Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - INTRODUCING: Shattered Souls

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

Crime scene investigator Karen Smith joins Nancy Grace to talk about her brand new podcast, 'Shattered Souls.' Smith takes us behind the scenes to see the unimaginable sights that this job brings and what it does it the people who do it. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here with a very special guest. Joining us, her podcast, Shattered Souls. Karen Smith joining me out of LA, forensics expert, lecturer, University of Florida, and host of Shattered Souls. Listen. There's somebody out there on the ground. Oh my officer. Oh, my God. Okay, sir, tell me exactly what happened. My name is Karen Smith. For 11 years, I was a forensic detective in Jacksonville, Florida. But right now, I'm just someone with stories to tell.

Stories of victims you've likely never heard of. And the emotional toll that working around death and destruction has on the people tasked with finding the answers to what happened to them. There are things about it that are deeply rooted. There's just too much blood for that. And sometimes you just can't get over it. I was scared to death. We had a really worst case scenario. None of it made any sense.

And when we rolled her body over... Oh my stars. Karen, it is so great to talk to you. Tell me what led you to create Shattered Souls. Shattered Souls is a compilation of journal entries that I made during my career in Jacksonville, Florida. And I had written a book and I took six cases from my book and I just decided to parlay them into the podcast. My intent was just to tell the story of the victims as well as how investigations are done forensically. And a sideline to that effect was what happens to me

when it's over, the trauma that's left behind. But I just really wanted to give a voice to the victims and talk about who they were when I can and tell the story behind their murders. And I just wanted to educate listeners about the forensics of crime scene investigations and why it's sometimes really difficult to piece those together. Guys with me is forensics expert Karen Smith. Our brand new podcast Shattered Souls. Hey, I didn't know about your book. What's the name of your book? Same title. You know, getting a publishing deal isn't easy when your name isn't Nancy Grace. It's hard if your name is Nancy Grace. It may be hard, especially because your name is Nancy Grace, but I hear you. Guys, Karen, longtime colleague and friend, we met as we were recreating a murder scene together.

And I'm proud to say I straddled Karen Smith. Oh, wait, did you straddle me? I can't remember anymore. Which way was it? I think it was the other way around, which was crazy. Okay. Okay. So I was the dead person in that scenario or the soon to be dead person. And you were the attacker. Okay. I can't believe I didn't like bludgeon you in self-defense, but somehow we both came out of the recreate, the recreation alive. Her brand new podcast. I'm just

so thrilled to invite you to the podcast world is It's Shattered Souls, and she is focusing on a case in one of her episodes, the Kim Dorsey case. What drew you to the Kim Dorsey case? Well, I was called the day after the first couple of investigators had gone to the scene. And my friend Kim Long and I were called to reconstruct it. And it took us five days, Nancy. It was that bad. So yeah, it was. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Five days to reconstruct a crime scene. You know what that reminds me of? Oh, Jackie, I'd love to do this for our listeners. Don't steal my idea, Karen Smith. Okay. Karen, do you remember the Atlanta

courthouse shooting? I was getting on a plane, literally getting on a plane and putting a suitcase in the overhead. And I got a text from one of my very best friend girls in Atlanta, a defense lawyer. And she said, there's been a shooting at Fulton County Courthouse. And I texted back, is anybody dead? And she says, yes. I grabbed, I yelled out, stop the plane from moving. I grabbed my bag and got back off that plane. I remember, I think I was at LaGuardia.

I took a taxi straight to JFK to get the next flight, or reverse. It was reverse, to Atlanta. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew something bad had happened. My point is it took them about two weeks. They roped off the courtroom, everything to analyze the crime scene. Why did it take five days to analyze the crime scene, Karen Smith? I'm fascinated. Well, there was a lot of blood covered every surface of that room. She had been bludgeoned, stabbed, and sexually assaulted. And it was just a matter of reconstructing her movements and the suspect's movements.

And it was very intricate. Five shots had been fired into a wall. We didn't know who fired the gun. And a lot of the evidence had been collected before I got there, excuse me, by the other detective. So we were working with a little bit at a disadvantage and we just worked together. And it literally, Nancy, just took that long to piece the puzzle together. And that's sometimes what happens in forensics. It's not a one-off. It's not that easy. And it was just a really intricate crime scene.

And we worked together as a team. And thank goodness we got the suspect. And he is now in prison for the rest of his life. Where did you get the title, Shattered Souls? That's what it does to you. You're well aware of that. You take some of these cases home, and every time you work one, it takes a piece of your soul with it. So I thought that it was just an appropriate title. Listen. And I see my victim's body laying there on a cold steel table.

Her body is just stark white, and her hair is combed back, and her lips are parted in a half smile. I started taking some notes, and in my peripheral in my dream, I watch as her head snaps to the right, and I caught her eyes, and she's looking right at me, and blood starts to flow from all of her wounds, and her teeth unstick from her lips, and she gurgles at me, please help me. And that's when I wake up. Man, Karen Smith, you are so right. And it's funny, I've said this before, and I'm sure there's some psychological reason for it. But of course, I remember evidence in cases and closings and openings. But I remember odd facts this is an example I remember my first carjack murder and some the perps drove by they just saw a car they liked and they gunned

down a young man I want to say he was maybe 18 19 just standing in his driveway by his car, gunned him down dead to just get his car. And what I remember so poignant is that a neighbor came out, and the victim had already or was in the process of bleeding out on the driveway. And they ran back in and got a pillow and put it under his head. He was probably already dead at that time. But just something about that act stuck with me. And there are tidbits of every case like that. Guys, I'm talking to superstar Karen Smith, forensics expert, host of a brand new podcast that debuts this weekend, Shattered Souls.

She was drawn to the Kim Dorsey case. Kim was found bludgeoned, stabbed, sex assaulted in her own bedroom. Now, I want you to take a listen to this. I told my sergeant and the homicide detective, I said, listen, she's got some really major injuries. I think this is probably the primary crime scene. It doesn't look like she was dumped. There's just too much blood for that. We also looked to the south of her body and it looked like some of the dirt down the hill had been overturned. Like maybe she had run to where she was. But this was in a really remote area of Jacksonville. It was a new road. There was no reason for her to be there. So we started asking each other, what was she doing there?

How did she get there? And why was she murdered at a construction site near a wood line? None of it made any sense. And at that point, we had a really worst-case scenario. We had an unidentified victim, whodunit murder. And it just doesn't get any worse than that. Karen Smith, what is that case about? That is a case of a young woman named Stacey Rupp-Logel. And it's episodes one and two,

believe it or not. And I chose it for a reason. Nancy, it was the first case I took home. It was the first case that hit me so hard that it created a nightmare that replays itself over and over and over and I just never know when to expect it and I don't know why I had worked murders before that but for whatever reason the Stacey Repogle case really hit me sideways so I described the case the horrific things that happened to Stacey, the founder at the construction site, and the progress through the entire case to how we found the suspect and how we arrested him. And I'm going to leave the rest in the wind because there's a couple of

secrets. Yeah, you know, therefore I'm not playing any more sound from that incredible story because I'll just say one word, hair, H-A-I-R, hair. Now, that's a big clue once you know about the case, but what a case that is. You know, Karen Smith, how long have you been a forensics expert? How did you get into the business? I mean, I know you didn't, neither did I. I grew up thinking, wow, one day I want to be a crime victim and then become a crime fighter. I wanted to be an author and travel the country in a mobile home slash RV with a horse attached to the back. That was my dream.

An RV full of books with a horse on the back. That's what I drew a picture of as a little girl. That's what I wanted to do. I don't know exactly how everything went sideways, but how did you decide one day to become a forensics expert, a star in your field? I didn't. Do you know what, Nancy?

It was a happenstance thing. I was a patrol officer in Jacksonville. It was okay, but I wasn't that great at it, to be perfectly honest with you. I didn't have that adrenaline junkie, go get them thing that some cops have. I was very cerebral. I like to think my way through crime scenes. And when I found the crime scene unit, it was just a hand in glove experience. And I just spent my last 11 years there. And I literally just, I took to it like a duck to water. It was just the way that things went for me. So it was kind of a little bit of luck and just a good fit

for me. You know what? You call it luck. I call it serendipity. You know, as I like to say to people, God has a plan, even when I don't. And wouldn't it have been awful if you had ended up with some job where you sat at a desk and you'd look out the window and wonder, what if? Well, that didn't happen. And I thank God for it. No, it didn't. And I couldn't have done it. I couldn't have done it.

I was not built that way. I was not built that way. I'm not built that way. I have a background in radio, believe it or not. I do believe it. You've got a radio voice. Now, I say you've got a radio voice instead of saying you've got a face for radio, because that's an old joke of the radio business. But you have a face for TV and a voice for radio.

And what stories Karen Smith has to tell. You know, I hate to even go. I just could talk to you about your cases all day long. You know, people wonder, what are DAs and investigators and cops doing all day? Well, a lot of times we're sitting around talking just like this. Because when you speak to colleagues, you start having ideas and ways to solve cases. And you think of things you maybe haven't dawned on you yet about your case. And in that moment, that's all there is in your life is your case that you are working. I, like Karen

Smith, would be consumed with each case as it came along and nothing else would be in my mind. I cannot wait to listen to this. And I mean that wholeheartedly. Welcome to the podcast world, Karen Smith, Shattered Souls. What an honor to have you on Karen Smith. Thank you. This is an iHeart Podcast.