Dateline Originals - Deadly Engagement - Ep. 2: He Said, She Said

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

As they dig deeper into the case, detectives begin to focus on two people with very different stories about one another. This episode originally published on September 16, 2025. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Some stories are written before the first keystroke, as if the ending or a foregone conclusion. That's particularly true of those stories in which a man or woman attempts to live a double life. Cheating business partners, for example, deceiving old friends, lying to lovers. I was shocked. It was nothing there to make you doubt their love and where they were headed. The beginnings of stories like that are as easy as sliding between satin sheets. That's when those lies of omission are tiny ones, when dishonest acts can go unnoticed. I cannot tolerate a liar. I don't lie for my children. I don't lie to my children. And the endings to those stories? You won't be shocked when I tell you, they usually don't end well.

There's some people in this world You go, okay, well, they got themselves in a mess We watch this kind of stuff on TV all the time That's when secrets can be revealed In a pyrotechnic display of guilt And public humiliation The shame it was there for everyone to see Everyone to see

The main thing is I wanted my friend to be there And for us to continue living life So no matter what the circumstances were The main point is, Deni, there's no longer with us This is a story about a promising young life, one cut much too short, in part due to the actions of someone they loved. The decisions we make make us, I mean, it's just sad. Yes, it was a tragedy, and yes, I lost my daughter. I knew that she was going places.

I'm Josh Mancoitz, and this is Deadly Engagement, a podcast from Dateline. Episode two, he said, she said. It was mid-afternoon when Detective Sean Pate walked into interview room two at the Durham police headquarters. Danita Smith had been dead for about 30 hours. Waiting for him in an uncomfortable chair was Danita's fiancé, Jermere Stroud. He sat at the left end of a small table that was shoved up against the far wall. When I walked in, Jemir stood up,

introduced himself, and shook my hand. And he doesn't show up with an attorney. No. And he doesn't say, I can't talk to you about this now. No, he wanted to talk about anything we wanted to talk about. And when he's asked, do you know anybody who would want to hurt Danita? He says, no. Correct.

But he was also asked, do you know anyone that drives a burgundy car, SUV and he tells us about Shannon Crawley. Jermere began to unspool a story, a tale of two cities, of two women, of two different realities. Shannon Crawley, Jermere explained, was a 911 operator in Greensboro, the person who asks you where and what your emergency is. Jermere told the detective, Shannon Crawley drives a Burgundy Ford Explorer. He tells that he met Shannon when he was in the police academy, and she was one of the people that was in the training session.

He said, yeah, she caught my... I mean, she's 5'10, long, pretty hair, thin. And we spoke for a short time. This was in early 2003, and Jermere was well into his relationship with Danita Smith. So he did little more than smile and remember Shannon's name. Around 2004, they bumped in again through work, and he asked her for her number. And at this point, he's involved with Danita. Involved with Danita.

And he actually said that he told Shannon that he was involved with Danita. Well, in 2004, they start having a relationship that actually started kind of like friendly, but then turned sexual toward the end of 2004, around September of 2004. Jermere told the detective Shannon was a single mother of two, a boy aged 10, and a daughter who was eight. Jermere also said that in December of 2005, Shannon became pregnant. There was no question who the father was. When Shannon said, Jemir, I'm pregnant, what are we going to do? He said, I don't want to have a baby with you.

He told me that's how he said it. Not just I don't want to have a baby. Or I don't want to have a baby right now. I don't want to have a baby with you. And that was in December 2005. I imagine that sucked just a little bit of her soul out when she heard those. That had the sting. I imagine it did.

In January 2006, Jermere said, Shannon had an abortion, and the two of them decided to go their separate ways. The boyfriend-girlfriend thing, there was no more going to movies together, there was no more sleeping together, going shopping together, that kind of thing. it was more just see you in passing at work. So basically they broke it off. They did. According to Jermere, the two barely had any contact for the next six months.

Then one evening in July 2006, he says he spotted Shannon's Burgundy SUV, driving around his neighborhood. They said, look, like everywhere I am, she pops up. Then, months later, in November 2006, Jermere said he learned Shannon had bought a home in his neighborhood, just half a mile from his house. He said, you know, I did actually have to go to speak to one of my friends in Internal Affairs about it. Not an official complaint, but kind of judging where do I go from here. She moved into my neighborhood, and then she's joined my church. It's worth noting that November 2006 was also the month Jermere asked Dinita.

to marry him. And she said yes. It's the month Danita put on that ring. The future may have looked bright to her. But Jermere, no doubt, feared what could happen if the two lives he'd led bumped into one another. I said, well, have they ever met? And he said, no, they've never met. Shannon knew about Danita, but Danita had no clue. And everyone I spoke to about to Nita, said if she even suspect that she would have been out of that relationship, she had too much

dignity for that. So this was an affair of Jermere was hiding. Correct. The detective estimated Jermere Stroud at about six feet tall and a solid 190 pounds, except as the hours passed, and as Jermere doled out the details of his affair like small change, he seemed to grow smaller. When we mentioned to Nita, his head dropped, I mean, chin to chest every single time. And the shame in his eyes was, it was there for everyone to see, everyone to see. Jermere told the detective the last time he laid eyes on Shannon Crawley was two weeks earlier at Christmas Eve services at their church. Danita, who was with him that day, was all smiles as Jermere introduced her to friends as his fiance. It should have been an unadulterated moment of joy. Except, seated three rows behind him

and Danita that Sunday was Jermere's ex-lover. And if Jermere turned around a look at her, he did not mention it. The two women did not actually meet that day. There was no chilly confrontation, no ugly scene in a church on Christmas Eve to mar the season. Okay, but what about now, with Danita murdered? Jermere wondered if Shannon had preferred her revenge on him and Danita to be served cold. How did Jermere describe Shannon? Dangerous, unpredictable, violent? I remember when I interviewed him in length the next day, I asked him,

do you think that Shannon is capable of killing someone? And he said yes. Soon after Jermere left the police station, Detective Pate called the Greensboro PD. He was on his way, he told them. He wanted to talk with one of their 911 operators. Name of Crawley, Shannon Crawley, he said. By the time Detective Pate and a partner arrived at the 911 Center in Greensboro that evening,

Shannon was waiting. with a story she wanted to tell. As far as she knew, we were there about Jamir. And Shannon Crawley had plenty to say about Jermere Stroud. In fact, just that morning, she had filed a complaint with internal affairs, accusing Jermere Stroud of stalking her. Shannon hears through a friend that the police department is looking for five-foot-10 black female that drives a burgundy SUV.

Shannon gets up, goes and speaks with her supervisor and wants to make a complaint against Jemir. It starts rattling all the wrongdoings of the past and in the relationship. Interesting. So that first day that she's a suspect, Shannon files a complaint against Jemir? Correct. Alleging?

Well, it was an internal affair issues, but basically boiled down to stalking. He was stalking her. He was stalking her. Calling her at work all the time, showing up at her house unannounced. As you will see in future episodes, that stalking allegation would remain a point of contention throughout this case. How is she?

Honestly, she was pretty calm, easy-going, kind of like us sitting here. She was, as they say in Carolina, a long drink of water, tall and thin, with thick hair that fell to her shoulders. What'd you ask her? First I asked her about Jemir, whatever, and she admitted that she knew him and about the relationship that they'd had. Shannon's version of the story mirrored what the detective had heard from Jermere.

They met in 2003, became lovers in 2004, and the romantic relationship ended after Shannon's abortion in January 2006. A year before Danita was killed. A year. And whatever contact they had during that year, Shannon and Jermere, you don't think there was anything untoward going on. I honestly believe them, because they both agreed on what it was about. Then the detective turned the line of questioning to the murder.

She says she's never been to Durham. I ask her about owning a gun. And she tells me that I've never owned a gun. I can't stand guns. I'm scared of them. I said, okay, I can understand that. A lot of people feel that way. And I asked her where she was the day that Danita was killed.

And she told me that she was at a doctor's appointment with one of her children. Then the detective asked Shannon a version of the same question he had asked Jermere hours earlier. Did she think Jermere could have killed Danita? She told me that she didn't think Jemir was capable of violence. She wasn't scared of him. Shannon would later change her story about how much she feared Jermere Stroud, but more about that later. Several times during the interview, Shannon excused herself and left the room to either take or return phone calls. So everything is all glass-soil.

She gets up and she goes outside and speaks in the hallway, and we can't hear anything she's saying. but we can see her reactions. And she's, you know, trying to be calm. But, I mean, it was a serious situation. She wasn't doing, you know, some people talk and they get their hand gestures. Wasn't a lot of that. Shannon told the detective she was speaking

with her sister and brother-in-law, who were at that very moment driving down to North Carolina from New Jersey. I said, why are they coming down? She said, to watch my kids. to watch your, where are you going, to watch your kids for what? Why do you need somebody to watch your kids? We didn't get an answer on that one.

She just looked at me. According to Shannon, her sister and brother-in-law were telling her she needed a lawyer and that she should get up and leave that interview. I told her about wanting to search her card and naturally she didn't want that to happen. After about an hour and 40 minutes, Shannon told the detective she had had enough. and out the door she went. She was frustrated and she was leaving. Minutes after Shannon left the room,

Detective Pate says one of her supervisors handed him a note. There was another 911 operator named Ronnie. He was waiting in the hall, and he had something he wanted to tell police. Ronnie was white male, I don't know, probably 40 years old. I'm short. want to say sandy blondeish hair. Ronnie told the detective he and Shannon were friends

and often ate their lunches together. He said Shannon had spoken often about her ex-boyfriend Jermere Stroud. And Ronnie corroborated the story Shannon had just told in that interview room with one important addition. She said something about fearing for her safety and he's a cop.

He always has a gun. I don't feel safe. Do you have a gun on can buy? The detective was all years. He was anxious to tell. Not so much as far as like, ooh, I'm going to tell on her. It was like, hey, I don't want this to come back on me.

According to Ronnie, it was sometime in late October 2006 that Shannon asked him if he could sell her a gun. That was two months before Danita Smith was murdered. He said that he sold Shannon a 38 caliber torus revolver with hollow point ammunition. In my mind, I'm thinking, you know, wait a minute,

I just finished an interview with her five minutes ago, and she told me I never owned a gun. It was nearly 9 p.m. It was nearly 9 p.m. walked out of the 911 operation center in downtown Greensboro that night and into a light drizzle. Under the city's lights, the parking lot looked as if it were coated with a sheen of black lacquer. As she approached her vehicle, a Burgundy 1999 Ford Explorer, Shannon saw a police car and a couple of officers standing near it. By then, a photo of the SUV had already been

emailed to the maintenance man at the campus crossings of apartments. He confirmed Shannon Crawley's Burgundy Ford Explorer looked exactly like the one he'd seen the day before. She came out to the car and the look on her face, she did not expect to see everyone out there around her car when she came out. She thought she was going to get in her car and just ride off and that didn't happen. When asked to unlock the vehicle so officers could search it. Shannon refused. That standoff lasted several minutes. When the ranking officer told Shannon that if the police had to break a window to gain access, the repair cost would be on her. Shannon then unlocked the door and got a ride home. A couple of hours passed before police

received a signed search warrant allowing them to enter the SUV. By then, rain was coming down in sheets. So hard, in fact, investigators feared the rainwater would destroy potential evidence if they tried to do a proper search right there. So the SUV was towed to the Greensboro Evidence Garage, where it could be securely stored until police technicians could conduct a thorough search the next day. The Ford Explorer wasn't the only thing investigators wanted to search that night,

They also had a warrant to toss Shannon's house. It was after 1 a.m. when Detective Pate and other investigators rolled into the suburb where Shannon Crawley lived. Although it was dark, the detective could see this was a neighborhood where lawn care and home maintenance were clearly priorities. Shannon and her kids were not there, but a neighbor who had a key was all at hand to let investigators in. When we served a search warrant on that house, there was hardly any furniture in that house. The children were well cared for. Their room you would never know.

But the living room, her room, there was no... She looked house poor. The good thing about a nearly empty house is it's easy to search. And for the next two hours, investigators went over that house, looking for a gun, for bullets, journals, emails, anything that could conceivably connect law-abiding Shannon Crawley to the murder of Danita Smith.

So we searched for the rest of the house, and we do find Greensboro Communications 9-1-1 Center uniforms, and they are exactly as described by the maintenance supervisor, down to the color of the patch and the shape. You find a gun? No gun was found, no bullets were found, Nothing incriminating other than that. The detective hoped crime lab technicians

might find something else more incriminating once they were able to take a look inside that burgundy SUV. Is there a gun in the car? Nope. No gun on the car. No bullets. Nothing that just screams, hey, it's me. The gray interior of the explorer looked the way you'd expect any single mom's car to look. Children's clothes and notebooks, games and candy rounds. plastic shopping bags and empty soda bottles.

The back scene on the passenger side was folded down, extending the cargo space. There, along with boxes and more clothes, was a pillow, suggesting that at some point somebody might have stretched out there and taken a nap. It turns out the real find in that explorer was invisible to the naked eye. We did gunshot residue test on the car, which we swabbed the steering wheel.

You'd swap anywhere where a person would touch. Steering wheel, the window handle, gear shifter, you know, normal areas. Gunshot residue is basically just sort of like microscopic dust. That's exactly what it is. It comes off the gun onto the person using the gun. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be the microscopic dust from the powder that comes from the bullet itself. And if you touch something else, you can transfer that power.

Exactly. That's exactly right. So you test Shannon's car? Test her car and comes back there as Gunshot Residence. in the vehicle. Tests showed gunshot residue on the steering wheel and the driver's seat. Shannon's a police department employee, but a civilian employee. Yes. So she doesn't carry a gun?

No. She doesn't regularly qualify at the range or anything like that? Not at all. That gets you pretty far down the road, doesn't it? It really does. And the story starts to unravel. That bit about never owning a gun? Not true.

If the co-worker who said he sold her a gun was to be believed. Shannon's story about having a doctor's appointment for her child on the morning of the murder, well, the detective checked with the child's doctor and learned there was no appointment. And as for having never been to Durham, well, cell phone records show she or her cell phone had been in Durham the day before Danita Smith was murdered. Nothing is adding up actually almost every single fact that she gave me turned out to be as the detective merged onto the eastbound interstate that morning he knew several things he had not known 24 hours earlier that hunch he'd had about denita's roommate and her boyfriend the one

denita had words with that was a dead end pate's investigation had turned up nothing there and shannon crawley well that felt like pay dirt he expected he'd soon be arresting her for the murder of Danita Smith. But not yet. Pate knew Shannon was just one point of what looked like a deadly love triangle. Jermere Stroud was another, and the detective wasn't sure he'd gotten the whole truth out of Officer Stroud the last time they spoke. Jamir would tell me the truth, but you had to ask it. There was no, you know, sometimes when you tell people a lie of omission is still a lie, we need everything.

Some people you have to ask the correct question to get the answer you're looking for. He wasn't volunteering anything. Absolutely not. The detective knew that in two days, he'd be back on this road fighting the Monday morning traffic, going westbound to Greensburg. He was going to have another sit-down with Jermere Stroud. Greensboro Police Officer Jermere Stroud was on duty. The morning Detective Sean Pate returned to Greensboro to question him again.

Now, armed with a few specifics he'd gleaned from Shannon, the detective pressed your mirror on the nature of their relationship. The heart of it, the detective thought, was Shannon's pregnancy and the abortion that had led to their breakup. When I started asking questions about it, then I see that the physical relationship ended, but not the emotional relationship. So when they both agree jointly to break up in early 2006,

that, what, lights a fuse that burns for a year? Here's the thing. So they really didn't speak until May of 2006. They broke up in January. And then Jermere goes on a men's retreat with his church. And in his men's retreat, you know, the pastor tells him, anyone you've wronged. You need to go back and get right with everyone that you've wronged

before you can get right with God. When Jermere heard that, he immediately thought of Shannon. He said, I come back and I call her, and I apologize in great detail about everything that he's sorry for. He said, I was on the phone for 12 hours. My cell phone went dead. I charged it, I mean, had it plugged in, and we talked until I fell asleep. He talked to Shannon for 12 hours. Twelve hours. Apologizing. Sorry for everything. According to Jermere, that conversation was emotionally draining. Shannon cried. and told him how upset she'd been about the abortion.

It was pretty much, how did we get here? Where do we go from here? And I felt this way at this point, and this led to this decision. They were just rehashing, rewinding, and reliving the whole relationship in 12 hours. Men are always better at starting relationships than ending them. And like multitudes of men before him, Jermere Stroud was no match for a woman's tears. There were a lot of feelings that were shared,

and since he had to make right with her, it wasn't right to come back, apologize, say, I'm sorry, I mistreated you, and then after the conversation, okay, well, goodbye, hang up the phone, and that's it. Interesting that in the list of people he wronged, he talked to Shannon about it, but not then either. Of course not.

I guess she didn't know that there was something he needed to apologize for. So they started talking again. Exactly. According to Jermere, talk is all it was ever intended to be. Nothing more. He says, however, Shannon did not see it that way. She was a single mother, and they were friends, and if she had a bad day or work or something like that,

and she wanted to talk to someone, when she called, he answered. If something was going wrong at the house, that needed a man's attention or whatever, he would come take care of it. And Jermere, in all of this, doesn't see that this is Shannon trying to get Jermere back into her life. Not at all.

Not at all. And he doesn't see that he's leaving the door open. As long as you keep doing all the things that a boyfriend would do, then in her mind she still has a chance. There's still a shot. Exactly. He saw it when I explained it to him,

but he didn't see it at the time. Does Jermere ever describe any instance in which Shannon was violent or threatened violence or talked about violence or said, you know, if I could just get rid of Danita, my life would be great. Never. You didn't believe him? I didn't because I told him, Jamir, I've been doing this for a while. And people say, oh, this person just snapped and went off the deep end.

And I said, don't tell me that crazy just showed up January 4, 2007. There's been something that she said along the way that you're a cop. Something made you say, whoa, wait a minute. The question of whether Jermere Stroud had been a passive participant in his fiancé's murder or an active collaborator was one the detective struggled with. Although there seemed to be no direct evidence

connecting him to the crime, there was anecdotal evidence that Jermere had at least considered the possibility that Shannon possessed a hair-trigger heart and might be a danger to Danita. One officer that I spoke to, he told me that on one occasion he was talking to Jemir, and Jemir specifically said to him, she better not do anything to my girl.

And I said, well, did he elaborate after that? He said, no, he was just pretty much not even really talking to me, but I'm at the table with him, and he's looking off in a distance and more thinking out loud. He's sort of talking to the universe. Pretty much. But if you're thinking that, if you can verbalize that thought, that means you thought about the rest. And naturally, I went back to Jemir and asked him again.

This is what your friend said that you made the statement on this day and time. And? Don't remember that. I don't remember that. Maybe he misheard. The friend has no reason why. None at all. But at this point, I'm thinking neither does Jemir.

The worst thing you could possibly tell us about yourself, you've already done it. You've been the direct cause of someone's death that you claimed that you loved. Why not tell it all? Why, indeed. That question nagged at Detective Sean Pate. Shannon Crawley may have been the detective's number one suspect. And Jermere Stroud? Well, the possibility he may have been somehow involved in his fiancé's murder

remained a very open question. This being my very first homicide, if you're not telling the 100% truth, it's a lie. Next time. He said, I'll make it real simple. Either your children die or you die from your children. He would appear in the neighborhood. Just sit there in his car and watch the house. She gets cuffed.

She gets to the end of the driveway. and before she gets in the car, she looks at her family and says, raise them like they're your own. She gets in the car, and you go to Durham. I was just trying to connect the dots of, you know, who this person was. He was just, like, give it some time and let the truth come out.

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