smerk had provided,
00:27:54
linking him definitively. -We needed to be very careful to make sure that we weren't
getting a false confession.
00:28:00
-So then what was
your approach gonna be? -We started talking about things
like, "Hey, let's make sure
00:28:05
that he's gonna bring up
details of the case without us telling him first." -He starts volunteering
information, which is great.
00:28:21
-So it was just like he wanted
to talk about, you know, his weekend or, uh, some other family event
that he went to.
00:28:28
It was a very... calm conversation -- nonchalant. -Stephan Smerk told detectives
00:28:38
that back in November 1994, he was a 22-year-old soldier stationed at Fort Myer
in Arlington, Virginia,
00:28:48
and on the night of the murder, he had been drinking beer. He says he had been taking
ephedrine pills, a stimulant.
00:29:19
Smerk said he drove
to Robin's neighborhood because he was familiar
with the area.
00:29:24
He visited friends
who stayed in a house nearby. Smerk confirmed he entered
the house from the back deck
00:29:46
and told detectives
he was wearing a ski mask and leather gloves. He said he went down the hall
00:29:56
to Robin's bedroom. He told investigators
one of the reasons he enlisted was because he wanted to kill.
00:30:30
-Okay. -Detective Wallace knew
it was critical to link him to that washcloth
found in the bathroom,
00:30:49
so she asked him
if he'd been injured that night. -That's when I knew that -- that we were in business
00:31:09
with putting him
in the bathroom and why his DNA was there. That was the biggest
confirmation.
00:31:15
-As the interview wrapped up,
Detective Long asked Smerk if he wanted to express
any remorse to Robin's family.
00:31:43
-I think what you see is
100% what you get from him -- arrogance, entitlement. He wanted to do it,
so he did it.
00:31:53
And that's it. -Detective Wallace
believes Stephan Smerk confessed because he knew he was caught
00:32:00
and wanted to turn himself in
on his own terms. -It wasn't
because he was sorry.
00:32:05
It wasn't because he was
tired of running for 30 years. He wanted to maintain control.
00:32:10
-Former FBI profiler
Mary Ellen O'Toole, who reviewed the case
for "48 Hours," agrees that Smerk
wanted to control the narrative.
00:32:20
-He was prepared
that he was gonna tell his version of the story. -O'Toole says
she doesn't buy Smerk's claim
00:32:28
that Robin's murder was random. She classifies it
as a mission-oriented homicide.
00:32:40
-He brought the weapon with him. He had a mask. He had gloves. ♪♪ It also happens to be
on an evening
00:32:49
when the victim's husband
is in a travel status. This was purposeful. Went inside somebody's home,
took enormous risk.
00:32:58
So, that suggests to me
more of a targeting than it does randomness. -In her analysis, O'Toole says
she was struck by Smerk
00:33:06
identifying himself
as a serial killer. -I am a serial killer
who's only killed once.
00:33:13
-He did come across as someone
that had admiration for them. -So, here's kind of, like,
the big question, though.
00:33:19
Do serial killers stop killing? -Yes. They do. -According to O'Toole, serial offenders can sometimes
channel their compulsion to kill
00:33:30
into other crimes,
like stalking or voyeurism. -I think it's also possible that he engaged in other
behaviors much less serious
00:33:40
than homicide that, um, satisfied him. -He has no criminal history
of any kind. How unusual is that?
00:33:49
-Not very unusual. But here's the important thing
to keep in mind. The absence of a rap sheet
00:33:55
does not mean that criminal
behavior is absent. It means that they didn't get
arrested for it.
00:34:02
-I'll take care of this process.
-Okay. -After his confession,
Stephan Smerk was arrested
00:34:07
and charged with the murder
of Robin Lawrence. Detective Wallace says
her first phone call
00:34:15
was to Robin's daughter, Nicole. -You could tell the shock, but she didn't,
um, break down or crumble.
00:34:22
I could tell that she was like,
"Okay, now my job is to notify
the rest of the family."
00:34:27
♪♪ -How is it
that he could live his life with his family when he blew up our family
30 years ago?
00:34:38
Where's the justice in that? ♪♪ -Robin's family prepared
for the next step. -We really wanted to do a trial.
00:34:49
We wanted... the world to know... what he did, and we wanted the spectacle
of that,
00:34:57
that satisfaction. -But would they get that chance? ♪♪ ♪♪ -A week after Stephan Smerk's
interview with police...
00:35:15
-I'll take care of the process. -...forensic testing confirmed Stephan Smerk's DNA was a match
to the blood on the washcloth
00:35:23
found in Robin's bathroom. ♪♪ -It's a one-in-over-7-million
chance that it would not have been
his DNA.
00:35:32
-On April 4, 2024, Fairfax County Commonwealth
Attorney Steve Descano's office presented the case
at a preliminary hearing
00:35:43
to determine if there was enough
evidence to move forward. -Look, I've dealt
with murderers before.
00:35:49
I can tell you that, in my mind,
Stephan Smerk stands alone as somebody who represents
a true danger to the community.
00:35:55
♪♪ -Robin's family saw
Stephan Smerk for the first time
at the hearing. -I was amazed how big he was.
00:36:07
He needed two bailiffs
around him. The first thing
I thought of was like, "My aunt didn't stand a chance."
00:36:14
-Prosecutors played
Smerk's confession, and the family heard
the details of Robin's murder
00:36:21
in Smerk's own words. -There was no emotion.
It didn't feel real. It just made me feel angry.
00:36:29
Like, how could he
have done that? -The judge found probable cause
that Stephen Smerk killed Robin
00:36:35
and allowed the case to proceed
to a grand jury. On April 15th,
a grand jury indicted him,
00:36:43
but six months later, he accepted a plea deal
for first-degree murder. -We get
guaranteed accountability.
00:36:49
-Descano says
the agreement ensured Smerk would be held accountable. -We had the challenge
of some witnesses passing,
00:36:58
other witnesses --
their memories becoming a little bit cloudy
and not as sharp.
00:37:02
-Robin's family, however,
say they were disappointed. -We wanted him
to be put on trial.
00:37:10
-On March 7, 2025, Stephen Smerk returned to court
for sentencing. As part
of the mitigation strategy
00:37:17
for a more lenient sentence, his attorney, Dawn Butorac,
told the judge that in the early '90s,
00:37:24
Smerk was a troubled young man struggling with alcohol
and substance abuse. -He eventually decided,
"I'm gonna join the military,"
00:37:33
thinking that that would be
a good choice for him to maybe get
his life stabilized.
00:37:38
-He said he joined the military
so he could kill people. What did he mean by that?
00:37:43
-I never asked him
what he meant by that. I think it was an idea that "If I go, maybe I can take my anger out
on this.
00:37:53
Maybe this will get me back
on the right track." -According to Butorac,
Smerk was also crippled
00:38:00
with an undiagnosed
mental illness. -It wasn't until
several years later that he eventually was diagnosed
with bipolar II disorder,
00:38:08
and when you add
ephedra and alcohol, he was struggling a lot. -The FDA banned
some ephedra products in 2004,
00:38:17
and Butorac says
that was, in part, because when abused
with other substances, they could trigger dangerous
psychiatric side effects.
00:38:25
Did Steve Smerk tell you
that he ever had hallucinations or heard voices
or anything along those lines
00:38:32
while taking ephedra?
-No, but you have to remember, at the time, also,
he had undiagnosed bipolar,
00:38:36
so it's hard to figure out
exactly... what his mental state
was attributable to.
00:38:42
-She says by the time investigators came to Smerk's
door nearly 30 years later, Smerk had sought help
for his mental-health problems
00:38:51
and become sober. Butorac says
her client confessed and waived his right to a trial
00:38:58
because he felt genuine remorse. But over the 30 years,
did he think about Robin?
00:39:04
-Every day.
-Every day? -Every day, he'd think about it. -But during his statement
to investigators,
00:39:11
he doesn't express empathy
or remorse. -He always wanted to accept
responsibility.
00:39:18
Acceptance of responsibility
is one form of remorse. -In the end, the judge sentenced
Stephen Smerk
00:39:25
to the maximum sentence allowed
under the plea deal -- 70 years with the possibility
of parole.
00:39:34
-I think what he got, as long as he never comes out
of prison, ever, brings closure for me.
00:39:43
-After the sentencing, Ollie Lawrence gave
a statement to the press. -The Warr and Lawrence family
00:39:50
are grateful that justice
has finally been done for the murder
of our beloved Robin.
00:39:57
-Lauren answered a few questions with Robin's daughter, Nicole,
by her side. -As much
as it's a sigh of relief,
00:40:03
we still have to live with this. [Voice breaking] It just
doesn't go away. -She's strong.
She stood next to me,
00:40:09
and she held my hand. ♪♪ Oh, my God,
if her mom could see us! [ Chuckles ] Um, it was great.
00:40:19
-How do you want people
to remember your aunt? -I want people
to remember her as creative,
00:40:26
exuberant, very vocal, caring, a beautiful mother. ♪♪ -She just had a light
that shined from within.
00:40:37
-I feel like she is living
through her art because her art...
-Is everywhere. -...emotes.
00:40:42
♪♪ So, when you do look at her art,
what do you see? -I kind of see the spirit
of Robin.
00:40:53
who she was, how she looked at the world, you know, through her eyes. And that was good things,
00:41:02
happy things, warm things. ♪♪ ♪♪