Cold Case Files - Murder in the Bayou: A Trinity River Murder

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

When the supposed great-niece of Marilyn Monroe, Krystal Jean Baker, 13, is found dead beneath a bridge in Texas' Bayou Country, investigators are stumped. The quest to track down her killer will take investigators 14 years, and lead to a new law.Homes.com: We’ve done your homework.Hydrow: Head over to Hydrow.com and use code COLDCASE to save up to $475 off your Hydrow Pro RowerProgressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.Rosetta Stone: Cold Case Files listeners can get Rosetta Stone’s lifetime membership for 50% off when you go to RosettaStone.com/coldcaseSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, cold case listeners. I'm Marissa Pinson. And if you're enjoying this show, I just want to remind you that episodes of cold case files as well as the A&E classic podcasts, I survived, American justice and city confidential are all available ad free on the new A&E crime and investigation channel on Apple podcasts and Apple plus for just $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. And now onto the show. This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. I couldn't find Crystal and I knew there was something wrong. You don't expect your child to be murdered. It was such a nightmare. She just disappeared. Then her body was found under the Trinity River Bridge. I can still see her, just like it was yesterday. I still see it here. We just kept having girls coming out missing,

and their bodies being dumped along the bayous, the swamps. We've got a monster somewhere. It's disturbing that you've got somebody out there that's hunting young girls. I just grabbed it, you know. I just went berserk. We're going to go find the man that killed my daughter, and he's going to have to pay for what he did.

There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only about 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. Brad Moon is a former investigator for the Chambers County Sheriff's Office. I moved down here in 1976. This is home now. Down here you've got a lot of biosoughs, you got a lot of marshland. Chambers County, I think we actually have more water than we do land.

Cheryl Lee Kenry is a Chambers County District Attorney. Being on the the Texas Gulf Coast, it's very green, it's very lush. It's a lot of fishing, a lot of crabbing. It's very green, it's very lush. It's a lot of fishing, a lot of crabbing. It's a big place for birders. Brian Guchas is a former detective with the Texas City Police Department. I see the beauty of the swamps, but also I'm aware of the beast. I see the other side of it as a dangerous place, alive with death. It's March 5, 1996, in Chambers County, Texas. of it as a dangerous place, alive with death.

It's March 5th, 1996, in Chambers County, Texas. The sun is starting to set on the wetlands of Chambers County. The Sheriff's Office receives a call about a body found along the marshy banks of the Trinity River. It was almost time to go home. It was 430, 445. I left and went to the scene. When I arrived the

victim is about 150 yards at that time down to the bank of the river. We had a young white female. Her dress was pulled up so I'm thinking sexual assault and I can clearly see it's a homicide. She didn't have any kind of identifying information. I could tell that she'd been strangled with something just because of the abrasions on the throat. I can still see her just like she was laying, just like it was yesterday. I still see it here. To be as young as she was and then dumped, in my mind, there's no excuse for that. 40 miles across the bay in the Gulf Coast town of Texas City, the family of 13-year-old Crystal

Jean Baker is on edge. Earlier that day, Crystal left the house while under her grandmother's care. Jeannie Escamilla is Crystal's mother. She wanted to go be with her friends, but her grandma said no. And of course she got in an argument with her. She walked down the street and she called me and I was at work. Crystal tells her mother that she's calling from the corner store. I was a little angry at Crystal when I talked to her. And I told her, I said, Crystal, I said, you need to go back to your grandma's. But about an hour later, my mom calls me and tells me she didn't show up.

I was trying to get in touch with everybody and I kept calling up her friends. There was no sign of Crystal and I knew there was something wrong, that she would be here right now if something wasn't wrong. Crystal's mom Jeannie contacts her local police department in Texas City. When we first got the call with Crystal Baker, we assumed that she had run away. Crystal was 13 years old. She rebelled against her grandmother. It seemed she had just gone somewhere and didn't call home. And back then, we didn't really address runaways

the way you would do today. 99.9% of the time that the child returns home. And the Texas City Police Department, they made a report. They gave out a BOLO to the patrol officers to be on the lookout for Crystal Baker. They just kept telling me, oh, she's a runaway. And I kept telling them, no, she's not. Catherine Casey is a true crime author.

Historically, along the Gulf Coast, there had been a real problem with the police assuming that someone who'd gone missing had run away. Working on this book about Crystal's case, I spent a lot of time with Jeannie. Jeannie knew that Crystal had not run away and she was really scared. I really felt like something bad happened to her. I just had this feeling in my stomach and in my heart because me and Crystal has such a good connection. Like many residents of the Texas Bayou region,

Crystal and her mother have spent much of their time enjoying the water. Texas City Dike is like a beach, and then there's a little bayou where you go fishing and you go with your family and go out and have a good day. We'd swim in the ocean, and sometimes Crystal would go a little farther than I wanted her to.

And I had to tell her, come on in, you know. And I liked the spunk in her. Good spirit, a beautiful smile. She was just a natural beauty. The striking teen bears resemblance to an iconic star who some believe is her great aunt. We found out through my husband's side that Crystal was related to Marilyn Monroe. I think she does look a little bit like Marilyn Monroe. The connection to Marilyn Monroe is kind of a family legend. Nobody knows if it's true or not, but some of the pictures of Crystal,

she's this very vulnerable, very beautiful young girl breaking out into the world. And it reminded me a little bit of portraits of Marilyn at that age. That's what stays with you about these cases. When Crystal went missing, this was a young girl just at the very beginning of her life. It's heartbreaking to not know where your kids at. You want your kid home. Across the bay, deputies are investigating the murder of the Jane Doe found in the boggy wetlands of Chambers County. It was basically my first big homicide. To say I was overwhelmed

would be an understatement. There's no witnesses. We're looking around for any kind of evidence. We picked up cigarette pack, cold drink bottle, anything that was in probably about a 50 foot radius. As I'm looking around the area, I don't see signs of a scuffle in the dirt. I think it was pretty clear that she was killed somewhere else and then dumped because the crime scene was just her.

I don't have anything that tells me who she is. Knowing that there's parents somewhere wondering where she's at, that's frustrating. After we found the victim, we tried to reach out to other agencies in the area, asking if anyone had any missing persons. This was 1996. We did not have the computer system to network like we do now. Finally, two weeks after the dead Jane Doe was found,

Investigator Moon gets a call from the Texas City Police about a missing girl. They had the missing person that was very similar to what I had described, height, weight, and there was a birthmark. So I left and went to Texas City. I'm thinking in my mind, we're going to be able to make a positive identification. Investigator Moon and the Texas City Police ask Crystal's mom to view some photos at the station.

I thought I was going to go down there and look at pictures of Crystal, you know, good pictures, you know, to put in the newspaper or something. And then they put down all these graphic pictures of my daughter, how they found her, what she looked like for me to identify her. And I've seen the little freckles she had right here. I knew it was my daughter. I almost passed out. She didn't even look like herself. There was so many bruises on her body, and even on her face.

It was like, who did this? This is my baby that's lying in here dead. You know, it felt like I was just in a daydream, in a nightmare. I didn't know I was gonna look at pictures of my daughter dead and murdered. It was heartbreaking. It was evil.

With Crystal's death now confirmed, detectives set out to find the killer who disposed of her body in the thick marshlands of Chambers County. The suspect had a two-week head start and is a swamp. It's desolate. We know it's rough terrain if there's a body dumped out there for us to obtain any sort of evidence. In other words, if you want to dispose of a body, that's the perfect place to do it. We started taking statements and knocking on doors to see if we could determine what happened to her.

Crystal Baker went to the corner store and used a payphone. At some point, she got off the phone and left. It was in right in the middle of the day, busy street, busy convenience store. And she just disappeared. Then her body was found about 10 after five in the afternoon, 46 miles away under the Trinity River Bridge.

We needed to know how she got there, how she met her demise, who it was that brought her there. It was during that time that we spoke with Crystal's family, hoping they could point us to some potential suspects. The family shares that Crystal had been spending time with a local boy named Randall Robbins. She's 13. And, of course, Crystal being a little teenage girl, it was my puppy love. According to Crystal's mother, Randall claimed to be 15 years old.

Yet, while digging into his background, detectives discover that he's actually 19. That was a major turning point. We're going, wow, we got a 19-year-old with a 13-year-old. You know, this is unusual. Police then uncover an even more unsettling find. It turns out Randall has a wife. It's a very big red flag.

When I find out he was married, he may have been separated at the time, but nonetheless, he was married, and he was substantially older. After I found out how old he was, his real age, I freaked out. I thought he was a little boy, he had a baby face. I assumed that he was telling me the truth when he even

told me he was 15. And Crystal, she didn't know that he was married. She didn't know any of that stuff. The fact that he was married, it could have been that the wife discovered his relationship with Crystal and may have instigated what happened to Crystal. At this point, he was the primary suspect. He was the number one person we were going to look at.

When questioned, Randall claims that he struck up a friendship with Crystal while separated from his wife. He told us of his relationship with Crystal, you know, this is unusual, but the police didn't get a report of indecency with the child or anything like that. He had an alibi for the whole day. There were documents that were provided from the business that he was in. He had dates and times. Randall Robbins was an immature 19-year-old having a relationship with a 13-year-old. We did a solid investigation and cleared him.

As police search for new clues, the medical examiner releases his findings. It was ligature strangulation was the cause of death. She was strangled with something other than the hands, just because of the abrasions on the throat. Because of the injuries that did look like she'd been sexually assaulted. But they didn't found any kind of traces, any body fluid on her person. Her dress was sent to the crime lab as well as the fingernail scrapings and clippings. The lab told us that there just wasn't enough there for them to tell you what you needed to know.

Back in the 90s, it was a general rule for law enforcement that you needed at least a dime size bodily fluid to get a DNA reading. And a dime size is a lot, and you got to be able to see it. Nowadays, you're swiping something and you get DNA when you swab it with a Q-tip. The clothing and the fingernail scrapings and clippings were all put into evidence and secured at our facility. I was hoping we may eventually have technology that would help us technology that would help us find something useful in the evidence that we have. I used to be the queen of gym excuses. I'd plan to go, then talk myself out of it and always find something much less healthy to do. But since I got my hydro rower, those days are over. Now I just step into the room and get moving. No more debates,

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Two weeks after her body is discovered, Crystal's loved ones gather in Texas City to say goodbye. I had bought her a dress that covers up her neck, covers up her hands. I've seen the bruises on her face and I had to get into my purse, put some makeup, a little bit of makeup where the bruises were at and put a little, little bitty eye shadow, little, little lipstick that's light. I wasn't going to let her go out there looking like they had had her. And I knocked down a whole bunch of flowers because I was so mad about everything.

I was mad. I was heartbroken. And I was devastated. I kept telling her, I'm so sorry, baby. You went through this. I'm so sorry, Crystal. You went through this. I'm so sorry baby, you went through this. I'm so sorry, Crystal, you went through this. I'm so sorry. As leads dry up one year after Crystal was murdered,

the investigation stalls. Then the sheriff's office learns of a chilling development further up the coast. Another young girl has gone missing in the soggy marshlands just 30 miles from where Crystal had disappeared. Laura Kate Smither told her parents she was going out for a quick run. The 12 year old who was homeschooled was last seen around nine in the morning. Laura Kate Smither, like Crystal, she disappeared on the

side of a road. They were about the same age. They were about six months. Laura was about six months younger. Three weeks after she vanished, Laura's body is found in a nearby weedy pond. Like Crystal, she too had been strangled. And then three months after Laura's body was found, Jessica Kane's truck was found on I-45, just gone. She had vanished. There was a lot of speculation that perhaps the three killings, Crystal's, Laura's, and Jessica's, were all connected.

It's disturbing that you've got somebody out there that's hunting young girls. It just seemed like every time you turned on the news, some young girl was missing. It was almost like we were living in the Twilight Zone. It was just like every day we were thinking, who's gonna go missing today? We just kept having missing persons come up.

1996, we have Crystal Baker. And then in 1997, we had Laura Smithers and Jessica Kane. We've got a monster somewhere. With the disappearance of three young girls in the Texas marshlands, fear hangs heavy in the thick bayou air. I just remember everyone being in disbelief and in horror, actually, thinking that it's out of control, that there's some serial killer out there who's obviously not going to stop.

With these murders happening as the way they did, I did reach out to other agencies. Maybe we can pool our information and come up with a suspect. Also, we were in constant contact with the FBI and they were the profilers. They were the persons that could examine someone's characteristics.

But after talking with the other agencies, there's no leads that are developed at that time to take us any further than what we already were. The police eventually concluded that Crystal's murder was not connected to Jessica Cain's or to Laura Smethers. They had a DNA profile. There was a man named William Lewis Reese who was ultimately charged with their murders.

With no new leads, the investigation into Crystal's death goes cold. Everybody kept telling me it's a cold case and there was no evidence. Back in 1996, lab results failed to detect any foreign DNA on Crystal's body, but Jeannie holds out hope that one day there will be a clue. My child actually fought for her life in every way with her legs, her arms, everything. She had bruises all over her. So I knew that there had to be some evidence on her. I said, I need to hire a private investigator.

So I called him and they went to investigate. The PI digs into Crystal's file at the Chambers County Sheriff's Office. He finds nothing. An evidence officer, she pulled the case after the private investigator contacted her. She pulled the case and she started reading through it, got interested in it. She remembered Crystal being murdered. She was a high school student. It stuck with her. It was after this that we get what could be a major break in the case. Brian Hawthorne is the sheriff of Chambers County. I became the sheriff after the sheriff's office started this case

back from what had relatively turned cold and making that cold case hot again. It was a major case. Anytime you have a 13-year-old body that is disposed of like it was, it's really never put away. It's usually kind of waiting for that tip. In 2009, our state police lab, the Department of Public Safety Laboratory, was making great strides

with some of the new technology from DNA. In this particular case, because it was a cold case for a long time, they were able to get that evidence re-submitted and reanalyzed. The dress and some fingernail scrapings. This time when the sample was tested, they got a profile. Then it was loaded into CODIS, the national database.

It's now 2010, 14 years after Crystal Jean Baker's murder. In September of 2010, we got the call we had been waiting for all those years. Brad is the one that called me and told me, In September of 2010, we got the call we had been waiting for all those years. Brad is the one that called me and told me, you know, you're not going to believe this. We had a hit on Crystal's killer. When we got the CODIS hit, it was a huge moment. Everybody was ecstatic that we now had a suspect for Crystal Baker's murder. So we finally get a name,

and then we start trying to track him down. The sheriff's office sent me a picture of him, and they said his name is Kevin Edison Smith. In 2010, Kevin Smith got arrested in Louisiana. Smith was arrested on a drug charge in Pointe Coupee Parish, located in Louisiana's Bayou country 300 miles from Texas City. He subsequently had his DNA taken and put in the CODIS database, which subsequently

wound up matching up with our suspect information. In Texas, we were only taking DNA samples from people who had been convicted of certain sex offenses. But in the state of Louisiana at that time, they would take your DNA upon arrest even for misdemeanors. The fact that we had his genetic profile in the system, it's huge. I mean, it's a big deal. Once we got a hit on Kevin Smith, they started doing some background on him.

Kevin Smith was under the radar. No criminal record except for the drug charge. I come to find out he's from the Texas City area. He's worked all up and down the Interstate 10 corridor. In 1996, he was working as a contractor at the time at one of the refineries, very close to where Crystal Baker's body was discovered. Detectives discover that Kevin Smith is back in Texas and working in Port Arthur, an industrial coastal town near the Louisiana state line. In September of

2010, we traveled to Port Arthur and with the assistance of Port Arthur PD, made contact with the suspect. The day we arrested him, I was actually able to put my handcuffs on him, which is something I'd been waiting for all those years. When our suspect was arrested, he maintained his innocence. Said he didn't know what we were talking about. Very quiet, very unassuming.

And then they took his DNA. Myself and one of the rangers were in there with him. We explained to him, you know, being nice, you know, we've got a court order to get your buckle swabs. All right, Kevin. Here's what we're going to do. We can put these swabs inside your mouth. This is to compare to evidence that we have. You know, evidence from what?

If your DNA got mixed up with somewhere, that's what these swabs today will tell the tale. OK? Now, we're asking asking you as a courtesy, just to be cooperative. Open your mouth. Open your mouth. Open your mouth.

I made us hold you down, man. Open your mouth. I pretty much held him down while the ranger swabbed his cheeks. You're setting me up. I'm glad you're staying better. Calm down, brother. You're setting me up.

I'm not setting you up. You need to cool your heels right now. You're setting me up, brother. Y'all setting me up. We're not setting you up. That's all. You need to cool your heels right now. Y'all setting me up, man. We got his DNA. We done with him? Yeah, he's done. Let's go. Later that week, lab results for the DNA sample come back. Sure enough, it's confirmed he is our man.

Around the time we rode to Jeannie's house with Crystal's mom, we were able to tell her that we'd found a person responsible for her daughter's death. It got very emotional for everybody. They showed me a picture of him. I have already lived through 14, 15, almost 15 years of not knowing who it was. And then all of a sudden I have a face to who murdered my daughter. I've never seen him.

I don't understand why he did this to my daughter. Thank God the detectives went and made sure that the whole case got looked at. It was a miracle that we caught this guy. It was just remarkable. Kevin Smith was charged with capital murder because he committed a murder during or in the commission of an aggravated sexual assault.

It would be a death penalty case. As prosecutors prepare for trial, they receive a surprising request. I was told Kevin Smith wants to talk to you if you'll take the death penalty off the table. And of course, I think my first reaction was, oh shit, you know, I mean, this was a big deal. We still don't know what really happened on the day that Crystal was abducted. Maybe I can get some answers. I thought, hell yeah, I'll go talk to him.

I wanted the son of a bitch to confess. Kevin Smith wanted to confess if I took the death penalty off the table. I knew that a confession would help. We would use it in trial. And I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to hear what he had to say. Okay, we're gonna start the tape this time.

Kevin Edison Smith, correct? Yeah. Kevin, myself, one of the rangers, and prosecutor were all in the room, and Cheryl did the majority of the talking. She was asking the questions. Kevin said that he wanted to be very clear that he was not the same man today that he was back in 1996. That he was a Christian man and that he was a good person.

If you get into their faces and you start berating them, they're not going to tell you anything. So I sat there and listened to him and agreed with him. Trying to be his friend and being nice and sympathetic. And then we talked about Crystal. Somehow he got her in his truck. He said that she asked him for a ride. Her family says there's no way in hell

she would have done that. I guess at some point he wants to have sex. She just started freaking out, you know, and I was like, Lord, have mercy, and, man, I'm drunk, I'm full of alcohol and stuff, and I'm just like, please, Lord have mercy, and man, I'm drunk, and full of alcohol and stuff, and I'm just like, please, please, please, and trying to restrain her, and then she started, you know,

hitting me and everything, and kicking me and all that kind of stuff, and then I just grabbed her, you know? And I had choked and everything. And the thing I know, she stopped, you know, she stopped breathing. He says that he used his hands, I gotta know, she stopped breathing. He says that he used his hands,

then that goes more in line to it being an accident. You know, like, oh, I freaked out because she was freaking out, so I just choked her. And before I knew it, she was dead, which I knew all of that was bullshit because you don't accidentally strangle somebody for four minutes. Okay, the only thing though about you choking her with your hand

is the information that we got is that she was strangled with something else. Something was put around her neck. Because usually when you choke somebody, those your thumbs will break that bone right there. Hers was, it was something that was wrapped around her neck. I had like a, this was a leather strap, you know? Oh, OK.

I grabbed it, like I said she kept, and I was trying to calm her down. I was like, Lord, please. So you tell her with that? Well, yeah. But it's so funny how he quickly remembered when I told him that he did not strangle her with his hands. Then all of a sudden, he just starts telling it,

just like it was yesterday. Yeah. When they get to the part where they're like, oh, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be upset right now, then the tears will come. He knows what he's doing. He knew what he was doing. When Kevin started crying, I didn't pity him. I felt like he was crying because he knew he'd been caught and his goose was cooked, so to speak.

That man wasn't sorry for nothing. He went on about his life. He had no concerns about what he did to Crystal. With the suspect's damning statements, prosecutors are confident as they head to trial. We have the DNA. We had his confession, which was everything. But there's never a slam dunk. I don't care what anybody says. You don't know what he's going to do with his defense. And you never know what 12 people on a jury are going to do. You never know.

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just a house, this is everything you need to know all in one place. Homes.com. We've done your homework. homework. I just pray to God to make this Lord bless the heart, bless, bless him. I mean, if he was such a changed man, why didn't he confess one year, two year, three year, four year, ten years after he killed her? It's now 2012, 16 years after Crystal Jean Baker's murder. With spectators packing the benches of the Small County Courtroom, Kevin Smith's recorded statements are presented during his trial. He confessed that he had hurt Crystal. He confessed that he strangled her. Here are the details.

It was such a nightmare. It was devastating. A jury hearing a confession from a defendant is very impactful because a lot of times, defendants don't testify. Kevin Smith didn't testify. Kevin Smith didn't testify. He basically put on no defense. The jury reaches a verdict within 30 minutes.

They find Kevin Smith guilty of capital murder, which carries an automatic life sentence. He won't ever get out. I was just glad that it was over. Glad that we got the result that we wanted, that Crystal deserved. It felt really good to hear Kevin convicted of the murder of Crystal Baker. It was long overdue. How could you do that to my baby? How could you do that?

I can't understand that. I think evil is too good of a word. He's a monster. We put a monster away. I probably have a little more peace knowing that that man is never going to get out of it. Thank God his DNA ended up in the system. If Louisiana hadn't had a law mandating the testing of DNA for all felons,

Kevin Edison Smith would never have been found. Following the trial, Crystal's mother continues her fight for justice by pushing for a similar DNA law in Texas. He took everything from me when he took my daughter, and he took everything from her that day. I don't want any other parent to go through what I went through. The Crystal Baker law in Texas passed in 2019. We got 24 felonies that you got

that you could be tested for once you get arrested. Even in the short time that that has been the law in Texas, we have solved over 250 cold cases. And now we just recently were able to pass some additional legislation to now collect the DNA off of all felony arrests. Crystal's mother is pushing to expand the law to cover even misdemeanor arrests. Crystal Baker's law has already helped a lot, but this would even help more. We need to get these criminals off the streets. So if we could get their DNA like a fingerprint, maybe they might think twice about what they do. Crystal is being remembered and will forever be

remembered as changing the law in the state of Texas. That's a big deal. This is a bench that we dedicated to Crystal. I come out here to bring my great-grandkids and my grandson. Bring the kids out here to play. Coming out here, I really feel close to her. I try my very best to think about the good things of Crystal. Laughing and having fun and enjoying her life.

She was a joy to be around. I have dreams of her still, but I dream mostly of her being a little girl. And I'd like to remember all the fun things we did together and remember all the love I have for her. Are you looking for your next case? Pluto TV has all your favorite crime dramas streaming for free. You're gonna need some backup. Which means suspense is free.

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