Red-Handed (Rebroadcast)

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Speaker 4 2020 starts right now.

Speaker 2 It's an otherwise typical spring day in rural Arkansas.

Speaker 5 Best I can remember, it, you know, is late in the afternoon. Light out still.
It was warm.

Speaker 5 In the area, there's not a whole lot of crime.

Speaker 8 9-1-1, what did your mother think?

Speaker 9 I believe somebody's died.

Speaker 6 You believe somebody's died? What?

Speaker 10 We came to do a wellness check at her house.

Speaker 11 Stuff like this doesn't happen here.

Speaker 12 You know, we're still a safe community.

Speaker 13 Under this one? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 14 She's wrapped up in a blanket.

Speaker 15 Looking at the scene and the circumstances around it, it was obvious that it was a murder.

Speaker 2 No question in your mind.

Speaker 17 No, ma'am.

Speaker 18 The body found Tuesday night at a home in Pocahontas is that of former state senator Linda Collins Smith.

Speaker 19 I just collapsed.

Speaker 20 You know, my world just crumbled in that moment.

Speaker 21 This story is truly one of the biggest whodunit that I've seen.

Speaker 22 Because she said, you know, she had problems with the judge. Her husband.

Speaker 24 And that's what I said, your husband?

Speaker 26 That is what's how humble I am to be your senator.

Speaker 2 Do you think her politics might have created enemies for her?

Speaker 15 Oh, I'm sure it did.

Speaker 2 Did she ever confide in you that she had concerns about her safety?

Speaker 27 Yes.

Speaker 29 She had a lot of cameras. Not just like one or two.
She had cameras on the garage side. She had cameras in the back.
She had cameras inside.

Speaker 16 The video cameras are motion activated.

Speaker 2 It's almost like something something out of that show Ghost Hunters.

Speaker 2 Is that actually the killer?

Speaker 22 Small town life to me is slower and sweeter somehow.

Speaker 22 When I was a kid, mom said, get out of the house and don't come back till the streetlights come on. That was Poconas.

Speaker 15 We're right on the edge of the river river delta where the foothills of the Ozark Mountains begin.

Speaker 30 You talk about Bible Belt, country, southern hospitality.

Speaker 25 That's Pocahontas.

Speaker 27 Everybody knows everyone. Everybody knows if you're doing good or if you're doing bad.

Speaker 3 It's a very tight

Speaker 31 or for worse. Everybody knows your business.

Speaker 2 And just outside Pocahontas in the rural countryside is where Linda Collins grew up.

Speaker 32 I think it was the summer of 1978. Greece was showing and so we all watched Greece.

Speaker 32 That summer we had a lot of cousins come to visit. Linda's dad had an old Ford truck and the whole way home we were singing songs from Greece.

Speaker 33 Linda led the singing.

Speaker 32 She chose the songs and all of the cousins was you know backing her up.

Speaker 32 Linda was always the shining star.

Speaker 35 There was never a quiet moment with Linda.

Speaker 32 She was always a joy to be around.

Speaker 36 My first memories of her, she had pigtails and she was a total tomboy.

Speaker 16 And I would think she was daddy's girl more than mama's girl.

Speaker 32 Linda's dad was a mechanic and her mom was a stay-at-home mom. They lived out in the country in a small house, like kind of like a shack, very modest, but it was a nice, cozy home.

Speaker 27 She didn't have running water in her house until she was a teenager.

Speaker 27 But I really think that that helped create the person that she ended up being.

Speaker 1 Like a lot of girls in her community, Linda got married right out of high school.

Speaker 2 She never went to college.

Speaker 39 And her kids came along pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 Butch first and then Tate. They were her pride and joy.

Speaker 31 She just always wanted us to have better than what she had and that was her goal, whatever it took to get there.

Speaker 41 But Linda's early marriage doesn't last.

Speaker 42 It ends in divorce and Linda is raising her two children as a single mother.

Speaker 27 She didn't let being a single mom stop her at all. She was very motivated to give us the best life, to give us everything that she didn't have.

Speaker 21 Linda was a great worker.

Speaker 31 She worked very hard.

Speaker 32 She started selling Tupperware and then after that she started selling real estate and we did very well.

Speaker 2 Linda has a certain spark. She is a born saleswoman.

Speaker 42 I say affectionately she was a Spitfire. She wouldn't let you off the hook.
I mean she was pursuing something, she stayed on it.

Speaker 15 She wasn't afraid to speak her mind.

Speaker 23 She was a colorful person.

Speaker 24 Had a red truck, red purse, liked her red lipstick.

Speaker 27 Nails, purse, truck, shoes, anything that she could get at red, she probably had it in red.

Speaker 2 Linda is ambitious and driven.

Speaker 42 And she meets her match in Phil Smith, who's an up-and-coming local lawyer. Phil and Linda get married in a quiet ceremony in 1995.

Speaker 2 When she met Phil Smith and they became a couple, what was he like for you as a stepdad?

Speaker 27 He didn't become just our stepdad. He was our dad.
He was the one that, you know, took us to school in the morning. He He did all the things that dad is supposed to do.

Speaker 2 So you were close family?

Speaker 38 Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 27 Very much a church family. We were there Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday.
Dad led worship services. They were involved in choir singing groups.

Speaker 15 Went to church with them and Phil was always fair, level-headed, even-tempered, very intelligent person, and a nice guy.

Speaker 42 Phil and Linda have a lot of success in business. They're buying and selling real estate around the Pocahontas area and they even wind up buying two motels in town.

Speaker 34 Your parents were kind of a power couple in town.

Speaker 7 They really were.

Speaker 27 They worked very well together.

Speaker 30 She very much loved Pocahontas.

Speaker 45 She wanted to see it prosper.

Speaker 36 Linda helped get the highway named the Rock and Roll Highway. She named her hotel the Rock and Roll Inn.

Speaker 42 Things appear to be going great. Linda is running their real estate business and then in 2009 Republican Governor Mike Huckabee appoints Phil as a judge of the circuit court.

Speaker 2 Linda is right there beside Phil and along the way, she gets the politics bug herself and decides to run for a seat in the Arkansas state legislature. She is a hometown favorite.

Speaker 36 First time I've ever seen her, she spoke to our county committee in my front yard.

Speaker 46 And Linda, she took her shoes off, typical Arkansas, barefooted, and that's how I met her.

Speaker 42 In 2010, running as a Democrat, Linda wins a seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives.

Speaker 22 Linda ran as a Democrat.

Speaker 36 She was elected and she did not fit in with the Democrat majority at that time with her views.

Speaker 47 And I've always wanted it to promote our county and our state.

Speaker 42 Linda is in the middle of her first term and she makes a move that totally upends the political landscape.

Speaker 48 Linda Collins Smith decided to switch parties from Democrat to Republican.

Speaker 6 I'm here today to announce that I have joined the Republican Party of Arkansas.

Speaker 48 It was a significant move because no lawmaker had really done that before in the state of Arkansas.

Speaker 50 She was burning bridges with her old party.

Speaker 21 Anytime a sitting elected official changes parties, it's a big deal.

Speaker 2 She's elected as a Democrat and then she changed her affiliation to Republican. Was that controversial?

Speaker 31 It was very very controversial.

Speaker 31 In some senses, I guess it just kind of showed her personality and how strong and independent that she could make that decision, knowing that it could potentially be a career, you know, destroyer.

Speaker 47 I don't think it's gonna hurt me. Matter of fact, I think it's gonna help.

Speaker 2 Do you think her politics might have created enemies for her?

Speaker 15 Oh, I'm sure it did.

Speaker 2 But did she have the kind of enemies who'd be willing to kill?

Speaker 2 She's only served one term in the state legislature, but Linda Collins Smith is ambitious. Now she wants to run for a seat in the state senate.

Speaker 30 In 2014, she was running for state senate. She called me to ask if I would be part of her team, you know, help her get elected for state senate.

Speaker 11 She had her friends actively campaigning for her with signs and standing out by the road.

Speaker 27 We were balling told that we were going to help campaign. We stood on the side of the road with signs.
We went door-to-door knocking, we did the phone calls,

Speaker 27 the parades.

Speaker 42 In November 2014, she wins a seat in the Arkansas State Senate, taking 58% of the vote.

Speaker 30 She set a standard of being a real conservative. She's very adamant and passionate about economic economic development in rural Arkansas.

Speaker 30 Being pro-life was definitely one of the most important things to her.

Speaker 42 Linda is so tough, she earns a nickname among her colleagues as the Bulldog.

Speaker 51 She was very strong on the life issue. She was very strong on reducing taxes.
I mean, traditional conservative issues.

Speaker 46 She always stood up for the Second Amendment, was very close to the Second Amendment groups.

Speaker 17 Well, we appreciate you stopping by here at Triple Auror Pond.

Speaker 52 Great to be here.

Speaker 46 On the transgender issue, she did run a so-called bathroom bill.

Speaker 42 During Linda's first term in the Senate, she finds herself at the center of controversy.

Speaker 53 Senate Bill 774 has already been dubbed another bathroom bill.

Speaker 42 She proposes a bill at the state level that would regulate the use of bathrooms by transgender people.

Speaker 26 This bill is truly about the safety and protecting dignity of those children or visitors to our state or all citizens when they're in public facilities.

Speaker 32 You are targeting us, making us even more marginalized than we already are.

Speaker 26 Our bill says Linda was loud.

Speaker 30 You knew what she believed in. You knew she was passionate about that issue and she wasn't going to sit silently if someone opposed her.

Speaker 42 As Linda's professional and political life are really thriving, in her personal life she's having difficulty. Her second marriage to Phil is dissolving.

Speaker 1 Did you know that she was unhappy?

Speaker 27 I would say that we we knew knew it wasn't a typical relationship. They were very good at business, you know, whenever it came to running the business.

Speaker 27 When it came to the politics side of it, they were great.

Speaker 55 A good team. Yeah, great team.

Speaker 27 But it wasn't that loving

Speaker 27 relationship that you would expect between a husband and a wife.

Speaker 2 After 20 years of marriage, Linda and Phil decide to separate.

Speaker 2 And though they've got lots of personal struggles, Linda throws herself into her work.

Speaker 42 One of the hallmarks of small town America is that local politicians are unbelievably accessible at all hours to their constituents.

Speaker 11 She was plugged in to her community. They knew they could call her.
They knew they could ask her for a favor, and she would be there.

Speaker 22 Linda was my senator, my state senator.

Speaker 22 She and I shared political views, had a lot lot of common interests and goals from a legislative perspective, and that was the basis of the start of our friendship.

Speaker 1 Enter Tim Loggins.

Speaker 2 Like Linda, he also grew up in Arkansas, and he soon becomes one of her staunchest supporters.

Speaker 22 It wasn't uncommon to meet somewhere for lunch every once in a while and talk about laws and legislation and what she hoped to accomplish.

Speaker 42 Linda's friend Tim tells us that during one of those lunches, the conversation pivoted strangely from politics into the personal. And Linda confides that she desperately needs his help.

Speaker 22 She breaks down crime, completely out of character. And I asked her, you know, Linda, what's wrong? Because she said, you know, she had problems with the judge.
Her husband.

Speaker 24 And that's what I said, your husband?

Speaker 22 She was fearful of her safety. And she said, Tim, can you come and help me move some of my stuff out of his house? And can you look at security issues that I can take to ensure my safety?

Speaker 2 Did she ever confide in you that she had concerns about her safety?

Speaker 27 Yes, after they separated. She shared concerns that she was worried about him coming by the house and things like that.

Speaker 42 In fact, a police report indicates that Linda called the police because she said that Phil came to her house uninvited. Phil Smith denies that allegation.

Speaker 42 Still, Linda's Linda's friend Tim, who's a retired law enforcement officer, offers to help her beef up security at her home.

Speaker 22 And she asked me to come to her house. I'm in a relationship.
I can't be having lunch and going to another woman's house without explaining to my girlfriend what's going on.

Speaker 22 So when I went to her house, I took Becky.

Speaker 2 Becky O'Donnell is Tim's longtime live-in girlfriend.

Speaker 3 Becky also grew up in Pocahontas.

Speaker 22 We went to grade school and high school together.

Speaker 7 So we knew each other basically our whole lives.

Speaker 42 Tim and Becky agree to help Linda beef up the security at her home. They change the locks and they help her install a wireless security camera system.

Speaker 2 There's actual video captured of Tim and Becky installing those cameras.

Speaker 27 My mom, she is a single female living alone in a house just outside of town.

Speaker 27 So that mixed with being worried that our dad was coming over to the house when he wasn't supposed to be there led her to decide to go ahead and install some cameras.

Speaker 2 You can actually hear Linda and Becky's voices on the security video.

Speaker 56 They're dads while they're not working. These two are not working.
Yeah. And the fence isn't working.
The fence doesn't work.

Speaker 25 So we had them on every corner of the house.

Speaker 22 I put some out in the trees facing the front door.

Speaker 57 We had them over the front.

Speaker 22 I want to say nine or ten cameras we bought that covered all angles, all windows, all entrances to give her a sense of security.

Speaker 2 And they were motion sensitive.

Speaker 13 Yes. Look, it finally came on.
Did it?

Speaker 2 Look.

Speaker 2 And did you feel then that she would be pretty safe from what you could tell?

Speaker 22 I felt like the cameras would help her and certainly give her a sense of, hey, there's an intruder, yes.

Speaker 2 And it's not long before Linda brings Becky in a little closer, asking her to help with other projects.

Speaker 15 Linda and Becky had become very close.

Speaker 15 Becky, she actually helped Linda run her motel business, and she was keeping the books and the financial records and doing the payroll and all of that at Linda's business for her.

Speaker 58 Wherever Linda needed her, that's where Rebecca was.

Speaker 42 And Linda would really come to depend on Becky after she files for divorce from Phil Smith.

Speaker 31 It was a nasty divorce. There's hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line and multiple properties.

Speaker 42 It isn't just money at stake. Phil's career as a judge is also on the line.

Speaker 21 I've investigated Judge Philip Smith. Never did I hear anything like some of the allegations that Linda presented.
That's not what we had seen before.

Speaker 42 One thing that Linda would reveal about Phil would almost certainly threaten his career as a judge.

Speaker 52 I'm going to ask you a sticky question only because it's been presented to me and I believe it's an issue.

Speaker 2 After 20 years of marriage, Linda Collins Smith, Smith, a well-known state senator in Arkansas, files for divorce from her husband, Phil, a longtime judge in the state.

Speaker 21 At the time, it just sounded like someone who was in a very acrimonious divorce.

Speaker 42 According to court documents, Linda and Phil have about $2 million in assets.

Speaker 15 It was a messy divorce. There was quite a bit of money that they were trying to split up.
There was a lot of struggling over property and money and things of that nature.

Speaker 2 So they had gone from being this power couple to being this angry couple.

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 21 I knew she was scared and felt like she was isolated and was concerned.

Speaker 21 And that's why she did some things like putting up cameras.

Speaker 42 Things get so acrimonious that Linda and Phil file a mutual restraining order against each other.

Speaker 60 Going to the rock and roll in to make contact with the manager,

Speaker 61 97 Central.

Speaker 42 A year to the day after Linda files for divorce, the police are called to one of their motels.

Speaker 62 Um, what's your name?

Speaker 60 I'm Becky O'Malley. Oh, okay.
Yes. Okay.
I'm her assistant friend. I work for Linda.

Speaker 42 Becky is recorded on police body camera telling police that it was Phil who showed up there.

Speaker 61 He's gone? Yeah, he left.

Speaker 60 He knows he's not supposed to be on this property.

Speaker 53 I've got the restraint.

Speaker 60 I copy the restraining order. Alright, you can see it.

Speaker 61 Yeah, we'll probably need to see that.

Speaker 42 Phil would later say that he wasn't there to harass Linda or anybody else. He was just there to pick up his mail.

Speaker 62 I appreciate it. Uh-huh.

Speaker 6 Anytime.

Speaker 2 The divorce is pretty messy, and it drags on for two years. Linda and Phil seem to fight over everything.
Their motels, rental properties, even a collection of valuable coins.

Speaker 27 Mom and dad made the decision a while ago that they were going to start investing in some silver and gold.

Speaker 2 And that was just put aside someplace, beauty.

Speaker 31 Basically in a box, locked up somewhere. It was just wild.
It's gotten to the point it's so crazy that you guys have to calm down, you know, be adults, you know, get through this.

Speaker 2 Tensions between the couple are at their highest when Linda and Phil meet in divorce court.

Speaker 46 Phil's like the picture of the southern gentleman and judge. Linda, you know, can't finish a sentence without going to the next subject.
In a courtroom, that's not acceptable behavior.

Speaker 42 The divorce court judge accuses Linda of withholding critical information about the values of their assets, about the finances, and about their shared properties.

Speaker 27 The judge was requesting information during the divorce, and the judge didn't think mom was giving enough information.

Speaker 31 Timely manner.

Speaker 27 Yeah, and so basically, the judge was saying she was in contempt of court.

Speaker 42 Linda is already under tremendous pressure because of the divorce trial. But then

Speaker 42 it ratchets up. The divorce court judge threatens to hold her in contempt and that could land her in jail.

Speaker 31 Mom was basically afraid that she was about to be sent to jail and so to make sure that the business could still operate, then she'd given power of attorney to Tim, basically because he was already involved with a lot of the day-to-day dealings and stuff so that he could go ahead and still make sure that the business would operate.

Speaker 2 And then as the divorce is going on, Becky even testifies in the divorce trial. She did.
So you were both in her corner.

Speaker 20 Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Speaker 24 We were friends. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Raise your right hand for me.

Speaker 12 You saw me swear. We're from to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Speaker 50 I do. Thank you.

Speaker 42 But the divorce will have far-reaching consequences for Phil. A bombshell revelation buried in the depositions from the divorce case comes out thanks to Linda.

Speaker 52 I'm going to ask you a sticky question only because it's been presented to me and I believe it's an issue.

Speaker 20 It's fine.

Speaker 52 Have you ever viewed pornography on that computer in your office? You have.

Speaker 40 You asked the question, have you ever?

Speaker 40 And the answer to that is yes.

Speaker 13 Okay.

Speaker 17 But

Speaker 40 not in a long time. And as a matter of fact, well, that's fine.

Speaker 50 However you got.

Speaker 40 You can ask the questions and I'll answer them.

Speaker 42 Phil's admission that he had watched porn at work on his work computer comes to the attention of Arkansas's Independent Judicial Conduct Commission.

Speaker 21 The end result was a sanction with a permanent ban from being on the bench. So it's essentially the end of the road for us with a judge.
It's always a big blow to judges to be sanctioned.

Speaker 42 So even though Phil had already retired from the bench, this means that he could never return and serve as a judge in Arkansas ever again.

Speaker 42 Phil Smith told ABC News, the JDDC did its job and I agreed with and accepted its determination.

Speaker 2 What were her feelings about her divorce and moving on from that?

Speaker 23 She wasn't happy at all with the divorce.

Speaker 21 She was bitter.

Speaker 22 She held a real grudge. She didn't feel like justice was done.

Speaker 63 In fact, Linda was so unhappy with the division of their properties, she went on to appeal the divorce court settlement.

Speaker 63 She still owed Phil nearly $400,000, so by no means were things over between the two of them.

Speaker 48 2018 rolled around, and Linda Collins Smith had to stand for re-election as a Republican to the Senate.

Speaker 19 I need your vote.

Speaker 26 Tell everyone to go to the polls. We still have time.

Speaker 48 She ran a campaign. A lot of people thought she didn't have her heart in it.
And she wound up losing the race by only about 600 votes. And that was the end of her political career.

Speaker 26 Hey, just taking a minute to say,

Speaker 26 moving out of my office today, I just want to say how humble I am to be your senator, how proud I was to serve you.

Speaker 2 Linda is no doubt disappointed that she lost that Senate seat, but she soon starts looking in other directions toward other opportunities, like spending time with her grandkids. Blame and Bernard, go!

Speaker 2 Bernina!

Speaker 27 I think she was starting to see that there were other paths that she was still going to be able to do the things that she was passionate about.

Speaker 42 Keep in mind, this is the height of the Trump administration. Linda is a hardcore conservative.
She goes to Washington to meet with a special interest group to talk to them about a job.

Speaker 27 And when I told her, I said, you know, you can go give D.C. a try.

Speaker 35 Go put your stamp on it.

Speaker 34 And so I think she was excited about that.

Speaker 2 Linda tells tells her friends and family that she's flying to Washington, D.C.

Speaker 2 But then, somehow, she vanishes into thin air.

Speaker 15 She had disappeared, kind of dropped off the radar. The family could not get a hold of her.

Speaker 16 What's going on?

Speaker 17 She's not answering her phone.

Speaker 50 The kids can't get a hold of her. We're getting worried about Linda.

Speaker 31 There's something, the stain all over the floor.

Speaker 12 In the video, that looks like blood.

Speaker 41 An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaker 32 Mom Talk started as a sisterhood, and that's gone to flames. New secrets and lies are coming out.

Speaker 33 This is gonna be catastrophic.

Speaker 31 We're fighting for our marriages, and the girls are just putting us through hell.

Speaker 3 They make everything about themselves. I can't.

Speaker 53 Hopefully, this doesn't end in a bloodbath.

Speaker 16 Watch the Hulu original: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, now streaming on Hulu, and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

Speaker 49 Coming to Disney Plus and Hulu.

Speaker 4 Cassidy, get us home. Jonas, brother, you got it.

Speaker 49 It'll be the best Jonas Christmas ever.

Speaker 38 Can't wait to see you guys. We love you.

Speaker 49 If they can only make it home.

Speaker 43 What's going on? Our tour plane burned down.

Speaker 64 We cannot miss Christmas.

Speaker 6 Wait up.

Speaker 39 Nothing can stop us from getting home now.

Speaker 20 Homely.

Speaker 27 You lost all three of your passports?

Speaker 42 It's Christmas. Anything can happen, right?

Speaker 49 A very Jonas Christmas movie now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu with the TVPGDL.

Speaker 42 Linda Collins Smith is at a crossroads. She's just lost her sentency and she's newly divorced.

Speaker 2 Your mom had gone through this very, very bitter divorce. Now she's on her own.

Speaker 1 What kind of an effect had that had on her?

Speaker 27 I think she was having a hard time finding herself again.

Speaker 27 She had lost her last race and so she wasn't a sitting senator anymore and she was just really trying to figure out where she was going to go next.

Speaker 42 You have to remember that Linda loves politics. She caught the bug and she is nowhere near ready to give up on it.

Speaker 42 So in May of 2019, Linda is in Washington, D.C., where she's in discussions about possibly joining a conservative special interest group.

Speaker 31 I told her, I said, go do something exciting and it's a once in-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Speaker 27 Well, she came home on a Monday, which was also Memorial Day.

Speaker 27 I had talked to mom, knew the plan was that Becky was going to pick her up.

Speaker 27 Becky was going to bring her home from the airport.

Speaker 27 and I had text with her and she let me know that she had landed.

Speaker 1 Had you had any contact with her?

Speaker 31 I knew that she had made it home, but past that, that was the last I had heard.

Speaker 2 Tate keeps texting and texting her mom, but she's getting no response. And even more mysterious, her texts don't even seem to be getting through to Linda's phone.

Speaker 27 Mom had an iPhone and I have an iPhone and the text messages went through green.

Speaker 27 And so for an iPhone to iPhone where your text messages are always blue, to get a green one, you're like, is their phone off?

Speaker 3 What's going on?

Speaker 42 The mystery only deepens when Linda goes dark on social media.

Speaker 27 You know, I had checked Facebook and Twitter and there wasn't any activity.

Speaker 2 Was that unusual for her not to post?

Speaker 19 Oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 27 Yeah, she was very active on social media.

Speaker 15 She had disappeared, kind of dropped off the radar. She was no longer posting.

Speaker 15 stuff on social media. The family could not get a hold of her.

Speaker 22 They were looking for Linda. They didn't know what was going on.
They don't know where she's at. She's not answering her phone.
The kids can't get a hold of her.

Speaker 7 We're getting worried about Linda.

Speaker 2 A full week has now gone by with no word from their mother. So Linda's kids now reach out to her close friend, Becky.

Speaker 2 Becky picked Linda up from the airport and was the one who brought her back to Pocahontas.

Speaker 27 Becky was the person you would reach out to if you wanted to get a hold of mom if you couldn't get a hold of her.

Speaker 2 Linda has been seeing a new man. So Becky tells Tim that maybe that's where Linda is, at the new guy's house.

Speaker 17 And Becky said that Linda was going

Speaker 17 to stay with a boyfriend. And where that boyfriend lived at, there was no sales service.

Speaker 2 Did that seem plausible to you?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 22 I mean, I had no reason to doubt that.

Speaker 2 By now, Tate is beside herself. She's frantic.
She asked Becky to go to her mom's home to see if she's there.

Speaker 27 I had text Becky and said, can you go by the house and see if her truck's there? Can you go, you know, can you go by?

Speaker 27 And so Becky's like, oh, yeah, I can go by there.

Speaker 27 And so later in that day, I asked if she had actually gone by. And she said, oh, no, I've not gone by.
I've got to go fill up a shift at the motel and I'll go by.

Speaker 27 So I had text Butch and I was like, you've got to go over to mom's house, you know, and just check things out.

Speaker 27 And I let Becky know that Butch was on her way and suddenly Becky, you know, was like, oh, well, I can go now too. And so Becky,

Speaker 27 I guess, went at about the same time.

Speaker 42 When they get to Linda's house, her red pickup truck is there, but the front door is locked and she's not answering.

Speaker 22 Beck told me, well, I went by Linda's today to check on her. She's not there.
She's not answering the door.

Speaker 2 Another day goes by, and strangely, still no word from Linda. Her worried father gets together with her her son Butch and they go to her house and they get in.

Speaker 31 Dang I could see where her suitcase was there with the tags on it where she flew in from DC and that was all there.

Speaker 31 Didn't find her purse and didn't find her cell phone.

Speaker 31 Went through all the rooms and didn't find anything.

Speaker 42 They get into Linda's kitchen and it's a mess, but it's a mess because the house is undergoing massive renovations.

Speaker 31 The house was under renovation. There's holes in the floor.
There was electrical hanging from the ceiling. And the kitchen, there's only a few cabinets that were still left.

Speaker 31 Bare wood flooring.

Speaker 2 And it's in that kitchen, on the bare wood floor, that they see something that grabs their attention.

Speaker 31 There's this something, this stain all over the floor.

Speaker 38 What is this on the floor?

Speaker 31 It looked like somebody had dropped a coffee pot and just it had sprayed out from just in a sort of semicircular path out from there.

Speaker 22 Some dark splatters.

Speaker 31 There's dark splatter just everywhere.

Speaker 42 Butch takes out his phone and starts shooting video of this really strange, large stain on the kitchen floor.

Speaker 31 The lights are out and it was so dark it was really just kind of hard to just, you know, just to figure out what it is.

Speaker 42 Butch sends the video to his sister Tate, who's at home in Little Rock, worried.

Speaker 27 And I show my husband, he's like, that doesn't look like coffee. In the video, it's coming through as that looks like blood.

Speaker 2 Were you starting to panic?

Speaker 27 Oh yeah, I was very panicked at that point.

Speaker 1 So you walk outside.

Speaker 31 So then we walk outside and we're going to leave. And my grandpa said, hey, do you smell that? It smelled like an animal died.
So I went over there to it and raised the tarp up.

Speaker 2 Butch is horrified, shaken to the core by what he finds under that tarp.

Speaker 31 We have to call the police.

Speaker 25 911, what is your murder state?

Speaker 20 And I

Speaker 27 just collapsed.

Speaker 7 You know, my world just crumbled in that moment.

Speaker 2 It's June of 2019, and Linda Collins has been missing for a week. after returning home from a trip on Memorial Day.

Speaker 15 Linda's father and her son Butch Smith had went over to her house to do a wellness check, try to locate her, find out what was going on.

Speaker 42 The family finds a strange dark stain on the kitchen floor. There is no sign of Linda.

Speaker 15 They were searching and they could smell an odor outside the house.

Speaker 15 And Butch had looked underneath a tarp that was covering up some building material in the driveway of the house.

Speaker 31 I went over there to it and

Speaker 31 raised the tarpaulin. I was just kind of in shock.
I saw my mom there and she was wrapped up in one of my blankets from whenever I was younger.

Speaker 15 Butch found his mother's body in an advanced state of decomposition.

Speaker 2 So she had been dead several days.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 2 An emotional butch now caused his sister Tate to break the devastating news.

Speaker 27 I just collapsed.

Speaker 7 My world just crumbled in that moment.

Speaker 31 We have to call the police.

Speaker 8 911, what is your mother's name?

Speaker 10 I believe somebody's died. It's Linda Collins Smith.

Speaker 31 And that's the only thing I could think about. There was no other thoughts running through my head besides just the pure shock of what I saw.

Speaker 8 What is your name, honey?

Speaker 10 It's Butch Smith. I'm her son.
I'm here with my grandpa, her dad. We've been trying to find her for the last few days, almost believing we've not heard from her.

Speaker 10 We came to do a wellness check at her house.

Speaker 10 I think I found the body.

Speaker 5 The best I can remember, remember it was late in the afternoon. Light out still.

Speaker 5 It was warm. In the area there's not a whole lot of crime.
We hardly ever get any calls out there.

Speaker 5 I received a call from Dispatch and I went to the scene.

Speaker 66 Central Dispatch

Speaker 66 Butch Smith just called and advised they have Linda Collins Smith out in the yard wrapped in a blanket under a tarpaulin.

Speaker 5 When I pulled up to Linda Collins Smith's house, I

Speaker 5 noticed some vehicles in the yard.

Speaker 50 Then I seen some building materials that appeared to have a tarp over it.

Speaker 50 Secure that scene as best you can.

Speaker 14 101, I've already got it secured.

Speaker 14 There's going to be something up with this. We are going to need CID out here.
Aye, possible murder up here.

Speaker 15 Looking at the scene and the circumstances around it, it was obvious that it was a murder.

Speaker 2 No question in your mind.

Speaker 7 No ma'am.

Speaker 14 I've got a lady,

Speaker 14 Linda Collins Smith. She's out here in a big long, I mean probably,

Speaker 14 I'm going to say 10, 12 foot tarp over it all and she's wrapped up in a blanket and put out put underneath it.

Speaker 24 Linda Collins Smith's father was there.

Speaker 24 Her son, Butch, was there.

Speaker 24 And of course they were upset.

Speaker 5 When I talked to them on the scene, scene, their demeanor appeared to be that they were in shock. And they just seemed to be stunned with what they have found.

Speaker 14 All right, sir.

Speaker 14 Everybody's on their way due to the fact that we're going to have to look into this. I'm going to have to have y'all back all the way up to the road.

Speaker 48 The fact that a gruesome crime like this would happen in such a small town in northeast Arkansas, that was a big shock.

Speaker 58 A homicide investigation underway after human remains were found outside the home.

Speaker 18 The body found Tuesday night at a home in Pocahontas is that of former state senator Linda Collins Smith.

Speaker 48 This was a person who had been a significant figure in Arkansas politics over many years, a controversial figure. So your first thought goes to who could have done this and why.

Speaker 1 It's a pretty bizarre crime scene.

Speaker 2 Why would someone kill Linda inside the house, but then decide to hide her body outside.

Speaker 31 You start thinking well who the heck could have done this and my first answer was that my dad did it.

Speaker 27 You always think of who has the most to gain and the divorce being disputed. I said, you know, it was my dad.

Speaker 2 You're thinking your dad killed your own mom.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That had to be hard to even

Speaker 2 say.

Speaker 31 Absolutely.

Speaker 27 It just felt like you were living in some kind of virtual reality where you were in some TV show or something where all this was happening, but it wasn't really your life.

Speaker 42 So as word of Linda's death spreads, Tim goes home to break the news to Becky to tell her that her closest friend is dead.

Speaker 22 I told Becky that they had found Linda's body.

Speaker 2 And how did Becky react?

Speaker 22 She started crying immediately. I mean,

Speaker 22 we both knew who had killed Linda, I thought.

Speaker 2 You were sure you knew who the murderer was?

Speaker 22 Linda told me he was going to murder her anyway, so I believed it.

Speaker 2 So, your thoughts went right to her ex-husband?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 46 She said if anything happened to her, that if she ended up dead or somebody killed her, that it was Phil.

Speaker 46 Well, you don't take that seriously. You know, you don't think she's going to be killed.
But again, she said it. So.

Speaker 42 Just days after Linda's murder, another state legislator is found dead, this time in neighboring Oklahoma.

Speaker 67 Jonathan Nichols, the former state senator and OU vice president, found dead inside his Norman home last night from a gunshot wound.

Speaker 2 Two Republican state legislators found dead within days of each other. Is there a connection? And who might be in danger now?

Speaker 59 Was it just coincidence?

Speaker 42 Or was there some sort of a serial killer targeting state politicians?

Speaker 15 I gathered a small team of deputies and state troopers, and we immediately set up surveillance.

Speaker 2 You were working feverishly against the clock at that point.

Speaker 15 Absolutely, because Linda's visitation was later that afternoon. Our pastor asked me if there was any kind of security concerns or anything.

Speaker 15 I remember telling him that if something don't change between now and the funeral service, you're going to shake hands with the killer.

Speaker 15 101, I've already got it secured here.

Speaker 25 It's a possible murder up here.

Speaker 31 It was a nasty divorce. There's hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line.

Speaker 2 You're thinking your dad killed your own mom.

Speaker 42 And then there's another bombshell, completely out of left field, and no suspects.

Speaker 2 Two Republican state legislators found dead within days of each other.

Speaker 21 People were like, is this some sort of national killing? Is this a political assassination?

Speaker 48 That took this story and absolutely blew it sky high.

Speaker 2 Investigators are closing in on a suspect, and it's somebody who was never ever mentioned in all those theories.

Speaker 45 You can hear the audio of the murder.

Speaker 2 It's almost like something out of that show, Ghost Ghost Hunters.

Speaker 2 Is this the killer?

Speaker 21 All that stuff on TV, it doesn't happen. Except in this case, it pretty much all happened.

Speaker 6 We got you.

Speaker 69 We got you. You can quit playing stupid now.

Speaker 3 We got you.

Speaker 62 Developing news out of Northeast Arkansas tonight as we come on the air, a former state senator is found dead. Her death is being investigated as a murder.

Speaker 6 Under this one?

Speaker 2 Investigators learned that Linda Collins Smith was stabbed to death.

Speaker 35 This was a very violent, angry murder that had occurred.

Speaker 35 You know, anytime someone grabs a knife and stabs somebody to death with it, it is very personal.

Speaker 15 We never actually found the murder weapon itself.

Speaker 15 It was obvious to us that someone had tried to clean the crime scene up.

Speaker 15 On the outside, you could see where Linda's body had been moved to the driveway.

Speaker 2 So you could see what appeared to be foul play and someone who's trying to cover their tracks.

Speaker 15 Yes, it was obvious.

Speaker 2 The first thing investigators do is bring in anyone they can think of for questioning, even Linda's own family.

Speaker 2 Including her dad, Benny, who admitted that he and his daughter weren't on the best of terms when she died.

Speaker 70 When did y'all have a father now?

Speaker 70 Well, he's been, I thought, I don't know just exactly it's been about

Speaker 70 eight years ago.

Speaker 24 In the beginning, everybody was a suspect because we did not know who done it.

Speaker 71 Mom and dad went through a real bad divorce.

Speaker 23 Real bad. It's still a bad divorce.

Speaker 44 And it's still bad, yeah.

Speaker 23 And it was not settled yet.

Speaker 27 Investigators, of course, that's one of the questions they ask you is, who do you think could have done it?

Speaker 70 What's your dip about this?

Speaker 25 What do you think about that?

Speaker 70 Immediately, it was that my dad hired from her killer because she had said it several times that she was working there.

Speaker 6 That was what was going to happen.

Speaker 59 Investigators hear plenty of speculation about Phil Smith, Linda's ex-husband.

Speaker 59 His reputation as a judge was forever tarnished when he admitted that he had watched porn on his work computer. Now that information came out during the course of a really nasty divorce.

Speaker 59 The divorce included financial battles and also allegations of abuse.

Speaker 2 And what did you say to the state police?

Speaker 22 Everything that Linda had ever told me.

Speaker 2 She was afraid of her husband. She feared that he might kill her?

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 21 The difficult part for me was that my reaction wasn't, who could have done this. My reaction was like, oh my God, what if he did this?

Speaker 59 Phil Smith has always denied harming or threatening Linda. He told ABC News in a statement that he was never physically violent or emotionally abusive towards Linda.

Speaker 59 He refused repeated requests from ABC News to be interviewed, but at the time of Linda's murder, he was anxious to speak with police.

Speaker 6 We're not coming to Central Dispatch.

Speaker 9 Yes, ma'am, this is Phil Smith, and I need to talk to the sheriff.

Speaker 29 In reference to what?

Speaker 9 Very personal matter.

Speaker 9 Let's do this.

Speaker 9 Can you ask the sheriff to call Phil Smith?

Speaker 29 I sure will.

Speaker 15 I actually talked to Phil Smith on the phone that night and Phil was immediately very emotional and very cooperative.

Speaker 15 You know, whatever you need from me, I am absolutely here to help you.

Speaker 16 in whatever I can possibly help with.

Speaker 2 Did you believe him?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 2 But investigators aren't ruling anyone out.

Speaker 70 And we have the same at police work. One thing I learned today is you always follow the evidence.

Speaker 25 And that's what we're going to do.

Speaker 2 Then, the very next day after Linda's body is found, there are TV reports about an Oklahoma state legislator who's also found dead.

Speaker 67 Jonathan Nichols, the former state senator and OU vice president, found dead inside his Norman home last night from a gunshot wound.

Speaker 2 Could the two be related? Two Republican state legislators found dead within days of each other?

Speaker 35 It was a huge coincidence. Is there something going on?

Speaker 35 It turned out it was a suicide.

Speaker 35 So we were very quickly able to dismiss any type of conspiracy between the two state senators' deaths.

Speaker 30 And then, you know, there's there's a gag order that was put on the case.

Speaker 18 No suspects have been named, and an extraordinary gag order imposed in the case is preventing the release of any information.

Speaker 7 And so that didn't help with all the rumors.

Speaker 42 I've covered crime cases around the country for ABC for almost a decade. I have never encountered a gag order like this.
ABC News decided to fight this gag order.

Speaker 42 We were trying to learn: is the public in danger?

Speaker 61 The judge did file a gag order. However, it was being challenged by ABC National News and the Arkansas Press Association.

Speaker 42 People were wondering in a case where a prime suspect is a judge whether maybe this gag order is a function of the judiciary trying to protect itself.

Speaker 2 And that almost led people to begin to suspect Judge Smith all the more.

Speaker 1 that maybe there's a cover-up going on.

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 15 I have a brief statement I'm going to read. At the end of that statement, we will not be taking any questions.
This is all the information we can give you at this point.

Speaker 21 It really added a lot of mystery and distrust.

Speaker 2 While that fight goes on, the media and the public have no idea that investigators have learned something that might be critical to cracking the case.

Speaker 2 The murder may have been captured on one of those security cameras in Linda's home.

Speaker 70 You think there's cameras in there?

Speaker 29 Yeah, she had a lot of cameras, not just like one or two. She had cameras on the garage side, she had cameras in the back, she had cameras inside.

Speaker 5 We need to see those videos as we believe that those videos hold evidence on who was there and who murdered Linda Collins Smith.

Speaker 2 There's only one little problem. While those brackets are still there, the cameras are not.

Speaker 15 One of the things that I immediately noticed over on the right corner, right underneath the soffit of the house, there, there's a mounting bracket where a camera was located at one time.

Speaker 73 Of course, we don't know if the camera's been gone for a year or for 24 hours.

Speaker 35 And so that's where putting on the investigator hat. Can we get that video from somewhere else? Is there information that was somehow in the cloud that we may be able to pull from?

Speaker 2 They find out that video is stored somewhere at at a security company in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 The video is eventually shipped to Arkansas.

Speaker 15 We immediately had our computer tech person pull that up

Speaker 15 and we were all sitting in the room watching in real time what he's going through and he's going through the files.

Speaker 48 The video cameras were motion activated.

Speaker 5 The wind was blowing that day.

Speaker 16 Which moved the tarp and kicked the camera off.

Speaker 45 And you can't see it, but you can hear the audio of the murder.

Speaker 2 The audio is so graphic and so disturbing that 2020 has decided not to play it.

Speaker 73 I mean as bad as it is to listen to it was huge as far as the investigative team to have that.

Speaker 2 Could you hear anybody else's voice?

Speaker 15 You could hear the second voice and you could not really make out exactly who it was.

Speaker 2 And then another clue captured on video. It's almost like something out of that show, Ghost Hunters.

Speaker 15 There was actually a video that showed a person coming into the house that was covering themselves in a bed sheet.

Speaker 2 Is this the killer? As investigators keep watching, they can't believe what they see next.

Speaker 2 What went through your mind?

Speaker 15 Immediately, what went through my mind was: We've got her.

Speaker 31 We've got her.

Speaker 2 We've got her?

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Speaker 42 Everyone who knew Linda Collins Smith knew red was her favorite color.

Speaker 42 She always wore those red outfits. She drove that red pickup truck everywhere she could.
And true to form, she wanted to be buried in a red casket.

Speaker 2 So many mourners turn out for Linda's viewing that they have to move it to a bigger church.

Speaker 28 The whole town was there at the Sutton Baptist Church paying their respects, you know.

Speaker 2 Among those who are making their way to the viewing is Linda's close friend, Becky O'Donnell, who's driving to the church with her now fiancé, Tim Loggins.

Speaker 2 Did you think she was just in shock?

Speaker 22 She seemed in shock, yes. It seemed like a grief process.

Speaker 2 Investigators have told Linda's family that the killer may very well be amongst the mourners.

Speaker 31 And the whole time, you know, you've got police that are literally sitting over your shoulder just watching and looking for everybody because we didn't know who it was.

Speaker 2 But Linda's family has no idea that at that very moment, investigators are closing in on a suspect, and it's somebody who was never ever mentioned in all those theories.

Speaker 15 Just right across from these green bins right here.

Speaker 6 Suddenly, on that highway, on the way to the church, flashing lights.

Speaker 3 Sheriff Bell, along with his partner, is pulling over the suspect.

Speaker 15 We took them out basically at gunpoint, ordered them to get out of the vehicle, and ordered her to walk back to me.

Speaker 2 Of all people, it's Linda's close friend, Becky.

Speaker 15 I was able to take her in custody right there at that point.

Speaker 22 It makes no sense to me.

Speaker 2 And what happens with you at that point?

Speaker 16 Well, I was free to go.

Speaker 2 What are you feeling?

Speaker 22 Yeah, I'm mad. I'm upset.

Speaker 24 I'm scared.

Speaker 22 And my fear was that they were trying to cover for the judge and trying to pin it on Becky.

Speaker 28 Hi, Becky.

Speaker 2 Becky, still in the outfit she was wearing to the memorial, is brought into the interrogation room.

Speaker 74 I'm gonna lay it all out there for you, okay?

Speaker 74 We're here about Linda.

Speaker 9 About the death of Linda.

Speaker 74 So, tell me what you know.

Speaker 74 That's your right. That's your right.

Speaker 74 We're gonna respect that right. But I want you to know if you realize right now, you're under the risk of the murder of Linda.

Speaker 6 You understand that?

Speaker 69 We got you. We

Speaker 42 Looking at that interrogation tape, it's not clear what they have, but they have something. They have something incriminating.
They have some sort of evidence and they want to show it to Becky.

Speaker 69 You can quit playing stupid now.

Speaker 74 We got you. You're not afraid to go.
You're going to go to share. Stand up.

Speaker 18 This is Channel 7 News at 10.

Speaker 62 Arkansas State Police, along with the Randolph County Sheriff's Department, arrest a woman in connection to the murder of former state senator Linda Collins.

Speaker 48 Her best friend in politics, her best friend in life, that took this story and absolutely blew it sky high.

Speaker 11 Well, I immediately went to Facebook. Her profile picture has Linda in it, and they were so close, their heads touched in the picture.
I don't think you can get any closer than that.

Speaker 2 But Becky doesn't admit anything.

Speaker 2 On the day of Becky's arraignment, there are no cameras allowed inside, and the gag order issued after Linda's murder is still in effect.

Speaker 2 So there are no details about the investigation or what was found on that video from the home security system.

Speaker 28 It was a big deal. I mean,

Speaker 3 the courtroom was packed.

Speaker 11 Rebecca O'Donnell was charged with capital murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence.

Speaker 33 O'Donnell's attorney entered a not guilty plea to the charges during her arraignment, and the state of Arkansas is seeking the death penalty.

Speaker 2 Did you visit Becky?

Speaker 20 Sure.

Speaker 75 This is so frustrating. Think about how it is for me.
So fun, baby. Becky, that's all I can do.
I love you. I believe in you.

Speaker 2 What did she say to you?

Speaker 22 She maintained that she was being set up.

Speaker 24 She maintained that they were covering for the ex-husband.

Speaker 21 It was remarkable how bold the supporters of Becky were in speaking about how she's absolutely not guilty.

Speaker 75 There's nothing but support for you on Pong.

Speaker 75 Let me tell you, I'm just going to tell you one thing. If I was on the outside looking in,

Speaker 62 I would say, oh, wow.

Speaker 28 He was her biggest supporter.

Speaker 44 He just said there was was no way, you know, she could have done it.

Speaker 75 We'll talk later, okay?

Speaker 21 I love it.

Speaker 13 Send me.

Speaker 77 Tim goes on Good Morning America to talk about his fiancé, Becky, and breaking the news to her about Linda's murder.

Speaker 50 This is Good Morning America.

Speaker 76 We're going to go now to that ABC News exclusive and the mystery surrounding the death of a former Auckland state senator.

Speaker 3 A shocking mystery that turned heads.

Speaker 17 I just told her they found Linda dead and she collapsed.

Speaker 31 How did Becky react?

Speaker 17 Two or three minutes of just tears and, oh my god, I can't believe it.

Speaker 76 He was focused on the idea that Becky was innocent.

Speaker 17 I mean, either she is a best actress in the world and a sociopath and completely fooled me, or there's not a chance she did this.

Speaker 17 And I'm going with there's not a chance she did this.

Speaker 1 What was your hope by going public and speaking nationally about?

Speaker 24 Stopping the cover-up.

Speaker 42 But when it comes to this supposed cover-up, there's something that Tim Waggins and other people supporting Becky just don't know.

Speaker 41 A very dark secret from Becky's past.

Speaker 78 I just couldn't believe she was trying to have me killed.

Speaker 62 A woman arrested in the killing of former Senator Linda Collins has been charged with capital murder. Rebecca O'Donnell appeared before a judge this morning.

Speaker 2 After her arrest, Becky is being held in a local jail. And with the case still under seal, there are a lot of unanswered questions.

Speaker 30 It was basically, you know, no questions, no answers, no nothing.

Speaker 42 And rumors only grow. when three judges and prosecutors handling the case recuse themselves.

Speaker 18 Well, the Arkansas Supreme Court is assigning a new judge to preside over the trial of the woman accused of murdering former state senator Linda Collins.

Speaker 21 Why would a judge be appointed to this case and then suddenly jump off?

Speaker 3 What's going on?

Speaker 2 They're people recusing themselves. Do you think it's falling apart?

Speaker 22 I thought they were getting desperate, sure.

Speaker 79 The murder trial involving former state senator Linda Collins will get a new prosecutor.

Speaker 22 It seemed to me like, you know what, they've overreached.

Speaker 22 They wanted a Patsy and they can't prove it.

Speaker 42 Of course, Tim and the general public as well know nothing about what the sheriff has found out about something that went on in the past

Speaker 42 between Becky and her former husband, Jeff O'Donnell.

Speaker 78 In 2007, I was working in Little Rock.

Speaker 78 When I found out that Becky had a hit out for me for my life insurance, I was shocked.

Speaker 2 Jeff and Becky were married for 20 years. They had two children.
And up until this moment, Jeff says though they had problems, he thought they had a pretty good relationship.

Speaker 78 I just couldn't believe she was trying to have me killed.

Speaker 11 It was investigated by the ASP. She met with the investigators.

Speaker 11 And they asked her on a scale of one to 10, how serious were you about killing your husband? And she said, I was a five or six, but I was drunk.

Speaker 78 There was never any charges filed. I don't think they had enough evidence.
I didn't press charges myself. Maybe I should have but I didn't.

Speaker 73 Our first priority in the investigation is to stop the murder from happening.

Speaker 73 We just had to go straight to Becky and explain to her that if anything happened to her then husband, she would obviously be top of our list of suspects.

Speaker 78 That ended our marriage. Becky and I had to stay in contact.
We had a couple kids still in school. I doubt if anybody really knew issues of Becky's past.

Speaker 54 You don't always see that side of people, especially when they're as good at it as Becky O'Donnell. She is very good at her manipulation.

Speaker 42 But investigators are starting to see through that manipulation from long ago.

Speaker 42 And they're starting to suspect that recently Becky's been stealing money from Linda. And if Linda had figured that out, could Becky have killed her to keep that secret safe?

Speaker 11 That's what it appears is that it was about the money.

Speaker 15 Linda had discovered that there were some discrepancies in her father's checking account.

Speaker 70 When I looked at the

Speaker 70 deposit and how much was in the bank,

Speaker 70 they didn't jab.

Speaker 43 Why would Becky come to mind?

Speaker 15 Becky is the person that handled all of Linda's money.

Speaker 30 But believe Linda caught Becky taking money from her and finally started asking questions. And knowing Linda's personality probably wasn't a pretty conversation.

Speaker 15 I think that Becky reached a point to where she decided there was no other way out.

Speaker 2 Other than to kill her friend.

Speaker 40 Correct.

Speaker 2 Becky's still admitting nothing.

Speaker 77 She's standing behind her not guilty plea.

Speaker 77 Now, she may be silent on the outside, but inside the local jail where she's awaiting trial, she's doing a lot of talking.

Speaker 28 She was talking to...

Speaker 41 all of her cellmates and she was telling them that she's not guilty.

Speaker 3 She didn't do anything.

Speaker 48 I think it was very clear that Rebecca O'Donnell did not want to go down for this killing without a fight.

Speaker 2 And what Becky tries to do behind bars is even more unthinkable:

Speaker 2 a brutal murder, and then a plot while inside jail to commit more murder.

Speaker 2 That's mind-blowing stuff.

Speaker 15 Absolutely.

Speaker 71 It started with a phone call in the early hours of the morning.

Speaker 52 911, what is the address to your emergency?

Speaker 71 A terrified woman tells the operator she's been kidnapped, assaulted, and that she's trapped in a room with her attacker.

Speaker 22 He's fallen asleep.

Speaker 71 So she quietly and ever so carefully finds his phone and calls for help.

Speaker 20 Is there any way you can get out of the building? I don't know without waking him. I don't scare him.

Speaker 71 This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland into a crime scene.

Speaker 23 We've got something big going on here.

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Speaker 2 It's summer 2019, and Becky O'Donnell is charged with first-degree capital murder. She's in jail at the Jackson County Detention Center in Newport, Arkansas.

Speaker 53 A lot of people there for drugs and like robberies and

Speaker 53 just stuff like that, really.

Speaker 53 Becky O'Donnell looks very put together. Usually, when you're put together and you're in prison prison and you're not

Speaker 53 on drugs or anything like that, then you've done something like harm somebody.

Speaker 2 We talked to two of Becky's fellow inmates, Melissa and Cassandra.

Speaker 64 She had pictures of Miss Linda on her wall in her cell. That was her best friend.
And she didn't do this to her.

Speaker 64 So sad.

Speaker 53 I really didn't talk to her for probably about the first month or so. Something was off about her.
And I felt she was manipulative.

Speaker 53 And I didn't even know she was in there for what she she was in there for.

Speaker 2 Melissa and Cassandra tell us that Becky seemed to have more commissary money than the rest of the inmates, and that she would spread the wealth around.

Speaker 53 She had a lot of commissaries, so she gave it away to everybody.

Speaker 64 We had coffee, and noodles, and honey buns, and Cokes, and candy bars, and soap, and shampoo, you know, just

Speaker 64 everything.

Speaker 53 She just wanted to buy friendship.

Speaker 64 I would ask questions as in, like, I mean, well, why are you a suspect anyway?

Speaker 53 She said it was a whole government thing. She said that Phil Smith, he's the one that had killed her and that he was trying to frame her for it.

Speaker 64 Every day it became

Speaker 64 frantically trying to get out of there in some way, shape, form, or fashion.

Speaker 2 But Melissa and Cassandra say one day Becky came to them with a plan of her own to get out of the mess she was in.

Speaker 11 She comes up with this plan that she approaches another inmate and asks her to help her because she wants to have Phil Smith killed.

Speaker 11 This just gets bigger and bigger.

Speaker 2 And it doesn't just start and end with killing Phil. She tells them that Phil is remarried, that his new wife's name is Mary, and that if she's there when you do it, that you should kill her too.

Speaker 53 For Phil's wife, Mary, she said

Speaker 53 to pack a bag and make it look like she had just left town.

Speaker 53 And if she was there, just go ahead and get rid of her too. Like, she doesn't take anybody's life for like it's valuable at all.

Speaker 2 Wait a minute. So she is colluding with inmates while in jail.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 39 To go out and murder people on her behalf?

Speaker 15 Yes, that's correct.

Speaker 11 And Rebecca also asked these inmates if she wanted retribution against the prosecutor, Henry Boyce.

Speaker 64 It went from talking about Linda, her best friend, to who do you know that can

Speaker 64 get rid of Judge Irwin and Henry Boyce and Phil Smith and then Phil Smith's wife. It went from nothing to just this big, that quick.

Speaker 15 It shows her personality. She's homicidal, you know, from the very beginning.

Speaker 2 And how were these inmates supposed to get out of jail to go do this?

Speaker 15 It was my understanding that the inmates were soon to be released, and then once they got out, she had set it up for them to help her commit this murder.

Speaker 2 And just how was Becky going to pay for this murder for hire plot with all that silver and gold that was part of Linda and Phil's nasty divorce settlement?

Speaker 53 She had said at Phil's house, he had a bunch of gold and silver, and we could take that and and we could just keep it.

Speaker 2 And over at Linda's house, Becky says there's more where that came from.

Speaker 53 She had sent me a note. She made it look like it was Phil that wrote the note and said how he was sorry and sorry Becky had to deal with anything that she had to deal with, that it was all his fault.

Speaker 15 And she actually had written a suicide note.

Speaker 15 in her handwriting, portraying herself to be Phil Smith and claiming that Phil Smith had killed Linda Collins and then killed himself and set it up as a suicide.

Speaker 21 We've all dealt with jailhouse snitches, right? And you've got to vet them too.

Speaker 1 Now, inmates have been known to snitch on other inmates to get a lighter sentence.

Speaker 2 Did it occur to you that maybe these women could have been lying?

Speaker 15 It's always a possibility and you have to investigate it, but the inmates actually brought us proof. They brought us evidence in this note.

Speaker 15 We were able to prove from handwriting analysis that Becky wrote that note.

Speaker 53 When she asked me to do this, I felt like she thought that I was just a low-life scum, really. Like I felt like she stereotyped me and

Speaker 21 that she was better than me.

Speaker 53 The reason I said something was because I felt like somebody else might actually go through with the plan and I care about other people's lives.

Speaker 53 I kind of feel as if it needed to be told, but at the same time, I do feel sorry for her family family because, you know, her family had a lot of support for her and they really believed her.

Speaker 53 And like her kids, nobody deserves that.

Speaker 64 I feel for them.

Speaker 64 I just do. I'm a mother and I would not ever

Speaker 64 want to put my children through something like that, ever.

Speaker 2 On top of the charges she's already facing in the death of Linda Collins, Becky O'Donnell is now charged with criminal solicitation to commit capital murder.

Speaker 21 All the times you spend in your career saying, Look, all that stuff on TV, it doesn't happen. Except in this case,

Speaker 3 it pretty much all happened.

Speaker 2 When the gag order on the case is finally lifted, there was one more shocking revelation to come.

Speaker 74 Gotcha.

Speaker 69 We got you.

Speaker 54 It just felt like a bombshell, and it just came out of nowhere.

Speaker 69 We got you.

Speaker 2 At some point, you hear that Becky has been talking to fellow inmates, plotting to have other people killed. What did you make of this?

Speaker 22 That sounded like a bad Hollywood script to me.

Speaker 22 In the moment, I felt like it was a sign of desperation from the investigators.

Speaker 2 Even at this stage in the investigation, Becky's fiancé Tim Loggins is continuing to support her.

Speaker 2 And police are getting a little frustrated that he's doing more talking to the media than he is to them.

Speaker 15 We had reached out to Tim Loggins several times in an attempt to sit down with him and to explain exactly what we knew about this case. And he refused to do so.

Speaker 22 I believe you cooperate with law enforcement and I had completely but they were trying to get me to interact more and more and I had to reach out and find an attorney to make sure that I wasn't entrapped in any kind of way.

Speaker 54 He had a lot of valuable information for their investigation that could appear to incriminate him.

Speaker 2 And what about Tim? Why would you suspect him?

Speaker 15 Tim and and Becky were fiancé,

Speaker 15 so they were close.

Speaker 2 Were you worried that at some point police may think that you were involved in it too, that you two did it together?

Speaker 45 I knew it was a possibility, but I knew I could prove my whereabouts.

Speaker 42 Eventually, Tim would be ruled out as having had anything to do with the murder or the alleged theft of money from Linda.

Speaker 42 But when the pandemic hits in the spring of 2020, and Becky's murder trial is subsequently pushed back,

Speaker 42 something really huge happens behind the scenes.

Speaker 42 Tim and his lawyer get a phone call from Becky's defense team, and it's a stunner.

Speaker 54 I got a call from her attorneys asking for a meeting, and it was a meeting I won't forget.

Speaker 33 What did they say to you?

Speaker 72 That they had discussed it with Becky, and Becky wanted them to tell Tim that Becky had killed Linda.

Speaker 2 Her lawyers... revealed to you that she was the murderer.

Speaker 54 It just felt like like a bombshell, and it just came out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 Your fiancé, the woman you loved, the woman who you thought was best friends with Linda, now you realize

Speaker 2 killed her.

Speaker 45 I was mad.

Speaker 21 I was hurt.

Speaker 25 I felt used.

Speaker 22 I felt stupid.

Speaker 54 I remember not knowing if he was going going to explode or break down.

Speaker 54 It was the most intense moment that you could possibly imagine.

Speaker 1 Did you feel betrayed?

Speaker 22 Absolutely. I can't think of a worse betrayal.
She murdered my friend and lied about it.

Speaker 2 How do you process that?

Speaker 22 I felt guilty that I had introduced Becky to Linda.

Speaker 22 And without me, Linda would probably still be alive.

Speaker 77 It's now clear those wild rumors surrounding the case were all false. There wasn't no cover-up to hide someone else's involvement.

Speaker 77 Phil Smith is totally cleared, and Becky alone is admitting to the killing.

Speaker 58 Just moments ago, Rebecca O'Donnell entered guilty pleas here at the Randolph County Courthouse in the murder of Linda Collins.

Speaker 48 So Rebecca O'Donnell, in what turned out to be a very dramatic move, decided to change her plea in this case from not guilty to guilty. And that was a shock that no one really saw coming.

Speaker 2 That plea is one sentence long.

Speaker 32 She says, I went over to Linda's house and I intentionally killed her and concealed her body.

Speaker 11 That's the only time you heard her say anything in the courtroom and that is also when the death penalty came off the table.

Speaker 27 It still definitely hurt hearing her say, you know, I killed her and I moved her body.

Speaker 2 Was there emotion attached to her when she said that? No. No.

Speaker 31 She said it just because she was told she had to say it and she would have, she didn't care.

Speaker 2 While authorities don't charge Becky with the alleged theft of Linda's money, they do charge her with conspiracies stemming from the murder for hire plot, which she tried to hatch while in the county jail.

Speaker 2 Becky also pleads no contest to those charges.

Speaker 12 Rebecca O'Donnell will spend 50 years in jail for the murder of Senator Linda Collins.

Speaker 12 But for the family of Senator Linda Collins, it wasn't the justice they wanted to see done.

Speaker 65 None of the punishments allowed per Arkansas state law will come close to what I feel right now and as a right and equal punishment for her.

Speaker 20 It will never bring my grandpa's daughter back or our mother back

Speaker 13 or our children's grandmother back.

Speaker 19 No amount of punishment will ever fill that void that Rebecca O'Donnell made in our lives the day she killed our mother.

Speaker 42 But with a resolution in this case also comes something else, and it's big.

Speaker 42 A judge agrees with ABC News and and the Arkansas Press Association that the gag order was too broad and fully lifts it, allowing all of the evidence to finally come out.

Speaker 42 And that's when people finally get to see all of the incriminating evidence that investigators had against Becky all along.

Speaker 2 It turns out there are more breathtaking videos from those security cameras. In one of them, Becky is clearly putting one of the cameras in her bag.

Speaker 15 You could see Becky O'Donnell placing that camera in a handbag.

Speaker 15 And just as luck would have it, when she placed that camera inside that handbag, the camera was pointing up toward the ceiling.

Speaker 2 What are the odds that this shot would be recorded? She is not only putting the camera in her bag, but it's still rolling. and at the perfect angle to capture her holding a bloody knife.

Speaker 15 So you could clearly see Becky with blood on her hands with a large kitchen knife in her hand.

Speaker 48 The video pointing

Speaker 5 towards Becky, we can't explain it.

Speaker 5 I'm sure if it happened again, we would never have gotten that footage.

Speaker 1 Was that your smoking gun?

Speaker 15 Absolutely.

Speaker 35 You know, it is that money shot that you've hoped to get in those cases. It's amazing how lucky we get sometimes.

Speaker 35 It kind of goes back to where the criminals aren't always as smart as they think they are.

Speaker 2 As for that ghost-like figure captured on camera, investigators say that's Becky, too.

Speaker 75 You're under the risk of the murderer, Linda.

Speaker 74 You understand that?

Speaker 69 We got you. We got you.

Speaker 2 Once the public sees that damning video, you would think all the questions around this case would be put to rest. They aren't.

Speaker 11 She is not in Arkansas.

Speaker 11 We do not know her exact whereabouts.

Speaker 2 And another one of the questions people are still asking, did Becky O'Donnell act alone?

Speaker 48 There's no doubt that the story of Linda Collins Smith is a tragedy from start to finish.

Speaker 42 In a case that's already full of unusual twists, it turns out that Becky is now being held secretly in a prison that the Arkansas Department of Corrections will not publicly identify, just that she's out of state and they won't say why she was moved there.

Speaker 11 We do not know her exact whereabouts except to say that she is eight hours away.

Speaker 21 There's something not being told. This is the product of not allowing sunshine into our judicial system.

Speaker 42 Investigators have acknowledged to us that the early secrecy, the gag order, the recusals, that all of that are contributing factors as to why some in the public are skeptical that we have all the facts or that Becky actually did act alone.

Speaker 30 You know, I do wonder how someone as tiny as Becky moved Linda's body outside.

Speaker 30 This adrenaline only lasts so long.

Speaker 2 You're convinced Becky O'Donnell killed Linda Collins?

Speaker 16 Absolutely.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 15 Alone, 100% confident.

Speaker 26 Becky, how are you feeling today?

Speaker 35 I think the evidence is very clear who committed the murder.

Speaker 35 The person's guilty and sitting in jail now, so to me, the case is closed.

Speaker 59 Police have officially cleared Tim Loggins and Phil Smith, and Phil Smith provided a statement to us: My family and I are grateful that justice has been done.

Speaker 59 My request is to be left in peace and that Linda be allowed to rest in peace.

Speaker 11 In the end, Linda's children and grandchildren won't have that precious time with her.

Speaker 11 You just think it could have been prevented.

Speaker 11 Why did one friend take another friend's life?

Speaker 2 What do you most want people to remember about Linda Collins-Smith?

Speaker 50 She

Speaker 35 did so much in her life.

Speaker 27 She is so much more than just her murder, just how she died.

Speaker 31 She is a real person. You know, she wasn't just a politician.
She was a grandmother. She was a mother.
She was a daughter.

Speaker 27 She was always so good at making you feel so special and so loved. And I think that's what I miss the most.

Speaker 31 She just loved the people, and she just wanted the best. She's one of the best for everybody.

Speaker 31 It's just senseless.

Speaker 2 That's our program for tonight. Thanks so much for watching.
I'm Deborah Roberts.

Speaker 41 And I'm David Muir from All of Us here at 2020 and ABC News.

Speaker 3 Good night.

Speaker 55 It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at Whitehouse Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

Speaker 52 I know there's going to be a twist, won't they? A massive twist.

Speaker 23 At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

Speaker 55 I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker.
Find it now in the In the Dark podcast feed.