Deadly Engagement - Ep. 1: The Telltale SUV

Transcript

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Speaker 10 It was early, too early for most college students, especially during Christmas break. Then again, Donita Smith was not one for sleeping in.

Speaker 10 At 25, Danita was as disciplined as a Marine,

Speaker 10 maybe because she had a lot on her plate. As a grad student at North Carolina Central University in Durham, Danita was just months away from finishing her master's degree in English.

Speaker 10 Schoolwork, volunteer work, a magazine internship, and a wedding to plan.

Speaker 10 Anyway, it was the internship that had her up at that hour. The bosses liked her to be at her desk by 8.15 a.m.

Speaker 10 It was eight minutes after eight when Donita opened her door on the third floor and started down the stairs.

Speaker 10 Did Donita see someone waiting on the second floor landing? We'll never know. We do know that as she turned to take the last set of 16 steps down to the parking lot,

Speaker 10 a bullet pierced the back of Donita's head and sent her tumbling down the stairs.

Speaker 10 For nearly two hours, Donita Smith lay in motionless repose on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building, building 1100, completely unnoticed until another student stepped out of his apartment and saw the contents of Danita's pocketbook scattered on the stairs.

Speaker 10 He dialed 911.

Speaker 10 Dial 911, where's your emergency? I take this girl to stay down the stairs. I just walked out of my apartment.
She's at the bottom of the stairs, head button up and blood everywhere. Okay.

Speaker 10 And is she breathing? Um, I can't tell, I don't want to touch it. Do you want me to touch it? Uh, if you can look at her or if you can just observe her, is there the girl?

Speaker 10 Hello,

Speaker 10 thank you, sir. Okay, she responded to you at all.
Uh, she's not even moving, okay. All right, just so you know, the ambulance is already on the way.

Speaker 10 Uh, do you want me to get her ID out of her pocketbook? If you can, if you feel comfortable doing that,

Speaker 10 her name is Denita Monique Schmidt. Denita,

Speaker 10 oh, she ain't moving, man.

Speaker 10 I'm tired.

Speaker 10 This is the story of what happened to Donita Smith and the hunt for a killer. It's about love and hate, trust and betrayal.
It's about truth and lies and the deadliest of sins. Lust,

Speaker 10 pride, envy.

Speaker 10 and wrath.

Speaker 18 It just shows you that, man, our actions have consequences.

Speaker 10 and it may seem as though is a you know we're all grown-ups here but stuff happens

Speaker 20 and in this situation some pretty bad stuff happened.

Speaker 10 Oh yes this is a story about bad stuff all right.

Speaker 10 It's about revenge and the reckoning that eventually comes for anyone with a conscience.

Speaker 19 One selfish act destroyed two families.

Speaker 22 I want her remembered for her intelligence, for her beauty, for her class.

Speaker 22 Someone who just entered your life and made it even more spectacular than before. Just a bright light in this world.

Speaker 10 I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Deadly Engagement, a podcast from Dateline.

Speaker 10 Episode 1.

Speaker 10 The Telltale SUV.

Speaker 10 When the EMTs arrived, they rolled Danita Smith's body onto her back and methodically set out to confirm the obvious. Lips blue, no pulse.
Her pupils fixed and dilated. Danita Smith was gone.

Speaker 10 At first glance, it looked as if her death could have been caused by a slip and fall. Maybe even a tumble down the stairs during a snatch-and-grab robbery attempt.

Speaker 10 Robbery, however, seemed an unlikely motive. Her cash and credit cards were still in her wallet.
and Donita was still wearing a gold necklace, earrings, and

Speaker 10 a diamond engagement ring.

Speaker 10 No, this felt like murder. Those suspicions were confirmed when the forensic team located a small hole, about the size of a pencil eraser, in the back of Danita's head.

Speaker 10 It was around 11.45 when a detective in his mid-30s ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and walked up to the sheet-covered body on the sidewalk.

Speaker 10 He looked as if he just stepped onto the set of a TV crime drama. Salt and pepper hair, black leather coat, black shoes and pants, white shirt, gray tie, and a badge.

Speaker 19 So by the time we get there, the scene is pretty well established and we're immediately briefed as far as

Speaker 19 what injuries, what witnesses, who the caller is, the whole nine yards.

Speaker 10 That's the voice of lead detective Sean Pate. Though Pate had been with the department for 13 years,

Speaker 10 he was still new to being murder police. This one would be his first homicide case.

Speaker 19 I wasn't really nervous because it was the first murder I investigated, but it wasn't the first crime.

Speaker 19 Before that, I came from special victims units, and the only difference is in special victims, usually your victim can talk.

Speaker 10 His first step running the investigation was to look for witnesses. The campus crossings apartment complex is about two miles from the NCCU campus.

Speaker 10 Although a lot of college students lived there during the school year, most had not yet returned from their Christmas break.

Speaker 10 Those who said they'd heard a loud bang that morning had actually seen nothing.

Speaker 10 and had little of value to tell the detective.

Speaker 19 One person told me that they remember hearing one shot. A couple people said that it was more than one.
It was probably the echo bouncing off the buildings.

Speaker 10 Because Denita was killed with one bullet. One bullet.
And you didn't find any other slugs anywhere. No, that's it.

Speaker 10 By early afternoon, the campus crossing's apartment building where Donita Smith had died was crawling with cops and investigators.

Speaker 10 Agents from the State Bureau of Investigation helped canvas the complex and the campus, looking for witnesses and also anyone who could tell them something about the murder victim.

Speaker 19 After we started asking around, we realized that Danita was getting ready to graduate in a couple of months. She was actually looking to go to possibly Ohio State to get her PhD.

Speaker 19 We learned that she was actually one of the more popular people on North Carolina Central's campus.

Speaker 19 A lot of people in the apartment complex and at North Carolina Central University were really devastated.

Speaker 10 So this wasn't somebody who was going through life unnoticed.

Speaker 19 Oh no, this was a rising star.

Speaker 10 A talented photographer for the campus newspaper, Danita had done a summer fellowship with the New York Times. A gifted writer, she'd volunteered at the campus writing lab, mentoring underclassmen.

Speaker 10 She was an editorial intern at QRS. a fast food industry magazine based in Durham.
And on top of that, she'd recently gotten engaged to a man who'd been a couple of years ahead of her at NCCU.

Speaker 10 They'd been dating since her freshman days.

Speaker 19 They were like the it couple.

Speaker 10 Those first minutes of police work revealed to Detective Pate one clear truth. Danita Smith had a lot of friends in Durham.

Speaker 19 Everybody kind of was jealous of her and her relationship, that she had a...

Speaker 19 a well-educated boyfriend that was fairly successful at his job. And she seemed to be going places.

Speaker 19 And I guess that's why she had so many people that she mentored because they wanted to go in that same direction.

Speaker 10 One woman who heard the commotion that morning stepped outside her apartment and spoke with an officer who happened to be standing nearby.

Speaker 19 And she said, that's my roommate.

Speaker 19 And then the reporting officer said, well, how do you know that's your roommate? And she said, well, one, I'm looking at her. Secondly, that's the purse she carries.

Speaker 19 She recognized her key ring and all the stuff that were strewn down the steps.

Speaker 10 Donita's roommate told investigators she was in bed when Donita left the apartment that morning. She said she remembered hearing the apartment door close.

Speaker 10 And right after that, a loud bang.

Speaker 10 The sound was so loud, she said, she rolled over and looked out the window beside her bed. She saw a man in a black truck truck pull to a stop alongside someone in a burgundy SUV.

Speaker 19 She doesn't see anything else out of place and

Speaker 19 she lays back down after that and she did glance at the clock and see that it was, I think, 8.18, 8.19.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 19 that's all she knew until she woke up later on and all the commotion was out because Danita was not actually found until after 10 a.m.

Speaker 10 As the roommate told her story, the investigators started to get a sense that the roommate's relationship with Danita was...

Speaker 10 off.

Speaker 10 She didn't seem as emotionally connected as others who'd known Danita well. She just didn't speak of her recently murdered roommate with the same tone of admiration.

Speaker 10 Oh, she talked about herself freely enough, her family, at her hometown. No problem there.

Speaker 10 It was when the detective asked the roommate how Danita had gotten on with the roommate's boyfriend. Well,

Speaker 10 that seemed to be a sensitive subject. And the roommate clammed up.

Speaker 19 And something just didn't feel right there. I mean, you're telling me about yourself.
You're telling me about your mother. But you won't talk to me about your boyfriend.

Speaker 19 So that kind of drew my attention that day.

Speaker 10 Eventually, the roommate did tell the detective her boyfriend and Danita had recently had words. Over what?

Speaker 10 She didn't remember. So you start looking at the boyfriend.

Speaker 19 Looking at the boyfriend and looking at her also.

Speaker 10 What'd you do to do that?

Speaker 19 First thing we did is we put a tracker on her car. She wouldn't tell us where her boyfriend was.
So during one point in the investigation, we put a tracker on her car.

Speaker 10 It was just a hunch. The kind detectives get when they've got nothing else.
No evidence, no witnesses, no suspects. Sometimes it comes on them like an unscratchable itch between the shoulder blades.

Speaker 10 The detective wondered if, perhaps, Danita Smith was not as universally loved as he first thought.

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Speaker 10 Donita's mom, Sharon Smith, was at work that Thursday morning when her phone rang.

Speaker 29 My son called me and said, Mom, Donita fell down the steps at her apartment. You need to call.

Speaker 29 He Gave me the guy's name.

Speaker 10 So I did.

Speaker 29 And he told me, he said, Miss Smith, Danita fell.

Speaker 29 She's unconscious, but they're trying to revive her.

Speaker 10 This was somebody who worked at the college. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 29 And so he said, are you coming to Durham?

Speaker 29 And I'm still trying to wrap my head around,

Speaker 29 you fell. unconscious, revive.

Speaker 29 I said, yes, I'm coming.

Speaker 10 How far away is that?

Speaker 29 Two hours.

Speaker 10 So you get in the car.

Speaker 29 So I went to school. My youngest,

Speaker 29 she was a senior in high school, picked her up, went home, got my son, and we hit the road going north on the 85.

Speaker 10 It's possible the person Sharon spoke with didn't know Danita was already in the next life.

Speaker 10 It's also possible that person didn't want to be the one to break that kind of news to a mother who was about to get behind the wheel. And Sharon Smith had a lot of people she needed to reach out to.

Speaker 10 One of the first was Denita's fiancé, Jarmir Stroud, who was a police officer in Greensboro.

Speaker 29 And I said, Jameer, I need you to get to Durham.

Speaker 29 Now, Denita has fell. She's unconsciously trying to revive.

Speaker 29 Because I knew from Greensboro to Durham, he would be there before I would. He said, well, I'm getting ready to go to work.
No, you get me to go to Durham.

Speaker 29 I need you to go to Durham.

Speaker 10 I'm on my way.

Speaker 29 I'm on the highway. I need you to get there.
He said, okay. He said, well, let me call and see what I can find out.

Speaker 29 And so he did.

Speaker 10 There was a lot for Sharon and her two younger children to think about between phone calls on that long ride to Durham. Each, no doubt, said silent prayers while they watched the gray highway roll by.

Speaker 10 Each desperately hoping for Danita's full recovery.

Speaker 29 She was a happy person. Everybody loved her.
She loved everybody.

Speaker 10 Danita was Sharon's firstborn and to her mind the girl had been blessed at birth with both beauty and brains, the drive to excel, and the talent to succeed.

Speaker 29 As a child,

Speaker 29 Danita either wanted to take the picture or she wanted to be in the picture. She's always loved

Speaker 10 the camera.

Speaker 29 The camera was her friend. The camera was her way of expressing herself.

Speaker 29 And she would see things

Speaker 29 that probably the average person wouldn't see.

Speaker 10 Whatever it is that makes a good photographer, Denita had it.

Speaker 10 She had a way of anticipating the telling moment and capturing its essence. It didn't matter if that was a news conference, a sporting event, or a birthday party.

Speaker 10 Sharon recalled conversations, particularly after Donita's summer fellowship with the New York Times, in which her daughter spoke about having an exciting career in journalism.

Speaker 10 Now she was within months of getting her master's in English. And lately, Donita seemed to be thinking about extending her education.
She was talking about getting a PhD.

Speaker 10 Sharon was about halfway to Durham when her phone rang again.

Speaker 10 This time it was the NCCU campus police.

Speaker 29 He said, Ms. Smith, where are you at? At that time, we were just

Speaker 10 on

Speaker 29 this side of Greensboro. He said, okay.
He said, well, when you get here, come to the clubhouse. Not the apartment.
He said, no, come to the clubhouse.

Speaker 10 That's when Sharon Smith pressed the gas pedal a little harder.

Speaker 10 As her car sped toward Durham, she half expected another call from someone telling her to go directly to the hospital where her daughter was being treated. That call never came.

Speaker 10 It was about 10.15 that morning when Danita's best friend Edith Kearns got her first hint of trouble over at the campus crossings apartments.

Speaker 10 It came in a phone call from someone who lived in the apartment directly below Donita Smith.

Speaker 22 And they were like, By any chance, have you spoken to Denita this morning?

Speaker 22 I said, well, no, I said, but it'll probably in a little while, you know, she'll call or something on my break and we'll talk like we normally do.

Speaker 22 And they were saying, it's like something going on out here, like somebody heard some strange noises early in the morning.

Speaker 10 Edith and Danita had been close since their undergrad days at NCCU.

Speaker 10 They had shared an apartment Denita's senior year. And the night before, they'd talked on the phone, laughing and joking about money, movies, and wedding plans.

Speaker 22 And she's like, well, yeah, we're going to make an appointment soon to start looking at like bridesmaid dresses or, you know, figure out how we're going to do this.

Speaker 10 As soon as Edith got word there was police activity outside Donita's apartment building that morning, Edith dialed Danita's number.

Speaker 22 I want to make sure she's safe, so I was calling her phone and she wasn't answering, which was, you know, after I call your phone several times as a best friend, you know, somebody's going to call you back.

Speaker 22 So I was like, that's strange. So my instinct just said, call Jameer really quick just to touch bases with him.

Speaker 10 Danita and Jermir were already the it couple on campus when Edith met Danita. And over the years, Edith had come to think of Jermir as a big brother.

Speaker 22 And so I spoke to Jameer and I'm like, have you made contact with her? But I felt like I didn't get a definite answer.

Speaker 10 What do you mean?

Speaker 22 When I said, did you speak with her? And he didn't really give me a yes or a no. He was kind of asking me, are you trying to get in contact with her? And I'm like, yes.

Speaker 22 I heard there may be some concerns at the complex. So, you know, I just want to check, make sure everything's okay.

Speaker 10 And what did Jameer say?

Speaker 22 He was like, well, sit tight and give me a little while and I'll try to call you back if I hear anything.

Speaker 10 What Jameer did not say. was that he'd already heard from Sharon Smith, Danita's mom.
And he also did not mention that at that very moment, he was on the highway headed for Durham.

Speaker 22 He just sounded a little rushed like, Edith, sit tight, stay calm. I'm sure, you know, we'll get to her.
So just let me talk to her first. You go back to your work morning and we'll go from there.

Speaker 10 Well, Edith was not about to sit tight and wait. Not when the well-being of her best friend was in question.

Speaker 22 So pretty much my family gets off work and they come get me and they escort me to campus crossings.

Speaker 10 Like Donita's mom, Sharon, Edith was directed to the Campus Crossings Clubhouse about 100 yards from Donita's apartment.

Speaker 10 It was there that some of the most important people in Donita's life would learn the brutal, undeniable truth.

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Speaker 10 When Edith Kearns entered the large high-ceilinged clubhouse at the campus crossings apartments, she saw several people standing around in conversational clusters.

Speaker 10 Most had grim faces and a few looked as if they'd been crying.

Speaker 22 I saw my professors from my program when I graduated and he's like, Edith, what are you doing here? And I'm like,

Speaker 22 I'm here to kind of see what's going on. I'm like, I'm here to check on my friend Danita, actually.

Speaker 29 Like, I've been calling her.

Speaker 22 I was like, what are you all doing here? They were like, unfortunately, she's not alive.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 22 everything in me, you know, just went into shock, of course. I was like, are you sure? I'm like, maybe it's a mistaken identity.
This can't be.

Speaker 22 And they were like, sweetheart, you know, the ID and, you know, just things to identify her by were there and nearby. And they said, we're sure.

Speaker 10 For a few minutes, the world stopped turning. All Edith could do was sob and gasp for breath.

Speaker 10 And then across the room, she caught sight of the one person she thought might need a comforting hug even more than she did.

Speaker 22 The family had not arrived there yet. Jameer was there already.

Speaker 10 How'd Jameer look?

Speaker 22 Like a blank expression.

Speaker 10 He was calm.

Speaker 22 I think he was a little concerned about me because I was just in full-blown tears by then. And I walked over to him and I'm just like, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 22 And he was just kind of quiet and he was like, you know, it's going to be okay. Calm down.

Speaker 10 And I'm like, what happened?

Speaker 22 Where did this come from? I just spoke to her last night and everything sounded fine, seemed fine. And I'm just so sorry.

Speaker 22 I was like, my heart is breaking right now and it's breaking for you too, because this is your future wife. And that was pretty much.
how that conversation went.

Speaker 10 Right around then is when Sharon Smith and the rest rest of her family walked through the glass doors to the clubhouse and into the worst news of their lives.

Speaker 29 So they took us in a room and I told them, I said, well, is Jameer here? And they said, yes, he's here. They said, well, do you want him in here? I said, yeah.

Speaker 29 Because I didn't know what they were getting ready to say.

Speaker 29 And so,

Speaker 29 because I'm thinking, okay, you need to say this so I can get to the hospital.

Speaker 29 And so Jameer, they went and got him. And so that's when they explained that Danita was found and

Speaker 29 she was dead.

Speaker 29 And

Speaker 29 at that point, my life just changed

Speaker 10 completely.

Speaker 29 Everybody lost it, including Jameer. Jameer already knew once he got there because he's an officer.

Speaker 10 Do you remember what Jameer said?

Speaker 29 Jameer didn't say anything. Jameer cried.

Speaker 29 We all cried, but he cried. He didn't really say a whole lot.

Speaker 10 Investigators weren't saying much either. Even though a bullet hole had been found in the back of Donita's skull earlier in the day, police did not tell the family they suspected homicide.

Speaker 10 As far as family and friends gathered at the clubhouse were concerned, Donita Smith's death had been the result of a bad fall.

Speaker 10 Detective Pate was still thinking about Donita's uncooperative roommate when a veteran sergeant in plain clothes walked up and told him there was someone he needed to interview.

Speaker 19 Sergeant Cates told me that Michael Hedgepeth was the maintenance supervisor and he had a description of a person that left the area that day and it was near the sound.

Speaker 19 So obviously I wanted to speak to that person.

Speaker 10 The detective found Michael Hedgepeth at the apartment complex office. He told the detective that sometime between 8 and 8.30 that morning, he'd been outside smoking a cigarette

Speaker 10 when he heard a loud bang coming from the direction of Building 600.

Speaker 19 When he heard the sound, he looked to the left

Speaker 19 and he saw a black female about 5'10, so I mean almost 6 feet grabs his eyes, a thin build, and she was walking very quickly away from the direction of the sound.

Speaker 10 Hedgebeth said he got into his black pickup and headed in that direction.

Speaker 19 And as he's driving, he encounters a female in a Burgundy SUV.

Speaker 19 He stops her and he weighs her down. And as soon as she rolls down the window, he looks and can tell she looks distraught.
So he asks her, Did you hear what sounded like a gunshot?

Speaker 19 And she has her hands over her mouth and she's shaking her head up and down, indicating yes.

Speaker 10 This woman looked

Speaker 10 frightened or

Speaker 19 I think he said like she was distraught.

Speaker 10 The SUV's rear windows were tinted. So so Hedgepeth said he couldn't tell if the young woman was in the vehicle alone.

Speaker 10 He did notice she was wearing some kind of greenish-colored uniform shirt with a patch on the sleeve that had some red in it.

Speaker 19 He says, wait right here. So he drives around the building to see if, you know, if there's anyone down or anything, but he goes in the direction of building 600.

Speaker 19 And building 600 and 1100 aren't as far apart as the numbers would indicate.

Speaker 10 Hedgepeth told the detective that as he was circling around the complex in the area where he thought the loud bang had come from, he again encountered the woman driving the Burgundy SUV.

Speaker 19 She's still sitting there with her hands over her face, and he says, You know what? Just stay right here. I'm going to call the police.

Speaker 10 Time 911, where is your emergency?

Speaker 10 Can't be called reporting.

Speaker 10 This is that call to 911.

Speaker 10 It was placed at 818,

Speaker 10 nearly two hours before Danita Smith's body was found. We hear a gun shot coming from somewhere around here.

Speaker 10 You know,

Speaker 10 I don't know exactly what it's at, but you can hear it. How many shots did you hear? About like two.

Speaker 10 Do you know if anybody's injured or? No,

Speaker 10 the young lady that says though, if she heard it too, she like upset and shaken and stuff like that.

Speaker 10 We'll have to go out as soon as possible. All right.
thank you.

Speaker 10 Within minutes of that call, a Durham Police Department squad car had arrived at the campus crossing's apartments.

Speaker 10 Although the patrol car cruised around the buildings where the maintenance man said he thought the loud bang had come from,

Speaker 10 they never drove past Building 1100. If they had,

Speaker 10 They would have seen Danita's body on the sidewalk.

Speaker 10 As for that woman in the burgundy SUV, well, she had evaporated like the morning dew.

Speaker 10 What do you make of that?

Speaker 19 That's kind of like Mick the Hearing the Back of One Stand-Up.

Speaker 10 It was a tantalizing tidbit, to be sure. Unfortunately, it was nothing the detective could really follow up.
After all, there had to be thousands of burgundy SUVs in the Raleigh-Durham area.

Speaker 10 And the maintenance man had failed to get the license plate of the only one that mattered.

Speaker 10 We didn't even have a brand.

Speaker 19 It could have been anything, any year.

Speaker 10 Early the next morning, Jarmeer Stroud checked out of his hotel room and headed home to Greensboro. He hadn't been on the road long when curiosity got the better of him.

Speaker 10 Jameer called the Durham Police Department to ask if they knew the cause of Danita's death. It wasn't long before a supervisor from Homicide came on the phone.

Speaker 10 Hours earlier, the coroner had made it official. Donita Smith had been killed by a bullet to the brain.
The slug was too mangled to determine the kind of gun used.

Speaker 10 The coroner said it likely came from a.38-caliber handgun fired from at least two feet away from the back of Donita's head.

Speaker 10 When that supervisor came on the line, Jermir quickly discovered the cop had more questions than he did,

Speaker 10 beginning with this one.

Speaker 19 Do you know anyone that drives a Burgundy SUV? And he said, oh my God.

Speaker 19 Those were his exact words. He said, oh my God, I'm turning around now.

Speaker 10 Later in this series.

Speaker 19 The shame in his eyes was, it was there for everyone to see. Everyone to see.

Speaker 10 I heard a shot.

Speaker 29 Not even a minute later, he was running down the stairs and he was putting the gun down in his waistband.

Speaker 30 You are the suspect in this case, and so I am not sharing information with you. I will get information from you if you want to give it, but I'm not going to give you any information.

Speaker 22 The hardest thing for me is that knowing my child and knowing that no one believes her.

Speaker 10 This podcast is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Tim Beacham is the producer.
Marshall Hausfeld, Brian Drew, Deb Brown, John Coster, and Billy Ray are audio editors.

Speaker 10 Kimberly Flores Gaynor is associate producer. Adam Gorfane is co-executive producer.
Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer.

Speaker 10 From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Rich Cutler, Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.

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