Deadly Engagement - Ep. 6: A Command Performance

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Speaker 16 Donita Smith had been in her grave more than three years by the time her accused killer finally went on trial.

Speaker 22 During that time, investigators had heard several versions of a similar story.

Speaker 24 In all of them, Donita was murdered in the last act.

Speaker 16 Other than that, The stories of Shannon Crawley and Jarmeer Stroud diverged.

Speaker 15 Each said the other was to blame.

Speaker 23 Who pulled the trigger?

Speaker 29 That depends on who you ask.

Speaker 31 There were multiple theories, but little physical evidence explaining exactly what had happened.

Speaker 1 It's all circumstantial.

Speaker 34 Yeah, all circumstance.

Speaker 36 That, of course, worked to Shannon Crawley's advantage.

Speaker 37 My DNA is nowhere at the scene of the crime.

Speaker 38 Nowhere.

Speaker 39 There's no fingerprints.

Speaker 19 That detail alone made some people very nervous.

Speaker 41 She was a convincing speaker.

Speaker 41 and she was alleging some part of domestic violence. And if there was anyone on the jury that had any experience with domestic violence, would it be believable?

Speaker 5 She didn't look the part.

Speaker 42 I mean, she tells a credible story.

Speaker 16 On top of that, prosecutors worried what a jury would think of their key witness, the two-timing cop.

Speaker 43 whose behavior felt like a catalyst for all of this.

Speaker 25 How would he perform on the stand and under pressure?

Speaker 35 With his facial expressions, the way he would say things, eye contact or lack thereof, the way he would shift, I would tell him he comes across squirrely sometimes.

Speaker 19 As a result, there was talk of a deal.

Speaker 46 If the case went to trial, Shannon risked a life sentence.

Speaker 44 A guilty plea to a lesser charge might allow the 30-year-old mother of two

Speaker 49 to emerge from state prison in time to dance at her children's weddings.

Speaker 32 The prosecutor left that decision up to Danita's mom, Sharon Smith.

Speaker 19 Shannon was offered a plea deal at one point.

Speaker 25 Were you consulted about that?

Speaker 51 Uh-huh.

Speaker 52 What did you say? Well,

Speaker 51 don't let her off.

Speaker 37 In fact, my words were: my daughter didn't get to plea for her life that morning, so no.

Speaker 37 No plea.

Speaker 21 Actually, it didn't matter because Shannon decided she'd rather take her chances in front of a jury.

Speaker 52 The truth is the truth, and I know I did not shoot and kill anyone.

Speaker 42 In this episode, you'll hear from people who witnessed the courtroom drama as it unfolded in February 2010.

Speaker 35 The whole trial was basically us saying that Shannon Crawley committed this murder and the defendant saying Jameer Stroud did this murder.

Speaker 19 You'll hear what Shannon Crawley and Jar Stroud said under oath while seated just feet from one another.

Speaker 54 And one of the things that popped in my head was that maybe she had done something.

Speaker 55 I didn't know what he had done, and I didn't know what he was going to do to me.

Speaker 45 You'll hear how those in the courtroom responded to one piece of evidence that some had thought unimpeachable.

Speaker 37 Everybody laughed.

Speaker 47 Everybody laughed.

Speaker 41 The jury laughed.

Speaker 41 It was so bad that her defense attorney had to bring up how bad it was.

Speaker 25 And we will take you to the trial's final seconds for the dramatic moment when jurors announced their verdict.

Speaker 35 I just remember sitting down, they had the doors to the courtroom locked, and I remember sitting down with my hands on my face.

Speaker 57 I'm Josh Mankowitz, and this is Deadly Engagement, a podcast from Dateline.

Speaker 59 Episode 6: A Command Performance

Speaker 60 On the morning of February 10th, 2010,

Speaker 61 12 jurors and four alternates assembled in the Durham County Courthouse for the first day of Shannon Crawley's murder trial.

Speaker 14 In the front row, a few feet away from them sat Donita Smith's family, each wearing a pin with Danita's picture on it.

Speaker 2 To their left, on an elevated perch, was a distinguished white-haired man, Judge Ronald Stevens.

Speaker 41 I was there from gavel to gavel.

Speaker 61 That's the voice of John McCann, who covered the trial for the Durham Herald Son.

Speaker 17 We're talking about a murder here, so the tone was definitely, you know, somber.

Speaker 34 Shannon's family here, and you got Donita's people on the other side.

Speaker 17 So it was,

Speaker 23 you know,

Speaker 23 tense is a good word for it.

Speaker 19 Shortly before noon, prosecutor David Sachs rose and walked to the center of the blonde, wood-paneled courtroom to begin his opening statement.

Speaker 32 He told the jury how one of the seven deadly sins was at the heart of this case.

Speaker 21 That sin, he said, was envy

Speaker 44 because Shannon Crawley envied Donita's life.

Speaker 44 She envied Danita's future.

Speaker 15 And she wanted Donita's man.

Speaker 35 You can always kind of guess maybe what snapped in her mind or what happened

Speaker 35 in her head

Speaker 35 to make her want to do this.

Speaker 65 That's prosecutor David Sachs.

Speaker 35 For whatever reason, she couldn't handle the situation between Jameer and Danita. And to resort to this just to me speaks of desperation.

Speaker 35 And whether that's against Danita or against Jameer or both, whatever way, she just couldn't handle it.

Speaker 30 The prosecutor called Donita's mom, Sharon Smith, as his first witness.

Speaker 17 Clasping a large photograph of her late daughter, Sharon told the jury who Danita was and what she'd planned to do with the life that was so suddenly cut short.

Speaker 37 Yes, it was a tragedy. And yes, I lost my daughter.

Speaker 23 But

Speaker 37 my daughter still lives on.

Speaker 37 I knew what she stood for.

Speaker 37 I knew

Speaker 68 what

Speaker 37 her drive,

Speaker 37 her energy.

Speaker 37 I knew that she was going places.

Speaker 32 Next, several former NCCU students took the stand to talk about Danita and the day she died.

Speaker 21 Donita's best friend, Edith Kearns, was one of them.

Speaker 69 It was scary.

Speaker 69 It was unreal because that's not something that I was expecting to be called about or participate in.

Speaker 60 And when you testify, Shannon Crawley's sitting right there.

Speaker 66 yes

Speaker 14 now you had to look at this woman yes

Speaker 19 yes what'd you see what'd you think

Speaker 69 i felt sad i felt angry because i was looking at the face of the person who hurt my friend

Speaker 50 and

Speaker 69 i just saw Like a cold stare almost seemed like no emotion was behind it.

Speaker 60 And that's what I saw when I looked at her on the second day of the trial the prosecution moved into the meat of its case the next witness was Michael Hedgepeth he's the apartment complex maintenance man who says he encountered a woman fitting Shannon Crawley's description driving a burgundy SUV in the area shortly after he heard a gunshot No,

Speaker 56 look, young lady that says though, if she heard it soon, she like upset and shaking and stuff like that.

Speaker 39 Okay, we'll have someone out as soon as possible.

Speaker 2 Though Hedgepeth testified how he remembered the woman in the SUV was sobbing when he saw her, he also said on the stand that he could not identify Shannon Crawley as the woman he'd seen, either at the time or right then in the courtroom.

Speaker 35 You certainly want any piece of evidence you can get.

Speaker 35 And so I would have loved for him to say, yes, that's her. That's the lady I saw, you know, leaving.

Speaker 21 Prosecutor David Sachs again.

Speaker 35 But what we liked was the stuff that he did remember. He was very positive about the vehicle.
He said, yep, that's the vehicle that I saw.

Speaker 35 And he remembers her wearing some kind of uniform kind of shirt.

Speaker 15 After the state's forensic pathologist told the jury about her autopsy of Danita Smith's body and the bullet recovered from her skull,

Speaker 43 The prosecutor called his key witness to the stand.

Speaker 32 And that

Speaker 26 was Jarmeer Stroud.

Speaker 23 I kind of thought selfishly Donita had some personal things going on.

Speaker 31 Wearing a tan jacket, a white shirt, and a salmon-colored tie, Jarmir Stroud placed his hand on a Bible and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Speaker 19 Even if his mortifying truth was that he cheated on his fiancé

Speaker 19 and that his cheating led directly to her murder.

Speaker 54 And one of the things that popped in my head based on my recent interactions with Shannon was that maybe she had done something.

Speaker 35 Jameer did well. He did about as I expected.

Speaker 67 Prosecutor David Sachs again.

Speaker 35 Go back to that word I'd used before, squirrely. You know, he kind of comes up.
So part of it was I knew what to expect.

Speaker 71 I mean, this was really kind of a command performance for Jameer because although he's not on trial there, his sort of reputation and maybe his job and career are on trial.

Speaker 35 I think that's true. I think that's true.
I do know that he was under a lot of pressure and a lot of stress.

Speaker 23 It's possible, but I don't recall the amount of times I call.

Speaker 41 He did a lot better than I thought he was going to do.

Speaker 64 That's lead detective Sean Pate.

Speaker 41 He knew how important it was. We talked to him.
There is no trying to save face here. The story is out.
There's no way you come out looking good. They already think bad of you anyway.

Speaker 71 Everybody already thinks you're a scoundrel who cheated on his fiancé.

Speaker 41 Louva actually told him there's no way that their opinion can get any worse.

Speaker 41 Just do what's right

Speaker 23 and take the hit. Take the hit.

Speaker 63 The prosecutor rounded out his case with a parade of investigators, Detective Pate chief among them.

Speaker 21 Pate told the court how Shannon had lied from day one of his investigation about never having been to Durham, about never having owned a gun.

Speaker 16 and about her shifting descriptions of Jarmeer Stroud.

Speaker 19 At first, he was someone she described as incapable of violence in that initial police interview.

Speaker 15 By the time of their last interview, Shannon described Jermir as someone who repeatedly threatened to kill Shannon and her children.

Speaker 19 What was that like?

Speaker 41 It's not as nerve-wracking as I really thought it was going to be because at that point, I had asked and answered the questions so many times.

Speaker 17 The prosecutor's final witness was Charlotte Detective Pam Zencon.

Speaker 62 You'll remember, she investigated the alleged rape in which Shannon accused Jermir.

Speaker 39 Mr. Stroud, this is Detective Zen Con with the Stratton Road Police Department.

Speaker 62 Detective Zen Con told the court she'd been on the rape investigation from the beginning.

Speaker 17 She'd talked with Shannon at the hospital soon after it was reported.

Speaker 16 And she later interviewed Jermir multiple times.

Speaker 50 Hello.

Speaker 53 Hi, Jameer. Hi.

Speaker 39 Hey, this is is Detective Zen Con. Pay M Zen Con.
How you doing?

Speaker 36 According to Zen Con, both Jermir's work records and his cell phone records supported his alibi for that night.

Speaker 33 Then, under further questioning, she related how the day after the alleged rape, Shannon had asked her if investigators had found the knife she claimed Jermir had used when raping her.

Speaker 36 When the detective told Shannon the knife had not been found, she said Shannon suggested the cops search Jermir's trash can.

Speaker 70 And before police could go looking for the knife, she said, Jermir Stroud had called to tell her he'd just found a knife in his trash can.

Speaker 74 What kind of blade was it? Can you describe the blade?

Speaker 50 It was...

Speaker 50 I don't know. It was at least like a four-inch blade.

Speaker 35 When the knife is found in his garbage can that Shannon puts us us onto the day after she's raped, I don't know that Jameer really had to say anything else.

Speaker 35 I mean, it seemed obvious not only who was stalking whom, but who was trying to frame whom at that point.

Speaker 67 The prosecutor rested his case after that bit of testimony, perhaps with the intention of allowing the knife story to marinate in jurors' minds overnight.

Speaker 36 Even so, Prosecutor Sachs was far from done.

Speaker 31 The next day, Shannon Crawley was set to take the stand in her own defense.

Speaker 49 And Sachs had a surprise waiting for her.

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Speaker 44 On day 10 of Shannon Crawley's murder trial, Defense Attorney C.

Speaker 26 Scott Holmes presented his case.

Speaker 36 After questioning three witnesses who said they had heard Shannon complain about being harassed by Jarmir Stroud, Holmes called his star witness and his best hope for an acquittal, his client, Shannon Crawley.

Speaker 41 She presented herself well. She's a good-looking lady.
And when she spoke, she spoke to the jury.

Speaker 64 That's Durham detective Sean Pate.

Speaker 41 When she was answering a question from a prosecutor or defense attorney, she looked toward the jury and spoke with them.

Speaker 18 Open.

Speaker 26 Demurely dressed in a white cable-knit pullover, Shannon told the story she had first told Detective Pate three years earlier.

Speaker 44 The one that began on January 3rd, the day before Danita Smith's murder.

Speaker 52 That was the day she said Jarmeer Stroud entered her home uninvited and demanded Shannon take a ride with him.

Speaker 55 I did not know where we were going at the time.

Speaker 19 Though that road trip lasted several hours and included stops at an apartment complex and an office park in Durham, Shannon told the court Jermir never told her what that drive was all about.

Speaker 57 Later that day at around midnight, Shannon said Jermeer came to her house again.

Speaker 19 Again, he entered uninvited and insisted they once again rehashed what had gone wrong with their love affair.

Speaker 68 We talked all night, about five in the morning, so he said that he again wanted me to go with him and he said, I'll make it real simple.

Speaker 41 You give your children die or you die from your children.

Speaker 59 According to Shannon, it was under that threat of death for her and her kids.

Speaker 16 that she once again drove with Jarmeer Stroud to Durham.

Speaker 26 It was on this trip, she said, that Jarmeer Stroud got out of her car and ran up the stairs of one of the apartment buildings.

Speaker 68 And I heard him arguing, him yelling at someone. I couldn't really hear what was going on.

Speaker 76 Then I heard a woman arguing back.

Speaker 64 It was then, Shannon said, that she heard a gunshot.

Speaker 68 Seconds later, he was running out. past me from the graceway and was shoving the gun down in his waist.

Speaker 35 Did it seem odd or strange to you when he started climbing behind the back seat of the vehicle when you were leaving?

Speaker 66 Yes.

Speaker 50 Okay. What were you thinking then?

Speaker 55 I didn't know what he had done and I didn't know what he was going to do to me.

Speaker 29 When she testified,

Speaker 40 how did you think she did?

Speaker 77 I think she did okay.

Speaker 40 That's Shannon's mom, Ann Crawley.

Speaker 43 Did you look at the jury? I mean, could you tell whether the whether the testimony was working?

Speaker 23 Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 76 you know, you look, you don't, you can't tell.

Speaker 41 I believe she thought that she could sell it.

Speaker 41 I was worried that she could sell it.

Speaker 46 And that's Detective Sean Pate.

Speaker 41 She had an answer for almost every question. They were the same answers we've heard before.
And they had to be. Otherwise, they would be pointed out.

Speaker 71 So the story that Shannon told about Jermir threatening her life, that's a story she told in court.

Speaker 41 Exactly.

Speaker 17 Under cross-examination, Shannon mentioned, almost as an aside, that Jermir had called her while she was out on bond and awaiting trial.

Speaker 52 You called, I know.

Speaker 19 It was only a brief exchange, but in that moment, the prosecutor looked like a robin eyeing a worm.

Speaker 42 The defense had elected not to use the recordings Shannon had made.

Speaker 43 Now, by testifying that Jermir had called her, Shannon had opened the door for the prosecutor to play those recordings for the jury.

Speaker 53 Did you believe any of those tapes were legitimate?

Speaker 35 Not after I heard them.

Speaker 40 Prosecutor David Sachs.

Speaker 38 You end up playing those tapes at trial, even though they're a defense exhibit.

Speaker 72 Yes.

Speaker 32 Because

Speaker 16 why?

Speaker 60 They show her to be deceptive.

Speaker 35 Yes, I believe they do. I believe they do.

Speaker 2 Remember.

Speaker 40 These are tapes that, if considered credible, would have been the smoking gun that implicated Jameer and exonerated Shannon.

Speaker 77 What about me?

Speaker 51 I know, but you got a better shot than me. And I already lied.

Speaker 67 For the sake of comparison, this is how Jameer Stroud sounded on the stand.

Speaker 54 And one of the things that popped in my head was that maybe she had done something.

Speaker 34 Now, I've heard Jameer speak. I've heard him testify.

Speaker 5 That ain't Jameer.

Speaker 43 For newspaper reporter John McCann, the airy whisper coming from that boom box made the voice he'd heard from Jameer days earlier seem as rich and resonant as a professional announcer.

Speaker 17 I don't know who it was in those states.

Speaker 34 It wasn't Jameer.

Speaker 5 It just had the whole appearance or the whole sound that

Speaker 34 she just made this up.

Speaker 16 And it just came across like that.

Speaker 9 It just came across like a production.

Speaker 5 A very bad one, I might add.

Speaker 2 McCann was not the only one in court who thought so.

Speaker 64 Spectators in the gallery laughed.

Speaker 26 Jurors giggled. It was precisely the opposite reaction Shannon Crawley must have been hoping for.

Speaker 74 Everybody laughed.

Speaker 47 Everybody laughed.

Speaker 44 That is Danita's mom, Sharon.

Speaker 37 Even Shannon's attorney said, that sounds like Michael Jackson, a high-pitched voice. Jameer does not have a high-pitched high-pitched voice.

Speaker 49 The only people in the courtroom who seemed to think the male voice on Shannon's recording sounded like Jameer Stroud

Speaker 61 were all named Crawley.

Speaker 33 Shannon's parents said they could not understand what it was that others found so amusing about a cop confessing to murder.

Speaker 78 The hardest thing for me is that knowing my child and knowing that no one believes her, that's difficult.

Speaker 1 It's difficult to accept.

Speaker 71 Why doesn't that sound like Jameer on the tapes?

Speaker 1 He whispered.

Speaker 51 Yeah.

Speaker 78 I don't think he's dumb.

Speaker 1 He whispered.

Speaker 46 He's disguising his voice.

Speaker 36 He disguised his voice, yes.

Speaker 48 In closing arguments, Shannon's defense attorney asked jurors to put themselves in Shannon Crawley's shoes, a single mom.

Speaker 53 who'd fallen into an abusive relationship with a conniving and manipulative man.

Speaker 17 It's important, I think, to try to see the world from the eyes of Shannon on the days that led up to and the day that this happened.

Speaker 33 Holmes argued the prosecution's case against Shannon Crawley was the result of a rush to judgment.

Speaker 67 Police, he said, did not do enough to investigate Jarmir Stroud.

Speaker 32 They did not check his hands for gunshot residue on the day of the murder.

Speaker 16 They did not search his car or his home.

Speaker 29 When Prosecutor David Sachs delivered his closing argument, he said only that Shannon had the motive, the means, and the opportunity to murder Donita Smith.

Speaker 51 The defendant ends up coming up behind her and shaking her

Speaker 51 back.

Speaker 21 The motive, he said, was jealousy.

Speaker 17 The means was that.38-caliber pistols Shannon had purchased from a co-worker two months before the murder.

Speaker 15 Shannon clearly had the opportunity, since even she admitted being at Danita Smith's apartment complex on the morning she died.

Speaker 42 And even though the maintenance man, Michael Hedgepeth, could not say Shannon Crawley was the woman he'd spoken with moments after hearing a gunshot, Sachs reminded the jury, Hedgepeth had remembered the Burgundy SUV.

Speaker 19 He had remembered that the woman wore a grayish-green uniform shirt with red in the patch on the sleeve.

Speaker 17 That description had matched a shirt later found in Shannon Crawley's closet.

Speaker 40 Then Sachs recounted the times Shannon had lied to police.

Speaker 23 The claim that she'd never been to Durham, never owned a firearm, the lies she'd told about being late to work that morning.

Speaker 32 because she'd taken one of her children to a doctor's appointment.

Speaker 14 The prosecutor could have stopped there,

Speaker 48 except

Speaker 2 he couldn't resist circling back one last time

Speaker 21 to the evidence Shannon herself had brought to this case.

Speaker 26 Those audio recordings she had made.

Speaker 15 The ones that had made the jurors snicker.

Speaker 35 You heard Jameer testify, and you heard the tapes. Does anybody really believe that that's Jameer talking on these tapes?

Speaker 35 Does anybody truly believe that that makes any kind of sense that somebody who did the things that she's saying Jameer did would call

Speaker 35 and say those kinds of things and basically just confess and admit to killing Donita?

Speaker 22 No. For the prosecutor, those tapes more than anything else

Speaker 28 revealed what he said was an essential truth about Shannon Crawley.

Speaker 77 What do you expect me to say, Jameer?

Speaker 35 They're so comical. They're obviously phony.
And I think it goes to show what was going on. This wasn't something that we intercepted on it.

Speaker 35 She brought to us saying, this shows that I'm telling you the truth.

Speaker 35 And I wanted them to hear it because hoping and believing they would have the same reaction I did when they hear it, that it was comical and obviously phony.

Speaker 22 A little after 3 p.m.

Speaker 64 on a Friday afternoon, the jury got the case.

Speaker 51 All right.

Speaker 43 They deliberated for two hours before the judge sent them home.

Speaker 19 with instructions not to discuss the case, avoid all news reports about it, and to be back on Monday morning.

Speaker 15 For Shannon Crawley and her family, it was the beginning of an agonizing weekend of wondering if it would be the last they would spend together.

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Speaker 32 It was clear once jurors gathered to deliberate on Monday, February 22nd, 2010, that most of them had spent the weekend thinking about the case.

Speaker 26 Late in the morning, they sent a note to the judge asking to review several pieces of evidence.

Speaker 43 Shannon's cell phone records, photos of Shannon's home at SUV.

Speaker 43 And they also wanted to hear more of Shannon's audio recordings.

Speaker 31 the ones she had purportedly recorded while talking with Jarmir Stroud on the phone.

Speaker 77 Someone like you, I'm sure.

Speaker 16 Although only one of the recordings had been played during the trial, the judge granted the jury's request over the objection of Shannon's defense attorney.

Speaker 36 So after they retook their seats in the jury box, Prosecutor David Sachs played the five audio tapes Shannon had turned over to him years earlier.

Speaker 40 Tapes she had once believed

Speaker 58 would be the evidence that would set her free.

Speaker 74 What about Thursday?

Speaker 77 I mean, I heard you arguing. What was that about?

Speaker 23 Me?

Speaker 55 What about me? She didn't even know me.

Speaker 23 I didn't know her.

Speaker 74 So that was the argument?

Speaker 41 It sounded like she was more in charge of the conversation.

Speaker 41 And why is the other party whispering?

Speaker 2 Detective Sean Pate was was in court when those recordings were played.

Speaker 65 You think Shannon faked those tapes?

Speaker 72 I have no doubt.

Speaker 41 Everybody in that room thought it.

Speaker 70 She faked the tapes, and it didn't help her.

Speaker 41 Not at all. In fact, it sounds like it probably hurt her.
That's what I was going to say. It really hurts worse when you have to go to the point and you start faking evidence.

Speaker 43 After breaking for lunch, the jury returned to the deliberation room and then sent word.

Speaker 31 that they had reached a verdict.

Speaker 73 Once the jury had filed back into the the courtroom and taken their seats, Judge Stevens accepted their verdict form without fanfare or ceremony.

Speaker 64 Shannon, wearing black on this day, remained seated. She did turn to the gallery, apparently looking for her mom's face.

Speaker 78 I think my heart stopped.

Speaker 32 Shannon's mom, Ann.

Speaker 77 Before the verdict came, she turned around.

Speaker 78 And she mouthed, I love you.

Speaker 72 And you said the same thing. Yeah.

Speaker 19 Did you have a sense of how it was going to go?

Speaker 23 No.

Speaker 78 I felt that she would be found not guilty.

Speaker 78 I believe that.

Speaker 80 We, the jury, returned the unanimous verdict as follows, guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 33 In her chair, Shannon Crawley swayed slightly, as if rocked by the words.

Speaker 42 She said nothing to her attorney.

Speaker 31 And when deputies led her from the courtroom, she looked straight ahead.

Speaker 15 How'd she look when that verdict came down?

Speaker 37 Like all the life just drained out of her, like she'd seen a ghost.

Speaker 33 In that instant, Donita's mom, Sharon, realized a solemn truth, one the families of murder victims can only learn the hard way.

Speaker 25 You get any satisfaction watching her led away to prison?

Speaker 51 No.

Speaker 37 Because it's not bringing Donita back.

Speaker 76 I thought I would feel different.

Speaker 76 I did.

Speaker 80 All right. We're going to be in research for 15 minutes.

Speaker 57 During the short break, the judge thanked the jury for their service and dismissed them.

Speaker 27 Then Shannon was returned to the courtroom for formal sentencing.

Speaker 24 It was then that Sharon Smith was allowed to speak directly to the woman now convicted of murdering her daughter.

Speaker 39 You took my baby away from me.

Speaker 77 And it wasn't your place to do that because you didn't give a till.

Speaker 51 And right now,

Speaker 51 I hope you are healed.

Speaker 57 When offered a chance to speak, Shannon Crawley said nothing.

Speaker 32 Then, before announcing her sentence, Judge Stevens had this to say about the man at the center of this hurricane of passion and madness, a man who was not present in the courtroom that day.

Speaker 27 The judge said, quote, Jermeer Stroud caused a perfect storm to happen and then walked away from it, unquote.

Speaker 33 With that said, the judge sentenced Shannon Crawley to life without parole.

Speaker 25 Moments later, the Crawley family spoke with reporters in a crowded hallway outside the courtroom.

Speaker 81 And now my daughter, who is the perfect victim, the perfect victim for someone like Jameer Stroud,

Speaker 81 has now been convicted for a murder he committed.

Speaker 32 The greatest crimes, it is said, are crimes of injustice.

Speaker 19 Crimes where, in the eyes of the beholder, at least, The guilty are excused and the innocent punished.

Speaker 18 In this case,

Speaker 17 there was plenty of pain to go around.

Speaker 41 I mean, one mom's not going to see their child ever again. And this other mom loses her child too.

Speaker 31 Detective Sean Pate.

Speaker 41 In Shannon's case, her family lost a daughter as well. And

Speaker 41 two kids lost a mom.

Speaker 41 So while I was pleased for Denita's family, You know, I still looked at Shannon's family and I felt their pain as well.

Speaker 38 Murders don't happen in a vacuum.

Speaker 23 No, they don't.

Speaker 19 There's always a big ripple effect.

Speaker 41 One selfish act destroyed two families.

Speaker 14 And the guilty party in this morality play?

Speaker 21 A jury had said it was Shannon.

Speaker 31 And what about Jermir?

Speaker 15 If the Smiths and the Crawleys agree on anything, it's probably that both families would be whole today if not for the man they had in common, Jermir Stroud.

Speaker 43 The judge said Jarmeer created the perfect storm of

Speaker 38 this to happen.

Speaker 50 Right, right, right, that's right.

Speaker 35 And I remember having that thought, thinking, yes, but.

Speaker 40 Prosecutor David Sachs.

Speaker 35 I agree with the judge that, yes, I think he did create the storm and he created the circumstances that led to Danita's death, but he's not responsible.

Speaker 35 At the end, it comes down to the person who pulls that trigger.

Speaker 20 True enough, perhaps, in the eyes of the law.

Speaker 72 For Sharon Smith, there is still a cosmic account, one yet to be squared.

Speaker 37 I do know

Speaker 19 that

Speaker 37 my belief is that

Speaker 37 Jameer is going to pay for this one day, and he's probably paying for it now, but he's going to pay for it.

Speaker 23 Call it karma or conscience or the universal law of what goes around comes around.

Speaker 70 The idea is that the culpable must somehow bear the burden of their choices.

Speaker 69 Well, I'm not going to put it and say he'll be judged.

Speaker 22 Donita Smith's friend, Edith Kearns.

Speaker 69 What I do believe is that when situations like that happen, your conscience or your mind and your heart, you're dealing with these things.

Speaker 69 So I feel like that's something that's always going to be on the inside and that, you know, he will be dealing with. And so I can imagine that's a difficult burden to bear.

Speaker 62 Jameer Stroud now lives in another state and is the married father of two.

Speaker 53 He declined to speak with us for this podcast. Had she lived, Danita Smith would now be in her mid-40s.

Speaker 26 Who knows what kind of career she might have had, what kind of mother she might have become.

Speaker 43 Her mother, Sharon, has made peace with all of that and moved on with her life.

Speaker 61 It's what she says Danita would have wanted her to do.

Speaker 37 Donita wouldn't want me to be sitting and being bitter

Speaker 66 or sad.

Speaker 66 Denita's not with me physically, but she's with me spiritually.

Speaker 74 I don't have to worry about Shannon.

Speaker 64 I don't have to worry about Jumir.

Speaker 37 Because when I lay down at night, I get a peaceful sleep.

Speaker 74 I don't know if they do.

Speaker 2 This podcast is a production of Dateline and NBC News.

Speaker 63 Tim Beacham is the producer.

Speaker 19 Marshall Hausfeld, Brian Drew, Deb Brown, and Billy Ray are audio editors.

Speaker 32 Kimberly Flores Gaynor is associate producer.

Speaker 65 Adam Gorfane is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer.
And Liz Cole is senior executive producer.

Speaker 16 From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Rich Cutler, Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.

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