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Tonight, on Dateline. She hugged me. And she said she was sorry. And I bursted in tears.
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Our families have both gone through a lot. There's a woman she shot. She's laying on the floor in the garage.
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Pretty much gave her whole life just trying to raise me right. Who would shoot Christy?
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I couldn't even sleep. I needed an answer. We thought we were a real detective. He wasn't going to get away with killing our sister.
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A young mother murdered at a trio of men under the microscope. What's going on here?
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That was our question. Who would have the motivation to do this? It's like time froze.
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I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with One Moment.
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In the mega sprawl of Los Angeles County, the city of Hawthorne occupies about six square miles,
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none of them especially glamorous. For decades, local pride centered on the Beach Boys.
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They grew up here and quickly left. Nowadays, it's tech giants like SpaceX, with headquarters at the local airport.
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But the heart and soul of Hawthorne was and is working families. Strivers who stay close and look out for each other.
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This is a story about one of those families. They faced ups and downs like everyone else, and always worked through them together.
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Until one moment. One morning, one bullet came to tear them apart. Growing up, sisters Crystal, Michelle, and Monica Taylor were always there for each other.
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We have this tradition of having a family support group. It was their mother, known as Momo, who set the tone.
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I thought it was the most wonderful family there was. My mom and I were best friends, and my little sister were best friends.
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and, you know, so I thought life was great. I'm the oldest. Michelle's the middle
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and Christy is the baby. And she was every bit the baby. She's my mom's baby. Crystal Taylor was the youngest by six years
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and both older sisters thought Momo loved Christy a little extra. Spoiled her too, say Michelle and Monica.
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They talked every day and she would just immediately start whining as soon as she talked to my mom.
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She could be like being a grown-up and as soon as the phone rings, she went right back to eight-year-old.
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all the time. Tia, her niece, remembers Christy as both a homebody and a romantic dreamer.
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She wasn't flashy. She wasn't someone who like shopped a lot. She was just a really down to earth,
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simple, just happy to be at home watching movies. She watched the same movies all the time over and
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she loved love stories. Hope Floats, Ever After, Love Jones. Those are all stories of women who
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find love in improbable ways and end up happy. Right. Is that what she wanted? Yes.
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I know she wanted love. I know that she wanted a fairytale life. I know she always talked about it,
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but, you know, she was happy with the life that she had. The life she had, working, being with family,
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and raising a son who was born the very day she turned 17. I went in and she was singing.
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It never rains in Southern California and labor, We're like shaking the bed. We're like, it never rains.
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And I'm like, what did she do? Crystal called her little boy Javante against the wishes of the boy's father.
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He came in the room when we were in there and he was like, I want his name to be Junior.
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He just like, in labor, stop labor, no. And I said, I see. She said, well, no, because I'm not married to him.
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And if I get married to somebody else, I don't want to have two juniors. Like, no.
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So she already made the decision that she was having the baby and she was not going to be his wife.
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And she was not going to be his wife. But that was Christy. She made a decision.
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There was no change in her mind. Wrapped in the blanket of her big family, Crystal knew she and Javante would do just fine.
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We're some baby whispers in a sense. We love babies. Strangers, babies, anybody baby.
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Anybody say that's too young to be having a baby? No, we all had babies young. We'd still said it.
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It would still be said, but it would also be followed by you're still going to finish school.
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You know, the life isn't over. You made your bed harder, but you're going to lay in it.
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Yeah. And we're going to love this baby. Those were rules set down by Momo. Everyone finished school, started a career,
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and raised their children on their own successfully. As Javante grew, Christy grew up.
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She just really took care of her baby, went to work, and like brought her lunch because she was never spending any money.
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If she went to the movies with her son, no. He knew not to ask for snacks. She just wouldn't spend any money.
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Money was for the important things, like Javante's education. She always talked about, you know, his prom or when he goes to college
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or what she wanted him to do with his life and, you know, how she wanted him to be different.
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So she took her job as a mother really seriously. By 2001, Michelle and Christy and their kids
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were living in separate apartments in the same apartment building in Hawthorne. Even Momo lived there until her health began to fail,
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and she moved to Texas where her sister-in-law, a nurse, could take care of her.
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But soon came word, Momo's in bad shape, come quick. That day was easy to remember.
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It was September 11, 2001. They couldn fly No one in the U could So they drove from Hawthorne to Texas Christy wouldn leave Momo side the entire time they were there
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Christy's like, I'm sorry, but I came here just to see Mom. She wasn't leaving her room. Like, she was just focused on her.
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If she can get next to my mom, she's going to be under like glue. And that worked. Your mom kind of rallied.
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Oh, yeah. After two weeks, the family drove back to Los Angeles. arriving in the middle of the night on September 23rd.
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Two days later, this family learned a difficult truth. No matter how much you love and how much you care,
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sometimes you can't help your loved one when harm is headed their way. 911? Yes, I'd like to report a gunshot.
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There's a woman who's shot. She's laying on the floor in the garage. Soon after, a neighbor of Christie's called Tia with some brutal news.
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They just said that she was shot. I remember saying, who would shoot Christy? When we come back.
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She screamed the most harrowing scream. A family in anguish. I broke down crying. I just tried myself to sleep that night.
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And the first clues to the mystery. Her purse was still intact. Her clothes appeared to be intact.
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So what's going on here? That was our question. 9-1-1. Yes, I'd like to report a gunshot.
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There's a woman. She's shot. She's laying on the floor in the garage. Minutes after a 9-1-1 call, the Hawthorne police arrived at Crystal Taylor's apartment
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building. Detective Robbie Williams wasn't far behind. I was at my desk and received a call from my patrol units that they had a young lady
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who was unresponsive and appeared that she may have suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
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Williams arrived and quickly sized up the scene. There's officers already trying to revive her.
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She's laying down in the lobby area of her apartment complex that leads from the upper stairs, which are the apartment, into the garage area.
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And then we just start getting into the processing of a crime scene, making sure that we identify as many witnesses and if there is also other victims.
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But the only obvious victim was Crystal. She'd been shot in the head. Paramedics took her to the hospital,
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and Detective Williams got straight to work finding witnesses. Because this is early morning, there's kids walking to school,
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there's people preparing themselves for their day of work, so a lot of people were up, a lot of people reported hearing the gunshot.
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A father making breakfast for his kids looked out the kitchen window when he heard the shot.
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He saw a man running. An 11-year-old girl on the sidewalk in front of the building also heard it and saw a man holding a shiny object.
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He jumped a fence and ran north. Anybody actually see the shooting? No, and there was no surveillance cameras that captured it either.
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But the crime scene was talking to Detective Williams. Was she robbed? The evidence doesn't support a robbery.
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Her purse was still intact. The amount of time between someone hearing a shot and someone else seeing someone running away from the crime scene doesn't necessarily support a robbery.
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Was she sexually assaulted? No evidence supported that she was sexually assaulted. Her clothes appeared to be intact.
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So what's going on here? And that was our question. It was the first of many questions Detective Williams would have.
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Christie's family was gathering at the hospital. Later, they'd have questions too.
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But right now, they were all in shock. I got there first. They were like, go in this room that was off to the side.
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Well, I had already been to the hospital a lot with my mom, so I knew that they took the family to a side room.
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So I told them, like, no, no, no, I don't want to go in there. I just want to go see about my sister.
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So then the doctor came out and he told me, he was like, well, she didn't make it.
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And I'm driving on the freeway and all of a sudden I just felt like she wasn't here.
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The news that they lost their baby sister was unbearable. Crystal Taylor was just 27.
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When I got in, Michelle was on the floor and I'm just like looking at her. I tried to hug her.
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Now they had to tell their ailing Momo her baby was gone. When I had to call my mom to say,
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somebody killed christy and she just screamed the most harrowing just screamed i just knew this is
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gonna kill mom too there's nothing worse than burying your kids i mean no especially when
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you're already so sick i remember when i was talking to my my mom i was like don't you leave
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me telling crystal's 10 year old son was even harder and we kind of sat next to him like
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crit Javante. Your mom died. And he crossed his arms like this and screamed. And he just kind of
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leaned back. My poor little mommy. Your mom died. They didn't say how. You all kind of shielded
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Javante from what had happened. Yes. We were older and couldn't grasp what had happened to her. So
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Why give it to him? So in one day, his whole world goes away. No more mom, no more home, no more life as he knew it.
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And he taught himself to just not even talk about it. You don't even know Javante's in a room.
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He learned to just, I don't know, he just shut down. Even now, Javante seems almost numb when talking about the worst day of his life.
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That night, I pretty much, I broke down crying. I just cried myself to sleep that night.
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You remember that? Yes. You remember what she looked like? Yes. I heard you can't remember the sound of her voice.
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I cannot remember what she will sound like no Does that bother you A bit yes This family tragedy would only get worse because
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Crystal Taylor wasn't the only one killed by that bullet. As Crystal Taylor's family tried to figure out how to cope with her murder,
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Detective Robbie Williams tried to figure out who might have wanted her dead. When we start recreating that person's life, you know, we're trying to find out who would have the motivation to do this.
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And oftentimes, you know, a civilian like she was, not involved in any criminal enterprise, we tend to focus on relatives or relationship partners.
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The 11-year-old girl who'd seen the shooter running told cops that just before the shot rang out, she heard a man and a woman arguing.
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Was that a clue? Who? Detective Williams learned Crystal had a boyfriend named Dino.
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Just a hardworking guy, was in a relationship with Crystal on and off. And this is coming from the family and friends that knew about Dino.
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And there was Kenneth Woods, father of Crystal's 10-year-old son, Gervonta. Gervonta's father's got to be somebody you're going to look at.
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Most definitely, and we did, trying to identify if there was an ongoing conflict.
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Kenneth wasn't helping with Javante, and there had been conflict over child support in the past.
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Crystal had obtained a court order requiring Kenneth to pay. So, two possible leads, and a third surfaced when Williams went to Crystal's office.
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We get to her place of employment, and we talk to several young ladies that identify themselves as being her friend,
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and they're shocked that this has happened. They told him the day before she was killed, Crystal received a phone call at work that seemed to upset her.
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And then they dropped a bombshell. That A, she was pregnant, and B, the person that she was pregnant by did not want her to be pregnant any longer.
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You couldn't tell Crystal Taylor was pregnant when you saw her lying on the ground?
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I couldn't tell. I couldn't tell. In fact, she was five months along. Her unborn son died when she did.
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Crystal had told friends the father of her child was a guy named Derek Smyre. So you want to find out where Derek is?
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Most definitely. You want to find out everything about him right now. The detective learned Crystal and Derek had a quick fling.
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It only lasted a month or so. They'd met at Anderson Park, which is near both their jobs.
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By now it was lunchtime. Derek wasn't in his office. So Williams drove to the park, bringing Crystal's work friends with him.
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And one of them immediately noticed something. She points out a car that Derek drives.
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His car was easy to spot. It had vanity plates that said, My Whip, slang for a fancy car.
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Then Crystal's friend pointed out Derek, and detectives brought him in for a talk.
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Go ahead and compose yourself. What is your last name, sir? Myers. Your first name, sir?
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Derek. Do you have a middle name, Derek? Paul. He freely answered your questions.
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He didn't ask for an attorney? No. No, he never requested an attorney during our interview time with him.
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When was the last time that you saw her at her apartment? That you can recall. The last time was not recently.
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I haven't seen her physically in about, let's see, a couple of months. About too much?
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Longer than that. He kind of discounted it as, yeah, we were on and off really quick.
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Does Derek offer any theory of what he thinks might have happened to Crystal? At some point in the interview, he talks about her being involved with other people.
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Did she mention this to the boyfriend at all? She mentioned that sometimes it would pop up at her apartment.
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Sometimes she would say, I wish this guy stopped calling me. He's trying to get back with me.
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At least that's the impression from when I go out. It might be true. She might have been trying to make me jealous or something.
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I don't know. You know what I mean? Right. People say things. They're not always the truth.
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You know what I mean? Did he acknowledge that Crystal was pregnant with his child?
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He acknowledged that she was pregnant, but came short of acknowledging that the child was his.
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You're the father of her child, or she thinks you are? Well, anyway. You had a basic description of someone that witnesses saw running from the scene.
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Yes. African-American male wearing a dark colored hoodie with a scarf around his head or a handkerchief around his head.
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Small build wearing dark clothing with light facial hair. That description resembled Eric Smyre?
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It does. Derek Smyre had no criminal record. He had a white collar office job. and he came from a close-knit loving family said his sister Danielle. I really I looked up to my
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brother growing up that was really quiet in school but uh everyone knew who Derek Smyre was. He had
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your back. He had my back and there is no doubt that if anything happened he would be there to
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take care of me. So when she heard police were interviewing her brother about a murder she
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questioned him herself. And I asked Derek what is this? He said I don't know. So what happened? He
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said, I don't know what happened. So he didn't say that he knew anything about Crystal Taylor's death?
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Nothing about Crystal Taylor's death. It sounds to me like you were pretty fixated on Derek pretty early.
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Well, he was one of our top three. Because remember, we're looking at the son's father.
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We looking at her love interest on and off guy Dino And we looking at now Derek How did Gervonta father react when you told him Crystal had been murdered His reaction was shock He was shock
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And her boyfriend Dino was devastated, police said. More important, both men had alibis.
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Witnesses put them nowhere near Crystal's apartment at the time of the murder. The same was true for Derek Smyre.
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His neighbors saw him at home at 7.30 that morning, meaning he couldn't have shot Crystal.
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Doesn't sound like there's enough to hold anybody on at that point. No. But soon enough, there would be another person police would be looking at.
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Coming up. It was a guy. I kind of got this instinct that said, remember what he looked like.
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Sisters turned investigators. We've been watching cold case and criminal files. So we thought we were real detectives.
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He wasn't going to get away with killing our sister. Jeremiah Taylor wasn't supposed to be born for 20 more weeks.
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He never got a birth certificate, only a death certificate. Then the coroner released his body, along with his mother's, so their family could say goodbye.
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It was an open casket. I remember I wanted to reach out and touch her. And I just kind of sat in the chair looking down on the floor, waiting for it to be over.
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In the days after Christy died, everyone in the family spoke with police, hoping they could help in some way, any way.
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Michelle had a story about the day before Christy died. as she left with the kids that morning.
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There was a man in the lobby of their building. And I came around the corner, and it was a guy.
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He was sitting on the stairs, and when I came around, he startled me a little bit, so I stopped to ask him,
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what was he doing there? And then he told me he was waiting for someone. Michelle had a bad feeling about him.
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I kind of got this instinct that said, remember what he looked like. And then I froze on what he looked like
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and went on about my business. And she warned Christy about the man. I called her to tell her that it was a strange guy that was on the stairs.
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Just be careful when she came out. So was the man Michelle saw on Monday, the same man witnesses saw on Tuesday,
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running from the scene after the murder. What I'd like to do, Shavonna, is just know a little bit about...
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Police brought in Shavonna Hall, the 11-year-old schoolgirl who saw the running man.
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Did he have anything on his head? Yeah. With her mom at her side, she worked with a forensic artist from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
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on a sketch of the suspect. What can you tell me about his nose, his eyes, his mouth?
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Michelle worked with the same artist. Does the description of the guy Crystal's sister says was waiting on the staircase,
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does that match the description of the guy people say were running away after the shooting?
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Almost identical. Here's the sketch, drawn from both their descriptions. Were you happy with the final sketch? It looked like the guy?
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Oh yeah, it looked like him. But he didn't look like any of the men in Crystal Taylor's life.
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Not Derek, not Dino, and not Javante's father, Kenneth. Cops would have to figure out who he was and where to find him.
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Monica and Michelle didn't want to wait for that. We had been watching Cold Case and Criminal Files and all that, so we thought we were real detective.
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Too much TV can be a dangerous thing. Or maybe this was the dynamic of the Taylor family.
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The sisters who were going to together help Crystal raise her son were now helping solve her murder.
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So, sketch in hand, they canvassed the neighborhood. You, not the police? She became so obsessed.
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It worried me how obsessed she was with, and she would say, he's not going to get away with doing this to my baby sister.
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Tia was afraid her mom and her aunt were putting their own lives in danger. I threatened to tell the police, like, you guys are not supposed to be doing that.
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Like, you guys don't have weapons. What are you going to do? What are you looking for?
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And then what are you going to do if you find it? But there's no arguing with success.
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Michelle and Monica's amateur detective work paid off. After showing the sketch around, they got a tip.
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The guy in the sketch was a gangbanger who went by the street name C. Stiles. Now, the sisters wanted to find him.
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If you're right, if this is the guy, he's a killer and a gangbanger. And you're just going to what? Walk up on him and say,
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He wasn't going to get away with killing our sister. I want him to be able to tell the police where he was.
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Like, come, let's go get him. They didn't find him. But they did tell Detective Williams, who ran the name through a gang database
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base and discovered, unfortunately, there was more than one C. Stiles. There's a big C. Stiles, there's a little C. Stiles.
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Eventually, Williams found a C. Stiles who'd been on probation at the time of the murder.
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Our first goal was to identify the connection between the C. Stiles and Crystal Taylor.
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Any gang affiliation, any relatives, was he a boyfriend, ex-boyfriend? And the sisters say no.
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Her friends say no. There's no evidence to support that they even knew each other.
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Although maybe they knew each other and she didn't tell anybody. Exactly. And we have to also keep that as a card on the table.
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Okay, so how can we start proving this up? I start examining where their lines may have crossed.
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Crystal Taylor works in Carson. She goes to Anderson Park. Oh, there's information that Seastyls hangs out at Anderson Park.
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Thank you. Okay. They brought in C. Stiles. Legal name, Skylar Moore. You say to him, what do you have to do with the murder of Crystal Taylor?
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And he says, I don't know her. I did not do this. But he's studying her photo. And then C. Stiles continued to talk.
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He's coming up with an analysis of the person who would have done this. And he refers to the person as, this person had a lot of rage.
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This person has a lot of rage in them to do that. As opposed to just saying, I didn't do any murder, I don't know who this is, I don't know what you're talking about.
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Exactly. That seemed rather strange. But so did this. There was no obvious reason for C. Stiles to kill Crystal Taylor.
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True that if you're worried about becoming a victim of gang violence, you're probably safest in the morning.
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because these guys stay up very late and don't roll out of bed until late morning or noon.
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Now, I'm not going to say that that's a fact, but it's more true than not. If somebody is up and working at 7 or 7.30 in the morning, their paths just wouldn't cross.
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Not normally. Not a hardcore, serious type of person like a C-Style. So, was he the man in the parking garage?
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On that question, C. Stiles wasn't terribly helpful. But then he did something surprising.
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After staring at Crystal's photo and floating theories about her killer, C. Stiles suddenly confessed to a different murder of a rival gang member.
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I don't do this for a living, but he wasn't even being charged with that, and you weren't even asking him about that.
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I didn't even know there was a murder. So why would he blurt that out? You have to understand C. Stiles' mentality.
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C. Stiles' mentality is that there's nobility in killing the enemy. There is no nobility or honor in killing a lady who's pregnant.
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Someone who's innocent. Yes. Detective Williams was convinced C. Stiles was only copping to the other murder.
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to distance himself from Crystal's. And then, all the witnesses in Crystal's murder
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picked him out of a lineup. Two months after Crystal Taylor's death, Skylar Moore, a.k.a. C. Stiles,
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was charged with murdering her and her unborn baby, Jeremiah. Justice seemed close at hand.
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It was not. Coming up, face-to-face with a confessed killer. You weren't afraid to testify.
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Yes, I was. I was praying and asking God to make us strong enough. But I was really scared.
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When Dateline continues. When someone you love dies violently, there are so many emotions.
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Anger. Loss. even sometimes the fear that you'll be next. I was afraid opening the door in the morning.
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Like there's a blind spot when I first walk out. Like I'm literally looking out like this every morning.
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You all looking over your shoulders? Looking over our shoulders really bad. I was in almost a post-traumatic stress syndrome kind of thing.
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Just nervous all the time. With Skylar Moore, a.k.a. C. Stiles, charged in the murder,
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there was some sense of relief. To know that this guy was off the street was some comfort, because he was the one that could show up and kill anybody.
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Even so, the sisters were still afraid to face him at the preliminary hearing. Tough to be in the courtroom and see him?
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Oh, yeah. We were crying as soon as we walked through the door in court, but we thought, like, I don't know what I'm going to do when I see him, you know, the shooter.
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I'm looking for this guy day and night. Yeah. And then you see him finally. I'm obsessed with him.
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And he's in court right in front of you. And then he's in court right in front of me, and I'm expecting to have this visceral reaction to him.
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And I felt like he had some remorse, because I remember we told the detective, I was like, he looked like he has some remorse.
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The detective didn't buy it for a minute. She was like, no, he's a straight-up killer. He don't have no remorse.
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Whatever the tailors saw, that hint of humanity in a cold-blooded killer, C. Stiles still scared them.
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You weren't afraid to testify. Yes, I was. But you went ahead and did it. I went ahead and did it because I was praying and asking God to make us strong enough to be able to do whatever it is we needed to do.
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But I was really scared. Michelle testified she saw C. Stiles at Crystal's building the day before the shooting.
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It was up to other witnesses to place him there the day Crystal was killed. And there were several who could.
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The man making his kids breakfast. A neighbor who saw a man who looked like C. Stiles around one that same morning, watching the building.
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Another neighbor who actually knew C. Stiles and thought he saw him loitering in the area.
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Except, all those witnesses were afraid to testify in open court against a known gang member.
00:29:29
All except one, the schoolgirl, who may not have known enough to be afraid. Ms. Hall, who was a child, essentially, when she saw someone running away from the scene
00:29:40
of Crystal Taylor's murder, she was willing to continue testifying. Yes, she was.
00:29:44
But her family was pretty worried, her mother in particular. Yes, her mother was really, really concerned about that.
00:29:51
The DA had his own concerns. The testimony of a schoolgirl and the sister of the victim didn seem enough to convict And that about all the evidence they had Police never found any DNA fingerprints or forensic evidence
00:30:07
that linked C. Stiles to the garage of Crystal Taylor's apartment. And while they found a .38 caliber bullet lodged in Crystal's brain,
00:30:17
they never found the gun that fired it, let alone linked that gun to C. Stiles or anyone else.
00:30:23
If C. Stiles went to trial and was acquitted, that would be the end of it. And so, rather than take that chance, the DA dropped the charges.
00:30:34
Well, the prosecutor said, we don't want to try this case now because we don't have the evidence right now,
00:30:39
and the witnesses are skittish. We want to wait. And you think that's going to be a couple of months, maybe a year.
00:30:48
Instead, many months passed, and nothing happened. The nation grew obsessed with the murder of a 27-year-old pregnant woman.
00:30:58
But it wasn't Crystal Taylor. Lacey Peterson's case is showing on the news every night,
00:31:03
and Chrissy's saying beautiful young lady pregnant and there's no coverage. You're offended that everybody is going on with life.
00:31:10
Like, the world kept going. Just one person's gone, and people go to work the next morning,
00:31:15
the birds are chirping, and it all offends you. It's just weird. And you're thinking, when's our turn?
00:31:21
Yeah, then I'm like, when is our turn? Momo died six months after her daughter, Crystal.
00:31:26
Her family says the cause was as much heartbreak as heart disease. And all of that took a huge toll on the Taylors.
00:31:35
Everyone was hurting, so no one really wanted to be around what would bring up that sadness again.
00:31:42
And that was us and being together. So we separated for a while. And so what had been a big, happy, close family kind of splintered.
00:31:53
Yeah. C. Stiles was convicted of the gang murder he had admitted to. His sentence? Life in prison.
00:32:01
And Crystal Taylor's murder remained officially unsolved. The sisters were sure C. Stiles had pulled the trigger.
00:32:09
But they were sure of something else, too. C. Stiles had no reason to kill their sister.
00:32:15
Someone put him up to it. and they thought they knew who that someone was. Coming up...
00:32:24
He did this to Christy, he did this to all of us. The chilling clue that Crystal had given her family.
00:32:30
You're all kind of beating yourself up for not listening to Christy's warning. Exactly.
00:32:35
That's the guy. That's the guy who had Crystal Taylor killed. For the Taylor family, history had been split in two.
00:32:56
There was before, when they had Crystal and life was good. And then there was after.
00:33:02
People kind of started treating us like, are y'all still talking about that? And they just kind of want you to move on.
00:33:08
They want you to move on. Everybody wanted us to move on. And you said, well, I can't really move on.
00:33:11
I can't move on, because you start feeling like, well, who life is this? Because you want me to go back to what life? This is my life.
00:33:16
I don't have a life to go back to. They couldn't move forward. They couldn't go back.
00:33:22
But they kept going over the last days of Crystal's life, rewinding to that trip when they visited their ailing mother in Texas.
00:33:30
They arrived back in Los Angeles in the middle of the night, Saturday into Sunday.
00:33:35
Yet Crystal still woke up very early the next morning. She insisted on going to church.
00:33:41
We were all thinking to sleep in, but she got up and she prayed and then she cried.
00:33:45
She was going through something, she just wasn't sharing it with us. The next day was Monday, the morning Michelle saw a suspicious man on the stairs of the apartment building.
00:33:56
She warned Crystal, who went a different way to the garage, which might have saved her life for 24 hours.
00:34:03
What they didn't learn until much later was that Crystal left work crying on that last day of her life.
00:34:10
She didn't say anything to her family that night, but she did act differently. She went around the room and she hugged everyone.
00:34:17
She never did that. I think she just didn't want to worry anyone, and I think she kind of just hoped that everything would work out.
00:34:23
What was the matter with Crystal Taylor? They rewound their mental tape a little further, and there it was.
00:34:30
A moment. It happened during their car trip back from Texas. She was on her phone listening to something, and she put her phone down,
00:34:37
and she said, if anything happens to me, it was Derek. Derek Smyre, the father of her unborn child.
00:34:44
Did she go into any detail about what he'd said to her to make her say that? No, she didn't.
00:34:48
The conversation turned into, don't worry about him, don't worry about him helping with the baby.
00:34:55
They thought that's all it was. Derek didn't want to help raise his child. Now they replayed that moment over and over.
00:35:04
We should have said, wait, what did he say to you? But instead of that, we were like, we don't need him.
00:35:09
Like, just hang up, don't even talk to him. You know, that kind of just showing her the kind of support.
00:35:13
because we're so used to just picking up our burdens and going. She brought it up that she was worried, but you didn't hear it,
00:35:18
or it didn't sound bad enough. You're all kind of beating yourself up for not listening to Christy's warning.
00:35:25
Exactly. Even though it sounds to me like you'd almost have to be a mind reader to know that she was really concerned.
00:35:33
Yeah. The years started to pass, and this family thought a lot about Derek Smyre.
00:35:40
Crystal had said if something happened to her, it was Derek. They believed he was the only one who had something to gain from her death.
00:35:49
As they had done with C-Styles, Michelle and Monica now tried to find Derek. I didn know Derek name I thought his name was Myers And I was spelling Derek the wrong way and looking for him like just forever If they had managed to tail Derek they would have found a guy who didn seem to fit the profile of a killer
00:36:10
He was doing well, says his sister Danielle. He had gotten his bachelor's degree in business. He had went on to start his own company.
00:36:18
He was doing great. He was always happy. He was always in good spirits. He was driven.
00:36:22
He still had that silver Mustang convertible with the custom plates. My whip. Although Monica and Michelle never spotted the car, Tia did.
00:36:33
I stopped at a light and Derek pulled up next to me in a car, the top down, listening to music.
00:36:40
I just felt like this was so unfair that it's a nice sunny day and he's going on with life.
00:36:45
It just like tripped me out. Like this guy really just did this to my family. He did this to Christy.
00:36:51
He did this to Momo. He did this to my mom and Michelle, to Javante, to all of us.
00:36:54
And he got away with it. And he got away with it. Even Detective Robbie Williams saw Derek one day at the airport.
00:37:02
My wife and I were on our way to a vacation. And I look up and I see Derek walk right past us.
00:37:10
Williams had never forgotten Crystal Taylor. He'd taken her case file with him as he moved up the promotional ladder from detective to lieutenant.
00:37:19
He'd always shared the family's suspicions that Derek was somehow behind Crystal's murder.
00:37:25
But he also knew he didn't have enough evidence to arrest him. I whispered to my wife, that's the guy.
00:37:32
That's the guy who had Crystal Taylor killed. That's got to be like a knife in you.
00:37:36
I mean, if that's what you think, if you think that's the guy who had Crystal Taylor killed,
00:37:41
well, here he is, out free, breathing the same air you are, maybe going on vacation just like you are, having a great time.
00:37:47
He got away with it. It's about karma and this life or the next. It turned out to be this life.
00:37:56
Help was about to come from the last place anyone expected. Coming up. We're looking for some help on some cases.
00:38:06
A conversation with the convict is C-Styles about to come clean when Dateline continues.
00:38:17
The cold steel of a .38 can fire a bullet at 1,000 feet per second. The speed of justice is not nearly as fast.
00:38:34
Crystal was killed September 25, 2001. Ten years later, her unsolved murder was still an open case.
00:38:43
Detectives believed Skyler Moore, a.k.a. C. Stiles, was the person who shot her,
00:38:48
but they didn't have enough evidence to try him. And they thought the father of Crystal's unborn child, Derek Smyre,
00:38:55
might have been involved as well. But there was no evidence linking him to C. Stiles.
00:39:01
Except for one thing. There was a group of men sitting near a cement picnic area talking.
00:39:11
On the day Crystal was murdered, when Detective Robbie Williams first saw Derek Smyre at Anderson Park, Derek wasn't alone.
00:39:20
You hadn't even heard the name C. Stiles at that point. We hadn't even heard of a C. Stiles.
00:39:25
But much later, after C. Stiles was arrested and Detective Williams got a good look at him, he thought the gangbanger looked familiar.
00:39:34
You think the first time you saw Derek Smyre, you think he was with C. Stiles at that point?
00:39:39
Yes, I think he was in the company of Sea Stout. So if you're right, they were hanging out together just a couple hours after the murder.
00:39:45
Yes. If only you'd known. If I had only known. And now, a decade later, there was no way to prove who the man in the park might have been.
00:39:55
And Crystal's dead, Sea Stout's serving time for another murder, and nothing's happening to Derek.
00:40:02
Nothing was happening to Derek that I could see. But I'm a believer of karma, either in this life or the next.
00:40:10
You're going to pay for what you've done wrong. I'm guessing you were preferring that it was this life.
00:40:14
Yes. Maybe it was karma. Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was good police work. But whatever it was, on June 15, 2011,
00:40:25
L.A. Sheriff's Detectives Richard Lopez and his partner Beth Smith found themselves at a Northern California prison with a few hours to kill.
00:40:35
She mentioned that Skylar Moore is here, and I've always wanted to talk to him about a 2001 murder that occurred in Hawthorne.
00:40:41
That would be Crystal Taylor's murder. Detective Smith had worked with Hawthorne PD on the case.
00:40:47
She knew Derek Smyre would never spill, but would C. Stiles. I said, we've got three hours until the plane ride, let's pull him.
00:40:55
Pretty soon, they were face-to-face with Skylar Moore, a.k.a. C. Stiles. Remember, we had arrested you on a case where that Lone was killed,
00:41:05
the present one and hop on it later. Do you want that other murder? I need a little more detail.
00:41:17
You don't remember when I arrested you? You told people at least remember when I arrested you.
00:41:21
Nothing like that. C. Stiles was saying even less than he did back in 2001. So Detective Lopez gave it a try.
00:41:30
He'd questioned a lot of gang members. and he knew C. Stiles had enemies in prison.
00:41:37
You're 20 years old and you're already tired of looking over your back because that's why you're in the hole,
00:41:41
because you can't go on the main yard, am I right? Okay, well, we're looking for some help on some cases.
00:41:48
Now, one hand watches the other. If you tell us something that you remember, truthfully remember,
00:41:53
and we can cooperate we can get you moved out of California Like a weirdo Arizona Illinois Tennessee Detective Lopez assured C Stiles this wasn your typical police interrogation
00:42:09
We didn't read G. Miranda rights, right? So anything you say cannot be used against you.
00:42:14
And we're not trying to put a case on you, but we're just trying to get the truth.
00:42:18
Then Detective Lopez showed C. Stiles some photos of Crystal Taylor and Derek Smyre.
00:42:25
I got a sneaky suspicion you might recognize some of them faces. Okay, okay? Skyler, from what we know, you know what's up, okay?
00:42:36
It's a good act, though. It's survival. And no one's supposed to talk to the police.
00:42:40
I know that. But everybody does, dude. You know that. You're told from when they're young kids, you know, snitches get stitches and you don't talk to the police.
00:42:49
So when they finally break that barrier and they come and they open the floodgates, they have a tendency to talk then.
00:42:55
And all the things that bothered them when they were in the life begin to come out.
00:42:58
And that's what happened here. Yes. Bit by bit, C. Stiles started to talk. Turns out that was him in the park with Derek.
00:43:07
He met Derek playing pickup basketball at the same park where Derek met Crystal.
00:43:12
and that was the connection investigators had long looked for between C. Stiles and Derek Smyre
00:43:20
and C. Stiles said back in the summer of 2001 Derek began complaining about a problem named
00:43:28
Crystal Taylor. He described Derek as being desperate because of this pregnant girl. He said
00:43:35
Derek had called her gold digger and that by getting rid of her that takes care of the problem
00:43:40
of having child support. So he said he and Derek worked out a deal. C. Stiles would pull the trigger
00:43:47
and Derek Smyre would owe him a favor. That's how this works. I always thought that when you
00:44:08
wanted somebody killed, you had to pay money for that. Everybody glamorizes it and thinks it's that
00:44:12
way, but in Skyler's mind, this was easier for him to do. He could do this, and then, of course,
00:44:18
Derek would be indebted to him. And there would be no money trail linking the two men.
00:44:25
C. Stiles said Derek told him where Crystal lived. Skyler says he scouts the location. He's there
00:44:30
waiting for the victim to come down the stairs. In fact, I believe he runs into his sister.
00:44:36
The day before. The day before, right, exactly. And so on the day of it, he goes and waits, lies in wait for her, and she comes down to the car and he shoots her.
00:44:44
And then he runs out of the garage area. You're looking at a guy who's, by all accounts, kind of a hardened gangbanger, living that life.
00:44:51
What's in it for him to confess to one more murder when he's already in there doing life without parole?
00:44:57
I can't speak to all of them, but I can speak to this one. He felt bad about this, and he wanted to make it right.
00:45:04
Killing a pregnant woman bothered him. Yes. Killing those other people did not. Didn't seem to, no.
00:45:10
Police thought they finally had the story of who killed Crystal Taylor. But it was a story they couldn't tell in court.
00:45:19
Not yet, anyway. Coming up. That dynamic duo of sister detectives wasn't done yet.
00:45:29
We were, you know, back on the job. Cagney and Lacey shift their focus to Derek.
00:45:35
We never thought he should get away with it. My brother is not a perfect man, but my brother is an innocent man.
00:45:53
By 2011, for the Taylor family, Crystal's murder was an ugly scar that was never going to heal.
00:46:01
We'd almost stop being as obsessed with it. But you still want an answer? But we still want an answer.
00:46:06
Then the phone rang. Detectives shared the big news about their prison interview with C. Stiles.
00:46:13
And they said, well, the shooter confessed. And told them it was Derek Smyre who put him up to it.
00:46:21
In his confession, Mr. Stiles said he saw another woman on the stairs and thought maybe that was Christy.
00:46:31
That was you. And he said he considered killing me. That was devastating. You were that close to getting killed.
00:46:39
Getting killed, mm-hmm. Yeah. Detectives still had to figure out how to use C. Stiles' off-the-record confession
00:46:48
to make an on-the-record case against Eric. In the meantime, sisters Michelle and Monica couldn't resist going back to prowling the streets,
00:46:56
looking for clues. Cagney and Lacey shift their focus to Derek. We never thought he should get away with it.
00:47:04
When the police said, come in, we want to talk to you, we're going to reopen the case, I have a notebook now.
00:47:09
I'm like, oh, Smyers. So I wrote it down, and then I go back and I found, like, businesses they had.
00:47:16
They also figured out where Derek lived. You regularly driving by his house? No, we were, you know, back on the job.
00:47:25
I'm sure since the case was reopened, they had enough evidence this time. By then, Detective Lopez at the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau had pulled out the old files and read everything.
00:47:37
Police reports, forensic reports, interview notes. And what he read lined up with what C. Stiles had told him.
00:47:46
The description of the place, the description of meeting the victim's sister the day prior,
00:47:52
the way he ran out of the place, all those things were, you know, matched what he was telling us and we were able to corroborate.
00:47:58
With all that information, Lopez decided to take a chance, arrest Derek, apply some pressure, and see if he would crack.
00:48:08
So nine years and ten months after Crystal Taylor's murder, Derek Smyre once again sat in a police interview room.
00:48:16
He felt like he had to control everything that happened in the interview. He would answer a question, but before he answered it,
00:48:23
he would give a preamble as to why his answer was this. Lopez pushed him, told Derek that C. Stiles had confessed and implicated Derek.
00:48:33
Derek denied everything. Lopez thought he was lying. But what he was not doing was cracking.
00:48:40
I said, you know, you're not a likable person. I don't know if anybody's going to believe you.
00:48:45
And he just didn't seem to mind. Of course, it's possible Derek wasn't worried because he wasn't guilty.
00:48:52
During those 10 years, from 2001 to 2011, what's Derek doing and how is he? Does he seem like a guy with a cloud over his head?
00:49:01
No, he seems like a man who's flourishing. Derek's sister Danielle was shocked by the arrest.
00:49:08
She says the way she and Derek grew up was a world away from people like C. Stiles
00:49:13
and from crimes like murder. We played, we were into sports. We had two extremely active parents that were a part of all of our sports leagues that were taking us to summer camps.
00:49:26
What sports were both of you playing? We played everything. My parents had us involved in everything possible.
00:49:32
Derek did football, basketball, softball, baseball, you name it, we did it. She says Derek did go off track in high school.
00:49:41
He was just 16 when his girlfriend Tracy got pregnant. It was news their parents were not happy to hear.
00:49:48
They were in shock, especially my dad. My dad is very traditional, you know, believes that children should be born in wedlock, as Derek and I were.
00:49:58
Derek's daughter, Sydney, was born in April of 1998, and instantly Derek Smyre had to be an adult.
00:50:05
He dropped out of high school so that he could get a full-time job, and even though he wasn't making much, he was still doing what he could to support that baby.
00:50:14
That changes your life. Yeah, it does change your life. And that forestalls a lot of your options.
00:50:19
Absolutely, absolutely. But Derek, he was a hardworking guy. In 2002, the year after Crystal died,
00:50:26
Derek Smyre had another daughter with the same woman. If I fall, all this footage is being deleted.
00:50:33
For the most part, he wasn't a full-time dad. But Danielle says he was in his children's lives,
00:50:39
as was the whole Smyre family. Danielle insists this father of two wouldn't commission a murder
00:50:46
over an unplanned pregnancy, if, in fact, he even was the father of Crystal's child.
00:50:53
Did Derek tell you that he was dating Crystal Taylor? No. I never heard of Crystal Taylor before he was actually arrested in 2011.
00:51:03
Did Derek ever mention that he had gotten a girl pregnant and was concerned about that?
00:51:07
No, he didn't tell me that. And she was adamant. There's no way her brother hung out with a gangbanger.
00:51:15
Skyler Moore, a.k.a. C. Styles. Ever meet him? No. Ever hear Derek talk about him?
00:51:21
Never hear Derek talk about him. Derek friends with any gang members? My parents are extremely traditional.
00:51:28
They weren't into gang violence or any of that nonsense. Derek would not bring gang members to the house or affiliate himself with gang members.
00:51:36
Furthermore, no one's seen Derek ever, ever with any gang member. Danielle said her brother had nothing to do with Crystal's murder and that C. Stiles was a liar.
00:51:48
He is known as a jailhouse snitch and he is harassed and beaten up by people where he's currently housed at.
00:51:58
The deal for him is that he gets relocated out of state to a place where nobody knows him.
00:52:05
She says the cops simply took the path of least resistance. They had it out for Derek from the start.
00:52:11
Because? Because he seemed like the probable person. My brother is not a perfect man, but him being pulled in, harassed by the police, his children being taken from him?
00:52:24
It's not my brother's fault. My brother's an innocent man. And maybe she was right.
00:52:32
Just days after Derek was arrested, the DA said there was not enough evidence to prosecute him.
00:52:40
We had to let him go. We had to let him go. And yeah, it was tough letting him go.
00:52:44
Derek Smyre was once again a free man. I bet he thought he was clear. I bet you he thought he was done.
00:52:50
He's never going to see us again. If that's true, he was wrong. Coming up, someone steps forward with a stunning new lead.
00:53:03
She was assaulted and her neck was cut. Another attack on another pregnant woman.
00:53:09
She was knocked to the ground and the assailant tried to kick her in the stomach.
00:53:13
That person was never caught. Right. Who could be behind this when Dateline continues?
00:53:26
Derek Smyre was out of jail. He insisted he was an innocent man. A father of two, who had no reason to commission a murder,
00:53:40
just because he got someone pregnant. But detectives were still investigating. And what they heard made them more convinced than ever
00:53:48
that Derek had Crystal killed. They spoke with Tracy, the mother of Derek's children.
00:53:54
Early on in the case she had avoided the cops Now she was eager to tell them what she said happened in 1998 when she was pregnant with Derek first child
00:54:06
She got lured to the back of her apartment on the promise to be taken to a doctor's appointment by Smyre,
00:54:13
and she was assaulted and her neck was cut. By some other person? By some other person. Rushed to the hospital.
00:54:20
and she told us that she was very leery because Derek had never asked to take her to the doctor before
00:54:27
and instead of picking her up in front, he asked her to come into the rear of the alley
00:54:30
where it's darker and doesn't have much access to public view. There's the scar from the attack.
00:54:37
And according to Tracy, it was just the beginning. And that wasn't the last time she was assaulted while she was pregnant.
00:54:44
No, it wasn't. Tracy told police that in 2002, when she was pregnant with their second child, she was attacked again.
00:54:54
She was knocked to the ground and the assailant tried to kick her in the stomach.
00:54:58
That person was never caught. Right. And whoever cut her throat in the previous incident was never caught.
00:55:03
That's correct. Tracy now told the cops she believed Derek was behind both attacks.
00:55:09
She also said in both cases he wanted her to have an abortion, but that she had refused.
00:55:14
After you're pregnant by one guy and you get lured to the back of your apartment building and then somebody tries to kill you, why do you continue your relationship with that guy?
00:55:27
You have to understand Mr. Derek Smyre. And one thing he is, is he is a manipulator of women.
00:55:34
Cops saw a pattern, one that was reinforced by something else they learned. As the investigation continued, we discovered that Derek had been to prison for a federal offense.
00:55:45
He was scamming money from a bank. It happened in 2004. Here's Derek in this fuzzy bank security photo, stealing money from other people's bank accounts.
00:55:58
Turned out he had a girlfriend who worked at a credit union. He got account numbers from her and used them to move money into accounts he controlled.
00:56:07
What happened to the $80,000 that they scammed? The investigators then didn't find it, and we tried to look for it too, and we never found it.
00:56:13
You heard about Derek serving federal time on that bank charge. Yes. I wasn't surprised, and I wasn't surprised at who he used as an accomplice.
00:56:25
His girlfriend? Yes. Why were you not surprised by that? Because Derek possesses that type of selfish type of what can you do for me type of mentality.
00:56:37
Manipulative. Manipulator, self-centered, and arrogant. Maybe that's why Derek never shied away from talking with the cops and why he never asked for a lawyer.
00:56:50
Or maybe he just wasn't guilty. Definitely he thought he was smarter than we were anyways.
00:56:56
I mean, you know, what did we have? When Derek was briefly arrested, detectives asked him who he was with at Anderson Park on the day Crystal was murdered.
00:57:05
Remember, Detective Williams thought later it was probably C. Stiles, but cops had no way to prove it.
00:57:13
And then, under questioning, Derek gave them one. He said, he goes, I saw a woman in the back seat.
00:57:20
The back seat of Detective Williams' police car. The woman Derek saw was Jana Paletto, Crystal's friend from work, who'd accompanied Detective Williams.
00:57:30
Derek said he saw her quite clearly. The look on her face was she was totally distraught. That's what he said.
00:57:37
Which gave Detective Lopez an idea. If he's that close to see that she's totally distraught, then she should have a pretty good look at who he was talking to.
00:57:47
At the time, no one had thought to show Jana Paletto a photo of C-Styles. but now they did.
00:57:55
And she said That's who Derek was talking to in the park. That was the missing link.
00:58:01
A witness who could connect C. Stiles to Derek Smyre. Then one last piece. The DA wanted C. Stiles interviewed again.
00:58:11
How are you? Fine, are you? Good, good. I'm Danette Myers. I'm the DA. This time they made sure what he said could be used in court.
00:58:18
You have the right to remain silent. Do you understand? Yes. C. Stiles told the same story with the same details, how he met Derek, and how Derek wanted help with Crystal Taylor.
00:58:41
Police once again arrested Derek Smyre for the murder of Crystal Taylor. And this time, they thought they had the goods.
00:58:49
A jury, though, would have other ideas. Coming up, a bombshell from the defense.
00:58:59
Did someone else kill Crystal? Witnesses testify to hearing an argument. She was confronting her killer.
00:59:06
That's when she was shot. Absolutely. Was this murder a hit at all? This is breaking me.
00:59:19
It took police 10 years to arrest Derek Smyre for the murder of Crystal Taylor. It took another five years to bring him to trial.
00:59:34
And Detective Robbie Williams knew the case wasn't airtight. Juries like DNA. DNA, blood trail, in this case a money transfer,
00:59:45
for in this case the lack of cell phone records attaching the two defendants together.
00:59:52
The only thing connecting Derek to the murder was the confession of the trigger man Skyler Moore a C Stiles But there was no guarantee the jury would take the word of a gangbanger over the word
01:00:05
of the clean-cut Derek Smyre. So it was with nervous anticipation that Crystal's family filed into the courthouse on July 11,
01:00:15
2016. The facts and the law and your common sense will lead you to one conclusion.
01:00:30
Crystal Taylor died at the hands of Skylar Moore and Derrick Smyre. Prosecutor Danette Myers told jurors Crystal's murder and the attacks on Derrick's other
01:00:44
girlfriend Tracy Williamson were no coincidence. He has a motive to do it because he doesn't want to have the kids.
01:00:50
He doesn't want to pay child support. The prosecution claimed that while Derek may have failed to stop Tracy from having her
01:00:57
two children, he found the right man for the job of stopping Crystal, his basketball buddy
01:01:03
C. Stiles. He's a gang member. He's a killer. And Mr. Smyre knew who to go to when he wanted Crystal Taylor taken care of.
01:01:14
Did you go right over there and have a seat? Prosecutors showed the jury the admitted hitman's videotaped confession.
01:01:20
I just seen her come down from the front way stairs. It was still kind of dark. That's when I killed her.
01:01:28
How'd you do that? What'd you do? Just shot her. When you left the area, did you go back and tell Derek what you'd done?
01:01:37
But after that, I seen him. Not immediately after that. Then they called C. Stiles to testify.
01:01:48
But instead of tying a bow on the case, he lobbed a grenade and blew it to pieces.
01:01:55
C. Stiles told the jury everything he said on that tape was a lie. People have false confessions all the time.
01:02:05
It happens all the time. Derek Smyre's defense attorney, Calvin Schneider, says C. Stiles made up a story that the cops wanted to hear.
01:02:14
He was hoping to get better treatment in prison. He came in and admitted that they made these offers to him and that that's why he did it.
01:02:24
You think police kind of rushed to judgment here? Absolutely. Because they had a hunch, they went with my client and they excluded others.
01:02:33
Schneider told the jury that without C. Stiles' confession, there was no evidence linking Derek to the murder.
01:02:40
They are alleging multiple conversations, planning, without any proof of where, when, how.
01:02:47
There's no emails between Moore and Smyre. There's no text messages. There's no phone calls.
01:02:52
The defense portrayed Derek as a man who loved his children, not one who would try to have them murdered.
01:02:59
There's Mr. Smyre again, in the hospital, holding his baby. And I think it's important, when you are looking at this case,
01:03:08
that you evaluate his expression on his face in these photos. Proud father or killer?
01:03:16
Not only was Derek Smyre innocent of Crystal's murder, said the defense, maybe C. Stiles was too.
01:03:23
There was no physical evidence placing him in that parking garage. Maybe they said this wasn't a hit after all.
01:03:31
Several of the witnesses testify to hearing an argument, and then all of a sudden the argument ended,
01:03:38
there was a pause and a gunshot. It is absolutely inconsistent with a hired hit.
01:03:45
If not a hit, then what happened? The defense had a theory. It involves this photo of Crystal's son, Javante, found near her body.
01:03:54
It's obvious that Miss Taylor was holding that picture when she got shot. Schneider wasn't allowed to directly spell out his theory for the jury.
01:04:05
He did for us. I think she was confronting her killer, saying, the only thing you're going to see is a photograph of your son until you pay child support.
01:04:15
And you think that's when she was shot? Absolutely. The defense suggested Gervonta's father killed Crystal.
01:04:22
Never mind that police had cleared him early on. Derek's lawyer told the jury his client was an innocent man.
01:04:29
But this tragedy, it will be compounded if you convict a person that is not involved.
01:04:38
And I'm asking for a not guilty verdict on all counts. Thank you very much. Crystal's family was worried.
01:04:45
They could only hope the jury believed C. Stiles' video confession and not his recantation of it.
01:04:53
The wait for a verdict was agonizing. That was painful. One day passed. Then two. Three days in.
01:05:02
I'm nervous. I don't want to do this again. I can't do this again. It's not easy.
01:05:10
Then it was a week. Then one week turned into two. I'm like, I'm just praying. I just keep praying no matter what I see or what I hear.
01:05:19
I keep praying. Every day, the waiting was harder. That was true for Derek's family, too.
01:05:26
I started getting nervous. I was there every day, anxiously waiting so that we could hear that verdict, so we could hear that Derek was not guilty.
01:05:34
I would see the jurors come out of there red in the face, almost like they're arguing back there.
01:05:39
Like they'd been yelling. Like they'd been yelling. we're on the uh record and keepers smire defendants after 21 days the jury reassembled in the courtroom
01:05:49
the jury has not been able to reach a verdict they were stuck i do declare a mistrial this is breaking me i hope my time it time to do it again I pull it back together but today I don want to do it again
01:06:11
Coming up, trial number two. This time, new evidence and a new witness. When people were around, he'd behave a certain way.
01:06:21
Derrick's own daughter. What would she reveal when Dateline continues? It was like their own nightmarish Groundhog Day.
01:06:42
Nearly nine months after the mistrial, Crystal Taylor's family once again entered a courthouse,
01:06:48
wondering if, this time, justice would finally be served. You feeling any better about the beginning of the second trial than you were at the beginning of the first trial?
01:06:57
I did. I think because we kind of knew what to expect. We knew what they were going to say.
01:07:01
We knew what we had. And what you didn't have. Right. And we'd hoped that, you know, whatever mistakes were made from the first trial,
01:07:08
they'd learn from them and prepare for them and do better. Two big differences this time around.
01:07:15
First, Skylar Moore, a.k.a. C. Stiles, was on trial along with Derek, although each defendant had his own jury.
01:07:23
And second, Derek's jury would not see C. Stiles' disputed videotape confession.
01:07:29
It was ruled inadmissible. So prosecutors focused on Derek's motive. Here was a man, they told the jury, who'd do almost anything to avoid paying child support.
01:07:41
Crystal and her five-month unborn son were killed with one gunshot. One gunshot to the back of her head.
01:07:50
That, said the prosecution, fit a pattern. They called Derek's old girlfriend, Tracy Williamson,
01:07:57
who repeated her story that the first time she was pregnant with Derek's child, she was attacked by a man she didn't know.
01:08:05
He put a knife to my throat. Did he cut you with the knife? Yes. And then, during her second pregnancy, a second attack.
01:08:15
Somebody came and socked me in the face. And I went on the side of the car and somebody stomped me on my stomach and my face.
01:08:24
Then Derek's own daughter took the stand against him. She didn't testify in the first trial, but she told this jury that Derek seemed to hate being a father.
01:08:35
He would come during major occasions, birthdays and things like that. He was very ill-tempered.
01:08:44
He didn't spend much time with me when he did. It just seemed like it was kind of for show.
01:08:51
You know, when people were around, he'd behave a certain way. And when those people left, he would go back to his ill-temperedness and his kind of monstrous ways.
01:09:04
To help explain how Derek had Crystal killed, prosecutors again called her sister Michelle,
01:09:10
who had been through the emotional ringer when she testified in the first trial.
01:09:17
I was afraid of what it was going to do to me mentally the second time. I was afraid for myself.
01:09:24
Nevertheless, Michelle mustered the courage to take the stand and testify to seeing the alleged gunman see Stiles in their apartment complex
01:09:33
the day before her sister's murder. What did you say to the defendant, Mr. Moore?
01:09:38
I told him that he startled me and I asked him, what was he doing there? The jury also heard from Shyvana Hall, in middle school at the time, now an adult,
01:09:48
who said she still remembers seeing C. Stiles fleeing the crime scene. And what did you hear?
01:09:55
It was like a gunshot, like a big noise, basically. What next occurred? We seen somebody running past us.
01:10:04
Prosecutors then had to connect C. Stiles with Derek Smyre. For that, they relied on two eyewitnesses.
01:10:13
Detective Williams told the jury he was pretty sure C. Stiles was with Derek at the park
01:10:19
on the day Crystal Taylor was ambushed and murdered. It wasn't until you actually saw him in person that you were able to remember
01:10:28
that he resembled the person you saw at the park? Objection, leave. So we're going to.
01:10:33
Yes. As before, Crystal's friend and co-worker, Jana Paletto, left no doubt with her definitive testimony.
01:10:42
As you sit here today, did you see both of those individuals in the park? Yes. Jana also told the jurors that while Crystal was excited to have another son, she was afraid to tell Derek she was pregnant.
01:10:54
So Jana told him for her via email. After you sent the email, People's 51, to Derek Smyre, did you get a phone call?
01:11:05
Yes, I did. It was Derek Smyre, Jana said, and he wasn't happy. He just didn't want no kids. He didn't want her to have the baby.
01:11:14
Did he say anything to you about trying to do something with Crystal? Yeah, he just said if I can get her to get rid of the baby, he said he'll do whatever he can, but he don't want to have the baby.
01:11:28
And Jana recalled that the day before Crystal was murdered, her first day back at work after the trip to Texas, Derek called again.
01:11:36
Could you hear anything with respect to the conversation she was having? No, the only thing I heard is before she hung up the phone, she was like, whatever, because she was crying.
01:11:47
And she was like, whatever. And she got up from her desk. When she got up from her desk, did you see where she went?
01:11:54
She went to the bathroom. And when you followed her in the bathroom, what was she doing?
01:11:59
Crying. Then, Detective Beth Smith testified about two key pieces of evidence that the first jury never saw.
01:12:06
First, a photo of Derek on his high school basketball team, proving he did play basketball.
01:12:12
An important detail because police believe Derek met Skyler Moore on the basketball court.
01:12:19
The second new piece of evidence was security footage from the night before Crystal's murder
01:12:24
that placed Derek at a 7-Eleven near both Crystal Taylor's home and Skyler Moore's.
01:12:30
It proved, they said, Derek had lied about his whereabouts back in 2001 when he told police he was miles from Crystal's Hawthorne home that night.
01:12:40
Did he ever tell you that he went to the 7-Eleven? No. As the evidence was mounting against him, Derek's defense went on offense,
01:12:49
portraying the mother of his two children as a liar whose testimony couldn't be trusted.
01:12:56
Have you lied to your family members like your aunt, Miss McMillor, your sister, Danielle,
01:13:01
about things about Mr. Spire? Depends on what you're talking about. You've got to be specific.
01:13:07
Have you ever lied to them? Lied to them, period. People lie all the time. You lie.
01:13:12
Tracy Williamson was an admitted liar and untruthful, so you couldn't believe what she said.
01:13:18
And as for Crystal's friend Jana, who said she saw C. Stiles and Derek Smyre together,
01:13:25
the defense says Derek was with a high school friend, and Derek's sister Danielle says the idea that Derek met a gangbanger on the basketball court is absurd.
01:13:36
But he grew up playing basketball and a bunch of other sports. Didn't he play basketball in high school?
01:13:40
He did play basketball in high school. He played basketball up until his junior year.
01:13:44
I played basketball up until my sophomore year. Never touched a basketball since.
01:13:47
Derek doesn't play basketball anymore. In this court, everything was on the line.
01:13:54
That's when Derek Smyre, who'd never shied away from explaining himself in the past, took the stand.
01:14:03
Coming up. Did you have anything to do with the death of Crystal Taylor? No, I did not.
01:14:09
Derek Smyre, a dutiful dad-to-be? I was prepared to take care of my responsibility.
01:14:14
Would the jury agree? It's like time froze. It is a calculated risk for a defendant to testify at a trial.
01:14:35
Derek Smyre was willing to take it. Prosecutors had painted him as a child-hating, cold-blooded killer.
01:14:42
Derek and his attorney were determined to show he was anything but Do you recall the birth of your daughter Sidney Yes I do What was the date I think it was today actually
01:14:55
April 26, 1998. And you were there for the birth, correct? Of course. Derek told the jury he was a loving and devoted father to his two girls.
01:15:07
How would you describe your relationship? While they were growing up, it was strong, in my opinion.
01:15:13
And he was adamant. He had nothing to do with the attacks on Tracy while she was pregnant.
01:15:19
Didn't you have her attacked because you wanted the kid killed? You wanted her to have an abortion?
01:15:24
No, I did not. In fact, at that time, I had already dropped out of school. I was working.
01:15:28
I was buying bottles. I was very much invested in the well-being of my daughter.
01:15:32
Derek told the jury he was a good dad to his children with Tracy and planned to treat Crystal and their child the same way.
01:15:39
Weren't you angry that Miss Taylor was going to keep this child? No, sir. Wasn't this going to ruin your life?
01:15:45
No, sir. Weren't you worried about having to pay child support for 18 years? No, sir.
01:15:50
Why not? Because I was prepared to take care of my responsibility. He admitted he did call Crystal in the days leading up to her death.
01:15:58
But Derek said it was just to check in on her, as any good soon-to-be father would.
01:16:04
I asked how she was feeling. Why did you ask that? I know that before she went to Texas, she was having morning sickness.
01:16:09
Derek made sure to let jurors know that he, like Crystal's family, marked time in relation to her death.
01:16:17
How long did you work at Bending? I was, well, until about two weeks after we lost Crystal.
01:16:25
Crystal's family heard that and seethed. It bothered me so much to hear him say that because he never called.
01:16:32
He never cared. He doesn't care. As for the prosecution theory that he hatched a plot on the basketball court with Skylar Moore, a.k.a. C. Stiles, to kill Crystal Taylor?
01:16:44
Impossible, said Derek, for two reasons. First, did you ever play basketball at this park?
01:16:50
No, sir. But more important, prior to this case, have you ever seen Skylar Moore before in your life?
01:16:56
No, sir. Derek also had an explanation for why he showed up on security video at a 7-Eleven near both Moore's and Crystal's homes.
01:17:05
He said he stopped for cash after being at his aunt's house nearby. My mother asked me to run an errand for her to take my aunt a cooking device.
01:17:13
It was something round. It was either a crock pot or a pressure cooker. Derek forcefully denied any involvement in Crystal's murder.
01:17:21
Did you have anything to do with the death of Crystal Taylor? No, I did not, sir.
01:17:25
Did you have her killed? No, I did not. Did you have her shot in the head so that she couldn't give birth to your baby?
01:17:30
No, I did not. Nothing for you. But Derek was not done on the stand Now came the risky part Cross by a prosecutor determined to show the other side of Derek Smyre
01:17:44
Why'd you ask her to get a paternity test? Because I was being responsible, ma'am.
01:17:48
Oh, I see. Well, wouldn't response will be putting on a condom, sir? Irrelevant, Your Honor.
01:17:54
Objection? Sorry, you're not. It's a stand-up background. The prosecutor forced Derek to admit
01:17:59
he had tried to convince Crystal to terminate her pregnancy. Did you tell her to get an abortion?
01:18:07
Not directly, ma'am, no. So indirectly you told her to get an abortion? Yes, ma'am.
01:18:11
Is that your statement? Yes, ma'am. And for all his talk about losing Crystal, the prosecutor pointed out he never once tried to console her family.
01:18:19
Did you send flowers to the family when she died? No, ma'am. Did you send the family a card, a sympathy card, when she was murdered?
01:18:32
No, ma'am. All of it was an attempt to show the jury that the calm, soft-spoken Derek Smyre on the stand was a con.
01:18:40
The real Derek was an unrepentant criminal, amused by his failed attempt at bank fraud.
01:18:46
I didn't get my cut. And you think that's funny, don't you? No, I'm very embarrassed about it, which is why I paused.
01:18:52
I was very hesitant to say that, but I wanted to tell the truth. Well, that smile on your face, I think, Mr. Smyre, would you agree, said it all?
01:18:58
As for Derek's story about going to his aunt's the night before the murder to deliver a crockpot,
01:19:04
the prosecution let Derek and the jury know they thought it was a crock of something else.
01:19:10
You didn't tell Detective Smith about a trip to your aunt, did you? No, ma'am. Maybe he was confident. Maybe he was smug.
01:19:20
And maybe he was a little too familiar with the rules of criminal law. Mr. Smyre, you didn't want another child.
01:19:26
If Crystal Taylor had had that baby, you would have had to support two kids in 2001.
01:19:33
Right? I'm sorry, I believe that's compound. I don't know which one's the lawyer.
01:19:40
Which would I do? And, you know, he tried to rule the jury over with, you know, like he just knew the law.
01:19:46
He was so impressed with himself. He was very impressed with himself. That arrogance almost drives you nuts.
01:19:54
Then, once again, Derek's fate was in the hands of the jury. Which Derek would they believe was the real one?
01:20:03
This time, Crystal's family didn't have to wait nearly as long for a decision. Deliberations took barely more than a day.
01:20:11
They brought the jury in. How's Derek look? He looks cocky and arrogant like he believes he's going to get a not guilty verdict.
01:20:19
We the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant Derek Paul Smyre guilty of the crime of murder I got to run out of there because now I can even hold an emotion I wanted to scream by then like oh I was so happy I was so happy
01:20:34
I was more happy than I ever been in my life. Across the aisle, a different emotion.
01:20:41
They read that guilty verdict. And it's like time froze. I was in shock. How does this happen?
01:20:50
outside the courtroom a gesture from the opposing side caught Danielle off guard
01:20:57
Michelle came up to me in that hallway I didn't shed any tears because I was trying to contain my emotion
01:21:08
and she hugged me and she said she was sorry and I bursted in tears. I bursted in tears
01:21:24
because that to me is a true example of humanity regardless of what we've gone through
01:21:32
and our families have both gone through a lot lost a lot continuing to grieve but I appreciated the humanity that she showed.
01:21:49
Derek Smyre was sentenced to life in prison. C. Stiles was also convicted in Crystal's murder.
01:21:57
Crystal's son, Javante, has reconnected with his dad but still hurts from the loss of his mom.
01:22:03
I'm always going to miss her. But, you know, I don't think she'd want me to linger
01:22:08
to, like, just let it hold me back. everything that's happened. She wouldn't want you to be miserable. Yes. Easier said than
01:22:16
done sometimes. Yes, true. But I had a lot of people to help me. Good family, good friends.
01:22:22
Crystal's family, once splintered, now feel they're coming together again. It's not the same,
01:22:29
they say, as when Crystal was with them. But it's slowly getting better. And they have a plea
01:22:34
for other potential Crystal tailors out there. Nothing can bring Chrissy back. This won't save
01:22:40
heard this won't change anything for us but somebody knows they're in a relationship like this tell somebody if it could happen to Chrissy it can happen
01:22:50
anybody if you're with somebody who makes you feel threatened tell someone loudly and now and if you hear someone else speak up don't let a cry for help
01:23:02
go by That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.