Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: Chameleon

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Josh Mankiewicz sits down with Andrea Canning to talk about her latest episode, “Chameleon.”  When Fran Gladden Smith went missing from her New Jersey home in 1991, police had their eyes on her husband, John Smith. Over the course of their investigation, they discovered that Fran wasn’t the first of John’s wives to go missing. Suddenly, one case became two, and a decades-long search for justice ensued. Josh and Andrea discuss the dedication of Fran’s family in trying to solve both cases, and Andrea shares a podcast-exclusive clip from a taped phone call with John Smith. Plus, Andrea answers viewer and listener questions about the episode.Listen to the full episode of “Chameleon” here: https://link.chtbl.com/dl_chameleon

Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and we are Talking Dateline today with Andrea Canning. Hi, Andrea. Hi. So this episode, which is just amazing, is called Chameleon. If you haven't seen it on television or if you haven't listened to it already on a podcast, it's the episode right below this one on the list of podcasts that you just chose from. So go there and listen to it or watch it on TV or stream it on Peacock and then come back here. So today we're going to talk about this episode. Andrea also

has some extra audio that did not make the broadcast that we're going to play. And then we are going to answer some of your questions from social media. And I was on social when this aired. So I know that people have a lot of questions. So let's talk Dateline. What an episode, because, you know, in the first five minutes, I'm thinking to myself, wait a minute, this guy's obviously the killer of this missing woman. Like Andrea, you're not going to be able to sustain that for two hours. Like, it's got to be more than just, you know, John is a killer. So I'm thinking like, how are you going to do this? But you did because this is not just a whodunit.

This is a what else did he do? And how did he get away with it for so long? And how are they going to catch him? Yeah, this was not a mystery episode of nail biter till the end who did it. You know, a woman goes missing from her condo. She's just had hip surgery. Her husband says, oh, she left a note to feed the fish. She went on a trip.

Yeah, it was more of a cat and mouse episode. That just served to make me as a member of the audience. And from what on social, when I gathered also, a lot of the audience was like, he's so guilty. How is this guy walking around free? You know? Yeah. It was like a United Nations of red flags, right? I mean, he loses the note or throws it out. The one that proves that she's gone away. She's on crutches, but like she just walked away from what, second or third floor apartment, right? He doesn't distribute the flyers. They find the luggage, right? Yeah. And that's what led to the search warrant,

by the way, was the lie about the luggage. I mean, like, you know, Andrew, when you go on the road, there's certain things that you're always going to bring. And if those things are left at home, I mean, that's a pretty clear sign. It's almost like he would have been better served to say to the police, you know, to be frantic and to say, I don't know where she is. She disappeared. She had a doctor's appointment, but I, you know, no one's seen her. You know, if he was a little more proactive about her going missing versus this lost note. And I'm looking for her. I don't know where she is. You know, when you're in his situation, you either want to not be a suspect, right?

You want to be seen as an innocent party. Or you are aware that as the spouse and the last person to see her alive and the person that, you know, maybe has the most to gain from her dying. You're going to be a suspect, but there won't be a case against you. And sort of the, you know, I'm going to not talk to police, which I don't have to, and I'm going to show up with my lawyer. That's another way to go. And he went this completely other way, which ultimately did not work. It mostly didn't work with her daughter and her sister. You know, they were just like, this guy's full of you know what. Yeah, I mean, they saw through him instantly. They were, at least at the beginning, you get the feeling much more proactive than police were at the time.

I mean, they're doing all the early searches and they're sort of assembling the early case against him. Like when they call police and police say, she's an adult, she can leave. And let's recap, she just had hip surgery and her car's there and she lives in a walk-up. Like, wouldn't you as police want to really think about that? I mean, in the beginning, of course, police have to sort of dissect the relationship and figure out like, does this woman leave a lot? Is this common for her? But if you do the legwork, then you realize her adult children said that she's always in contact with them.

There's one place she should be after surgery, and that is in her condominium. And when she's not there, that should tell you something. That should tell you a lot as investigators. And also the fact that there was no sighting of her on a plane, a train, a bus. If she's going to visit family in Florida. Where's the plane ticket? Where's the reservation? Not to mention you would think, okay, what kind of relationship do these two have? He's saying they have a good relationship, but then you have a woman who just up in leaves. That would signal to me as an officer, okay, this is not a solid relationship. You know, to me, and this is just as a viewer in the first like five minutes of the show,

the biggest red flag is that comb over. Yeah. Look, apparently all the women felt the same, that he wasn't exactly the most attractive guy. It's not like he's Brad Pitt and they're just fawning all over him. He had something else going on. The special agent said it was really about what were those women looking for at that moment in their life? They were vulnerable. They wanted this type of guy and he could become whatever was needed for that woman. And I asked Diane, his third wife, I said,

like, you know me, Josh, I like to ask provocative questions. They don't always make the shows, but you know, I said, well, was he good in bed? And she said, no. So I'm thinking to myself, like, so what, like, what is it then? And she just said that they had fun together. It was sort of like companionship. You know, the familiar refrain from our friends at Date with Dateline is ladies raise your standards, you know, like stop falling for these guys who don't deliver. But that's not really the case here. I mean, this guy, John Smith, is sort of like the single women whisperer. Yeah. And I think he had some qualities, you know, that clearly these women like, but then they would find out, though, what he was all about. And then. Yeah.

And then that's the theory is that if you try to leave him or things start going south in the relationship, that's when he needs to eliminate you, according to the police and the prosecutor. So one of the things that I wondered watching this is, what did he get out of this? I mean, there wasn't any big insurance windfall here, was there? No. I mean, it wasn't about money. He had good jobs all the time. He always had nice cars and nice things. So that's the unusual part about it is like it doesn't fit the con man mold. It just fits the chameleon mold. Now, you find out that somebody's first wife is missing and has been declared legally dead. That is one of the reddest of red flags.

I think that's the biggest red flag, right? So yeah, but he had told Diane and Summer, her daughter, that his wife Fran had cancer and died. And they didn't know about, I believe that Summer and Diane did not know about Janice, the first wife. They only knew about Fran, the second wife. So that was all, everything was shocking to them when the FBI reached out to them to tell them. All of this is good advice to do some kind of basic background check with somebody like this, except in this case, it would have been really difficult because his name's not Josh Mankiewicz, it's John Smith.

It's John Smith. And even the FBI agent talked about how he was, he didn't know John Smith's whereabouts. So he asked the FBI to send him records on any John Smiths in America. And he got something like, I can't remember what the number was, but like 25 boxes of John Smiths in America. So as he says, it was in there somewhere. He just couldn't find it. There were too many. I actually expected you to say, and by the way, John Smith's not his name.

He made that up. You know, right. I was kind of waiting for that because it feels like a name that he made up to be safe. No, John David Smith. And that's what's in his prison record. John David Smith. Okay. Well, that's his name then.

Okay. We're going to take a little break. And when we come back, we have an extra clip from Sheila's taped phone call with John. Andrea, if you found out that your husband owned a beachfront house in another state and you didn't ever get to visit it, I'm guessing that might come up a couple of times in conversation. Yeah, and also when he says that his sister lives there. Well, okay, introduce me to visit it. I'm guessing that might come up a couple of times in conversation. Yeah. And also when he says that his sister lives there. Well, okay. Introduce me to your sister. Yeah.

Let's go meet your sister at this fabulous house. And he was going a lot of weekends to work on the house. Everything about that just screams double life. You know, when Sheila calls him. Sheila, his girlfriend in Connecticut. Yeah. Yeah. And it's set up by the cops. Um,

they're listening. And I thought the cops actually saw more or heard more in that phone call than I did. He says, I think it's already too late, which the cops took as, as some sort of significant admission to me, it means it's too late. I think she's already dead. Yeah. I mean, she would have contacted us by now if she were still alive, which to me is him doing a pretty good job of playing the role of, I'm worried. I don't know where she is.

I actually thought that was the stronger part of his defense was that phone call. Yeah. And as we mentioned, we have an extra clip of that phone call that we did not air in the program. if we want to take a listen to that. Let's listen. I found out today that in all these years, it's never been found that she was declared previously dead. Do you know her family? No, I don't know her family, and no, I haven't talked to her family. How could you not talk to her family?

How could you not talk to her family? How could you not know she was missing? No one told you she was missing all this time until today. I didn't know she was still gone and adult today. I'm concerned about me now. Okay. Oh, you're concerned about yourself.

Concerns that I've been harming. Yes. I don't know where Crane is because I don't know where she is. I don't know how to stop all this. I mean, a good part of it

I got into with the lies but now the lies, but now the lies are past and it's too late. It doesn't help anything. I mean, it's kind of like the snowball rolling. What was chilling for me was hearing Sheila saying, I'm worried about myself now.

As you should be, ma'am. As you should be. Telling him, like, she's giving it to him straight. Like, and then he's just very calm about the whole thing, even though he's being accused of these big things. And it's like very like, well, you know, whatever. It's like he could be talking about his boat. Do you think he had any idea that he might have been recorded? I mean, you know, if he did, he played it exactly right.

Because he sure didn't give prosecutors or police anything to go on in that call yeah it's possible you know that he knew but and so then it just the whole thing just spirals into hell i mean you know the part where his brother cracks is terrific um it was obvious to me that um my brother would have cracked a lot sooner your brother would be like you know he'd have a podcast he'd be like he would have a a lot sooner. Your brother would be like, you know, he'd have a podcast. He'd be like, he would have a show about it already, your brother. He would, yeah, he would fold like a house of cards. But, you know, his brother stuck with it for a long time.

He did. And finally he's like, hey, I'm not going to jail for you. Yeah, well, it was really the power of the grandparents, right? Because they had basically raised them. And so the brother was told, do not say anything. The thing that was so crazy was the brother Michael finding the skeletal remains with rainbow hair. I mean, that is, like I said in the show, I was like, that's a horror movie like that doesn't happen in real life. You know, that's crazy. That was one of the creepiest moments that I can remember. I agree. How long had the brother sort of known about that since it happened?

So I want to say it was was it five years after the years after he saw his brother building the box? But then, yeah, I'm not sure how many years passed after that five years. It definitely was a very long time. And it was until grandma had died. That was when he finally felt comfortable saying something. And remember, he was having dreams about this with Janice chasing him with her legs, holding her legs, which is another super creepy moment. So that affected him a lot. We tried to talk to the brother, right? We did. And we were told this has been extremely traumatic for him. He's very private about it,

doesn't talk about it to anybody. So that was what we were told. We also tried to talk to John Smith. Sure. And we never, by the time this was going to air, what we had heard from John Smith was through the prison. The prison said, he's thinking it over. He wants to talk it over with his lawyer and his wife, which tells us John Smith might actually have a new wife. He got married again. That was what the prison email said. He's talking it over with his wife. So, yeah.

I mean, I can't. Hold on. My landline. My landline is ringing. Oh, my God. I actually have a landline because of our security system. I have a landline is ringing. Oh, my God. I actually have a landline because of our security system. I have a landline. And I will finish what I was going to say as soon as the landline.

I don't answer the landline, by the way, because you know it's going to be some junk. So what I was going to say was we cannot confirm that he is married or that he has a wife. I'm just telling you that the prison said he was mulling over our interview with his wife. So he's arrested for Janice's murder, right? And he sort of gets immunity on the Fran murder. And then he tells this story that no one believes about what happened to her body. And I really felt for the family on that. They were very mad about that, very mad about that immunity deal. They felt it was a complete cop-out. They felt like it was that the prosecutor's office had taken the easy way out. And we were sent a statement, actually, from the prosecutor's office, a response from Mercer County.

And they said that the big thing for them was in Fran's murder, they could not introduce Janice. In Janice's case, they had the body. In Fran's case, no body. Fran has never been found. And, you know, there's some truth to that. You know, when you have no body and you can't introduce the murdered first wife, that could be a tricky case. But they didn't feel that way. Special Agent and DeeDee and Sherry,

they absolutely felt they should have gone forward and were livid with the decision by the prosecutor's office. Yeah, it's a tough pill to swallow, I think, at the end like that, particularly after he gets sentenced on the other murder. Now, the good news is his next parole date is 2029. Which is too soon for DeeDee and Sherry. They're worried. They'll be there.

Right. I wonder if his wife will show up at that parole hearing. Yeah. Talk about what a great husband he's got. She should do an interview with us. We could do an update. Okay. So after the break, now we're going to come back and we will answer some of your questions from social media.

And you had a lot of them. Okay, so let's get to some viewer and listener mail. Black Cat Gal, why'd they want to find Janice? Sherry and DeeDee, why were they so motivated to find Janice? First of all, tell Black Cat Girl, hello. And I have one black cat, two black and white cats. So I'm right there with you, Black Cat Girl. So why were they so eager to find Janice? Because the yarn was unraveling. They're trying to find Fran, and then they find out that he's got a first wife that they knew nothing about. So, yeah, I mean, they're just playing detective at that point.

They're like, what does this mean? And could this lead us closer to Fran, potentially? Okay, now I've saved this for social media, but I knew this was coming. The cat screech. Hilland noticed something else, something creepy. He would make this very strange sound, like somebody stepping on a cat or a baby crying. He made this weird noise when he was caught in a lie.

What does that sound like, someone stepping on a cat? It sounded like he went... Yeah, that's what he did. PHC 1960 says, that cat screech was legendary and will live on in dateline history. Kudos to Andrea for getting the FBI agent to do it, which I also, when I saw it, I was like, oh, Andrea, that was good. That was good getting him to do it. And that he played along with it too, right? He really played along with it.

Maybe that'll be my ringtone, the cat screech. But yeah, I mean, you seize moments where you see or hear things and you know that the viewer at home is thinking, what exactly did that sound like? So, you know, do you want to give it your best shot, Josh? It was like. Yeah. want to give it your best shot josh it was like yeah uh megan megan the script says i'm gonna need that fbi agent to appear and make that sound in all future dateline episodes we need more like in-person sound effects right totally great idea uh susan lynn says, what's the motive for all this carnage? And we don't really know is the answer.

I mean, there was no, you know, he's not, it's not like there's some, you know, property that he's going to inherit. It's, we don't know what this is. The closest, you know, to a motive was really if you try to leave John Smith, bad things will happen. And it's funny because I did an interview with a local affiliate promoting the show, and the anchor had been in an abusive relationship, and she actually wrote a book, and that really struck a nerve with her. And this is the case in so many domestic violence cases. You don't get to leave. You leave on my terms. All domestic violence experts will tell

you the most dangerous time for women is when they are actually leaving because that's the minute that he's not going to have any control anymore. And look what happened with Diane. She filed the annulment papers and like clockwork, just as they had feared, he comes over and kicks the door down. As we know from the show, Summer and Diane also said that they stayed with John for fear if they left that he would try to find Diane and kill her, and they also wanted to help with the investigation. Along those lines, and this feels like a good time to mention it, for other people who might feel that they or someone they know are in a dangerous situation like Diane, we should mention that

there is a National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE, which is 1-800-799-7233 or thehotline.org. You know, even though we had some laughs with this episode, as we do have moments sometimes, you know, in datelines where we laugh, which is okay. Right. A lot of it's pretty scary. It's very scary. And just like that anchor in Cleveland said to me, it does cut to the heart of domestic violence.

Because that's really what this was in the end, was John Smith and his control over these women. And what happens when they either figure out who he really is or try to get out? Exactly. I mean, it's very, very scary. And one thing that came up as well was, were there other victims that we don't know about? That was something that everybody brought up. It does feel like this is a guy who has lived his life

compartmentalizing all these relationships in which each one of them doesn't know about the other or knows a phony story about the other. So who knows who else is missing in his wake? And I hope somebody's looking. Yeah. One last social media question from biking away. This is, I grew up watching Dateline NBC on TV, and now I'm listening to the podcast as an adult. And I love talking Dateline. Yay, thank you. Thank you. I am always astonished.

When I meet people like, you know, in airports, they say, I love the show. I always ask people how they consume Dateline. I will say, are you watching live on Friday nights? Or do you record and watch over the weekend? Which a lot of people do. But a huge number of people, they are listening to the podcasts,

which is just the audio of the TV show. And then they're listening to us here on Talking Date Line. It is amazing now how many people are like, oh, I just listened to you. I'm like, wait, listened? But yeah, that's so common now. I met a woman on the beach a few years ago, and she put two and two together who I was. She'd never seen me on TV. She'd only heard me. And we started talking about what I do in Dateline. And she said, oh my gosh, I listen to you on my commute every weekend from Maryland to New York. That's all I do is listen to Dateline. We call it a showcast instead of really a podcast, but it's an easy transfer and you still really get the story.

And it fits into people's lives if they're community or if they're in the car or if they're at home doing something. I hear that a lot that I listen to it while I'm doing something else. It's the perfect thing to listen to. And my dad is now listening to Talking Dateline. So you can say hi to Gordon. Hi, Gordon. You've done a wonderful job with your daughter.

She's one of my favorite people. He'll love hearing that. Thank you. Okay, that is Talking Dateline for this week. Andrea, thank you. Thank you. And thanks for everyone for listening. Remember, if you have questions for us about our stories or about Dateline, reach out to us on social at DatelineNBC.

See you Fridays on Dateline, reach out to us on social at DatelineNBC. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.