and me, me, me, and that’s the bottom line in this case, Geise said in his soft Southern drawl, challenging defense contentions that Smith was suicidal and had intended to die with her children that night but lost her nerve.
July 18, 1995
The prosecution opened its case with Shirley McCloud, who testified about the night of Oct. 25, 1995, when she and her husband Rick heard an unhuman wailing outside the door of their lakeside house.
At first we thought it was an animal, McCloud recalled, adding that they then heard a voice crying Please help me, please help me.
They opened their door and found a young woman in a sweatshirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes, with a white bow in her hair, sobbing hysterically. McCloud repeated the words she said Smith first uttered between sobs that night:He’s got my kids and my car. She then made her claim that a black gunman had hijacked her car and the two boys.
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Next came Union County Sheriff Howard Wells, who reconstructed what actually happened that night after Smith fed her little boys pizza for dinner, packed them into the family car and drove them sleeping in the back seat to the shores of John D. Long Lake. Once there, Wells testified, she released the emergency brake, got out of the car and sent her children rolling into the dark waters.
The folksy Wells, a Smith family friend, recounted how he had quickly grown suspicious of Smith’s story after discrepancies came to light the following day and Smith began changing her account of the purported carjacking.
Wells repeatedly described Smith as distraught, but also said she had smiled inappropriately at one point. Wells said he had gently asked Smith if the gunman had made any sexual overtures to her. She said ‘no nothing like that’ and she smiled, Wells said.
Although Wells was called as a prosecution witness, lead defense attorney David Bruck took strategic advantage by guiding the sheriff piecemeal on cross-examination through the dramatic account of Smith’s elaborate lie and stunning confession.
Wells told the court how Smith fell quiet on November 3 when he told her that the intersection where she claimed the gunman had taken her car with Michael and Alex still strapped inside had been under police surveillance as a suspected drug drop site, and that her story could not possibly be true.
And was that true? asked Bruck of Wells’ surveillance story.
That is not true, Wells replied.
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That was a lie, Bruck said.
That was not true, Wells repeated with a smile.
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