The Deck - Twana Smith (7 of Clubs, Connecticut)

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

Our card this week is Twana Smith, the 7 of Clubs from Connecticut. When Twana Smith’s body was discovered behind an abandoned building in Hartford in October 1997, she joined a growing list of the city’s vulnerable locals who fell victim to violent predators. And for decades, her case sat unsolved, gathering dust… even as detectives found the keys to unlock mysteries from the same era. But after years of dead ends, investigators now believe they're on the brink of a breakthrough… they just need a final push over the finish line.If you know anything about the murder of Twana Smith, please contact the Hartford Police Department's Major Crimes Division at 860-757-4000, or the Cold Case Tip Line at 860-722-TIPS (8477). You can also email tips [e-mail] Detective Drew (Andrew) Jacobson’s email: [e-mail] View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/twana-smith Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo apply for a Cold Case Playing Card grant through Season of Justice, please visit www.seasonofjustice.org. The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at [phone] to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Our card this week is Tawana Smith, the seven of clubs from Connecticut. When Tawana's body was discovered behind an abandoned building in Hartford in October 1997, she joined a growing list of the city's vulnerable locals who fell victim to violent predators. And for decades, her case sat unsolved, gathering dust, even as detectives found the keys to unlock mysteries from the same era. But after years of dead ends, investigators now believe they're on the brink of a breakthrough. They just need a final push over the finish line.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. The Hartford Police Department was busy in the fall of 1997. Five homicides in just 10 weeks had left the city reeling. And when one officer was flagged down by a woman at around 5 p.m. on Monday, October 20th, he realized that things were about to get even more hectic. Because the woman, a local named Angela, told him that some kids had just stumbled upon a body behind an abandoned multi-family home on Ashley Street. Here's Detective Drew Jacobson of the Hartford PD

reading from one of the original reports. She was on the corner of Garden Street and Ashley Street when she was approached by young juveniles saying that they saw a dead person. She went to the rear of the abandoned building with the juveniles and saw the victim. Now, this area, the Asylum Hill section of Hartford, didn't have the best reputation. In the 90s, it was known as kind of a drug haven, and there was lots of street prostitution at the time. Sex work and substances led to a lot of crime in the area.

It wasn't the first time a body had been found here. But nothing could have prepared the officer for what he saw when he followed Angela around the back of the boarded-up building to the bottom of a stairwell that led to a basement entrance. She was down there strewn amongst all this garbage. Her clothes were bloody and you could see just from her appearance that she was lifeless. There was a small amount of fly eggs in the right nostril. Her jeans were pulled down around her mid-thighs and the officer could see that she had been stabbed during a violent

struggle. So he radioed for backup, letting his department know that an investigation into another homicide, Hartford's 20th that year, had just begun. As more officials arrived on scene, the choice of the secluded location became clear. It appeared that maybe that was a spot where sex workers did business out of. And it's kind of private. If you go down the stairs, you know, and there's, you're kind of surrounded by cement walls, nobody's gonna see you, even broad daylight. It was clear that a lot of people used this stairwell

because of the mountain of trash strewn about, including used condoms and drug paraphernalia, which just complicated matters because how do you know what's evidence and what isn't? Well, at what point do you stop? Do you take it all and clean it all the way down to the cement? You don't know. So at the time they just kind of grabbed stuff that was kind of nearby. As they picked through the clutter, officers found everything from a discarded toilet to children's toys. What they didn't find was a murder weapon or anything that hinted at their victim's identity.

Luckily, though, Angela told police she knew who the woman was. She was 29-year-old Tawana Smith. Angela and Tawana were practically next-door neighbors, and they lived just a few blocks away. So she led police to Tawana's apartment, where they met her roommate. They ended up showing her a picture of Tawana, and she said, oh yeah, that's her. The roommate told them Tawana used to stay with her boyfriend, this guy named Russell.

But he had apparently moved out of their place a couple of months ago, so Tawana came to live with her. She had last seen her on Tuesday, October 14th, so that's six days prior. And she stated she was concerned about Tawana because she normally does not stay away from the apartment for a long period of time." Where Tawana had been and who she'd been with was going to be difficult to determine. They learned that she had a record of various misdemeanor charges, including sex work, which

meant that she could have had contact with a number of different people in the days leading up to her death, many of whom might have been strangers. Based on the scene and her history and her state of undress, detectives theorized that Twana had been killed by a client. But if that's true, it must have been someone filled with anger, and that was underscored at her autopsy the next day. It wasn't like a punch or a shove or like a one-shot kind of deal.

This was maybe it was passionate or it was a rage. There's some kind of rage involved in that. According to a forensic laboratory report, there were 31 stab wounds across Twana's chest, neck, back, and hands. Toxicology testing revealed cocaine in her system, but whether or not she was sexually assaulted was harder to determine. In certain circumstances, they're able to tell based on micro tears and even bruising or cuts.

And in this instance, I think because of her background, that was difficult to determine. There were no traces of sperm in her vaginal, oral, or anal swabs. And it was clear from her injuries that her jacket, shirt, and bra were in place when she was stabbed, although she didn't have any underwear on. The Emmy held back on declaring an estimated time of death, but he noted that there were small clusters of fly eggs around her body.

These eggs, which typically hatched within a day or so, hinted that she hadn't been left there for too long. But this kind of evidence is known to be shrouded in variables like the environment and climate. She's also laying in the litter, which there's probably fly eggs all over down there, millions of flies looking at the garbage and everything else. So it's tough to say when that is.

As detectives canvassed the neighborhood, they managed to firm up the timeline somewhat, because locals mentioned seeing her over the past week. In fact, an acquaintance told them Twana was alive and well around 3 p.m. on Saturday, October 18, walking down the street wearing a green coat and stretch pants, not the jeans that she had on her when her body was found. And then one resident shared a potentially chilling detail. He was at a cafe just a couple hundred feet away on that Sunday night, October 19th, at

around 9.30 p.m. And that's when he heard a woman scream. She didn't yell, help, or anything. Just let out a good yelp. He doesn't give us a lot of indicators that would point that it's definitely Tijuana. Is it a possibility? Yes. But given the area and the time and the weather and everything else, it could have been anybody.

Between limited eyewitnesses and the lack of surveillance footage in the area, detectives didn't have much to go off of. But as they learned more about Tijuana, they zeroed in on her first real person of interest. And as it would turn out, it wasn't a client. Their first person of interest was actually Tuan's boyfriend, Russell. And Detective Jacobson said word was that Russell wasn't the nicest guy. He had been abusive to her, was smacking around quite a bit and intimidating her and beating her up. Apparently, this was common knowledge. Even the local pizza shop manager knew about it.

And luckily, when they wanted to talk to Russell, they didn't have to go looking for him. Because as if on cue, while they were at the same pizza shop looking for witnesses on Tuesday, October 21st, Russell came right up to them. He claimed to investigators that he hadn't seen her for a few days. Despite allegations of abuse, whatever else he told them must have been convincing, because it seems like they cooled on him as a suspect almost immediately. But there's nothing in the case file to suggest why, which you'll find is a common theme with this investigation. I don't see how he could have a rock-solid alibi since they didn't know the precise

time of death. And Detective Jacobson wasn't even on the force back then, so he doesn't have any insight either. How do you pin down what he was doing? The answer, of course, is you can't. But in fairness, Russell wasn't the only abusive man in Twana's life. Friends and acquaintances told police about a pattern of assault that was heartbreakingly frequent over the years. But whether the abusers were clients or boyfriends or both, that wasn't clear.

As far as investigators could tell, Twana didn't have many close relationships. Her mother died of lung cancer when she was just a kid. Her dad, a well-known local activist and businessman, had passed away from diabetes complications three years back. Her brother and sister both lived out of state, and it appeared that she had lost custody of her two young sons. But though she wasn't close with many people,

she was well-liked in the neighborhood. She was known as being a nice person, and that's kind of something that has been repeated to me over and over and over again. Detectives learned that she had some financial concerns in the time leading up to her death. She was having trouble paying bills, and they knew that when someone's worried about money, they can make decisions that they might not otherwise make. So all things considered, police turned back to their initial theory, that she was killed by a client.

To them, it was the most likely explanation. You see, Hartford had a long history of these types of homicides, and we've covered a lot of them here on this show before. You probably know by now that for years, a statewide task force had been investigating a string of murders stretching back to 1985. According to the Hartford Courant, nearly all of the victims were from marginalized communities with a history of sex work, substance use disorder, or who were experiencing homelessness. In fact, just five days before Twana's body was found, another sex worker was killed during

an apparent robbery attempt, also behind an abandoned building, less than a block away from Twana's final resting place. Police identified that victim as Michael Gratick. Now, it's important to note that we're unsure about their lived gender identity due to the clothing that they were found in, so because of this uncertainty, we'll be referring to them by their last name, Gradek. Detectives simply couldn't ignore the similarities.

Both victims were stabbed, Twana with a knife, Gradek with a quote, crack pipe, and they both had similar backgrounds as sex workers. A police spokesperson told the Hartford Current Reporter, Maxine Bernstein, that they were looking into the possibility that Twana and Gradek's cases were connected, but they cautioned that it was too early in the investigation to make an official call. Locals were understandably alarmed by the back-to-back murders, though. They organized candlelight vigils and called for an increased police presence, and even specialized units to solve the murders.

But Detective Jacobson said that the homicides, along with plenty of others that didn't involve sex workers, left Hartford PD stretched thin. The lead investigator on Twana's case had actually been assigned three homicides in as many weeks. The police department and the major crimes division, the investigators, they were maxed out. I don't critique past investigators, but I look for obvious holes. And there were none. These guys went out and despite having two other murders they were working on, we're knocking on doors, we're talking to people. Meanwhile, lab testing revealed nothing about the perpetrator.

All that trash they collected didn't amount to much forensically, and leads weren't coming in. You didn't have much to go on. There's nobody saying Twana was with and then describing a suspect. There's nothing. It's actually quiet. Crickets.

Twana's case quickly fell by the wayside. Although, over the next few years, a couple of potential suspects caught investigators' attention. One of them was a man named David Smith, who lived in nearby Coventry, Connecticut. News coverage detailed how he'd been convicted of multiple sexual assaults. He was known to have used a knife during at least one of them. Plus, he was known to hang around in Asylum Hill. So in May 2000, less than two weeks before he was convicted of kidnapping and

sexually assaulting another woman, police asked the lab to compare his DNA with evidence from Twana's case. Now this is a bit of a head-scratcher because it sounds like they didn't have anything specific in Twana's case to compare David's DNA to. But at the time, DNA testing was kind of like the new kid on the block in crime-solving tools. So Detective Jacobson thinks it was more of a blanket request, like a type of Hail Mary trying to cast a wide net hoping that maybe there was some evidence from the 1997 scene that they missed or didn't realize could be important. But I don't think that any comparison testing to anything ever

happened because there are no lab results in the case filed to indicate that it did. The next movement in the case came in January 2001 when a man named Leroy Taylor was arrested for unlawful restraint and sexual assault for an incident that took place four months after Twana's death. The woman in that case told detectives that Leroy had given her an ominous warning, claiming he had cut up Twana and Grattick, and threatened to do the same to her if she resisted his demands. So once again, police asked for follow-up lab testing seeking to match Leroy against the evidence collected from Twana and Grattick's crime scenes. But once again, there's nothing in the case file about any results.

And Leroy's pending charges were dismissed later that year after the defense painted the accuser as unreliable. All along, the city's homicide count was growing, leading Hartford Current reporters Tina A. Brown and John Springer to question whether nearly a dozen murder victims from 1994 to 2000, including Twana, were linked. And honestly, law enforcement was wondering the same thing. We were thinking that maybe we have a serial killer

on our hands. They were violently killed, whether they were stomped or stabbed or strangled. And we were trying to connect the dots, trying to figure out who that was and who was doing it. Many of these were happening right in Tuan's neighborhood. We call them the Asylum Hill murders. So in 2001, they formed a new task force to investigate possible links between a number of cases.

But for some reason, two names were conspicuously absent from the task force agenda, Twana and Gratick. Thankfully, the culprit of some of the awful crimes was arrested in January 2002 when DNA linked him to three of the victims. If you regularly listen to this show, his name will be familiar, Matthew Steven Johnson, a 38-year-old man with a history of violence that stretched back decades. He was ultimately convicted of murdering Aida Quinones, Rosalie Jimenez, and Alicia Ford. Police think he's responsible for more than that, but since Matthew's brutal

MO was stomping his victims to death, Detective Jacobson doesn't think he's Twana's killer. The types of trauma were the women that he's associated with were pretty specific, and Twana was different. I'm not saying that Matthew didn't do this one, because he certainly is capable of doing it, but it seemed outside of the realm of what he was doing at the time.

It's also possible that he was locked up when Tuanah was killed, since he spent most of his adult life in and out of prison well before he was charged with the murders. So as the city breathed a collective sigh of relief, Tuanah's case faded into the background. That is, until a local murder thrust it back into investigators' view. Remember Angela, the woman who led police to Tuanah's body? Well, she had been sent to prison a couple of years later for violating her probation. And on Wednesday, February 6, 2002, her cellmate, who we're gonna call Crystal, told authorities something startling. She ends up telling a correctional officer

that she had information concerning a homicide investigation. Crystal and Angela had only been sharing a cell for a couple of days, but according to Crystal, Angela had confided a big secret in that time. She told her that she was a suspect in four open homicides, but that she had only committed one. It didn't take long for investigators to figure out which one Angela was referring

to. Crystal continued to share a few more details of the confession and investigators were able to connect the dots. Angela was confessing to killing Gradek. Now, investigators had already interviewed Angela about Gradek the night that Gradek was killed. According to the Hartford Courant, she admitted that she was at the scene before and after it happened, but told detectives that someone else was responsible — a man who actually was later cleared of wrongdoing. And listen, it's anyone's guess if cops were really eyeballing her for multiple homicides.

But with this tip, they obviously wanted to hear what she had to say. So, they said, you know what, let's get a recorder on it so we can hear actually from the person who's claiming that they killed somebody the details. They do it. They rigged Crystal with a digital recorder and sent her back into her cell to see what she could learn. And over the course of four hours, the two women are together during a lockdown. Just before 7 p.m., Crystal signaled to a guard that her mission was accomplished, and

she couldn't wait to spill what she'd uncovered. It turned out that Angela had flipped the script in a way that no one saw coming. She was now telling Crystal that she actually didn't kill Grattick, but she did stab and kill Twana in a basement the size of their cell. This alleged confession blindsided police. Angela was also a sex worker, and as far as detectives were aware, the two women just knew each other from living in the same neighborhood and having similar lifestyles. But they never suspected she was involved. According to Crystal, Angela's motive for killing Twanna was one of the oldest in the book, a love triangle. She informed the inmate that she had stabbed Twanna because she was cheating on her with another woman. That was also surprising.

Detectives had never heard any rumblings of a romance between the two of them, or honestly about Tawana dating any women. But with limited insight into Tawana's life, anything was possible. And this was the most substantial lead that they'd ever gotten in her case. Maybe their killer had been right under their noses

this whole time. So they quickly brought the digital recorder to the local FBI office so that the agents could download it and preserve Angela's story. But their optimism ended up being short-lived. That very next day, they learned that the recorder had malfunctioned, and despite the FBI's efforts, the audio was irretrievable.

So whatever words were said in that cell, on that recorder, they were gone forever. On the bright side, though, Crystal seemed undeterred by the setback. She believed Angela was none the wiser about the initial recording attempt, and she was willing to go back into the lion's den and give it another try. But that never happened. Detective Jacobson says there must have been a reason, but he doesn't know what that reason is. There are too many different variables that could have happened, and I don't know the

answer to it. Police never asked Angela if she was involved in Twana's death. I would like to have a little bit more to go on prior to interviewing her, because we need other supporting information other than a confusing police report with mixed-up information from another inmate. Jacobson also doesn't think she's the likeliest suspect. Actually waving down a police officer

to say that there's a body behind a building doesn't seem likely to me that a suspect who just killed somebody is gonna lead you anywhere near anything having to do with a crime. I would certainly think that they would stay away. I'm not saying that it didn't happen, but it does not make sense. But while he's not considering her as a suspect

in Twana's death, that certainly doesn't extend to other murders. Just a year after the recorder glitched, while Angela was still in jail, her own words came back to bite her when she and another woman were charged in Grattick's homicide. According to the Hartford Courant, Angela sent shockwaves through the entire courtroom at her arraignment when she said, quote, I screwed up on that one. Everything they said I did, I did."

Her lawyer tried to walk back her statement, but Angela ended up pleading guilty to manslaughter in December 2004. And a couple of months after that, her accomplice pled guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. As for Twana's case, it was back to the drawing board. And that's kinda where it stayed for more than a decade, with one exception. Detectives did have some of the used condoms found at the scene retested, and in 2006, they got a match to one. We'll call him Gary. His DNA was on the inside of the condom.

He is not a convicted sex offender, but he's a convicted felon, and that's why he's with them, CODIS. Gary had a record for assault, selling drugs, and carrying a dangerous weapon. But this wasn't the smoking gun that you might think it would be. I mean, like I said, they'd found several used condoms in that stairwell, and when they tested it again, zeroing in on the outside of the condom, they hit a wall because Tawana's DNA wasn't there. Was there anyone's DNA on the outside of that condom? It was very, very minimal, but Twana was excluded from being there.

In 2015, the state's cold case unit, including Detective Jacobson, decided to reinvestigate Twana's case. And one potential contender came to light immediately. This guy named Robert White, a convicted murderer and serial sex offender. According to David Owens reporting for the Hartford Courant, Robert had just started named Robert White, a convicted murderer and serial sex offender. According to David Owens reporting for the Hartford Current, Robert had just started serving a 50-year prison term for strangling and stabbing his friend, Sawari Krichindath. But she wasn't the first woman he'd killed.

In 1980, he'd bashed Betty Jo Robertson's head into a sidewalk when she resisted his attempt to sexually assault her. He served less than a decade in prison for manslaughter, and even after he got out, he went on to spend most of his time in prison for various sex crimes. When detectives mapped out his criminal timeline, they noticed a brief interlude when Robert was not behind bars, a period that ominously coincided with Twana's murder. So they tested Twana's evidence for Robert's fingerprints, but there weren't any to be found,

and they weren't able to tie him to her death. They did connect him to a couple other open homicides though. One of those was Shireline Crawford. Early on, there was speculation that Shireline's case might be linked to Twana's, because she was found in August of 1997, brutally beaten and stabbed in her apartment, which was less than a mile and a half that Shireline's case might be linked to Tuanas because she was found in August of 1997, brutally beaten and stabbed in her apartment, which was less than a mile and a half from

the Ashley Street crime scene. Then there was Sonia Rivera, found beaten to death with a brick in an alley in 2012. Both victims were women of color believed to be involved in sex work. Robert ended up taking an Alford plea for these murders, acknowledging the overwhelming evidence against him without admitting guilt. All told, he was sentenced to 100 years in prison. Time and time again, other cases were solved while Twana's case wasn't. It just kept stalling out.

But not this time. Now investigators were determined to get Twana a resolution, too. We start going back through looking for other things to test because that's one of the things going through an old homicide is, now the DNA is more of an exact science, what things can be tested.

They decided to send in pieces of Twana's genes. And when they got the lab results back in the spring of 2015, they could hardly believe their luck. There were sperm cells inside of the crotch of her pants, so somebody has a lot of explaining to do. Thanks to CODIS, later that year in November, they finally learned who that somebody was.

And lo and behold, there is DNA that matches a sex offender who actually lives right up the street. Their new suspect was a 53 year old man we're gonna call Mario. He had never been on Hartford PD's radar, at least not for this crime, but he was far from a stranger to them. He had a pretty lengthy history, at least five arrests as an adult that were of interest. 1985, there was assault second with a knife. 1992, sex assault first, so that's the highest level of sex assault. 1994, now there's another sex assault, and then with this one, there's a knife involved.

So now, sex assault, there's knives popping up, and then there's an investigation in 1999 into another sexual assault where the victim was a juvenile. He'd also been charged with failing to register as a sex offender, something he did at least three times in 2015 alone. But he wasn't in jail when Twana was killed. And his apartment was in the 100 block of Ashley Street, less than a quarter of a mile away from the crime scene. As luck would have it, he still lived at that same address.

And that's where Detective Jacobson and another investigator found themselves on an unseasonably warm Tuesday afternoon, February 2, 2016, search warrant in hand to get another DNA sample for confirmation. They also wanted to hear what he had to say. I merely said that there was a sex offense and that your DNA was popping or hitting with this woman, so he was rolling his eyes and saying, who's snitching on me kind of thing. He was skeptical about talking to police because he said he's been in so much trouble

and that women are pinning shit on him all the time and it's not his fault. And he had kind of went on to describe how, he had a rough life, he had substance abuse issues or crack cocaine in the past and drinking and now he was a man of God. Finally, Detective Jacobson pulled out Tuanah's photo.

And in a reaction that could have been scripted for a police training video, Mario began to sweat. Like a lot. It was like he was taking a shower with his clothes on, just drenched right through his shirt. He claimed Twana looked familiar, but he didn't know who she was. And he assured detectives that he never brought her

into his apartment before, which is awfully specific and not what they asked, but okay. And he also said that he hadn't done anything to harm her. When I asked him to at least at a minimum, just explain how to do DNA, how is it on this woman and he said well where was the DNA Drew and I had told him it was on her pants and it was kind of like in this area. He said ah you know what I think she did come in my house at one point and she was arguing with my girlfriend about money or something I ended up throwing her some money and maybe it just transferred from my hands onto the

currency or onto the quarters or whatever into her pants pocket and that's where it is. So, I guess the whole she was never in my apartment thing is out the window. But he still maintained that he didn't do anything to her. And he insisted that he wouldn't have sexually assaulted her because, for a lack of a better term, she wasn't his type. The conversation went on for a little while, and I said, well, she's actually, she's dead. He was trembling. He couldn't even catch his breath.

Detective Jacobson figured Mario was going to do one of three things. He'd either deny everything, confess everything, or ask for more time. He went with option three. Just give me the weekend to just kind of relax a little bit and think about this. Maybe I can remember some more information. Mario agreed to come speak with them more on Monday, February 8th, but he never showed. And when detectives followed up, they learned from his neighbor that he had checked himself into rehab the Sunday before he was due at the station.

Now, rehabs aren't sanctuaries where people are exempt from the law. But practically speaking, there are complex legal and ethical considerations that can make it nearly impossible for police to take action. So Hartford PD backed off from trying to interview Mario and tried just to strengthen their case in other ways. Sex workers are going to have DNA of all sorts of people with them. How do I kind of vet that out? We start looking at the list of evidence, of physical evidence, that we can maybe continue to test.

On February 22nd, police caught a break. It was a call on their tip line from a man who said he had information about Twana. He left his name and phone number. But the guy doesn't spell his last name, he just says, hey, this is my name, give me a call. I call the telephone number back right away, I left a message, I'd never heard back from him, I call again, it's dead. So now I'm trying to look up the guy's name and I can't find him. He doesn't exist." They had been so close to solving this case once and for all, but things ended up fizzling

out again, even though Mario wasn't in rehab for long. I do believe I went over to Ashley Street a couple times with the inspector looking to talk to him. He wasn't around. It wasn't until February 2019 that detectives finally solved the mystery of the missing tipster. They'd been spelling his name wrong the whole time. Once they tried a different spelling, boom, there he was, in the local jail. And this guy, we're gonna call him Eric, boy did he have a story to tell when they paid

him a visit. He said that right before he reached out to them, he was in rehab with this guy named Mario. As they sat around drinking coffee and playing cards, they bonded over stories about Asylum Hill where they both lived. Mario had dated a woman who'd lived in the same block as Eric, which was also the street Tuanah lived on. In fact, he told Eric that his girlfriend was related to Tuanah, and thanks to Tuanah's bad influence, she had spiraled into a life of addiction and sex work. Mario said the two women even began stealing from him, and that one day he just...lost it, so he killed her.

"...that she either stole from him or took payment for sexual services that she did not provide and so he became enraged. That was Mario's explanation." Eric at the time knew exactly who Mario was talking about. He had seen Twana on a deck of cold case playing cards while he was in jail about a year before landing in rehab. He said Mario seemed somewhat remorseful and nervous about an impending arrest. According to police records, Eric actually called the tip line the same day Mario was

discharged from rehab, although it seems that the two still hung out after that. But it doesn't sound like their friendship lasted long. Eric said Mario scared him. Eric gave police an official statement and picked Mario's photo out of a lineup. And even though he was locked up for breaking out of a detention center, Detective Jacobson said that he didn't want anything in exchange for his cooperation. So now we have DNA in the crotch of her pants. We have a guy saying that Mario actually is admitting to it and that the cops are going to come after him. He doesn't want to go to jail for this murder. Everything was falling into place, especially after police subpoenaed medical records

and verified that Mario and Eric were in rehab together. Investigators learned that Mario had relocated to Florida at some point, so Detective Jacobson was trying to plan a trip there to question him again. But then, an unexpected directive came from a cold case unit supervisor that brought everything to a screeching halt. They wanted to review the initial investigative reports, a reasonable enough request, if not for one major issue. Besides a few documents here and there, the reports were seemingly nonexistent. I was making progress on it and I was getting excited.

And it was suggested that I try to find additional investigative notes and reports and everything else. And I did. I looked. Other people looked, and we couldn't find any. Whether that's because the work was never done, or because it wasn't documented, I don't know. It's also not clear why supervisors decided it was so crucial to review these non-existent reports years into the investigation. Whatever the reason was, the impact was undeniable. If they didn't have them, they weren't gonna green light the trip to Florida.

So by June of 2019, the investigation came to a screeching halt. It stayed that way for a while, but I told you at the top of this episode, it's recently regained some traction. Detective Jacobson has been working closely with the state's attorney to push

for further forensic analysis. And he's hoping that this episode reaches the audience of an independent lab, one that could look at this case with fresh eyes and has the tools and know-how for some next level testing, like MVAC, which uses a wet vacuum to collect DNA from surfaces where traditional methods fail. Specifically, he'd like to do this additional testing

on Tawana's shirt and waistband area of her pants. He's hopeful they would find offender DNA that could ultimately lead to an arrest. Or if any lab or listener has any ideas about other types of testing for offender DNA on a stabbing victim who may have been sexually assaulted, he's open to it all. The goal is to make their case against Mario Rock Solid.

Tawana's life was far from easy, marked by challenges and hardships. But through it all, the love her children had for her never wavered. In 2013, on the anniversary of her death, one of her sons took to Facebook to share his enduring grief and longing for his mother. He wrote, quote,

"'Today makes 16 years since someone took my mommy from me. I miss her so much, I'd give my life to have her back here.'" Sadly, he died just a couple of years after posting that message. But Twana's other son is still alive, as is Twana's sister. And I'm sure they would love nothing more than to see someone held accountable for this terrible crime. So that's where you come in. I'm open to any kind of help anybody will give me.

I need to know anybody who is associates with her, friends with her, dated her, anything that maybe could help us, because maybe somebody has heard something that they assume the police knows and we don't. If you know anything about the murder of Tawana Smith in October 1997, please contact the Hartford Police Department's Major Crimes Division at 860-757-4000 or the cold case tip line at 860-722-TIPS. We've also gotten email for tips in the show notes. And like I said, if any labs are listening

and interested in helping Detective Jacobson, we've got his email in the blog post for this episode as well. The Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo