Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Killers Amongst Us: Beautiful Blonde Mom Breaks into Politics, MURDERED! (part 3)

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

Linda Collins-Smith raises two children as a single mom, then meets a man and married. The match however was not made in Heaven and after 12 years, a bitter divorce ensues. Actions taken by her judge husband during the divorce result in him getting removed from the bench. Is that what leads to her death? 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. Welcome back to Killers Amongst Us, a production of iHeartMedia and Crime Online. Every day when we pull up at a red light or we walk through the doors at Kroger or Aldi's or Trader Joe's, look around you. It's very sobering to realize there are killers amongst us. Killers you would never expect actually walk the halls of the state capitol. That's hard to believe because most of them are lawyers and judges. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Killers Amongst Us.

A rags-to-riches story. Linda Collins Smith. She's bold. She's beautiful. The long blonde hair, the big blue eyes. Fights her way out of a horrible first marriage and off that gravel road she grew up on with no running water to become a business person, a real estate owner, and a local politician. Joining me in all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Levi Page. Private investigator Derek Ellington at Ellington.net. Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University. Author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. And star of a brand new series on the True Crime Network, Poisonous Liaisons, Joseph Scott Morgan.

Renowned psychiatrist joining me from Atlanta, Dr. Angela Arnold at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Judge, trial lawyer, anchor, Court TV, Ashley Wilcott at AshleyWilcott.com. And special guest joining us, Ken Yang, former press secretary, and Senator Missy Irvin, both longtime friends of Linda Collins. We were talking about how Linda had come out of a horrible first marriage, married Prince Charming, who looked great on paper, and then everything went to pot. Take a listen to Crime Online's Dave Mack. Judge Philip Smith retired from the bench two days after the executive director of the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission,

David Sikar, filed a complaint as a result of information obtained through pleadings in his divorce case and other sources. In an official letter of reprimand and agreement not to serve in the judiciary, Sikar wrote, quote, that the investigation panel found, and you agreed, that you made improper use of court premises,

equipment and other resources to engage in extrajudicial activities that did not concern the law, the legal system or the administration of justice. You admitted under oath during divorce litigation in Randolph County Circuit Court that you improperly used court computer equipment after regular work hours at the office, unquote. With that, Smith accepted a sanction and agreed he would be permanently ineligible to serve in the judiciary, even in an emergency temporary situation. Oh, my stars. Can I tell you something? When you are barred from being a fill-in judge, a senior judge as they are called, when the workload gets to be too much and cases are backing up very often in every jurisdiction, retired judges called senior judges are called in to handle, let's just say, the bond calendar or oversee a couple of trials when the calendars are really

backlogged so suddenly something that happens in that divorce proceeding with Linda Collins goes horribly sideways and her ex-judge Philip Smith is basically thrown off the bench. Whoa. What happened, Levi Page? So he was accused, and he actually admitted this under oath, of using computer equipment after hours for, quote, extrajudicial activities. It was never specified exactly what he did, but he agreed. He agreed that he would no longer serve as a judge, that he would resign in disgrace. Okay, I'm not getting it. So what did he do?

Go check his Wells Fargo at 5.01 p.m. and he got thrown off the bench? I'm not buying that for one. It was related to his divorce case. Okay, so he checked her Wells Fargo. There is something more to this than you're telling me, Levi Page. Derek Ellington, you're the expert in online activity. First of all, who would think to check a judge's computer to find out what they've been doing at 5.01 p.m.? Well, in most cases, there are some type of controls in place, and it never

fails to amaze me how much trouble public and civil employees get into misusing their computer equipment. And I will tell you that, you know, checking your stock scores is typically what gets you in trouble. I think the elephant in the room is people probably doing things on public computers with a bit of impunity that they probably shouldn't be doing on any computer and a lot of times misusing computer equipment is a a euphemism for probably going to things that he probably shouldn't have been going to okay i'm trying to read in between the lines here does it's i mean you've got a judge protecting the record making sure that we never find out what, if anything, he was doing online that got him thrown off the bench. Did it ever become public to Ken Yang what he was doing on his computer?

No, I, you know, not as much as everyone knows. You know, they were real vague, as you mentioned, extrajudicial activity. You know, there were, I believe, in one of the statements that he had gone on, that after hours to change some language in the divorce, I think it was the decree or the settlement, and got caught doing that. But other than that, you know, everything has always just been hearsay or or just, you know, up to your imagination. OK, well, you know what? You said that so diplomatically. I don't really know what you

said. Wait now. Are you telling me that he that he allegedly, changed some wording in their divorce decree? Yes, yes. That he had went in and tried to change some language in the divorce. It's in a story, I can't remember where, but there were some allegations of him, you know, improperly using, as it was said, improperly using court equipment and resources after hours. Wow. Okay. That's certainly a bombshell to Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, Court TV anchor. Like I'm saying, you've got to be doing more than checking your Vanguard account to get thrown

off the bench. Absolutely. And I was so I was biting my tongue trying not to jump in. But let me just tell you this, like it or not, I even know of judges who have been looking up things that they shouldn't that may or may not have to do with naked people. And as a matter of fact, they have not lost their jobs or their privileges. So to me, are you saying there's a judge that looked at porn and did not get thrown off the bench? Nobody is saying that this judge was looking at porn. Nobody's saying that. It's got to be something to get thrown off the bench. It's got to be worse than that.

That's my point. And I would suggest going in and changing documents in your divorce absolutely violates ethical standards. And it's got to be something like that to get them thrown off the bench. Not only thrown off the bench, you can't even come back as a temporary judge. I mean, where I practiced law in court all those years in inner city Atlanta, we all, I tried many cases in front of senior judges because the workload was so heavy. You know, the 20 or so superior court judges couldn't, could not physically, there was not enough time to handle all the cases. So we'd bring in senior judges, we'd try cases in tiny little rooms, you know, all over that courthouse.

You'd put up a petition and try a case, just find a judge somewhere. He can't even come back as a temporary judge, Ashley. Yes, that's my point. That's how egregious it was to be to that extent. It is so many different things. I mean, not only the ethical violation of going in and looking at documents, but making changes. That's fraud. Those are crimes.

So in reality, if that's what he really did, he could also have faced criminal charges. Well, somebody had to find out what was going on in order to report it. So how, again, no one, no one is suggesting that her former husband, the judge, Philip Smith, was looking at porn. Nobody. Certainly not me. I think it was something very, very different. In fact, I don't think it was porn. I think it was something very, very different for him to accept a resignation and promise never, ever to put a toe on the bench again. To Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, death investigator, you know, I prosecuted cases, murder over $5, murder over $10. You know, murders take place for a lot of different reasons with motive a lot less

than this because all this comes out because of the divorce, Joe Scott. Yeah, it does. And, you know, you've got even a broader spectrum here, Nancy, because, you know, you think about those cases that I worked as an investigator in Fulton County and that you worked as a prosecutor and our spectrum is kind of narrow sometimes, you know, maybe street level drug crimes. But when you start to talk about an individual that is in an elevated position, OK, where you have an individual that, say, a politician or a judge, you know, your spectrum automatically broadens as an investigator. And it makes it sometimes even more difficult because,

you know, you begin to think, well, did somebody have it in for an individual perhaps to ruin their life or to harm them in some way? Or was this just a random street level crime? And so that just kind of duplicates the work. And one more thing you can't forget, Nancy, is the idea that the media is going to look at these cases all the more hard, harder and much more scrutiny on these cases. And as you well know, it makes our job so much more difficult. lawyer thrown off the bench, never, ever to return because of what was uncovered in the midst of a very acrimonious divorce with Linda Collins Smith. That said, take a listen now to Sheriff Kevin Bell. On Tuesday, June the 4th, 2019, the dead body of a female was discovered that the residents of former arkansas state senator linda collins smith the condition of the body prevented any immediate positive identification the randolph county sheriff's office responded to the scene at

around 5 45 p.m and immediately began securing the crime scene. The Arkansas State Police Criminal Investigation Division was dispatched to the scene along with forensic examiners from the Arkansas State Crime Lab in Little Rock. The body has been sent for an autopsy to determine the positive identification and cause of death. Third Judicial District Circuit Judge Harold Irwin has issued a sealed an order sealing the documents and statements ordered or obtained by the police during this investigation. Let me ask something right off the top to Ken Yang, former press secretary. Isn't the judge, Judge Harold Irwin, who sealed those documents regarding the female body found at Linda's home, didn't he sit on the bench in the same courthouse, the same circuit as her ex-husband?

I believe that was the case, and I believe that's why you saw him recuse himself later down the line. So you got Judge Harold Irwin sealing documents about the discovery of a body at Linda Collins' home. Judge Harold Irwin sits on the bench down the hall from Linda Collins Smith's husband, the judge, after very, very acrimonious divorce proceedings, straight out to Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Tell me about where her home is. I want to find out about is it a wooded area? Is it near a mountainous area? Is it down a long driveway? Was there video surveillance? Did you have a burglar system in place? Because, you know, going to someone's home is a very, let me just say, open act to just walk up to someone's home and leave a dead body there. Let's just start at the beginning.

Tell me about the home. So she lived in Pocahontas, Arkansas, small town, mostly rural area, population 6,000. She did have a long driveway to her home, but her neighbors knew her very well. They said that she was very friendly, and that is the landscape of her home in Pocahontas, Arkansas. And also, we know she's not there very much. Her children are growing up and she's gone to the Capitol a lot. And then a body emerges at her home. Take a listen to our friend Tyler Thompson, K-A-R-K.

Wait, wait, stop, stop. But Levi, where is the body? So the body was found at the end of her driveway, and it was covered in a tarp and a blanket. So the body's wrapped in a blanket, covered in a tarp at the end of the driveway. What, like somebody is taking out the trash and they just leave the body there? Is that what you're telling me, Levi? Yes, and apparently the body had been decomposing for seven days when the body was found they could not even identify who this body was

Jessica Morgan professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University. You're hearing what Levi Page is saying. We don't get the ruling on ID because the body is so decomposed, wrapped in a rug, covered in a tarp at the end of the driveway. That's pretty outrageous, just leaving a body at the end of the driveway. Yeah, it is. In the heat of the summer in Arkansas. And one other interesting side note to this, Nancy, is that, you know, neighbors alleged that they had heard gunshots. And I think that it kind of went out that she had been shot. And that, you know, that

that turns out not to be accurate. Keep in mind, her body her body as you stated is in fact decomposed and it's decomposed to the level where you just cannot eyeball her at the scene which is something that we don't want to do anyway you know because you can get you can get into the weeds with this very you want to get them back to examine them but this is complicated all the more because she has gone down the timeline our post-mortem interval timeline, to the point where trauma is essentially, you can't evaluate it, it's unrecognizable. That leads us to this one piece here that's crucial. Where could her body have been sequestered for this period of time?

Who would have had access to her body and to a location where she could have been hidden away. And then all of a sudden, like you said, like garbage, just kind of taken to the end of the drive. And it's very, it's very bizarre because she was in fact wrapped in a blanket, but not wrapped in the tarp. She was covered with a tarp. So it's not like she was completely cocooned here. You know, I'm thinking, who in the hell does this? You know, why would you do this? Why would you do it in broad daylight? And it makes, as an investigator, it makes me think, well, did this person get caught?

Did they think they were being seen as they were trying to get the body into a car, maybe to transport it somewhere? And they just, you know, dropped her body there and then fled. To Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist joining me out of Atlanta. Dr. Angie, I've noticed in many, many homicide cases, the victim's face is covered. It could be covered with leaves. In one case I worked on, the woman's head had, the rest of her body was naked, but her head had a wicker trash basket placed over her head to cover the face. It could be a blanket, a tarp, anything to cover the dead victim's face. Why is that? Nancy, believe it or not, the killer does that

to make this a less personal act. It's a reflex that they actually do, and it's so that they can continue with the killing, because possibly, if they were looking at this person, it would personalize it so much for them that they may not be able to continue with what they're doing. So they cover the face so that they actually no longer think about who this person is that they're doing this act to. Interesting to Derek Ellington, private investigator at Ellington.net. I've seen so many cases where a murder victim's face is covered. But something Dr. Angela Arnold just said strikes a chord. She said they cover the face, the perp covers the face to make it less personal, which means a random killer does not take the time to cover up the face

because it is impersonal. They don't care. It has to be someone that knows the victim to try to make it impersonal. Get it? I agree, Nancy, but I would also say one of the interesting things when we're looking at people's, say, electronic footprint is how people who commit crimes can compartmentalize their activities. And you can sometimes think you're dealing with two separate people, the person who commits the crime, and then the husband, the wife, the children, whoever, because they create almost a separate part of themselves to do what they're doing. So I could see conflict in the covering of the face because it's the two sides of the person battling for control of the situation.

Wow. Back to Judge of Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University. So at this point, they couldn't just look in the rug and determine who the person is. Why? Yeah, because she's so far downrange, this postmortem interval timeline that occurs, Nancy. You know, we have the effects of decomposition that are going on here. And if she has been essentially cocooned in a blanket, say in a warm area, we're talking about Arkansas in the summertime, that's only going to speed up the process of decomposition. Just think about that from the perspective of any biology experiment that you do or chemistry experiment

that you do in high school, even heat speeds things up. And so, yeah, her features are going to be distorted. And the other piece of this, Nancy, is the fact that you cannot properly evaluate injuries at the scene. And again, you know, I, you know, I bring this point to you. Initially, they thought she had been shot. And of course, that turns out not to be the case, Nancy. And I always take a very hard look at whoever discovers the body. Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Linda Collins-Smith's son and her father become worried when several days pass with no contact with Collins.

The pair go to her Pocahontas home and make a grisly discovery. Listen to this 911 call obtained by KAIT-8. Okay, honey, have you made contact with her? Is she in the house? No, she's outside. She's wrapped in a blanket underneath the tarp outside. She's wrapped in a blanket under a tarp outside. Okay, have you tried to check for a pulse? No, ma'am, I have not. Butch finds a body under a tarp in the driveway of his mother's home.

I will never not be able to see that picture burning in my brain. Initially, police say the body is too decomposed for identification. Wow. So her son finds the body, but he goes there. Let me understand. You tell me, LeviPageCrimeOnline.com, how was Linda Collins-Smith's body found? Okay, so Nancy, May 28th, Linda Collins-Smith quit posting on social media, and her family had tried to get in touch with her, and they could not. So her son and

her father actually drove to her home, and that is when they found the body covered in a tarp and wrapped in the blanket. And they called 911. To Senator Missy Irvin, joining us from Arkansas. Do you remember the moment you learned Linda was dead? Yes, I do. You know, it was haunting and it was disturbing because I think all of us as female legislators have been in scary situations. I've been stalked. I've received horrible phone calls to my home threatening me, threatening to take my life, threatening to take my children's lives. And so it just came crashing down, I think, on me and the other female legislators I serve with, you know, that this is reality. It happened to one of us. And, you know, and it happened to Linda. And, you know, it's almost like she was punished for standing up for what she believed in. And she was, you know, and somebody took her voice and that was and did something just so heinous and just so horrible to her. And it was just shocking.

It was heartbreaking. It was it just rocked. It rocked me. And I think it rocked all of the people that served with her, particularly the women that served with her. It just it just rocked us and showed how vulnerable we are and what people are capable of doing. And it was just it was just unbelievable and heartbreaking. Guys, the body of Linda Cone Smith is identified. Take a listen to this. Deputies joined by Arkansas State Police's criminal investigation team.

A sea of investigators spotted combing through the former state senator's property. Neighbors living around the crime scene chose not to go on camera because they said they're scared to speak out, but they said this whole ordeal is like a mystery. Colin Smith's home, located right off Highway 90 in the Edgewood neighborhood, a one that people here told us off camera is typically quiet. You can see the vehicles behind the crime scene tape. Neighbors told us the red truck belongs to the former senator. That's the vehicle she was spotted driving in about two weeks ago, and the others, we are told, belong to her father and son. As investigators arrived,

neighbors said those vehicles were left on the property. The body found outside the home has since been taken to the state crime lab. Thanks for being with us, Nancy Grace. Killers amongst us. This is an iHeart Podcast.