00:00:12
When you're dealing with a 30-year-old coal case, it seems like there's not a lot of hope.
00:00:22
>> It's a great photo, Robin. >> Mhm. But look what happened in the Robin Lawrence case.
00:00:28
>> Something sparked it. that nobody ever expected. That just caught everybody offguard.
00:00:42
Her husband Olly had been trying to reach Robin all weekend. Olly was out of the country.
00:00:49
>> Who else was in the house? >> Nicole, her baby. >> Well, Olly contacted me. He said, "Would
00:00:57
you mind going over to the house and checking on her?" And I was like, "Yeah, sure."
00:01:02
There's no answer at the front door. So went around to the back. So when you go around to the back deck, what do you
00:01:09
notice? >> That the window screen is cut. That was the first time I thought, "Oh
00:01:17
my god, something is wrong here." I had to climb in through the window and Nicole comes, you know, down the hall.
00:01:24
Her eyes were just so big and her little face was just there's no expression on it. I'm going down the hall and I can
00:01:32
see into the master bedroom and I can see on the wall these large splatters and swaths of blood.
00:01:45
I was terrified and I went and I called the police. It was a very, very violent attack on
00:01:53
Robin. She was stabbed 49 times. It looks like a personal attack. It looked like Nicole had been kind of
00:02:04
roaming around the house. Clearly, she had been in that room with her mom. It's hard to think about.
00:02:14
>> It's like a horror movie, but it's not a movie. This is our family. This is our
00:02:20
lives. This was Robin's life. >> I did think that maybe it was someone she knew. That always kind of sat with
00:02:27
my mind like who did she know that could have done this? Here's the photo of the washcloth where
00:02:35
the key piece of evidence is a washcloth that they find in the bathroom and it has blood on both sides. I knew that we
00:02:42
had a really strong DNA profile which obviously stood out. So detectives just kept waiting to get that phone call from
00:02:50
the lab saying that we have a match and unfortunately that call never came and then just another year would go by
00:02:58
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
00:03:14
volunteer 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
00:03:22
free when I have spare time." I knew it was going to be a needle in the haststack, but I thought it was worth
00:03:28
trying. 6 7 8 9 10 generations away from even these people. >> And I think it's August of 2023, she
00:03:37
sends me an email. She says, "I think I found someone of interest." >> What happens as you start looking into
00:03:43
him? >> Well, we find out computer programmer up in New York, married to a defense
00:03:49
attorney, two kids in high school, nice house in the suburbs, not so much as a speeding ticket on his background.
00:03:57
>> I am a serial killer who's only killed once. Heat. Hey, Heat. So, here's the crime scene pictures.
00:04:53
There's a bunch of contact sheets in here. You can tell it starts from the pictures from the outside of the house
00:04:57
and then moves in to the scene. Cold case detectives Melissa Wallace and John Long of the Fairfax County Police
00:05:04
Department began reviewing Robin Lawrence's murder case in April of 2021. >> That's like your worst nightmare.
00:05:13
>> Here's the bedroom. Obviously, her body's here, but you can see >> they were struck by the sheer violence
00:05:18
of the attack on the 37year-old mother. >> It looked brutal. >> See, is that blood on the book? That's
00:05:25
the reason why you tell your loved ones to make sure that your doors are locked at night. He is the boogeyman.
00:05:37
On November 20th, 1994, Robin's friend Lorie Lindberg had entered her home to check on her and saw blood on the
00:05:46
bedroom walls and Robin's 2-year-old daughter Nicole wandering around. Alarmed, Lorie called 911 and then
00:05:56
rushed the little girl to the hospital. Although Nicole did not appear hurt. She
00:06:01
had undergone a liver transplant after she was born and her health was fragile >> because of course she's taking
00:06:08
imunosuppressive medications. I mean, this is life-saving medication. She needs to have it
00:06:13
>> cuz you don't know how long she's been in that house by herself, >> right? >> Lead crime scene detective Mark Garmin
00:06:20
was one of the first on site. This is what we determined to be the entry point to the home.
00:06:30
>> According to Detective Garmin, who photographed the evidence, the intruder came through that window off the back
00:06:36
deck, the one Lori had used to get inside. He entered the house the same way. >> I had no idea what the scene looked like
00:06:46
until I walked around the corner and into the master bedroom. Tell me the state that Robin was in when
00:06:53
you saw her. >> Very damaged. A lot of knife wounds. Severe gaping knife wound in her neck.
00:07:03
Unbelievable number of defensive wounds on her hands, knife wounds in her back, on her legs.
00:07:10
>> He says signs of a struggle were obvious in the room. >> This is the phone that was on the floor
00:07:16
near Mrs. Lawrence. The phone cord was cut. She was assaulted in the bed and then fought her way out of the bed and
00:07:25
um continued to fight and struggle. >> Garmin says one of the first things that stood out were bloody tissues scattered
00:07:33
around the house and near Robin's body. He believes it was Robin's daughter, Nicole, who left them behind trying to
00:07:40
help her mother. Even at that age, kids know what blood is, and bloods come from
00:07:45
wounds and cuts, and they know that mom puts tissues on them or band-aids. I think she was trying to stop the blood.
00:07:51
>> And there was another heart-wrenching discovery. Empty baby bottles had been left around her mother's body.
00:07:58
>> Having kids, when they got hungry, they brought you your baby bottle. And that's
00:08:02
what I'm thinking. Nicole would have taken it to mom. While investigators process the scene,
00:08:12
officers at the hospital asked Lori to call Robin's parents. Robin's dad answered.
00:08:20
I think I said Robin is dead. But what I remember is um Jesse, her mom must have just been in
00:08:32
the overheard cuz she was just just wailing. Just a sort of primal anguish. That was really horrible. That's
00:08:45
probably the most horrible thing that's ever happened to me is calling. Robin's father, Robert War Senior, a
00:08:54
World War II veteran and now 101 years old, says he tried to forget that call. But one memory has never left him.
00:09:04
>> My granddaughter was right next to where she was murdered. I'll never forget that. Never.
00:09:14
He had to break the news to his surviving children, including his daughter, Mary War Coins, and his son,
00:09:21
Robert Ward, Jr. >> After the words, "Robin is dead," I It was like a nightmare.
00:09:28
>> Yeah. You're just like, "Your world shattered." >> Mary says in those first few days, they
00:09:35
didn't have a clear picture of what had happened to their sister. The details were very sketchy and slow
00:09:42
to come. And the police asked, "Well, do you know anybody who had a grudge or something against Robin?" And of course,
00:09:52
the answer is no. Robin was a gifted artist with a fine arts degree from Carnegie Melon
00:10:00
University. After college, she was selected to mold the first medal for the Martin Luther King Jr. nonviolent peace
00:10:08
prize which was awarded to Rosa Parks. >> That was a big deal. And for my parents
00:10:16
who grew up in Memphis, Tennessee during Jim Crow and they could not ride in the
00:10:22
front of the bus. They could not go to the zoo except on Tuesdays. That was a big deal.
00:10:30
>> Robin's father, Robert Senior, says his daughter's accomplishments were his greatest source of pride.
00:10:37
She was a powerful lady in this world. Her drawings are not just paintings, they are powerful.
00:10:49
>> Lorie first met Robin in ballet class. >> I was like, "Oh my god, this woman is
00:10:54
beautiful." But what was really fun about Robin was she's very personable, very funloving, just very down to earth.
00:11:02
Lorie and Robin shared an apartment in Washington DC around the time Robin was dating her future husband Olly. Lorie
00:11:10
says they were a great match. >> Ali has a very calm and kind demeanor and you kind of feel very confident
00:11:20
around him, very at ease with him. >> The couple were married on New Year's Eve 1989.
00:11:27
3 years later they welcomed their daughter Nicole. At the time of her death, Robin was working in advertising.
00:11:34
Olly, who was away on a business trip in the Bahamas, was an executive at an airline.
00:11:40
>> Well, I think they had a relatively what I call normal family life. They were working on doing
00:11:50
home improvements, getting the yard fixed up. >> Now, that home with so much promise was
00:11:57
an active crime scene. There were valuables that were in the bedroom. There was cash. There was jewelry. There
00:12:03
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 Olly cooperative? >> He was. >> But as authorities dug further, they learned something. Olly had been having
00:12:24
an affair with a colleague. >> Then what does that mean? You think, "Oh, how convenient. The weekend you go
00:12:30
out of town for three days, your wife is brutally murdered. It just was surreal.
00:12:53
It really was like for me walking in a through a dream state cuz you just can't make sense of it.
00:13:03
>> Just 3 days after what would have been Robin's 38th birthday on November 26th,
00:13:09
1994, her family and friends gathered for her funeral. We were still very much just bewildered
00:13:19
and lost. >> Mary says Robin's injuries were so severe the family had a closed casket.
00:13:28
>> And that was hard for me cuz I never got a chance to see her one last time. I
00:13:33
always wanted to be able to say goodbye and see her. As Robin's family mourned her death,
00:13:45
investigators pieced together a timeline and determined that the last time anyone
00:13:50
had heard from Robin was around 6:00 p.m. on Friday, November 18th. >> We believe Robin was killed around
00:13:58
9:30ish. >> Her body was discovered 2 days later. Investigators zeroed in on her husband,
00:14:06
Olly, who they had discovered was having an affair. They followed up on his alibi.
00:14:12
>> The detectives flew down to the Bahamas, confirmed that he was on the flight he
00:14:16
was supposed to be on. He was at the hotel he was supposed to be at. >> Detectives also interviewed Ali's lover,
00:14:23
but found no evidence she was involved. Robin's sister and brother were surprised to learn about the affair. But
00:14:30
they say they never believed Olly had anything to do with Robin's murder. I never thought that though, that he
00:14:39
harmed her. >> And how about you? Did it ever cross your mind? Maybe he's involved in this
00:14:44
somehow? >> No, I I didn't think that. He's not that type of person. >> Ali chose not to talk to 48 hours about
00:14:52
his experience. Investigators didn't have much else to go on. The killer left no fingerprints, but something had
00:15:01
caught crime scene detective Mark Garmin's eye while he was documenting the bathroom.
00:15:06
>> On the towel rod to the sliding tub door, there's a washcloth. I do notice a small stain on uh this towel right here.
00:15:16
Small brownish stain. That brown stain turned out to be blood, and authorities extracted DNA from it,
00:15:24
but it didn't match anyone close to the case, including Ali or the woman he had had a relationship with. Detectives
00:15:31
believed it belonged to Robin's killer, and uploaded it to the FBI's national database. The suspect's DNA is uploaded
00:15:39
to Cotus. >> Yes. But Cotus also returned no matches and with no new leads, the investigation
00:15:48
stalled. How much did the adults tell you? >> Nothing. >> Mary's daughter, Lauren Oans, was just 8
00:15:57
years old when her aunt Robin was killed. >> I remember her being angelic. She says even though her family
00:16:06
avoided the topic, she could feel the void Robin's murder left behind. >> Out of all of my family members, she was
00:16:14
the most like me. So, everybody always called me Robin. It just knew that they were still thinking of her.
00:16:21
>> Can you describe what you lost when you lost Robin? I think I lost an extension of myself
00:16:32
because she was the one who just taught me to be comfortable with who I was. So you you you I lost a piece of me.
00:16:44
>> Lauren says she stayed close with her cousin Nicole, who rarely spoke about her mother.
00:16:49
>> I think she didn't know much about her mother, so there wasn't really much to
00:16:54
share. and I didn't want to ever bring it up because I didn't want to make her anxious or make her nervous. Um, it was
00:17:04
better just left unsaid. >> The family eventually resigned themselves to the idea that the case may
00:17:10
never be solved. >> When my mother died, I that was kind of like, well, she went to her grave not
00:17:17
knowing, right, >> what happened to her child. And and at that point I said, "Well, just I have to
00:17:23
just kind of let it go. I have to let it go." >> Then decades later in 2019, investigators turned to Parabon Nano
00:17:34
Labs, a DNA technology company, hoping genetic genealogy could identify Robin's killer. Ellen Greyac is the director of
00:17:43
biioinformatics at Parabon. We take DNA from a crime scene. We upload it to JedMatch and to Family Tree DNA, which
00:17:52
are two databases, and what they give us back is people in our database who share
00:17:58
DNA with your unknown person. Grey Tag says that while their analysis showed Robin's killer likely had European
00:18:06
ancestry, tracing him through his relatives proved nearly impossible. >> So, in this case, the the database
00:18:14
matches were just really distant. They only shared little tiny pieces of DNA, which means that their shared ancestor
00:18:22
with our unknown person was pretty far back in time. And that means that those people had a lot of descendants today.
00:18:31
>> Parabon gave us a solvability rate of zero on the case and essentially said, "You do not have the time nor the money
00:18:38
to get it moving forward." Investigators say they could have walked away, but Liz, an amateur
00:18:45
genealogologist and volunteer with the police department who asked that her last name not be used, offered to take
00:18:53
on the case in her spare time for free. >> I just felt I wanted to give something
00:18:58
back to the community and I believed that I could actually be helpful in solving some of these cases.
00:19:04
Investigators gave Liz everything Parabon had uncovered about the suspect's ethnicity.
00:19:10
>> It was about half Eastern European, about 25% Irish. Another 25% was a combination of I think English and
00:19:17
Italian and Scandinavian >> along with a list of cousins who shared his DNA. >> So what I got was approximately 1500
00:19:25
cousins. I was not certain that I could crack it. There were no first cousins or
00:19:29
second cousins. 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 of Robin's killer.
00:19:45
DNA phenotyping, it means actually predicting what that person looked like from their DNA.
00:19:53
>> But would anyone recognize him? In 2021, nearly 30 years after Robin Lawrence's
00:20:16
murder, Parabon Nanolabs was tasked with producing a composite of the man investigators believe was her killer. So
00:20:24
I get a report from our Bionromax 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, which
00:20:40
he's predicted to have very fair or fair skin color. He's most likely going to have a larger chin than average, wider
00:20:46
jaw or cheeks than average, kind of a narrower nose than average. Tom Shaw, a forensic artist at Parabon, says his job
00:20:56
was to refine the model by applying other details like hair and eye color. >> I've kind of outlined where his eyes are
00:21:03
because I'm going to be putting new ones in. So, here's one kind of that dark blue that are predicted. I'll do
00:21:12
eyebrows. We're looking at kind of most likely like like a lighter brownish hair. And
00:21:20
so I gave him a little bit lighter eyebrows to match what his hair color is going to be. I'll go and find a
00:21:26
hairstyle, something generic. >> Shaw says DNA doesn't reveal a person's age. So the composits are generated as a
00:21:35
young adult, typically around 25 years old. >> So this is him. >> Did this look like their mailman? Was
00:21:42
this the neighbor's kid? Was it somebody from work? Detective Melissa Wallace set
00:21:47
up a video call with Robin's husband, Olly, to see if he recognized the man in the composite.
00:21:54
>> I was really hoping that when Ali saw that that he would go, "Oh my gosh, that
00:21:58
looks exactly like so and so." >> And did he? >> He did not. He said, "That doesn't spark
00:22:04
my memory at all. Looks like nobody I know." The investigation stalled again, but
00:22:09
behind the scenes, volunteer genealogologist Liz kept working with that list of 1,500 cousins distantly
00:22:17
related to the suspect. Liz had eventually traced some of the suspect's ancestors to Canada where they had
00:22:24
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. They were the people that I that were truly cousins to
00:22:37
the suspect. >> Where did their two trees come together? >> Liz says if she could figure out where
00:22:43
those two trees were linked through a marriage, the suspect would be a descendant of that couple.
00:22:50
>> And what I found was this woman on this tree married this man on this tree. That
00:22:56
was it. That was the aha moment. That was when I realized that he is a descendant of this couple right here.
00:23:03
After three and a half years, Liz finally had a lead and it pointed her to a man named Steven Smirk.
00:23:12
>> I felt like this really was him. I didn't know it for certain, but I believed it was. Contacted the
00:23:18
detectives. So, she sends me an email. 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, married to a
00:23:31
defense attorney, two kids in high school, nice house in the suburbs, not so much as a speeding ticket on his
00:23:37
background. I'm thinking, there's no way this is our guy. >> But according to detective John Long,
00:23:43
things got a bit more interesting when they found his yearbook photo at age 16. >> It looked very similar to the
00:23:51
phenotyping sketch. We're like, well, you know, maybe this does make sense. >> Steven Smirk lived in Niskauna, a town
00:24:06
in upstate New York. So, investigators decided to pay him a visit. Does he know you're coming?
00:24:13
>> No. No. >> They were hoping he would cooperate and provide his DNA. Wallace and Long say he
00:24:21
appeared to be home alone, so they knocked on his door. >> All we said is, "We are detectives from
00:24:27
Fairfax County, Virginia, and we're looking into a cold case from the '90s. Do you mind if we come in and talk to
00:24:34
you?" He said, "Sure." He invited us in and >> Okay, hold on a minute. So, you say,
00:24:40
"We're from Virginia. We're investigating this murder." His initial reaction? >> No reaction.
00:24:48
None. >> None. >> Stonefaced. >> There was no surprise. There was no fear. Nothing.
00:24:54
>> They found his demeanor unusual. >> When we're asking for DNA, this conversation typically takes a solid 45
00:25:02
minutes. People generally have a lot of questions like, "What do you mean someone in my family has committed a
00:25:06
murder, who was killed?" There was not a single question from him. We were in and
00:25:12
out of his house in 5 minutes with his DNA. >> Yeah. consent form signed, swab collected, packaged up. That was it.
00:25:21
>> After the visit, detectives checked into their hotel. But then, Detective Wallace
00:25:26
got an unexpected call. >> It's Steve Smart calling me. And he says, "I'm at the police department to
00:25:32
turn myself in." And I said, "Turn yourself in for what?" And he said, "I'm here to turn myself in
00:25:42
for the murder." A million things start going through my mind. >> Smurk told detectives he was having
00:25:48
trouble getting into the Niskauna Police Department, which was locked. >> So then I'm thinking it must be a
00:25:54
smaller police station. And I said, "Okay, what I need you to do is we're going to hang up. I need you to call 911
00:26:00
and tell them that you're there." >> Steven Smurk's call was recorded. >> 911, the address of your emergency.
00:26:07
>> I'm actually here to turn myself in for a cold case crime. You're here to turn
00:26:12
yourself in. >> Well, they collected DNA, so it's >> What's your last name? >> Wow. So, when do you tell him?
00:26:20
>> Oh my god, I was freaking out. So, I'm >> She freaked me out. >> I run down to his room and I'm banging
00:26:27
on his door. I'm like, "We got to go to the police department. He's turning himself in."
00:26:32
>> Wallace also reached out to local police and Steven Smirk was taken into custody.
00:26:39
The adrenaline was pumping so hard because the reality hit and um it sounds like he's going to talk to us about it.
00:26:47
>> Detective Long says they had to refocus fast and figure out how they would handle Steven Smirk's interrogation.
00:26:54
>> We need to make sure this is a sound interview that could potentially be used
00:26:58
in court down the road. >> All right, go ahead and have a seat. >> When they finally sat down with him,
00:27:05
>> where do you want to start? Investigators say he didn't need much prompting. >> It was 100% intentional. I am a serial
00:27:13
killer who's only killed once. >> You've come here to turn yourself in for a 1994 murder. When investigators met
00:27:37
with Steven Smirk on September 7th, 2023, they were skeptical. >> This doesn't happen every day. So, we we
00:27:45
had to really think through, well, why is he doing this? >> Detectives had not yet received the
00:27:51
results of the DNA samples Smirk had provided, linking him definitively. >> We needed to be very careful to make
00:27:58
sure that we weren't getting a false confession. >> So, then what was your approach going to
00:28:02
be? We start talking about things like, "Hey, let's make sure that he's going to
00:28:06
bring up details of the case without us telling him first." >> Can you remind me her name again? Can
00:28:12
you say that? >> I can. Do you remember anything about the person? >> She was Africaname.
00:28:16
>> Okay. >> That's all I remember. >> He started 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
00:28:26
other family event that he went to. It was a very calm conversation. nonchalant.
00:28:34
>> I was not in the right frame of mind. >> Okay. >> Steven Smurk told detectives that back
00:28:39
in November 1994, he was a 22year-old soldier stationed at Fort Meyer in Arlington, Virginia. And
00:28:48
on the night of the murder, he had been drinking beer. >> I was uh drunk and under
00:28:57
a federan. >> He says he had been taking ephedrin pills. a stimulant. >> Something inside me said that
00:29:07
it's hard to explain. >> I knew that I was going to kill somebody. I did not know who I was going
00:29:12
to kill. It was like this overbearing thought in my brain that I just had to kill somebody.
00:29:19
>> Smur said he drove to Robin's neighborhood because he was familiar with the area. He visited friends who
00:29:26
stayed in a house nearby. Had you had any contact with her, spoke to her or anything like that?
00:29:33
>> No, I didn't even to be honest with you, I don't know. Didn't even know who lived
00:29:36
there. I never met this person before or seen her or anything. >> Smirk confirmed he entered the house
00:29:45
from the back deck and told detectives he was wearing a ski mask and leather gloves.
00:29:50
>> And I went in and noticed that she had a baby in one of the rooms. He said he
00:29:55
went down the hall to Robin's bedroom. >> I startled her. She got out of bed. She
00:30:03
was on her knees. She was just begging for her life. I cut her up pretty good. I did everything they taught me in the
00:30:13
military. Hand to hand combat. >> Mhm. >> I'm highly highly influenced by demons.
00:30:20
>> Okay. He told investigators one of the reasons he enlisted was because he wanted to kill.
00:30:26
>> But I want to tell you right now that I she's the only person that I've killed.
00:30:32
>> I'm married. I have kids there. I honestly believe that if it wasn't for my wife and my kids, I
00:30:39
probably would be a serial killer. Detective Wallace knew it was critical to link him to that washcloth found in
00:30:48
the bathroom. So, she asked him if he'd been injured that night. >> She clawed at my face.
00:30:54
>> I had a little bit of a scar here. >> Did you ever go into her bathroom at all?
00:30:59
>> I don't remember that. If I did go into the bathroom, it would have been to look
00:31:03
at what she did to my face. That's when I knew that that we were in business with putting him in the bathroom and why
00:31:12
his DNA was there. That was the biggest confirmation. >> As the interview wrapped up, Detective
00:31:18
Long asked Smirk if he wanted to express any remorse to Robin's family. >> Um, how do I say this?
00:31:26
>> I don't know. You're recording. I don't feel anything for the family. >> I can't say that any other way. I
00:31:34
feel bad that I did it because I knew someday my personal freedom would be affected.
00:31:43
>> I think what you see is 100% what you get from him. Arrogance, uh, entitlement.
00:31:51
He wanted to do it, so he did it. And that's it. Detective Wallace believes Steven Smurk
00:31:58
confessed because he knew he was caught and wanted to turn himself in on his own
00:32:03
terms. It wasn't because he was sorry. It wasn't because he was tired of running for 30 years. He wanted to
00:32:09
maintain control. >> Former FBI profiler Mary Ellen Tulle, who reviewed the case for 48 hours,
00:32:16
agrees that Smirk wanted to control the narrative. He was prepared that he was going to tell his version of the story.
00:32:26
>> Otul says she doesn't buy Smurk's claim that Robin's murder was random. She classifies it as a missionoriented
00:32:34
homicide. >> Went down the hallway, bedroom was a ahead. >> He brought the weapon with him. He had a
00:32:42
mask. He had gloves. It also happens to be on an evening when the victim's husband is in a travel
00:32:52
status. This was purposeful when inside somebody's home took enormous risk. So that suggests to me more of a targeting
00:33:01
than it does randomness. >> In her analysis, Otul says she was struck by Smirk identifying himself as a
00:33:08
serial killer. >> I am a serial killer who's only killed once. He did come across as someone that
00:33:15
had admiration for them. So, here's kind of like the big question, though. Do serial killers stop killing? Yes, they
00:33:24
do. According to Otul, serial offenders can sometimes channel their compulsion to kill into other crimes like stalking
00:33:33
or voyerism. I think it's also possible that he engaged in other behaviors much less serious than homicide that um
00:33:43
satisfied him. He has no criminal history of any kind. How unusual is that? Not very unusual. But here's the
00:33:51
important thing to keep in mind. The absence of a wrap sheet does not mean that criminal behavior is absent. It
00:34:00
means that they didn't get arrested for it. >> Can I take care of this process? Okay.
00:34:04
>> After his confession, Steven Smirk was arrested and charged with the murder of
00:34:10
Robin Lawrence. Detective Wallace says her first phone call was to Robin's daughter, Nicole.
00:34:17
>> You could tell the shock, but she didn't um break down or crumble. I could tell
00:34:23
that she was like, "Okay, now my job is to notify the rest of the family." How is it that he could live his life
00:34:34
with his family when he blew up our family 30 years ago? >> Where's the justice in that?
00:34:43
>> Robin's family prepared for the next step. >> We really wanted to do a trial. We
00:34:49
wanted the world to know what he did and I think we wanted the spectacle of that,
00:34:57
a satisfaction. But would they get that chance? A week after Steven Smirk's interview
00:35:14
with police, forensic testing confirmed Steven Smirk's DNA was a match to the blood on
00:35:23
the washcloth found in Robin's bathroom. >> It's a one in over 7 million chance that
00:35:30
it would not have been his DNA. On April 4th, 2024, Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Dano's
00:35:40
office presented the case at a preliminary hearing to determine if there was enough evidence to move
00:35:46
forward. >> Look, I've dealt with murderers before. I can tell you that in my mind, Steven
00:35:51
Smirk stands alone as somebody who represents a true danger to the community. Robin's family saw Steven smirk for the
00:36:01
first time at the hearing. >> I was amazed how big he was. He needed two baiffs around him. The first thing I
00:36:12
thought of was like, "My aunt didn't stand a chance." >> Prosecutors played Smurk's confession
00:36:18
and the family heard the details of Robin's murder in Smurk's own words. There was no emotion. It It didn't feel
00:36:28
real. It just made me feel angry. Like, how could he have done that? >> The judge found probable cause that
00:36:34
Steven Smirk killed Robin and allowed the case to proceed to a grand jury. On April 15th, a grand jury indicted him.
00:36:43
But 6 months later, he accepted a plea deal for firstdegree murder. >> We got guaranteed accountability. Dano
00:36:50
says the agreement ensured Smirk would be held accountable. >> We had the challenge of some witnesses
00:36:57
passing, other witnesses their memories uh 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 7th, 2025, Steven Smirk returned to court for sentencing. As part of the mitigation strategy for a
00:37:18
more lenient sentence, his attorney, Don Bddarak, told the judge that in the early 90s, Smirk was a troubled young
00:37:26
man struggling with alcohol and substance abuse. >> He eventually decided, I'm going to join
00:37:32
the military, thinking that that would be a good choice for him to maybe get his life stabilized. He said he joined
00:37:39
the military so he could kill people. What did he mean by that? >> I never asked him what he meant by that.
00:37:46
I think it was an idea that if I go, maybe I can take my anger out on this. Maybe this will get me back on the right
00:37:56
track. >> According to Budarak, Smirk was also crippled with an undiagnosed mental
00:38:03
illness. It wasn't until several years later that he eventually was diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder and when you add
00:38:09
aphedra and alcohol, he was struggling a lot. The FDA banned some ephedra products in 2004. And Budarak says that
00:38:18
was in part because when abused with other substances, they could trigger dangerous psychiatric side effects.
00:38:26
>> Did Steve Smirk tell you that he ever had hallucinations or heard voices or anything along those lines while taking
00:38:33
a fedra? No, but you have to remember at the time also he had undiagnosed bipolar. So, it's hard to figure out
00:38:38
exactly what his mental state was attributable to. She says by the time investigators
00:38:45
came to Smurk's door nearly 30 years later, Smurk had sought help for his mental health problems and become sober.
00:38:54
Burak says her client confessed and waved his right to a trial because he felt genuine remorse.
00:39:02
But over the 30 years, did he think about Robin? >> Every day. >> Every day. >> Every day he'd think about it.
00:39:08
>> But during his statement to investigators, he doesn't express empathy or remorse. He always wanted to
00:39:16
accept responsibility. Acceptance of responsibility is one form of remorse. >> In the end, the judge sentenced Steven
00:39:25
Smirk 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, Olly Lawrence gave a statement to the press. >> The Warren Lawrence family are grateful
00:39:51
that justice has finally been done for the murder our of our beloved Robin. Lauren answered a few questions with
00:39:59
Robin's daughter Nicole by her side. >> As much as this a sigh of relief, we still have to live with this. Just
00:40:06
doesn't go away. >> She's strong. She stood next to me and she held my hand. >> Oh my god. If her mom could see us.
00:40:16
Um, it was great. >> How do you want people to remember your aunt? I want people to remember her as
00:40:25
creative, exuberant, very vocal, caring, a beautiful mother. She just had a light that shine from
00:40:36
within. >> I feel like she is living through her art because her art everywhere emotes.
00:40:46
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 I was good things, happy things,
00:41:05
warm things. Welcome to Postmortem. I'm Natalie Morales filling in today as your host to
00:42:00
talk about a story that 48 Hours correspondent Anie Green reported on. It's about the cold case murder of Robin
00:42:08
War Lawrence, which was finally solved after nearly 30 years with the help of advances in DNA testing and the tireless
00:42:17
efforts of a pro bono genetic genealogologist. Amarie, so good to have you with us. What a fascinating story to
00:42:24
be able to report on. >> It really is. It's a case a lot of people thought would never be solved.
00:42:30
And just want to remind our listeners once again, if you haven't listened to the 48 hours episode yet, you can find
00:42:35
the full audio just below this episode in your podcast feed. Go take a listen, then come on back here for our
00:42:42
conversation. Well, it was on the night of November 18th, 1994 when Robin War Lawrence was
00:42:49
at her home in Springfield, Virginia, when an intruder broke in and stabbed her multiple times to her death. Her
00:42:57
husband Ali was away on a business trip in the Bahamas. And after being unable to reach her all weekend, he then asked
00:43:04
their friend Lorie Lindberg to stop by and check on his wife. Well, 2 days after the murder, Lorie entered the
00:43:12
house and saw blood on the wall and of course the couple's 2-year-old daughter, Nicole, just wandering around by
00:43:19
herself. So tragic. I mean to think of little Nicole there at that young age, you know, witnessed whatever she
00:43:27
witnessed. >> Yeah. Well, that's the thing about it. You know, that's what Lorie says in the
00:43:31
hour that she could just see this sort of vacant expression on this little girl's face. She knows like there's
00:43:40
something really, really bad that has happened. And she doesn't even really venture any further in. She sort of
00:43:45
peaks down the hall. She sees that something has happened in the in the bedroom and immediately she's like out
00:43:51
of there. She grabs Nicole and you know she's with another friend. So they call um police.
00:43:58
>> Yeah. And and investigators they learn that Ali, her husband, who as we said was away on a business trip in the
00:44:05
Bahamas, they find out that he had been having an affair. Was that something that aroused suspicion with
00:44:12
investigators early on? Any? Yeah, I mean, you know, Natalie, we've done so many of these. Of course, it's the
00:44:19
spouse is sort of the first person you look at, and then you find out he's having an affair, but you know, they
00:44:25
thoroughly vet him. They they his alibi checks out. He is in the Bahamas, very far away um from the scene of the crime.
00:44:33
And and they also, you know, look at the woman that he was having the affair with
00:44:37
as well, and they're able to kind of rule her out. And eventually his he is cleared. I should say Robin's family
00:44:45
never suspected Olli. Um, yes, you know, they were surprised he was having an affair, but as far as they were
00:44:51
concerned then and now, he would never do anything like this. So, what evidence did investigators have from that crime
00:44:58
scene? Again, you know, this is dating back to 1994 and, you know, this case was cold for over 30 years, so I imagine
00:45:06
there wasn't a lot to go on initially. >> There wasn't. Uh, there were no fingerprints. Um, it's certainly a
00:45:14
bloody scene and it's a a messy scene in the bedroom. Um, but other than that, there is really not a lot, but we have
00:45:23
this one crime scene investigator and I mean their job is to look at minute details and collect anything that could
00:45:35
possibly be evidence. and he notices a little bit of blood in the bathroom on a washcloth. Other than that, the bathroom
00:45:44
is pretty clean, almost pristine. Now, they had, you know, uploaded the sample to Cotus. There's no matches. But boy,
00:45:53
30 years later, it was going to make a heck of a difference when it came to solving this this case. And all these
00:45:59
years later, you interviewed Robin's family, including her sister Mary, her brother, Robert Jr., and their father U.
00:46:08
Robert Senior. So, Robert Senior was 100 when we interviewed him. He's 101 now. And I have never met somebody this age
00:46:20
who is just so with it. Um, you know, he lives on his own, his own apartment. Somebody comes in, you know, to help him
00:46:27
out a bit, but he's on his own. The apartment is the the the cutest, most picture perfect little apartment with
00:46:36
Robin's art everywhere. And I'm just going to I'm going to have to look down a little bit at my note to sort of list
00:46:41
off some of the stuff that Robert Senior has done in his lifetime. Right. He was
00:46:44
the first elected African-American school board member and elected council member in Syracuse. In 1962, he became
00:46:52
the president of the Syracuse chapter of the NAACP, the first African-American engineering consultant at uh General
00:46:59
Electric. >> My goodness. Wow. What a list. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're all they're
00:47:05
all like super accomplished. >> And so was Robin as an accomplished artist. >> Yes. And he was so incredibly
00:47:13
proud of her. She had just created that first metal, right? the Martin Luther King Jr. medal which we see in the story
00:47:22
and I can't help but to think where she would have gone from there. Um what would have inspired her because when you
00:47:28
look at her art it's the range of styles of subject matters you know individuals
00:47:36
to landscapes uh different types of mediums I mean who knows where she would have gone. So decades after the murder
00:47:45
in 2019, cold case detectives, they start digging through the case again to see if there is anything new, new
00:47:53
advances in DNA technology and what they could possibly use to be able to push this case along. So how significant were
00:48:02
the advancements in the technology that then allowed them to relook at this case
00:48:07
once again? >> Yeah, it's huge. The investigators send the DNA to a company called Parabon
00:48:14
Nanolabs. What they figure out is that the killer is of European descent, right? So that
00:48:22
helped in terms of identifying a possible suspect, but still I mean Parabon said to investigators, this is
00:48:30
probably a zero probability that this case will be solved. >> Yeah. I mean this is 2019. They get this
00:48:36
little bit of a breakthrough. But still, I imagine has to be so frustrating and investigators said that they could have
00:48:42
walked away at that point, having reached what they thought was the end of the road when it came to what they could
00:48:48
extract from that DNA. But then one person did come out of the woodwork. And you got to give so much credit to Liz.
00:48:56
She worked this case pro bono, hundreds of hours. She's a volunteer with the police department, an amateur
00:49:02
genealogologist, but she threw all her knowledge and all her effort into helping try to solve this case, which is
00:49:09
so remarkable. So, Liz is is fascinating. First off, she didn't even really want to talk. She
00:49:16
preferred to stay anonymous. She wouldn't let us use her last name. Liz's background, she was a successful
00:49:23
attorney. She had a very successful career. um and she retires and decides, nah, I'll probably spend some time with
00:49:31
my grandkids. I'll help help my daughter out. But when you have a mind like that,
00:49:36
your retirement is not like other people's retirement. You got to stay busy. Um she was looking for a way to
00:49:42
give back to the community and she had a passion for genealogy and so this was sort of the perfect opportunity for her.
00:49:50
But this is a hard case, right? It's it's probably estimated that she put in 1,400 hours of work on this case over
00:49:58
three years. COVID hits, she can't go anywhere. So, she's in the house on the computer. And there were so many times
00:50:06
she said that she would be like, "That's it." You know, there's nothing more I can do. And then she would lie in bed
00:50:11
and be like, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What about this? What about that? What about that?" And she just
00:50:15
never gave up. Amazing. Thank goodness for people like her who just throw all their knowledge at something and she
00:50:22
finally cracked the the puzzle. She solved it. Well, when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more
00:50:28
about Liz, the genetic genealogologists, and how she was able to piece together that family tree that then led
00:50:37
investigators to their suspect, Steven Smirk. Welcome back. Well, let's get into now
00:50:45
how Liz was able to narrow in on the suspected killer, Steven Smirk. So, there is the sample of DNA that comes
00:50:53
from that washcloth. What Parabon did is upload uh the DNA sample to two sites, Family Tree DNA and Jed Match. These
00:51:03
sites allow law enforcement to access the database. you can opt out of that if you don't want, you know, your
00:51:11
information to be seen by law enforcement. Um, but generally they have quite large databases which allows them
00:51:18
to then uh, you know, identify possible familial connections when they have suspect DNA. And so from that comes all
00:51:27
of these cousins, over a thousand cousins. So what she has to literally do, Liz does, is build family trees for
00:51:35
all of these cousins until she finds the right person. And she does that by going
00:51:41
all as far back as she can and identifies the one side of the family and the other side of the family in
00:51:49
Europe. She traces them over to Canada where they settle. She then parses out the people who moved to California and
00:51:59
slowly finds one family where the two family lines crisscross. Follows that down and sees a family that
00:52:12
has two sons. One of those sons was in Virginia at the time of the murder. And that is the name that she sends to the
00:52:22
police. I mean, the amount of work and effort that went into that major breakthrough, what was that moment like
00:52:29
for her, Amry? I mean, she said it was like magic. Like, you hear the phrase needle in the haststack. It was a needle
00:52:35
in a needle stack, right? Like, what are the odds of her figuring this out? It was phenomenal.
00:52:42
>> Okay, so they the investigators get this possible match, but they also then have
00:52:47
to think, you know, okay, does this guy fit with who we think it could be? And in 2021, investigators, they worked with
00:52:56
a forensic artist at Parabon Nano Labs. This was so fascinating to me because with that DNA sample, then an artist at
00:53:05
the lab there then can create a phenotype drawing, a rendering of what they believe the suspect might look like.
00:53:14
That to me was a moment of like, oh my gosh, they could figure out the shape of his face, his chin size, his nose size,
00:53:22
his hair. I mean, it's remarkable. >> Like, that is what surprised me the most about
00:53:30
using DNA in this way because I didn't think that it could get into that kind of detail. And they then compare that
00:53:40
sketch to Steven Smirk's high school yearbook photo. And it bore such a striking resemblance. I mean, it was it
00:53:50
was pretty good. It was pretty damn good. I'm going to play for you now an unaired clip of Mary and Robert Junior's
00:53:55
reaction to Liz's help on the case. >> If you could say something to Liz, what would you say to her?
00:54:01
>> Thank you. Thank you very much for your hard work and dedication. I I would say you are an angel, Liz.
00:54:14
You You brought comfort and closure to this family after so many years. >> And if it wasn't for your tenacity and
00:54:26
hard work and keep keep going, we would not know who killed Robin. And that means everything.
00:54:37
That means everything to us. >> Um, you can see they're softspoken and measured. Um, you know, I think it was
00:54:48
important for them to kind of maintain um emotional control, you know what I mean? They're
00:54:56
reserved. Um, and so this tragedy is completely kind of out of the norm of anything that that they
00:55:05
would have envisioned for their family. What we learn about Steven Smirk in 2023, he was living in Niskeuna, that's
00:55:13
a town in upstate New York. And you know, it's it's incredible to me, as we learn in the hour, he had no criminal
00:55:22
history. I mean, not even a parking ticket. and Marie. That's more than I could say for me. I think I have a
00:55:27
couple of parking tickets. >> Yeah, it's remarkable. At least on the surface, this is as average of a guy as
00:55:34
you can get. Uh the police learned that he's a computer programmer living in upstate New York. You mentioned Iskauna,
00:55:41
you know, smalish town, married to an defense attorney. He has two kids in high school. And just
00:55:49
to add sort of another weird coincidence is uh Mary's daughter Lauren actually went to the same high school as Steven
00:55:57
Smirk's kids. Um obviously not at the same time. Lauren's older than them, but I mean that's how kind of physically
00:56:05
close these two families had been. But there is really nothing particularly remarkable about this guy and the way
00:56:14
he's living his life. you know, when when police finally catch up with him. >> Yeah. Except when investigators show up
00:56:22
at his front door there in upstate New York and they knock on the door, he opens it up, he willingly lets them
00:56:28
inside. And you know, to the detectives, what was so interesting, he didn't seem
00:56:33
surprised at all when they start to ask him questions about a murder that's going back 30 years. I mean, he didn't
00:56:40
ask a single follow-up question, and he willingly provides his DNA. And then after the detectives left, he then turns
00:56:49
himself in to the Niskeuna Police Department. I mean, what did investigators think at the time about
00:56:54
all of that? They the intention was to just drive by his house and take a look and then go check into their hotel. But
00:57:02
then when they saw him, they thought, "Well, what the heck? Let's just go over there and talk to So, they were not
00:57:06
expecting things to unfold as quickly as they did. He welcomed them in. They talked for a while. Um, and they were
00:57:16
shocked when just a few hours later, he is turning himself in. I don't know what
00:57:21
was going through his mind. Detectives Melissa Wallace and John Long uh told us that Smirks told them that his wife said
00:57:29
something along the lines of do the right thing. But Steven Smurf's wife had no idea this
00:57:37
was part of his past. And he says she had no idea. >> Well, that interrogation was so chilling
00:57:43
when he he said he openly says and admits, "I'm a serial killer, but I've only killed once before." Um, yeah. I
00:57:53
mean, that took my breath away. I was like, "Wow." Um, so what do they start to learn as investigators dig into his
00:58:00
background? What do they find? Um, we spoke to his defense attorney who gave us a little more information about his
00:58:07
past. Uh, his parents are divorced. Uh, his mother, when his mother left, she moved in with another woman. After this
00:58:14
divorce, things changed in his life. He kind of fell into uh a rough crowd. Um, there was an interest with that crowd,
00:58:25
an interest in studying sort of the occult. There was some drug use. But then, you know, he meets his wife the
00:58:33
same year that he kills Robin. And he credits meeting her um with kind of what prompted him to really turn his life
00:58:43
around. She talks to him about some of his anger problems, some of his drinking issues, and he goes to rehab and he gets
00:58:51
sober and he kind of is on the road to recovery at that point. So later on, this is 2024, he's already pleading
00:59:01
guilty. He undergoes a forensic psychological evaluation. It was done by Dr. Marcus uh Vanickle. He is the
00:59:10
defense's witness. Um and he does a psychopath test, which I think we've all kind of heard of before. And he scores
00:59:18
incredibly low, four out of 40. So low in fact that former FBI uh profiler Mary Ellen Otul who you see in
00:59:28
the hour who we asked to review this these documents she was not a part of this case. She thinks it's so low it's
00:59:34
suspiciously low that you know maybe he was trying to game the test a little bit. Um he says that he has an
00:59:42
undiagnosed mental illness and I should also point out that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the early
00:59:48
2000s. It's something that officers didn't find out about till much later, but this is part of what he says was
00:59:55
his, you know, undiagnosed mental illness that he may have been suffering from in the '9s that he says may explain
01:00:03
some of his behavior. But there's no evidence at this point, though. Or or was there anything that connected Smirk
01:00:09
to Robin? I mean, did investigators think this was a totally random attack? >> Um, I mean, he says it is.
01:00:16
He says that he just, you know, he had this compulsion that night and he didn't know she was home alone. Um, and he just
01:00:26
picked the house randomly. Marie Ellen Oul, who once again I'll say, you know, wasn't a part of this case, just
01:00:33
reviewed the documents, finds that suspicious, his his assertion that it was completely random. So, I
01:00:41
want to actually play a little bit more from former FBI profiler, Mary Ellen Otul.
01:00:46
>> It doesn't feel like it's a random killing to me. In the FBI, we do an assessment of victims and it's based on
01:00:52
their lifestyle and and this victim lived a pretty lowrisk lifestyle and she is in her own home and it's at night and
01:01:01
it's a a low crime area of Fairfax County. Um, so you have an offender basically who um breaks into the home
01:01:12
and seems to have some kind of understanding of the layout of the home. At least the behavior suggests that. But
01:01:20
you also have an offender who is thinking ahead enough to bring gloves and to wear uh a cover for their face um
01:01:29
to bring the weapon and and to take the weapon with them. And I think it's also very interesting
01:01:36
that it also happens to be at night on an evening when the victim's husband is in a travel status. So all of those
01:01:46
features for me do tend to take away some of the randomness of it. So there you go. In October 2024, Steven Smirk
01:01:57
accepted a plea deal for firstdegree murder. He was later sentenced to the maximum sentence allowed under the plea
01:02:04
deal. That's 70 years with the possibility of parole. Smirk will be eligible for parole in 2037.
01:02:11
So Amry, does the War Lawrence family feel though that justice has been served, at least knowing finally who the
01:02:18
killer is and knowing that he is behind bars, but yet they didn't get a trial. I
01:02:23
think they were incredibly relieved to have identified the killer. They wanted a trial. they felt like he kind of got
01:02:30
off a little bit by not having to sit there and and really hear the damage that was done, you know. Um, this is
01:02:39
what I'm going to I'm like pulling out this book. So I told you how the the War Lawrence family is this incredibly
01:02:44
interesting family and Robert War senior actually wrote a book covering the family and he writes about what an
01:02:52
amazing person Robin was and he also writes about Nicole and how well Nicole is doing and how she graduated from
01:03:00
university. She's traveled abroad and worked as an Opair. She's now married. She works in the hospitality uh industry
01:03:07
and Nicole is doing fine which I think a lot of people would be sort of curious about. He writes about when he heard
01:03:15
that Steven Smirk had been arrested and he said, "I cried and grieved for the many years not knowing who killed Robin
01:03:23
or why. My beloved wife Jesse died without ever knowing the person responsible would pay for their crime."
01:03:31
I shouted, "Hallelujah!" when we received a phone call that Robin's killer had been found after 29 years.
01:03:38
Well, we can only imagine that at least finally having an answer has to give them all some peace. An Marie, once
01:03:45
again, such great reporting. Thank you so much for bringing the hour to us. And I do want to remind our listeners, if
01:03:51
you like this episode, please rate and review us on Apple Podcast or Spotify.