00:00:05
he allowed his victim to write a last
00:00:08
will and testament to her family
00:00:10
then taunted them with chilling phone
00:00:13
calls
00:00:21
a trace phone line couldn't trap the
00:00:23
abductor
00:00:24
but scientists would find a clue
00:00:27
in the victim's last words
00:00:32
[Music]
00:00:39
[Music]
00:00:43
[Applause]
00:00:45
[Music]
00:00:56
[Music]
00:00:58
seventeen-year-old sherry smith had her
00:01:00
whole life before her
00:01:02
in two days she would have the honor of
00:01:05
singing the national anthem at her
00:01:07
graduation from the lexington high
00:01:09
school
00:01:10
then she would sail off on a cruise with
00:01:13
her classmates
00:01:14
she was kind of the cement that held our
00:01:16
family together she was always the happy
00:01:18
one at 3 38 p.m on may 31 1985
00:01:23
sherry arrived home from a graduation
00:01:26
pool party she stopped at the mailbox
00:01:29
some 700 feet from her house
00:01:32
her father was watching from his home
00:01:34
office as she pulled in
00:01:36
five or ten minutes had passed and all
00:01:38
of a sudden i was aware that sherry had
00:01:39
not come to the house yet so
00:01:41
something just told me that something
00:01:43
was wrong and i
00:01:44
ran through the house and
00:01:46
into the garage and got in my car and
00:01:47
cranked it up and drove to the mailbox
00:01:50
bob smith found the door of his
00:01:52
daughter's automobile open the motor
00:01:55
running and shari's purse on the seat
00:01:59
i saw barefooted footprints going to the
00:02:00
mailbox but none coming back and he said
00:02:03
honey
00:02:05
i don't know how to tell you
00:02:06
this but sherry's car is at the end of
00:02:10
the driveway running and she's not in it
00:02:13
and i can remember now i said oh my god
00:02:16
not my sherry
00:02:18
panic stricken the couple called the
00:02:20
lexington county sheriff's office
00:02:23
near the mailbox on the ground with some
00:02:25
mail which indicated to us
00:02:28
that she had gotten out of the car to
00:02:29
pick up the mail and was probably
00:02:31
abducted at that point if you find or
00:02:34
spot anything out of the ordinary
00:02:37
lexington county sheriff jim metz
00:02:39
immediately organized the largest
00:02:41
manhunt in south carolina history
00:02:45
we really didn't know whether sherry
00:02:47
knew her abductor or not we certainly
00:02:49
had no reason to expect that she had run
00:02:52
away
00:02:53
or that she left on our own whoever it
00:02:55
is that has
00:02:57
our daughter sherry
00:02:59
we want her back
00:03:01
we miss her
00:03:03
we love her
00:03:05
and please send her back home where she
00:03:07
belongs
00:03:07
[Applause]
00:03:08
all her parents could do
00:03:11
was wait
00:03:13
the smith family was a very influential
00:03:15
family in the community and there was no
00:03:18
reason that we could determine why she
00:03:20
would be kidnapped other than maybe for
00:03:23
ransom purposes so we anticipated that
00:03:26
the individual individuals responsible
00:03:28
would make contact with the family
00:03:30
the sheriff's suspicions proved right
00:03:33
two days after sherry had been abducted
00:03:36
the smiths received a phone call
00:03:40
a man with a strangely distorted voice
00:03:43
demanded to speak to mrs smith to prove
00:03:46
the call was not a hoax he described the
00:03:49
black and yellow bathing suit cherry was
00:03:52
wearing beneath her shorts and shirt
00:03:55
he said he would release her
00:03:57
he said that
00:03:59
she was fine they were watching tv
00:04:02
she was eating a little bit and
00:04:05
but he was giving her lots of water
00:04:08
and she was
00:04:10
doing great
00:04:12
he made no ransom demand
00:04:14
but he told the smiths
00:04:17
that they would be receiving a letter in
00:04:19
the morning
00:04:21
my reaction was an individual who's got
00:04:23
some sophistication in the crime he's
00:04:25
committing this is not the first time
00:04:27
that he has engaged in a sex crime of
00:04:29
some sort probably has been thinking
00:04:30
about committing a crime like this for
00:04:31
quite some time
00:04:33
agent walker agreed
00:04:35
that the best hope of finding shari
00:04:37
could come from the letter her abductor
00:04:40
promised was coming
00:04:42
we woke up the postmaster in lexington
00:04:45
on the weekend went over to the post
00:04:47
office and started looking through the
00:04:49
mail and everybody put on plastic gloves
00:04:51
and we all sorted through the mail till
00:04:53
we found the letter addressed to the
00:04:55
smiths
00:04:56
inside
00:04:57
was a letter
00:04:59
in sherry's handwriting
00:05:02
at the top of the first page was the
00:05:04
heading
00:05:05
last will and testament
00:05:12
sherry smith's abductor had allowed the
00:05:15
teenager to write a two-page letter to
00:05:17
her family
00:05:19
in which she told them
00:05:21
how much she loved them i had a very
00:05:24
helpless feeling come over me but i was
00:05:27
not without hope
00:05:28
i held out my hope to the end but i was
00:05:31
totally helpless the word last will and
00:05:33
testament just knocked me back and i was
00:05:35
totally helpless i did not know what to
00:05:37
do or what to say
00:05:39
and then i had the tough part was i had
00:05:40
to show the letter to my wife
00:05:42
please don't ever let this ruin your
00:05:44
lives shari's letter read just keep on
00:05:48
living one day at a time for jesus
00:05:50
some good will come out of this
00:05:53
my thoughts will always be with and in
00:05:55
you
00:05:58
in parentheses with the words casket
00:06:00
closed
00:06:01
[Music]
00:06:04
sheriff metz immediately sent the letter
00:06:06
to the south carolina law enforcement
00:06:08
crime lab hoping forensic document
00:06:11
examiner mickey dawson could find some
00:06:14
clues
00:06:15
i was looking for hand printing or
00:06:17
handwriting
00:06:18
i was looking to see if i could find any
00:06:21
trace evidences into hairs and fibers
00:06:23
after the letter arrived
00:06:26
the abductor called the smith family
00:06:28
again
00:06:30
have you received the mail today
00:06:33
yes i have
00:06:36
do you believe me now
00:06:38
well i'm not really sure i believe you
00:06:40
because i haven't had any word from
00:06:42
sherry
00:06:43
and i need to know
00:06:46
that sherry
00:06:48
[Applause]
00:06:59
later that same evening he called once
00:07:01
more
00:07:02
saying the cherry was alive and implied
00:07:06
he would release her soon
00:07:09
i want you to think
00:07:10
sherry is now part of me physically
00:07:13
mentally emotionally spiritually
00:07:18
the call was traced to a public pay
00:07:20
phone at a drugstore in downtown
00:07:22
lexington but in 1985 trap and trace
00:07:27
required 15 minutes for authorities to
00:07:29
trace the call and reach its location
00:07:32
the abductor remained on the phone for a
00:07:35
very short time
00:07:38
five days after shari's abduction
00:07:41
the kidnapper called again and spoke to
00:07:43
both sherry's mother and her 21 year old
00:07:46
sister dawn
00:07:49
okay 4 58 am
00:07:52
no i'm sorry hold on 3 10.
00:07:55
on saturday the first again
00:07:58
she hand wrote what you received
00:08:02
4 58 am saturday the first degree okay
00:08:06
saturday the 1st of june
00:08:08
4 58 a.m
00:08:21
do not kill my daughter please
00:08:24
i mean please
00:08:34
the next day
00:08:36
he made another call
00:08:38
hello please do carefully take highway
00:08:42
378 west to traffic circle take
00:08:45
prosperity exit go one and a half miles
00:08:49
turn right at sign loose large number
00:08:52
103
00:08:53
go one quarter mile
00:08:55
turn left at white frame building go to
00:08:58
backyard six feet beyond we're waiting
00:09:01
god chose us
00:09:06
and i begged the police officers i said
00:09:08
let me go with you let me go i want to
00:09:10
go with you to find sherry
00:09:13
but investigators insisted on going
00:09:16
alone
00:09:18
sherry's body was found
00:09:20
in the backyard
00:09:22
on the body
00:09:23
with the yellow top and white shorts
00:09:26
she'd last been seen in
00:09:28
the autopsy revealed
00:09:31
sherry had been dead for several days
00:09:35
investigators believe that sherry's
00:09:37
abductor inadvertently revealed when he
00:09:40
killed her when he corrected himself
00:09:42
about the time she wrote the letter
00:09:46
they believe sherry died
00:09:48
at 4 58 on the morning of june first two
00:09:52
hours
00:09:53
after she wrote the letter
00:09:55
if that were the case
00:09:57
sherry remained alive for only 12 hours
00:10:01
after her abduction
00:10:03
one line i'll never forget when she says
00:10:06
casket closed
00:10:08
can you imagine
00:10:10
what was going through her mind knowing
00:10:12
what she was gonna face
00:10:14
she knew at that point that her body
00:10:16
would be in a condition that the casket
00:10:18
had to be closed
00:10:20
agent walker believes the killer tried
00:10:23
to buy time while the body was outside
00:10:27
diminishing the chances to recover
00:10:29
crucial forensic evidence
00:10:32
the medical examiner found residue of
00:10:34
duct tape on her face
00:10:36
suggesting that the cause of death was
00:10:39
suffocation
00:10:41
her hair was substantially shorter he
00:10:42
had to cut the duct tape out of her hair
00:10:45
to keep from leaving it behind and
00:10:47
that told me that he had some experience
00:10:50
at least or some level of criminal
00:10:52
sophistication
00:10:54
based on knowledge gained from past
00:10:56
offenders of similar crimes
00:10:59
the fbi had this hypothesis the profile
00:11:02
that we developed of him described a
00:11:05
white male prior married
00:11:07
unsuccessfully married probably not
00:11:08
currently married
00:11:11
mid to late 20s to maybe even as old as
00:11:13
early 30s
00:11:15
who
00:11:16
who had a history of sex crimes
00:11:20
the signal analysis unit of the fbi
00:11:22
engineering section told investigators
00:11:25
that the voice distortion of the
00:11:27
abductor's voice was accomplished by
00:11:29
something called a variable speed
00:11:32
control device
00:11:34
we believed either through employment or
00:11:36
through his technical education
00:11:38
had some sort of background or
00:11:39
experience in electronics
00:11:41
investigators believe the killer had
00:11:43
everything planned out and was reading
00:11:46
from a script clearly evident when he
00:11:48
corrected himself about the time of
00:11:50
shari's letter
00:11:52
4 58 am
00:11:58
as a final assault to the family
00:12:01
the killer called them on the night of
00:12:04
shari's funeral
00:12:06
it was a collect call
00:12:09
he wanted to tell us just how he had
00:12:12
murdered sherry and he said well can you
00:12:14
take it
00:12:15
who could take it
00:12:18
but we didn't have a choice we had to
00:12:19
try to keep him on the line to find out
00:12:21
where he was a few weeks later
00:12:24
the killer called again
00:12:26
this time
00:12:28
he no longer wanted to talk
00:12:30
about sherry
00:12:31
[Music]
00:12:37
after the funeral of seventeen-year-old
00:12:39
sherry smith
00:12:41
her killer continued to taunt the family
00:12:43
by phone
00:12:44
but he no longer had any interest in
00:12:47
sherry
00:12:49
have you heard about deborah pay hamper
00:12:53
no
00:12:54
the 10 year old
00:12:56
atl
00:12:57
uh richland county yeah
00:13:00
okay listen carefully
00:13:02
two weeks after sherry smith was
00:13:03
kidnapped
00:13:04
deborah may helmet was abducted in front
00:13:07
of her parents trailer in richland
00:13:09
county 24 miles from the smith's home
00:13:13
her father was inside just 20 feet away
00:13:16
a neighbor saw someone pull up in a car
00:13:19
get out and grab debra before speeding
00:13:21
off
00:13:23
like sherry
00:13:24
deborah was a pretty blue-eyed blonde
00:13:27
unlike sherry
00:13:29
deborah was only a child
00:13:33
turn right
00:13:35
last dirt road before you come to stop
00:13:37
sign at two knots road
00:13:40
go through chains
00:13:42
and no trespass inside
00:13:44
go 50 yards
00:13:46
and to the left
00:13:48
spoke 10 yards
00:13:51
deborah may
00:13:52
just waiting
00:13:53
god forgive us off
00:13:55
i felt like we were dealing with the
00:13:57
same individual
00:14:00
investigators now knew
00:14:03
they were hunting a serial killer
00:14:07
based on vast criminal research
00:14:10
authorities believed that the killer
00:14:12
would be displaying more compulsive
00:14:14
behavior losing weight drinking heavily
00:14:18
not shaving regularly and would be eager
00:14:20
to talk about the murder
00:14:23
at the south carolina law enforcement
00:14:26
division
00:14:27
scientists were still going over their
00:14:29
only piece of hard evidence
00:14:32
sherry's last will and testament
00:14:35
it had been written on lined paper from
00:14:37
a legal pad
00:14:39
forensic document examiner mickey dawson
00:14:42
believed latent images or indentations
00:14:46
from a previous page of the pad
00:14:49
might be revealed with the use of an
00:14:52
electrostatic detection apparatus
00:14:55
when i received the letter took it into
00:14:57
the laboratory and opened it up on
00:14:59
sterile paper
00:15:01
and
00:15:02
with gloves
00:15:03
took the
00:15:04
pages apart
00:15:06
looked at each page to the initial
00:15:07
examination intake
00:15:09
and then the each sheet would
00:15:12
individually go into a humidified box
00:15:15
increasing the humidity of the paper
00:15:17
would yield a better result from the
00:15:20
conductivity of electrical charges
00:15:23
the document was then placed on top of a
00:15:26
brass plate and the magnetic field
00:15:29
activated
00:15:32
the paper was then brushed with a
00:15:34
substance similar to fingerprint powder
00:15:38
through the combination of all of this
00:15:41
latent images form dawson's first try
00:15:45
yielded what appeared to be a grocery
00:15:47
list
00:15:48
there were some bills to pay
00:15:50
and there was a list of names and
00:15:53
telephone numbers left someone to call
00:15:55
in case of an emergency
00:15:57
dawson was able to make out what
00:15:59
appeared to be
00:16:00
a partial telephone number
00:16:03
the first set of numbers 205 was the
00:16:06
area code for alabama the next three
00:16:09
eight three seven was the exchange for
00:16:12
huntsville
00:16:14
but they only had three of the last four
00:16:17
numbers to finish the sequence
00:16:19
they just plugged the
00:16:21
nine digits in for the seventh and uh
00:16:24
found a telephone number that was a good
00:16:26
number i finally called this guy in
00:16:28
alabama and said do you have any
00:16:30
relatives in south carolina he said yes
00:16:32
says my mother and father the man's
00:16:34
father was 50 year old ellis shepherd
00:16:37
who lived just 15 miles away from sherry
00:16:40
smith's home
00:16:42
telephone records indicated that some of
00:16:44
the calls to the smith family after
00:16:46
sherry's abduction were made from
00:16:48
shepherd's home
00:16:50
not surprisingly
00:16:52
police wanted to hear
00:16:54
what mr shepherd had to say
00:16:59
[Music]
00:17:01
fifty-year-old ella shepard was an
00:17:03
electrician and telephone record showed
00:17:06
that some of the calls to the smith's
00:17:08
home after her abduction were made from
00:17:10
his phone
00:17:12
i wasn't worried but
00:17:14
you know it was a little bit of a shock
00:17:15
that they wanted to talk to me
00:17:18
shepherd had no idea why his son's
00:17:20
telephone number was found on sherry
00:17:22
smith's last will and testament
00:17:24
shepard said he and his wife were on
00:17:26
vacation at the time of sherry smith's
00:17:28
abduction an alibi which checked out
00:17:34
then police played a recording of the
00:17:37
killer's voice
00:17:38
[Music]
00:17:40
i said dirty son of a [ __ ] because i
00:17:42
knew it was him and they said what i
00:17:44
said that's larry gene bell and then of
00:17:45
course they got very excited because you
00:17:47
know they knew then that they they had
00:17:49
their person
00:17:50
larry gene bell
00:17:52
he worked for ellis doing electrical
00:17:55
wiring
00:17:56
bell was house-sitting for the shepherds
00:17:58
during the six weeks they had been away
00:18:00
on vacation
00:18:02
i'd left bail a lot of phone numbers
00:18:05
that he may need to call in my absence
00:18:06
while we're on our trip
00:18:09
those pages were turned over to
00:18:11
investigators
00:18:12
a transparency of the shepherd's
00:18:14
original note was superimposed over
00:18:17
sherry's last will and testament
00:18:21
the shepherd's note
00:18:23
matched the indentations on sherry's
00:18:25
letter
00:18:26
proving that cherry used the piece of
00:18:29
paper directly underneath
00:18:32
the shepherds also said that when bell
00:18:35
picked them up at the airport all he
00:18:36
wanted to talk about was the kidnapping
00:18:39
and murder of the smith girl
00:18:42
bell had lost weight was unshaven and
00:18:45
seemed highly agitated
00:18:48
this is the police video taken inside
00:18:51
the shepherd's home
00:18:54
investigators found six blonde hairs in
00:18:57
the bathroom that were microscopically
00:19:00
similar to shari's hair
00:19:03
the commemorative duck stamp used to
00:19:05
mail her last will and testament matched
00:19:08
a sheet of stamps in ellis shepherd's
00:19:10
desk drawer
00:19:15
bell was arrested the following morning
00:19:19
he just seemed to be shocked
00:19:22
that law enforcement now had centered in
00:19:24
on him
00:19:25
as the fbi had predicted
00:19:27
bell had been involved in various sexual
00:19:30
incidents since childhood
00:19:32
he had been in trouble for making
00:19:34
obscene telephone calls and at one point
00:19:36
even attempting to kidnap a young co-ed
00:19:38
from the university of south carolina
00:19:41
when questioned bell denied any
00:19:44
involvement in the murders of sherry
00:19:46
smith and deborah helmick
00:19:48
the only thing he wanted to say over and
00:19:50
over was that this larry jean bell
00:19:52
didn't do it it's the bad larry jean
00:19:54
bell
00:19:57
larry jean bell
00:19:58
stood trial for the merger of shari
00:20:01
smith in january 1986.
00:20:04
during my closing argument i told the
00:20:06
jury
00:20:07
sheri smith
00:20:09
had the fortitude and the courage
00:20:12
to write out her last will and testament
00:20:15
and i put the pen that we took from the
00:20:17
shepherd's house in front of the jury i
00:20:19
said now each one of you
00:20:21
don't you have the courage to sign your
00:20:22
name
00:20:23
on a death penalty verdict
00:20:25
who it was electrified
00:20:28
the jury needed only 47 minutes to
00:20:30
return the verdict of guilty of
00:20:33
kidnapping and first degree murder
00:20:36
larry jean bell was sentenced to death
00:20:39
by electrocution
00:20:40
that was the only punishment for him
00:20:44
and probably this is horrible to say
00:20:47
too good of a punishment for him
00:20:50
he was tried separately for the
00:20:51
kidnapping and murder of deborah
00:20:53
hellmick
00:20:54
that jury returned
00:20:56
the same verdict
00:20:59
ten years after his trial larry jean
00:21:02
bell became the last man to die in south
00:21:06
carolina's electric chair
00:21:09
without that letter
00:21:11
and without the ability to bring up
00:21:14
things on that page that you couldn't
00:21:16
see with the naked eye
00:21:18
it would have been even longer before we
00:21:20
would have gotten lara jean bell
00:21:22
that piece of paper that indented
00:21:23
writing is what made the case and what
00:21:25
sealed his fate
00:21:27
he ultimately signed his death warrant
00:21:30
bob smith remains a chaplain for the
00:21:32
sheriff's department
00:21:34
his wife hilda recently authored a book
00:21:37
the rose of sherry to honor their
00:21:40
daughter's memory
00:21:42
both are convinced as sherry predicted
00:21:45
in her last will and testament
00:21:47
some good has come out of their
00:21:49
monumental loss
00:21:52
that letter has has been more closure to
00:21:54
me than any kind of closure that the
00:21:56
courts can do for me just the fact that
00:21:58
she knew where she was going and she had
00:21:59
that kind of faith
00:22:02
[Music]
00:22:12
[Music]
00:22:36
you
