True Crime Campfire - The Misfit: Serial Husband John Smith, Pt 1

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

If there’s one old folktale that finds a frequent echo in true crime stories, it has to be ‘Bluebeard,’ about a man who marries and then murders a series of wives. It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and again, with both killer husbands and lethal wives, most often driven by greed. That, at least, is something comprehensible—there are some killers driven by urges so cold and petty that it’s hard to even recognize them as human. Join us for the chilling true story of a serial husband whose entire life was a lie. Sources: The Stranger in My Bed, Michael Fleeman Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. If there's one old folk tale that finds a frequent echo in true crime stories, it has to be bluebeard about a man who marries and then murders a series of wives. It's a pattern we've seen time and again with both killer husbands and lethal wives,

Most often, driven by greed. That at least is something comprehensible. There are some killers driven by urges so cold and petty that it's hard to even recognize them as human. This is part one of the misfit, The Crimes of John Smith. So, campers, we're starting this one on County Road 400 in northwestern Indiana, a few miles northwest of the little town of Morocco.

April 22, 1980. The road ran straight as an arrow between endless flat fields and had been damaged in the winter just gone by. A crew was out repairing it in two teams. Ahead, a couple of guys in a truck would spray liquid asphalt into cracks and potholes, and a crew following up would sprinkle in gravel and crush it all flat. Two guys in the lead truck were Sam Kennedy and Russell Trail, and they'd gotten a little ahead of the other team. It was a clear, crisp spring day, so Sam got out to strike,

stretch his legs as they waited for the other team to catch up, looking around the landscape. Even by western Indiana standards, this was a sparse, empty corner of the world. Sam's eye caught something, a wooden box down in the weeds of a drainage ditch that ran beside the road. Just a little later in the year, the weeds would have covered it, but for now, Sam could see a big wooden box, maybe five feet long and two feet wide. He pointed it out to Russell and the two of them lifted the box up onto the road beside the truck. It looked handmade, built of plywood and nails. The guys were curious about what might be inside this thing, and the truck had a well-equipped toolbox, so Sam got a crowbar and pried the top of the box open. A musty smell wafted it out.

Inside was a dirty green blanket and a mess of old clothes. Sam pushed the blanket to one side with the crowbar to see if there was anything underneath and gasped, stepping back. It was a human skull. He hurried back to the truck, calling out to the second team to stop working and stay where they were. Then he radioed his supervisor to tell him what he'd found. The sheriff and a deputy were quickly on the scene, as well as crime scene technician Larry Bartley, and Pat Cardwell, the elected county coroner, who was also a funeral home director, a fairly common arrangement in rural counties.

Bartley took pictures and drew diagrams of the scene. seen before pushing the blanket and clothes aside. He could see there were other bones in the box, maybe a complete skeleton, but it was starting to get dark, and the side of the road was no place for a thorough examination. He and Pat Cardwell lifted the box into Cardwell's station wagon and took it down to his funeral home in Morocco. There, under the bright lights over an embalming table, they pulled the top of the box all the way off, and wearing gloves took out the blanket. Everything about the box suggested age, and some of the clothes they took out supported that. Bell-bottomed jeans, a turquoise, hippie-style blouse, another pair of jeans with a smiling mushroom on the crotch.

These were clothes from the late 60s or early 70s. There were other less distinctive clothes in there, too, all-sized small, as well as a couple of nightgowns, some bras, two rings, and a gold crucifix on a chain. Some strands of brown hair were also found. The bones were bare and some of the bones were bare, stained dark, all the flesh long since consumed by insect activity. They were too thick to be those of a child. The clothes suggested this was a woman's skeleton, but Bartley and Cardwell didn't want to make that assumption, and they lacked the expertise to answer the question themselves. The skeleton was not complete. A couple of inches down from the knee, both legs had been cleanly severed. The feet and most of the shins were missing. A forensic anthems were missing. A forensic anthems was

anthropologist at Purdue University later determined that the skeleton was that of a brown-haired woman in her early 20s. She hadn't had any children, was possibly Hispanic, although the anthropologist wasn't sure about that. Her bone structure suggested she'd been very pretty. A forensic pathologist thought her legs had been cut off with a power saw. After several weeks of intense work, investigators started to think that that was all they'd ever know about the woman who was now known locally as the the lady in the box. There were no leaves, no clue at all to who she might be. Most of her remains were buried in a plastic coffin in Oakland Cemetery in Morocco, the only marker a metal plate that read Jane Doe, 1980. The skull was kept unburied in case it could be useful in later identification,

as were the lower leg bones in case they could be used to match the tool that had cut them. Flowers were often left at the grave. Deputies stayed to. at the cemetery, thinking they might have been left by a remorseful killer. But it turned out that a woman who often visited a relative's grave made a point of also leaving flowers for Jane Doe because she felt sorry for her. The case stalled out and went cold, and it would stay that way for almost 20 years. Wow. On the Labor Day weekend of 1991, a year after they'd gotten married, Fran and John Smith checked

into Strickland's Mountain Inn for a belated honeymoon. Stricklands was one of the resorts in the Poconos that catered specifically to honeymooners. In the middle of their suite was a red, heart-shaped tub, and Fran was sitting in it when the TV went out. John called the front desk for someone to come and fix it, and the maintenance guy showed up quicker than expected. Fran was still in the tub, so she got out and walked across the tiled floor toward the bathroom. Halfway there, she slipped on the wet tile and crashed down on the floor. She felt something crack in her hip. She was in too much pain to get up.

John called an ambulance, and they took Fran to the hospital in East Strausburg, where X-rays revealed that her hip was broken. So much for the honeymoon. Fran would be in the hospital bed for almost a week, and afterwards she'd be bed-bounded home for more weeks before finally being able to move with a walker or crutches. And even that wouldn't mean freedom. She and John had recently moved into a condo in West Windsor, New Jersey, near Princeton,

and it was on the third floor of a building with no elevators. New Jersey was turning out to be a nightmare, and not just because of her injury. Fran hadn't been married to John for long, but it was already getting hard to pretend she hadn't made a huge mistake. This was Fran's third marriage, and she was determined to try and make it work. Fran was 49 years old, a petite, pretty blonde who had done some modeling in her youth and still like to get some glamour shots taken, just maybe with a softer focus. these days. Her second divorce had been in 1981, and she'd been single for most of the 80s,

concentrating on her daughter and two sons. One of those sons, Rod, was an airborne army ranger who took part in the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, and he'd been shot by anti-aircraft fire as he'd been about to jump off the plane. He was airlifted back to the U.S. and treated in Florida, where his brother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all lived. Fran rushed there from her home in Houston. Franz's roots were all in the Florida Panhandle, and most of her family lived in the small town of Niceville, where her mom had a house right next door to her grandmother. The family were having a tough time. Fran's mom was seriously ill and needed care, and her grandmother was 84 years old and also needed help. After his hospital stay, Rod moved in with his grandma to take it easy and recover.

Fran's other son, Todd, was taking care of everybody and was obviously exhausted, and yes, Fran's son's names are Rod and Todd. We have to acknowledge it, right? In years. In case you're not a Simpsons nerd, Rod and Todd are Ned Flanders's kids. So with several members of her family in need of help, Fran decided to step back into the caregiver role and move to Florida. It was a tough decision to leave Houston. She was close with her daughter, Deanna, who lived there as well as Deanna's two kids, but they made it work. The kids would visit with Fran for months at a time once she moved to Florida, going to school there and everything. Fran was someone who thrived on activity. In addition to looking after her family, she got a job as an executive assistant at Chromeloid Technologies, an engineering

company that inspected and repaired commercial jet engines. And unfortunately for her, it was there in March of 1990, where she met an awkward, friendly engineer named John Smith. Fran was 48 at the time, and John was 10 years younger, and kind of a misfit. He wore loud, outdated clothes, had no inside voice whatsoever, and often wore a smile that seemed just a little too wide. His red hair was most often cut in a bowl. He wasn't disliked at work. He was funny and easy to talk to, but plenty of people still found him to just be odd. He claimed to have never been married, describing himself as a lifelong Mennonite bachelor. But, you know, being a misfit isn't always a bad thing.

For some people, it's a positive rather than a negative. Fran had been an army brat, and a lot of her romantic history involved guys in uniform, and after two divorces, she had no interest whatsoever in going down that route again. She liked John. Okay, he was a lot, but they had fun together, and he seemed sweet. They started dating almost as soon as John started work at Cromole, and after just a few weeks, John started suggesting they get married. After just a few weeks.

Fran was hesitant, but when they were on the beach at Destin, just south of Niceville, John said it would be the perfect place to get married. So why didn't they just do it right there and then? They've been having a great time on the beach, so Fran swept up in the moment, said, okay, bless her heart. A justice of the peace married them there on the sand with their parents. legs rolled up. They'd been dating for two months. Fran, girl, girl. I know. It is easy to get swept up in that moment, though. I had one of my exes in my wild youth asked me to marry him also on a beach when we'd been together for two weeks, I think, three weeks, something like that. And my first, my first reaction was, are you crazy? But then he talked me into it to the extent that I at least

was willing to, like, be engaged to be engaged, kind of, you know, like, I let him give me a promise ring, but it was so dumb. No, no, no, no. It would have been, like, the worst decision I ever made my life if I'd married that guy. Mm-hmm. The newlyweds built a house next to Fran's mom in Niceville, so now there were three generations of her family on the same street right next to each other. You couldn't say that Fran's family were overjoyed about the marriage, but John was good to Fran, and they gave him a shot out of respect for her. All except Fran's mom, who right from the get said she didn't like John, didn't trust him. Some people have good radar.

He at least seemed like he'd be able to support Fran well, though. Deep into the grind set, always work in long hours and taking lots of business trips, most often up to Connecticut. Nine months after the wedding, John got up one morning and cheerfully headed to work like there was nothing unusual about the day at all. And later on, there was a knock at the door. and when Fran answered it, a sheriff's deputy handed her court documents had a dissolution of marriage. Divorce papers. This came completely out of the blue. They hadn't had a fight, hadn't had any conversations that even came close to discussing separation.

Fran had thought John was totally happy. So she's like, is this a joke? Like, what the hell? She called John's office and asked what on God's green earth was happening. And John said, I've made a terrible mistake. I come home? Now, we don't know just what he said to Fran, but two days later, he filed to end the divorce proceedings that, you know, she never knew why he'd filed in the first place. And she was starting to realize that she didn't know much at all about her new hubs. He was secretive and vague about pretty much everything. It was like he found it physically painful to be open and honest. This episode is brought to you by Vinted. So I moved recently, and while, of course, it was very It was also so overwhelming. Going through my closet and drawers and discovering clothes I hadn't worn in ages,

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John had been employed on a temporary contract at Cromole, and a couple of months after his abortive attempt at divorce, he was out of work. There were suitable jobs in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, he said, but nothing close to Fran's family. In hindsight, it seems likely that John was deliberately focused on moving Fran away from her family, the kind of isolating decision we've seen dozens of times from dangerous and abusive partners. Yeah, it's page one of the abusive asshole handbook. your victim away from their support system. Yep. He got a job as a manufacturing manager in Woodridge Township

just to cross the water from Staten Island, and over the Memorial Day weekend, he and Fran moved into a third floor condo in West Windsor. The condo was furnished. They had bought a bunch of new furniture for their Florida house, which John claimed was now in a storage unit. Fran didn't know where the storage unit was. Sometime soon after they'd moved in,

Fran found out that John actually owned a house. A beautiful 3,300 square foot one, right on the beach in Milford, Connecticut. The place is worth close to $2 million today. Dang. Fran was irritated, not only by the fact that John had never mentioned this before, but also because one of his job opportunities had been in Connecticut. Why were they paying for a dinky New Jersey condo when they could be living rent-free in a beautiful beachfront house?

Irritated does not begin to express. Oh, hell no. John always reluctant to be pinned down on anything was evasive at first, before finally saying he was giving the house rent-free to his sister, Kathy. In an exchange, Kathy would look after John's two colleagues, Christopher and Amanda. This did not ease Fran's mind. This was the first she was hearing about both the sister and the dogs. And just, like, as a side note, no hate to people who give their pets human names.

Whitney and I both have cats named Simon. But I feel like your dog shouldn't have names that sound like people you'd meet at the tennis club, you know? If you tell people you were on the beach with Christopher and Amanda, they're going to picture people in like Ralph Laurenne shorts, not collies. Like personally, I think the rule is cats can have adult human names, but dogs cannot. Okay. Don't ask me why that's the rule. This opinion is solely based on vibes. I'm kind of with you on this, actually.

I'm thinking like Greg, come here, Greg, you know, it just doesn't feel right. Kevin, come here, Kevin. Like, it just, no. Fran wanted to see the house and meet Kathy, but John kept coming up with excuses why they couldn't, mainly that he was too busy with his new job. Just like he had in Florida, John worked long hours and traveled a lot for work, often up to Connecticut. Then, in August of 1991, not long after Fran had squeezed the information about the Connecticut house out of him, she came home one front. Friday night and found the condo empty. Not only was John not there, he'd taken all his stuff too. There was no, no, no nothing. Scared, Fran called her daughter, Deanna.

Mom, how much money do you have? Deanna said. Fran said she had $50. Deanna was shocked to learn how controlling John had been with money. He didn't want Fran to work, another isolating sign of predatory partners, making her reliant on him for support. His name was the only one on their bank accounts and credit cards, and Fran got all her money from him. He'd cash a check and hand over the bills. He didn't even like her to go grocery shopping by herself and always came along,

not to control what she bought, but so he could feel like a big man at the checkout, opening up his wallet and taking out the wad of cash. And probably to make sure Fran didn't pocket any change for a possible escape fund. Yeah. Deanna said, Mom, where are your things? Fran told her they were in a storage locker, but she didn't know where it was. Deanna said, Mom, don't you think that this is odd? Fran said, you know what?

Distrust ruined my first marriage and money ruined my second one, and neither of those things is going to ruin this marriage. You either trust someone and marry them or you don't. And if you don't trust them, you have no business being married to them. Fran, girl. I think a lot of people act like marriage is a government requirement and not a totally optional relationship. Like, ending a relationship isn't a moral failing. You can leave for whatever reasons you want.

That's okay. And it forces people sometimes to go through with a marriage with a wedding, you know, that they know is a mistake. I've known several people who knew walking down that aisle that they shouldn't be doing it and were just pressured. Like, I can't embarrass myself and everybody else by calling this off at the last minute. And, yeah, people who've been married multiple times, I think they just feel like people are going to see me as some kind of unlovable failure, which is so sad. Get out of there. If you're not

happy, get the hell out. But she was going to do her best to stick with John if she could, but she did put together a list of things she needed from him. She wanted the address of the storage locker, and she wanted their bank accounts to be in both their names. She wanted John to take her up to Connecticut to see his house and meet his sister, and she wanted to get a job so she could make her own money. On Monday, she called John's office. and after being completely gone for the whole damn weekend, he picked up and said, Hey, babe, how you doing?

Oh, my God, the absolute audacity. Not too good, John, Fran said. She asked him, what the hell was going on? John shrugged off his disappearance, saying he'd just gone to Jersey Shore to clear his head, sleeping in his car, big deal. And that was all Fran could get out of him. She took him back, but stuck with her list of demands.

He stalled and waffled, complaining he was too busy to get anything done. Fran went ahead and got a job at a real estate company. To try and patch things up, John suggested they get out of town, go up to the Poconos for a long-delayed honeymoon. And that was where she fell and broke her hip, which meant a long, painful rehabilitation. Four weeks after the fall, she was able to move around some on crutches, and she was eager to do it.

She was an active person. It was torture for her to be. cooped up in the condo. The most she'd been able to do till now was sit at her sewing machine for 20 minutes at a time. Her daughter, Deanna, called every other day, and Fran's sister Sherry called on the days in between to try and keep Fran from feeling too lonely in New Jersey. The only actual company she had was a cocker spaniel puppy she'd gotten before the Poconos trip, who I'm sure was a very good baby. On Saturday, September 28, 1991, she spoke with Deanna, asking her to take her kids' shirt, shopping for fabric so Fran could sew them some clothes. For the first time since the fall,

she felt well enough to go outside and said she was going to buy a birthday present for her grandson, Jared, and then go out to eat. Simple things, but after so long stuck in the condo, Fran was excited for them. The only real problem would be the three flights of stairs. Fran said she was going to scoot down them on her butt, one step at a time, while John carried her crutches. Deanna could hear John talking in the background, and Fran said kind of sharply, John, what did you do? John had gone out and already gotten a present for Jared. We were supposed to do that together, Fran said. Deanna heard John say, well, I'm a man. I know better what a boy wants than you do, and I have to run into work anyway. I know, right? No, you weren't supposed to be running into work today.

We were supposed to do this. Fran told Deanna she had to go, then said, I love you, I'll give you a call Monday. Deanna called on Monday morning. There was no reply, and no reply in the afternoon either. She thought her mom might be at physical therapy. She tried again on Tuesday afternoon. Still, no answer. Tuesday night, no answer, and now things were starting to get weird. Why was nobody home?

On Wednesday, with still no answer at the condo, she called John's office. She didn't want to. She'd always made a point to be nice to John, but they weren't close at all, and Deanna felt like she didn't know him. John, this is Deanna, she said. Where's my mom? I thought she was with you, John said. How could she be with me?

Why would she be with me? Well, I came home to a note Tuesday night that said, Feed the fish, I'll be back in a couple days, and she talked about coming to visit you and your brother in Florida, so I thought she had come to see you. This was ridiculous. Fran had a broken hip. She wasn't going through airport terminals or flying by herself.

and she certainly wasn't just going to pop in on her kids hundreds of miles away without contacting them first. Deanna asked John where this note was. John said he'd crumple it up and thrown it in the trash. Deanna started to get really scared for her mom. For the next four days, she pestered John, then asked if he'd filed a missing person's report. He had not. Deanna said she was going to fly up and do it herself, and her Aunt Sherry was saying the same thing from Indiana.

John, acting like they were being ridiculous, finally agreed to file a report. You know, your mom is going to be really pissed off about this, he told Deanna, because that's going to make her wanting to have some time off seem very public. What? File the damn report, you freaking hemorrhoid. Good, gravy. That night, he went to the West Windsor police and begrudgingly filed a report,

telling the patrolman that he wasn't worried. His wife was just visiting family in Texas or Florida. He said he'd seen Fran on the weekend when they'd gone shopping together. This contradicted what Deanna had overheard, that he'd gone shopping without Fran and she was pissed about it. But that was the kind of liar John was. He wasn't good at it. He just didn't care if he got caught.

The case was picked up by Detective Michael Dansbury, who put Fran's details into the nationwide network that sent messages to police stations all across the country, and then went to interview John Smith. When asked if their marriage had any difficulty, John said that there had been no problems whatsoever, neglecting to mention that he'd walked out on Fran twice. Dansbury asked if anything was missing.

John said a jogging outfit and a yellow suitcase were gone. That was weird. Fran had been gone a week and the only clothes she had taken were a jogging outfit. John described the note that asked him to feed the fish, but admitted he'd thrown it out. Dansbury saw the cute little puppy romping around and thought it'd be weird if Fran hadn't mentioned taking care of the dog too. In his initial report, John had said he thought Fran only had a couple hundred dollars.

Now, he said he thought she had $2,000 in cash. Danesbury asked John if you could have a picture of Fran so he could show it around to people, and John said he didn't have one. Fran was really camera-shy. And this was utter bullocks. Fran, remember, had modeled when she was younger and still liked to get professional shots taken sometimes. She was the opposite of camera-shy, which Danesbury would soon learn when he spoke to her daughter and sister, something which apparently hadn't occurred to John he would do. Dansbury had been a cop for 26 years, and he left this interview feeling deeply uneasy.

He checked with local taxi and limo companies, and none of them had picked up Fran. No airlines had any record of her traveling. Her family hadn't seen her, and insisted Fran would never just ghost them like this. From the parents behind law and order comes a mystery the whole family can enjoy. Patrick Pickle Bottom Everyday Mysteries.

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The whole family can listen now wherever you get your podcasts. You've got your favorite blanket, a freshly poured drink, and a cold case burning a hole in your streaming queue. You're not just watching true crime. You're running the investigation from the comfort of your couch. Welcome to Murder She Watch, the podcast where we recap, dissect, and slightly overanalyze some of the best and craziest true crime.

documentaries on our favorite streamers. Did the spouse do it? Why is the shady neighbor wearing leather gloves in July? Why did this guy agree to be interviewed in this documentary? We ask the tough questions that you're often just screaming at your TV. So every week we break down the twists, red herrings and absurd documentaries that have kept you up all night. It's high drama, cozy vibes, and absolute couch detective energy. Grab your throat blanket and hit subscribe search murder she watched wherever you listen to podcasts and let's solve this thing together. Deanna and Sherry came to New Jersey and printed hundreds of missing person flyers with Fran's picture and pasted them all over the area. When Dansbury spoke to John's employers, they said

he hadn't mentioned his wife being missing at all and hadn't seemed the least bit upset. Yeah, I feel like we're seeing some red flags here. I don't know about Joe. By the way, our main source for this case is the book Stranger in My Bed by Michael Fleeman. John took a polygraph, flunked it about as bad as you can, and clearly didn't give a shit. He agreed to come in for another interview, but kept putting it off with his usual excuse of being busy. Busy doing what, you loser? It's just the busiest little bee. It wasn't until December, three months after Fran's disappearance, that he finally sat down for an

hours-long interview with the West Windsor PD. He lied carelessly, changing stories as soon as he was caught out, a chronic liar who nonetheless was careful to not say anything actually incriminating. He told detectives that he'd been married once before, right out of high school, to a woman named Janice Hartman. They'd eloped and gotten married in Detroit, then had an amicable divorce soon after. The last thing he knew about Janice in the early 70s was that she was headed to Florida to join some kind of commune. John said he hadn't told Fran anything at all about Janice. When they asked him about the house in Connecticut, John told them kind of the same thing he'd told Fran that a woman named Kathy lived there, although now Kathy wasn't his sister, just a tenant that he'd known for seven or eight

years. They tried to get more information about her from John, but he wouldn't tell him anything else. Talking to him was like trying to wrestle smoke. By now, the detectives felt pretty sure that Fran was dead and that John Smith had killed her, but they didn't have anything close to enough for an arrest. Most importantly, they didn't have a body. John was released, but not without giving the detective something to work with. He might not want them to know anything about the mysterious Kathy in Connecticut, but one phone call to the Milford PD could fix that. By the way, I have to take a second. The fact that this man has a bright red bowl haircut is just fucking me up. Like, it's like out here doing all this nefarious stuff, killing women, women going missing,

and he just looks like one of the little rascals. I just can't reconcile it. It's freaking me out. Initially, the police in Milford just kept an eye on the house on Point Beach Drive, watching in particular for John's red Mazda Miata. That didn't show up, but a check on the residence vehicle identified her not as Kathy, but as Sheila Sauter, a 39-year-old human resources manager, who, according to neighbors, had been living there for about five years. The nosy neighbors also told the cops that Sheila was often visited by a red-haired man, presumably John.

After a couple of weeks, Connecticut police executed a search warrant on the place, along with Detective Michael Dansbury from New Jersey. Sheila, pale and wide-eyed, let them in. The police told them they were investigating the disappearance. of John's wife, Fran. Sheila was upset and baffled, but not altogether surprised. She wasn't John's sister, or even just his tenant. She was his longtime girlfriend. They'd been together for eight years,

since long before he'd met and married Fran, a marriage he had kept entirely from her until a couple of weeks earlier. He'd stayed with her in Connecticut for a few days, and as he was walking out the door, he said, oh, by the way, I'm married and my wife is missing. And then he just left. Well, that was the last Sheila had heard from him.

Excuse me? This man is just stuffed with audacity, like an overfilled pinata of audacity. You know, I would like to take a bat to him, like, see what comes out when he bursts. Audacity. Just handfuls of it. I cannot. Walking out the door, oh, by the way. Audacity invents.

Vicerra, I'm thinking. John and Sheila met in 1983 when John applied for a job at the company where Sheila worked and started dating soon after. They'd lived together for years, first in a condo, and for the last five years in this house on the beach, with John working out of state for most of the last few years and coming back most weekends. That was all the business trips he'd been taking while married to Fran. And I know some of you guessed that early, so you were right. Yeah. Sheila hadn't known about Fran, but she did know about John's first wife, Janice,

although she hadn't even known that at first. After they'd been together for about five years, she found an old resume, which included the marital status, divorced no children. John was always allergic to revealing anything about his past, so initially he said it must have been a secretary's mistake, but Sheila didn't buy that and eventually John came clean. Sheila, what are you doing with such a liar? Like, that seems like a pretty big thing to lie about it.

Oh, no, no, I'm not married. It was the secretary's mistake. Sheila, get it together. Also, why is your marital status on a resume? I know that's illegal now. It's a old, old thing, yeah. John described the marriage to Janice in as much the same way as he told the detectives. They'd gotten married out of high school and divorced amicably after that.

John and Sheila's relationship wasn't a secret, except from John's actual literal wife. She'd gone with him to Ohio to meet his family, his mom, grandparents, and brother. something John had never done with Fran. In fact, to whatever degree John Smith was capable of actually forming real relationships, it was clear that the one with Sheila was closer than his marriage to Fran. The weekend after John had filed the missing person's report, he'd come up to spend three days with Sheila for a birthday party for her mom. He'd looked white as a sheet and spent most of the party pacing alone upstairs.

Aw, something bothering you? When police asked Sheila if she'd cooperate with them and not tell John about it, she agreed. Like most relatives of missing persons, Fran's daughter and sister, Deanna and Sherry, were intensely frustrated at the slow pace of the police investigation. They both came back to West Windsor to try and spur the investigation on, and while they were there, they decided to do some detective work of their own. While John was at work, they let themselves into the condo and went through the whole place. They already knew it, but it was clear that Fran hadn't just left. Her toothbrush, razor, and makeup were still in the condo.

The only clothes missing were a couple of sets of jogging suits and a pair of keds. Precious family jewelry was still in the condo. John had said Fran left with a yellow suitcase, and the ladies knew she had a pair of those. They opened a storage closet out on the patio and found both suitcases. Another lie. John had said he was living there, but it did not seem likely. The only clothes of his were two suits and four pairs of underwear. The only thing in the refrigerator was a jar of pickles.

Nevertheless, he did come by after work, and Deanna and Sherry interrogated him. They asked him again about the note Fran had supposedly left. Well, you know, it wasn't a note. It was more like a nine-page letter, John said. And I told police I threw it away because it was just too personal for them to read, but I'll give you a page of it. He went and brought back a page that was clearly, randomly taken out of Fran's journal and had nothing to do with her leaving.

What does this have to do with it? Sherry said. It's from somewhere in the middle, John said. It was about nine pages. This page is from somewhere in the middle. Absolute clown shoes. When Deanna asked for the whole letter, John said, The rest of the letters at work. Um, okay.

Why he kept this one useless page at the condo was not something he would share. He complained about work. They're being difficult because my wife is missing. They're accused. me. The ladies said they should go into his work the next day and get the rest of the letter, maybe talk to his co-workers. John agreed, oh, sure, sure, and hurried them into his office without letting them talk to anyone. He couldn't find the letter, big surprise, but the ladies did notice a

big picture of Fran on his desk. The police had told them that John said he didn't have any pictures of her due to her being camera shy. John escorted them out just as hurriedly as he'd brought them in, then told everyone at work that Sherry was his wife and Deanna was his daughter. See, my wife's not missing at all. You know, now I think I know what he was so busy doing all the time. He was busy trying to keep all his lies straight. Like, that sounds like a full-time job. Which is probably why he was shit at it. He was a really bad liar. He just doesn't care, you know, like unless you, he's one of those people that will just look at you and say, prove it. You know, like, you know I did it. I know I did it. prove it. He doesn't care about, you know, what people think of him, obviously. Deanna and Sherry went to

talk to Detective Dansbury. He told them about Sheila Sauter in the house in Connecticut, and they were both shocked. Just like he told Fran, John had told them each separately that his sister lived there, but because he couldn't help himself, he'd given them all different names. Kathy to Fran, Kathleen to Deanna, and Deborah to Sherry. Where that one come from? I don't know. When he'd been asked. about this, he'd said his sister's name was Deborah Kathleen, but everyone called her Kathy. Dansbury also told them about John's first wife, Janice Hartman, which was the first either of them had ever heard about her, and they were certain Fran hadn't known either. They left New Jersey grateful that Detective Dansbury was taking the case so seriously, but frustrated that

the investigators didn't seem anywhere close to an arrest. When she got back home to Indiana, Fran's sister Sherry did some more investigative work. John's first wife had been called Janice Hartman. John was from Ohio and they'd gotten married in Detroit, so Sherry got hold of every Midwestern phone book she could and just started dialing up every Hartman she could find. Maybe Janice knew something that could help police. Maybe John had even told her something about Fran.

Around 60 million people lived in the Midwest, about the same population of France at the time. There were a lot of Hartman's. but eventually Sherry called Gary Hartman from Northeast Ohio near Akron. Sherry asked if he was related to a Janice Hartman. Gary said, yeah, Janice was his younger sister. Had this Janice married a John Smith? Yes, she had, Gary said.

They deloped to Detroit in the late 60s, then Janice had divorced him in the early 70s. Sherry asked if Gary had a number for Janice. My God, lady, you've got a problem. Gary said. Just like Fran, Janice had gone missing in 1974 and hadn't been seen since. She'd disappeared just three days after finalizing her divorce to John Smith. Nobody knew where she was, but we know now. For the last 11 years, Janice's unidentified remains had been split between evidence storage and a pauper's grave in Morocco, Indiana, after her skeleton had been found in a drainage ditch by a country

road in 1980. Her legs sawn off at the shins. But for Janice's story, you're going to have to wait until next week. Now, before we go, don't forget about our true crime cruise, Crime Wave 2.0, February 8th through 12th, 2027th's coming up. If you want to come to the Bahamas with us and some of the biggest true crime and paranormal podcasts in the world, like last podcast on the left, true crime garage, unexplained and sinisterhood, here's what you got to do. Tickets are on sale now, but they are almost gone. So if you want to go, make sure you get over to crimewaveatc.com slash campfire and book your cabin ASAP. You'll get $100 off, plus a private meet and greet with us. The great thing is you can pay all at once, or you can set up a payment

plan and pay it off over time. So get on it, y'all. That's crimewave atc.com slash campfire. So that was a wild one, right campers? You know, we'll have part two for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get to again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely Patreon supporters. Thank you so much to Gailene, Bree, Sasha, Meg, and Sammy Liu. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus tons of extra content, like patrons-only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions.

And once you join the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker, a rat enamel pin, or fridge magnet while supplies last, virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. There are vampires out there. They walk among you, shoulder to shoulder in the dark. Heading to work, heading home, going to the bar. It's a life just like anyone else's, and I have grown used to it. To the darkness, to the moon, to the taste of blood on my tongue. But vampires are dying out. We are a fading kind, and I am the first one created in so long,

and that is a dangerous thing to be. Those who came before me, elders of all stripes, they do not want to see our kind gone, and they will do anything to keep their power. And for myself, and for grace who created me, that is a sword that hangs above our heads. And the worst person of all carries our secret, and he will use it however he sees fit.

Who do you look to? when things are at their darkest. From the creators of Parkdale Haunt comes Woodbine, a podcast about monsters, dreams, and changes, those you want, and those you never saw coming. The final season begins this fall, distributed by Realm.

Do you love Disney? Do you love Top Tenless? Then you are going to love our podcast, Disney Countdown. Hi, I'm Megan the Magical Millennial. And Biscuits, I'm Jeremy, aka Jarendell, and we are the host of the hit Disney podcast, Disney Countdown. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we countdown our top 10 lists of all things Disney. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore.

There is nothing we don't cover on our show, right, Jeremy? Ooh, girl, you know we are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you are looking for a healthy dose of Disney Magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts.