Cold Case Files - Lady In The Box

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

After the disappearance of Fran Gladden-Smith, her family looks into her husband John’s past only to find he had a previous wife who also disappeared never to be heard from again. Ultimately, it is the guilty conscience of John’s family that leads them to speak with police about the box they saw him constructing in 1974 around the time John’s first wife went missing. Progressive - Progressive.com  SimpliSafe - Right now, get 20% off any new SimpliSafe system with Fast Protect Monitoring at SimpliSafe.com/COLDCASE There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. 

From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. Just outside West Windsor, New Jersey, the life of a housewife is not going well. Fran Gladden-Smith is one year into a marriage that is already showing signs of wear. To make matters worse, Fran has a broken hip and is confined to her two-bedroom townhouse. Her family is concerned. I was calling about every other day just to check up. So were her friends, so was my aunt. Really, she was getting stir-crazy.

She was just at that point in her recovery that she was just aggravated that she couldn't move around. Dina Weiss is Fran Gladden-Smith's daughter. Sherry Davis is Fran's sister. Both live out of state and call Fran daily. On Monday, September 30th, their calls go unanswered. The family's calling and nobody's getting any answers at the condo. She's, you know, they're three flights up. She's on a walker still, you know, hasn't taken her physical therapy to be able to maneuver steps. So where is she? Two days later, the two women finally get a voice at the other end of the line. It is Fran's husband, John Smith. I called John and I said, this is Sherry. And to be blunt, where the hell is my sister? And he said, oh, I thought she was with you.

And cried frankly. I said, how the hell can she be with me? She's got a broken hip. How could she be with me? Smith's I thought she was with you excuse doesn't go down well. The two women press him to file a missing persons report. He said that he did not want Fran to be mad. If she turned up, she would be mad because people were invading her privacy.

And I said, John, it's like this. I'm getting ready to call the travel agent right now. You're either going to do this by 5 o'clock tonight, or I'm on the next plane out of here. I will do it. It will be done. Six days after Fran Gladden Smith first disappeared, John Smith finally turns up at the West Windsor Police Department claiming he has lost his wife. There never was any concern or emotion by Mr. Smith.

It was just going through the motions. Mike Dansbury is a cop with the West Windsor PD. Ten days after Fran Gladden-Smith disappears, he reviews her case and sits down with her husband. He was very vague in his answers, and to get any kind of information to try and help us in finding his wife, it was like pulling teeth. Dansbury opens a missing persons file on Fran.

Two days later, Dena Weiss calls the detective. And I said, Detective Dansbury, my mother's dead. And he said, no, she's with us. She's not with us. We can lay our hands on her, but she's with us. And I said, no, she'd never do this to me. Never, ever do this to me. Sherry Davis and Dena Weiss never really liked Fran's husband. They feel certain the mild-mannered Smith is somehow involved in her disappearance. Our family always had reservations about John because he was so evasive about his background. He had told us that he was a 40-year-old bachelor, had never been married, came from a dysfunctional family. He told me that he was from Ohio.

He told other members of the family that he was from Indiana. That is pretty much what we knew of him. Sherry Davis begins to fill in the details of John Smith's life. She reviews credit cards and phone records and happens upon a starting point, a single collect call placed by John Smith from a small town in Ohio. 45 miles south of Cleveland sits the farming town of Seville. Davis pays the town a visit, intent on meeting up with John Smith's past. She begins at the town library.

I went to the library, and I started going through high school yearbooks, annuals, seeing if I could find him. I knew from his age that he had probably graduated either 68, 69, or 70. And about the third book we pulled out, there was John. The first tangible link to John Smith's past is a picture from the sophomore track team. Davis digs around town looking for possible family members, but finds none. Undaunted, she begins to question her sister's circle of friends. And turns up a second fact. The bachelor had been married at least once before.

We went out and interviewed the people that Fran had worked for, Joe and Nancy Mazotas. And during that conversation, Nancy says something about this being John's second marriage. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, Nancy. I said, John's never been married before. She says, you know, I'm really sure Fran said something about him being married before. Mike Dansbury confirms that John Smith was married 21 years prior to a woman named Janice Hartman. And I asked Mike about it and he says, oh sure, it was, you know, an amicable divorce. They married young, didn't work out, both went their own ways. And I looked at him and I said, Mike, where is she? And he said, they went their own ways. And I said, no, Mike, I want to talk to

this woman. I want to know she's okay. Records indicate that John Smith and Janice Hartman were married in Detroit. Dansbury tells Sherry Davis he believes Janice also had a brother named Gary. Armed with these two facts, Sherry tackles the Detroit phone book, calling each Gary Hartman in turn asking if they have a sister named Janice. And there are a million Gary Hartmans out there. And we were coming up with nothing. One night, my husband and I were going to dinner and he says, you know, given the ages, this sounds more like high school sweethearts. He said, maybe we need to go look in Ohio.

Sherry Davis turns once again to Seville, Ohio, this time looking not for John Smith, but any family named Hartman. The search turns up nothing. Davis then casts her net wider, calling area coves throughout Ohio. On March 5th, Sherry Davis gets a hit. A callback from Wadsworth, Ohio, and a man named Gary Hartman. And I said, was your sister married to John Smith? And he said, yes. And I said, so was my sister, and she's missing.

And Gary said, my god, lady, you got a problem. My sister disappeared in November of 1974, never to be heard from again. In 1970, Janice Hartman and John Smith are both just 19 years old. They're married after a brief courtship. Janice's brother, Gary, is stationed overseas at the time. I got a letter indicating that Janie was going to get married and that the guy would look good, clean cut, college, da-da-da-da-da-da. I said, well, good for her. Gary later leaves the service and returns to the States.

He visits the couple, now living in Columbus. And man, it was like we invaded his property. I mean, he knew who I was and this was the first meeting that I had ever had with him. And I was astonished at the language that he was using towards my sister. And I look at my buddy and I said, well, let's go to dinner. Maybe things will calm down after a couple of beers. And all it did was get worse. Janice Hartman leaves her husband and returns to Seville.

On November of 1974, she obtains a divorce decree. Three days later, Janice disappears, and her family starts asking questions of Smith. John indicated that Janice packed a bag, actually indicated a red bag suitcase, and left for Florida. Smith's account does not fit with the car parked outside his trailer. It is Janice's. She wouldn't have left that car. She's paying for that car. You know, that car was her property, her only property. A missing person's report is filed by the Hartman family and promptly forgotten by the local police. And that is the way

that Janice Hartman disappearance sits from 1974 until 1992, when Sherry Davis and Dina Weiss get on the phone with Gary Hartman and begin comparing notes. I sat down and cried really hard that night. It wasn't that my mom was really missing at that point because I already knew my mom was dead at that point. It was that somebody else, some other family had been feeling this, had been dealing with this for 17 years at that time. And I thought to myself, this could happen to me. It could be 17 years. How am I going to live with this? What are we going to do? We can't do this for 17 years.

How are we going to put an end to this? Brian Potts is a detective for Wayne County, Ohio. In February of 1992, he gets a call from detectives out of West Windsor, New Jersey. They ask Potts to pull up the missing persons file on Janice Hartman, now almost 20 years cold. They're saying, hey, is this a coincidence that he's reported his wife missing over in New Jersey? And he also reported her missing in Wayne County and wanted me to get the report, check it out and see if it had ever had an ending to that report. Potts and West Windsor detective Mike Dansbury review both files.

The pattern is unmistakable. Two women are married to John Smith. Two women think of leaving John Smith. Two women disappear without a trace. It's more than a coincidence that two wives are missing and just under similar suspicious circumstances. On April 9th, 1992, Mike Dansbury executes a warrant to search Smith's home, but turns up nothing. Potts and Dansbury also bring the suspect in for questioning, again to no avail. Basically, he was sat there like a sponge, emotionless, just whatever we said, just take in, and just there was no reaction. I was more convinced than ever that he did it, because an innocent person isn't going to sit there for 10 hours with us telling him he killed two women and not say, I'm getting out of here, charge me or let me go. He just sat there. With no body and no physical evidence, the investigation into John Smith,

already cold, gets even colder and stays that way until the FBI decides to take an interest. In 1997, Bob Hilland is a special agent with the FBI. Eight years earlier, he started his career as a street cop in West Windsor. One day, Hillen visits his old precinct house and stops by the desk of Detective Mike Dansbury. During the course of us just catching up, I looked on his wall, and he had a bookshelf with a variety of books, and I saw these three loose-leaf binders,

white binders that said Betty Fran Smith, kind of covered in dust and just sitting there. And I inquired Mike, you know, what was the status of the case. binders, white binders that said Betty Fran Smith, kind of covered in dust and just sitting there. And I inquired Mike, you know, what was the status of the case? Dansbury lays out the case and his suspicions concerning John Smith. Hilland is intrigued, as are his superiors at the Bureau. Four months later, the FBI take jurisdiction. Hilland brings Smith in for a round of questions. The suspect responds with a round, blank stares. His demeanor was exactly as the previous law enforcement officers described to us. He was cool, calm, and collected. He sat in a room for several hours, would not take a drink of water or soda,

would not take food, just sat in his chair, would not even go to the bathroom. FBI agents, however, change tactics, asking questions not about the two missing women, but about the effect the disappearances have had on Smith's own family members. The ploy works, and Smith begins to crack. He lays down on a couch in a hotel room, and he curls up in a fetal position,

takes his knees and holds them close to his chest and wraps his arms around his legs and just starts weeping and crying uncontrollably. And he asked for a blanket to cover his head and he wanted to lay on the couch forever. We thought it was any moment the words would come. He made some very incriminating statements to the effect of, I'm afraid. I'm afraid to tell the truth. I've been lying and I'm tired of lying. My life is a nightmare and I want the nightmare to end. I don't know how to start telling the truth. Smith takes Hill into the edge but then steps back, refusing to admit any guilt, asking instead to be taken to the hospital. As the suspect is taken away in an ambulance, FBI agents across

the country begin to question Smith's family members. Their specific focus, John's brother, Michael. We had information which suggested that Michael knew some of these details and it went so far in some instances to approach female companions, friends of his brother John's, and inform them, listen, stay away from my brother. He's bad news. He's a killer. The police have interviewed us about some wives that he's killed. Stay away from him. So we believed strongly that Michael knew something.

He knew plenty and told them a story about a wooden box his brother John once kept in their garage. Michael called John and said, John, listen, Granddad and I John once kept in their garage. Michael called John and said, John, listen, Granddad and I found your box in the garage. And John asked, did you open it? And I said, yeah. John says, I'll be right there. We all know how important it is to keep our homes and families safe and secure.

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John Smith leaves cold case detectives grasping at straws. Until one day in May of 1999, when John's brother Michael gets in touch with FBI Special Agent Bob Hilland. Michael is one of the only family members in this matter who had a conscience. Michael had a hard time living with the knowledge that he was holding deep inside him, and it affected every aspect of his life. On May 14th, Michael Smith sits down with the FBI and unburdens his conscience. Michael's story begins in a garage in Ohio.

In 1974, in his grandparents' garage, Michael Smith walked in to find his older brother, John, constructing a wooden box. Next to the box were the clothes of the woman who, less than a month earlier, had divorced John and who has now gone missing, Janice Hartman. Michael asked John about the box. He confronted John, asked him why he was constructing

such a crudely made box. John explained that he was building it to store some of Jan's belongings. And Michael was confused and asked, well, if you're going to build a box, why not build like a chest as opposed to this long, narrow box? John became very upset and animated and angrily chased Michael out of the garage. Later that same day, Michael returned to the garage. John was still hard at work. He sees John picking up each garment

that I previously described and lining, rolling it up and lining the bottom of this plywood box, and he's openly crying as he's doing this. About a week thereafter, Michael returns to the garage and sees the same box now completed, wrestling up against one of the walls in the garage. Michael tells the FBI he forgot about the mysterious box, which laid undisturbed in the garage for five years.

Then in May of 1979, Michael got a call from his grandfather. And they opened the box and they discovered Janice Hartman's remains. And he recognized her face. Her hair was rainbow colored. It was multicolored. He was adamant about that fact. A corpse with hair the color of a rainbow, crated in a box and stored in the family garage. Smith tells the FBI after opening the box,

he headed for the nearest telephone and placed a call to his older brother, John. Michael called John and said, John, listen, Granddad and I found your box in the garage. And John asked, did you open it? Mike says, yeah. John says, I'll be right there. According to Michael Smith, his brother John drove eight hours that night and arrived in Seville early the next morning. Smith denied responsibility for the box's contents,

claiming Janice was a drug informant set up by the police. Michael Smith and his grandfather agreed to keep quiet. John Smith then packed the box into the backseat of his Corvette and drove off. 20 years later, Michael Smith finally tells his strange story to the FBI and waits to see if they believe him. The first time I heard Michael Smith's story, I wanted to believe it. But I can't honestly tell you that I did believe it.

It didn't make sense to me. Whether Hilland believes Michael Smith or not, his story represents the best lead cold case detectives have. Hilland asks, and Michael Smith agrees, to participate in a phone sting. Again Michael Smith came to the plate and had the courage to do the right thing and agreed to start recording some of these phone calls. Hey, I got some serious deep here, John. What?

Can you talk? Yeah. Okay, listen, you know that FBI agent, that Bob Hillen son of a bitch? Yeah. Well, he brought me a grand jury subpoena. I gotta go to New York and testify in front of a grand jury. Oh, yeah.

I mean, like, goddamn, John, come on. I'm scared to death here. So we wanted Mike to confront John about this box story and see what his reaction was. And Mike did that. Well, I'm telling you what I'm going to do. I'm going there to New York, and I'm going to tell them the truth. That's exactly what I'm going to do.

I'm going to tell them that we seen you build a box. Granddad and I opened the box. We found Jan in it. You know, that's what I'm doing. I cannot see any other way out of this. I am not going to go to jail for you, John. No, I wouldn't expect you to. Okay.

Unless you got some idea. No, I don't have any idea. Unless there's some kind of something. No, there isn't. I mean, that wasn't, I don't know what else to tell you. You know, that, that was a joke or something that somebody dropped off in the box. I wasn't Jan in it, but if that's what you believe. John, that was Jan in the box. We opened the box up. Her legs were cut off. Do you want me to continue? No, but I mean, that's something that stuck with me for years. I mean, I've had nightmares over this. Okay. I mean, I had nightmares where Jan chased me down the road and beat me with her

legs, John. Okay. You know? Okay. The phone tapes convince cold case detectives of two things. Michael Smith is telling the truth about the box he saw in his grandparents' garage. And John Smith is far too clever to incriminate himself. So the investigation takes a turn at that point once we're convinced that Michael is telling us the truth. We try to locate this box. Cold case detectives dig in several locations around Seville, hoping to turn up the mysterious box.

The team also sends teletypes describing the box to law enforcement agencies across the state of Ohio. A year later, the digs turn up nothing but dirt. The teletypes, nothing but dead ends. And the investigation into John Smith once again falters. It's February of 2000. For almost two years, Sherry Davis has stayed in the background as the FBI worked the case. Now, however, the sister of Fran Gladden Smith is determined to provide whatever steam she can to the flagging investigation. In early February, she calls cold case detective Brian Potts. And I said, Brian, the letters went out for Ohio or whatever. But I said, you know, we now know he was in Indiana. And I said, I think we need letters

to go to Indiana. Sherry Davis gets on the internet and downloads addresses for all the sheriff's departments and coroners in the state of Indiana. She said, well, if I make stickers with addresses, will you send out a letter, which I did. My husband and I sat down and typed up the labels and sent them to Brian. By that time, he had had his steno pool do the letter. They stuffed them, put the labels on them, sent them out. About three or four days after I sent them off, I get a call from Jerry Berman saying, I think we have your girl.

I read it three times. In my mind, it was our Jane Doe. As Brian Potts listens, the Indiana lawman tells him a story about a wooden box found abandoned in an Indiana cornfield. In the spring of 1980, in Morocco, Indiana, 70 miles south of Chicago, a highway maintenance crew working this stretch of road discovers a box lying in a ditch alongside one of the fields. They're only half surprised when they discover that the box is actually a coffin. Jerry Berman catches the call. We've had bodies dumped here over the years, several. Some buried, some not buried.

It's the only one that was ever in a box. And normally they don't box anything, they leave us. Inside the box, investigators find the skeletonized remains of a young woman. Around the skeleton are what appear to be rolls of clothing and a blanket. Couldn't tell at the roadside ditch, and it wasn't until they removed the skeleton from the container of the box that they found the legs had been cut off below the knee.

And we assumed that was to accommodate the size of the box. Investigator Larry Bartley orders the remains sent to a forensic lab and asks if they can provide an ID for the lady in the box. The archaeologist was able to tell us that it was a white or Hispanic female and give us a height and an approximate weight and age. An orthodontist tells Bartley that the young woman had expensive dental work. That, plus her dress, leaves detectives to believe she might have been from Chicago. We thought that it might possibly be a hooker or someone out of Chicago

that had disappeared. And we worked for several months, we meaning the state police team and myself, going into Chicago and going from area to area and looking through all their missing person reports. Chicago turns up nothing that matches the lady in the box. Eventually, the strange discovery is forgotten. I didn't wake up every morning and have a bowl of Wheaties and figure on solving Jane Doe's case. It wasn't something that I spent a great deal of time on. It was just simply memory when I got the letter that recalled it. Jerry Berman's memory offers a clue to cold case

detectives who believe Indiana's lady in the box might very well be John Smith's first wife, Janice Hartman. It's hard to sit in my chair. When I got off the phone, I just started yelling for my boss, we've got her, we've got her. Brian Potts secures a court order to dig up the body of the lady in the box from a pauper's grave in Morocco, Indiana. On March 2, 2000, cold case detectives begin to dig. A few feet into the earth, detectives expect to find a coffin. There was nothing there where she was supposed to be buried.

So we had seen a little depression about three feet away from where we were digging. And we said to scoop there and actually what they had done was taken her bones and put it in a baby casket and just placed that in the ground. The remains are exhumed and taken to a forensic anthropologist, and then to the FBI lab in Washington. A DNA sample from Janice Hartman's mother is also collected and compared against a sample drawn from the bones of the corpse. We're waiting for the DNA to come back. Obviously, I'm able to get the reports and the photographs of the discovery of the box in 1980 and moreover the more recent pictures of the evidence. And what convinced me was that some of these items that were in the

box were exactly what Michael had told us all along. Michael Smith told detectives John Smith had items of Janice's clothing with him as he built the box in 1974. Inside the box, cold case detectives recover similar items used to lie in the interior. Even more startling is the strange detail provided by Michael when he opened the box in 1979 and saw the corpse itself. He described the skeleton's hair as rainbow-colored. And the reason for the rainbow-colored hair was because there was another pair of pants in the box along with these others. And as the body decomposed, it saturated some of the dyes in this other pair of pants, which bled through to Jan's hair. So when Mike

opens the box and describes to us this rainbow-colored hair, he was exactly accurate. In fact, the dye had bled so much that an impression of the victim's face can actually be seen in some of the clothes that lined the inside of her coffin. When you turn the dress upside down, you can see the reflection of Jan's face, almost like the Shroud of Turin. You can see her actual facial features,

and we can see the rainbow-colored hair. On April 24, 2000, forensics confirmed what Bob Hilland already suspects. The lady in the box is Janice Hartman. After 26 years, cold case detectives have an eyewitness, a body, and enough evidence to arrest John Smith. On October 3, they do exactly that. As opposed to all the times in the past when he said, sure, I'll sit down and I'll talk to you. I'll be glad to play poker with you and show you what I have and what you have. I'm not talking this time. It was different. And that's when he

was arrested. Word of Smith's arrest spreads quickly. The first to get a phone call, Janice Hartman's brother, Gary. When Brian called me in October and indicated, Gary, we have just arrested John Smith in California. I hear the door slam. He says, the door has just slammed. He says, they're taking him to jail right now. And I go, wow. All right. The next family to get a call, the family of Fran Gladden Smith, John Smith's second wife, also missing, her body still unaccounted for. That night was the first night that I knew that that night, there was no possibility that any woman was going to die. And as long as he was walking the streets,

there was every possibility that any woman could die. The hardest thing about John being out in the world is that we knew what he was. It's like the rabid dog going down the street, and nobody knows that he's rabid but you, and you're not allowed to shoot him. It was just this great relief. It was such a relief to have him locked up.

In Seville, Ohio, John Smith stands trial for one murder, and many expect the mystery to end until cold case detectives look inside storage locker. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Hey, Cold Case Files listeners, whether you love true crime or comedies, celebrity interviews, news, or even motivational speakers, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue, right? And guess what? Now you can call the shots on your auto insurance too. Enter the Name Your Price tool from Progressive. The Name Your Price tool puts you in

charge of your auto insurance by working just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance. Then they'll show you a variety of coverages that fit within your budget, giving you options. Now that's something you'll want to press play on. It's easy to start a quote and you'll be able to choose the best option for you fast. It's just one of the many ways you can save with Progressive Insurance. Quote today at Progressive.com to try the Name Your Price tool for yourself and join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. In July of 2001, a small town prepares for a large trial. John Smith is charged with the murder of his first wife, Janice Hartman Smith, and suspected but not charged with killing his second, Fran Gladden Smith.

Jocelyn Stefansson will prosecute Smith for Janice Hartman's murder. She expects the case to be a difficult one. The fact that you're trying a case 26 years later, obviously we didn't have a crime scene to ever go over. We couldn't even actually say how Janice died, because by the time her body was found, it was just skeletal remains. Opening arguments begin at 9 a.m. on July 5th. Stephanson focuses the jury's attention on the linchpin to her case, the story of a box told by John's brother, Michael. And Michael placed the call to John, and he said, John, we found the box.

And the only question his brother asked him was, did you open it? And he said, yes. And the only other comment John made in that whole conversation was, I'll be back. Two days into the trial, the box that held Janice Hartman's remains is carried into a hushed courtroom. That box was very important because it was Janice's coffin for the five years that it stayed in Seville,

for the months that it sat out in that field in Indiana. And it was also a very powerful visual. At 8.30 a.m., Michael Smith walks past the makeshift coffin and takes the stand. He looks across the courtroom at his brother and then begins to tell his story. makeshift coffin and takes the stand. He looks across the courtroom at his brother and then begins to tell his story. At his request, the testimony is not videotaped.

I said, why are you building such a box? Why don't you build it more like a chest? What about the box made you describe it in that manner? Because it was a long, skinny box. You know, if you're packing some of these belongings in, why not build like a chest or something? Why build a long skinny box? It just didn't make any sense.

Michael remembered going back into the garage later that evening after college football was over and seeing John packing clothing items in that particular box. And I'd never seen anybody do this before. He was picking up clothes, and he was just kind of rolling them up. He was taking these clothes, and he was rolling them up, and he was putting them around the edge of this box. Around the edge of the box?

Yes. Stefansson leads Smith and the jury to the moment in 1979 when Michael Smith actually opened the box and what he found inside. I tell you what, my curiosity got me. What is this? You know, put it in my backyard and went and I got a hammer and crowbar and I started prying it open. I pried the top up and I started looking at the end. I got a stick and I started poking around and what I found was it appeared to be human legs that had been cut off just below the kneecaps. Whoa. And then I went up to the other end with a stick

and I started moving stuff around. What I found was what appeared to be hair. It was wavy brown hair, except it was really weird. It was blue, it was blonde, you know, it was just multicolored, strange-looking hair. I was just like, whoa. I poked around enough to where I came across a face, and it was Janice Hart. You knew it was Janice Hart? It was Janice Hartman. You knew it was Janice Hartman? It was Janice Hartman.

Smith's story captivates the court. During closing arguments, the prosecutor shows the jury the nightgown Janice Hartman wore when she was placed into the box and the outline of her face. There were a lot of collective gasps in the courtroom, a lot of big eyes from the jury. Defense counsel was completely shocked by it. It was a very effective piece of evidence. Michael Smith's testimony, together with the box itself, provides a case that is overwhelming. 27 years after she first disappeared,

the investigation into Janice Hartman's disappearance comes to a close. Her husband, John Smith, is found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to 15 years to life. His story, however, is not quite finished. Inside a storage facility near Seville, Ohio, is a locker once used by John Smith. And evidence the convicted murderer might just be a serial killer. Myself and Sergeant Potts, we had a canine out there. Sandy Anderson and her dog Eagle were out there and we went and we searched the previous unit which John no longer maintained and in the course of that search we found two, three, four pieces of bone fragments and I'm not a forensic expert so we

submitted them to an anthropologist who informed us that the pieces were the top portion of a human skull dna testing establishes that the skull does not belong to john smith's other missing wife fran gladden smith but if not her then who fran's family believes they might have found the answers. In researching John Smith's background, they happen across an old briefcase he once owned. It was spooky because when we opened it up, there were some financial papers in there, and there were pictures of four women. One of the pictures is Janice Hartman, the woman John Smith is convicted of killing. The second is Fran Gladden Smith, the woman he is suspected of killing. The other two pictures,

older snapshots, are of John Smith with unidentified women. These women are in a select group, but it's not a good one. Everybody else is dead. In that group is dead. Since these pictures were found, one of the women has been identified and accounted for. The other remains a mystery. And cold case detectives wonder if the picture and the skull they found are not perhaps connected. And the question you need to ask yourself is,

does a man such as John Smith, does he kill a woman in 1974 for which he's now convicted, Janice Hartman? And then in 1991, he's married again to another woman, Betty Fran Smith, and she disappears in a very similar parallel manner, indicating that he likely also killed her. Does a man like that kill one woman in 1974, another woman in 1991, and nobody between, during, or after. So when you ask me when we find these other photographs of these other women, yes, I'm concerned. I want to know who they are. John Smith serves his time in an Ohio prison just 60 miles from his hometown. And while Smith himself will likely never prey on another woman, the investigation into his past is far from over, and the questions linger.

Who is the woman in the photo? Whose skull was found in Smith's storage locker? And most importantly, what happened to his second wife, Fran Gladden Smith? Her family members want John Smith to know his conviction for Janice Hartman's murder means nothing. They still want answers. They still want answers. They still want justice. And they are not going away. John, get used to this position because you're going to be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life.

I got a long time, a lot longer than you. So snuggle in and get comfortable because I'm not going anywhere. I want him to know that he may be here on charges for Janice. I still don't have my sister. So the fat lady still hasn't said. You know, I'm still not going away until I have my sister. by Bill Curtis. Check out more cold case files at anetv.com. of The Lost Ark, Titanic, or The Wolf of Wall Street. No matter your vibe, download the Pluto TV app to spend summer doing what you love, watching endless movies. Tell me that's not the deal of the summer.

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