Rebecca Smith

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They were two young veterans making a new life in the civilian world.

I could kind of see how he would just be drawn to her.

She referred to him sometimes as a big kid.

He seemed to have a really great sense of humor.

He wanted their relationship to turn out to be the American dream.

They were going to have some kids and they were just going to have a happy life.

But when media reports about a John Doe hit the airwaves, the American dream turns into a deadly nightmare.

The body had been dumped in the ditch.

He was wearing only a white t-shirt and a wedding ring.

Was there some type of sexual assault?

As investigators piece together evidence, they uncover clear signs of a killer.

If you have a type of personality that leads to that type of anger situation, we went to them with the idea that we're intentionally involved in homicide.

The noose was getting tighter and tighter and tighter.

Who are you protecting?

I'm not protecting my

people.

The people we have cleared, obviously, are not suspects, but everybody else remains.

Does that mean I remain?

You betcha.

December 19th, 2002, 11:30 a.m.

A local scavenger in Springfield Township, Michigan is hoping to turn trash into treasure.

An individual down near Oak Hill Road was collecting cans and bottles for purposes of cashing them in for deposit.

But as he scans a roadside ditch for recyclables, he makes a chilling discovery.

Those of them found a body.

The man immediately alerts local authorities.

When the call came in, we were just advised that a body had been found and the entire unit was sent up there to start the investigation.

Homicide investigators soon joined first responders at the scene.

It's going to be a little bit fear, right?

Yeah, I see it now.

The body was in a, what I refer to as a semi-fetal position.

A knees were drawn up, arms across the chest.

He was wearing only a white t-shirt and a wedding ring.

The investigators make a determination that he had been shot.

We discovered he had two bullet holes in him.

They had the victim there, but they had no idea who the victim was.

So the first thing you do, you gotta find out who it is.

Police are unable to locate any official identification at the scene, but they do find something else that might help.

The only distinctive features were the fact that he had a large Rim Reaper tattoo on one arm.

We started trying to figure out how to identify the body.

Ultimately, we went to the media with a picture of the tattoo.

Less than 24 hours later, the media exposure pays off.

Just after 6 a.m.

on December 20th, 2002, the Oakland County Sheriff's Department is contacted about the John Doe's distinctive ink.

They had received a call from a woman who said that she suspected that that the body was her husband's.

I saw the picture of it.

You think so?

Yeah.

What's your husband's name?

Michael Smith.

What is your name?

Dr.

Smith.

Born on August 26th, 1974, Rebecca Jordan grew up in Berkeley, Michigan, an idyllic suburb of Detroit.

I think she had a great childhood.

She was quiet, nice, sweet.

She always wanted to be a mom.

That was her main thing.

As soon as she graduated high school, Rebecca got married to her first love, Jason.

Rebecca and Jason were high school sweethearts.

He was a good guy, you know, they just married young.

While Jason began pursuing a career in film, Rebecca decided to follow a very different calling.

She joined the Navy.

She wanted to see the world.

Her grandfather was also in the military, so she thought that was really cool that she would do that.

In January 1995, Rebecca headed to basic training in Tennessee.

The distance from home put a strain on her marriage.

She got into the military and it just didn't work out.

They just grew apart.

Rebecca became fast friends with her fellow recruits and found common ground with one in particular.

22-year-old Michael Smith also knew the struggle of going through training with a spouse at home.

He was in the class with her along with a couple other friends that she met.

They were both married.

Two years older than Rebecca, Mike was originally from Bartow, Florida.

From a young age, Mike had rebellious tendencies.

He got into trouble at school.

He was disruptive and he, you know, liked to run around with his friends and party.

When he drank, he drank quite a bit.

I I think they maybe refer to it as binge drinking.

In 1990, after dropping out of high school, Mike attended a rehabilitation program to get his life back on track.

Mike soon became close with the program's pastor, and the experience pointed him in a new direction.

The pastor there had called him in, feeling very strongly that he was called to be an evangelist.

He was so excited he called me to tell me.

Shortly after Mike changed his ways, he began dating a woman named Penny.

And after just a few months together, they got a life-changing surprise.

Penny got pregnant, so then they started making arrangements to get married.

In 1993, 21-year-old Mike became the father of a baby girl, and he and Penny tied the knot.

Michael loved his daughter very much.

She was just a baby when they got married.

Mike tried to settle into the family life, but it wasn't long before he started to relapse.

He was drinking and he was doing things that wasn't good for a marriage, so the marriage just ended up not doing well.

Penny encouraged Michael to enlist in the military as a way to save their marriage.

He was just not very happy with the way his life was going.

It was kind of going in all the wrong directions.

So he decides to go in the Navy.

And that's where he met Rebecca.

As Mike and Rebecca bonded over their marriage struggles, the friendship soon turned into something more.

I could kind of see how he would just be drawn to her.

She referred to Michael sometimes as a big kid.

You know, he seemed to have a really great sense of humor.

As her feelings for Michael grew, Rebecca decided to come clean with her husband, Jason.

Becca and Jason announced, well, you know, we decided we're getting a divorce.

It was very amicable.

They both realized that they were too young when they got married.

Michael also brought his struggling marriage to an end.

Penny and Michael were together, I think it was four years, and then they divorced.

Michael and Rebecca left the Navy and were now free to follow their hearts.

They didn't have a relationship until after they both separated from their spouses.

Michael really loved Rebecca.

It was just the way he

was about her.

It just made me feel like he really loved her.

In 1997, the couple discovered they were pregnant.

They were very excited about her getting pregnant.

I believe he wanted their relationship to turn out to be the American dream, you know.

that they were going to have some kids and they were just going to have a happy life.

With a child on the way, the couple returned to Rebecca's hometown of Berkeley, Michigan.

There, they welcomed their first son, Josh, on November 17th, 1997.

Josh was everything.

That was her baby.

You know, she just loved him to death.

Then in 2001, Rebecca, she was pregnant again.

Michael was, he was very excited.

After their second son was born, Rebecca poured herself into her children.

Rebecca and Michael, when they were raising their kids, she was a good mother to them.

She was very loving and caring.

She was always there for us, me and my brother.

But in 2001, the family fell on hard times when Mike was injured during a job.

He tore something in his shoulder at work and was just out of work.

He was still struggling with alcohol addiction.

And I think that Rebecca did probably condemn him for that.

I know that they struggled with rent a lot of times.

I think that they had to live with her family quite a bit.

After nearly a year of struggling, Mike found work at a car dealership, and things seemed to be looking up.

Michael, he had a job at the Chrysler as a salesman, and he just felt like he could get his life straightened out.

But Mike's progress is cut short on December 20th, 2002, when Rebecca and her family recognize Mike's tattoo on local news and contact authorities.

Okay, Sergeant Wartz is on the line and he's going to talk to you.

I understand you suspect we might be talking about your husband.

Yes, I know that.

Now, has he ever been arrested?

Yes.

What for?

Uh, DUI.

With a lead on an identity, investigators search their system for a forensic match.

Mike had been arrested previously, so we had someone else go over to a neighboring community and get a set of his fingerprints which confirmed Mike's identity.

With their John Doe identified, investigators can focus on finding out how 30-year-old Mike Smith ended up dead on the side of the road.

The body is taken into custody by the Oakland County Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy.

And at that point, we're pretty much stuck until we get an autopsy report, because despite two bullet holes that may or may not be the cause of death, that figures into the investigation.

Coming up, detectives trace the victim's final moments.

I dropped him off at the bus station, too, saying you're supposed to go back to Pukada, and I haven't heard so fit.

And a trail of lies leads to a killer.

I think that all led to a certain amount of frustration and enhanced anger.

December 20th, 2002, Oakland County, Michigan.

Authorities have positively identified a John Doe murder victim as 30-year-old husband and father, Mike Smith.

It's absolutely tortured me seeing my father's tattoo on TV and hearing that he had been shot twice.

That's actually one of the most vivid memories in my mind.

18 hours after their initial survey of the scene, investigators returned to the body discovery site in search of more evidence.

We did have deputies go back and in a fairly large number and do a physical search of both sides of the roadway, down into the ditch and such.

We did check for our bullet casings, bullets, anything in the area.

A thorough search of the area comes up dry.

It was obvious that the body had been dumped in the ditch.

That was not the place as to where the victim was murdered.

Our guess was that he had been removed from a vehicle at the top of the road and rolled down the slope.

In search of a witness who might be able to validate their suspicions, investigators canvass passing motorists.

The gentleman who'd found the body was determined that he just had stumbled on his body.

So we had our traffic unit set up at either end of the road and stopped all the cars that were coming through.

We asked them if they'd seen anything the night before, the day before.

It's pretty much standard procedure.

You don't hold out a lot of hope, but every now and then you get lucky.

But we didn't.

With no new leads, detectives go to the home of Mike's widow, 28-year-old Rebecca Smith.

You never know how people are going to react when you tell them that they've lost a family member or a loved one.

She was collected.

I mean, I think she's a pretty strong person to start with.

We went through the basic information at that point and then asked, you know, obviously, when's the last time you you saw Mike?

Her initial statement was that her husband had made plans to go to Florida to do an alcohol rehab.

And on December 10th, around 6 o'clock or 6:30, I believe she said she picked him up at his work and then took him down to the Royal Oak bus station.

She dropped him off in the back parking lot of the McDonald's, so he had to walk across the street to get him to the bus station.

I think he had $115 or $120 on him.

Rebecca says that Mike had long struggled with alcoholism, but had been improving in the past year, until financial stress drove him back to his old habits.

He wasn't making a lot of money to start with.

Becko was making less than that, so there's money problems.

When he was an alcoholic, he wasn't that pleasant to be around.

But when he would be sober, he would pick up his Bible and just go totally the opposite way.

Michael Michael was drinking a lot.

You know, they get behind on their bills and stuff.

Rebecca didn't like him drinking like he did because she wanted him to

not be irresponsible.

He has a family, you know, he's got kids.

According to Rebecca, when the Smith family received an eviction notice in late November, Mike knew he had to make a change.

Michael was a born-again Christian.

Michael was drinking a lot, and he knew that he was not supposed to be doing that, that the Lord was not pleased with that.

Rebecca said Mike was going back to programming to been in as a young adult.

She said that Mike had quit his job to go into this program.

It was an effort to save their marriage.

He just knew that I've got something going on, and it seems like that I'm not able to control it.

I do need some help to control this.

After speaking with Rebecca, detectives head to the Royal Oak bus station to search for record of Mike's travel.

We go to the station trying to verify when the bus went, where it went, if he was on the bus.

It turned out that on December 10th, Michael Smith did not buy a ticket to go to Florida.

We had been through the passenger roster, and there was nobody that matched Mike's information.

Mike doesn't appear on any of the station's security cameras either.

As I recall, nobody even bought a ticket to go to Florida that night.

We were starting to believe Mike had never gotten on the bus.

Did Mike have second thoughts about going to rehab, or had something more sinister happened after Rebecca dropped him off?

For more insight, detectives contact Mike's family in Florida, who have already heard the devastating news from Rebecca.

When she said Michael was dead, I just

kind of just.

I couldn't take it.

What, what?

What is this?

You know, it can't be true.

What happened to him?

How did he die?

What's going on?

As detectives speak to Mike's mother, she confirms that her son's drinking had been a problem for years, but Mike was trying to get help.

He called me in November and he wanted me to send him a plane ticket.

He wanted to fly down and work on some of his issues.

But he said, hurry up because he was afraid he was going to change his mind.

Mike's mom says that the very next day, Mike called her back and told her to forget about what he said.

He changed his mind.

It was getting close to Christmas.

He didn't want to leave his kids and he didn't want to leave his wife either.

Did Mike have another change of heart and decide to head to Florida after all?

His mother doesn't seem to think so.

Michael, he would have, first thing he would have got in touch with me.

He would have told me because he would have been happy for me to know that he was going there.

Hoping Mike's coworkers might be able to provide more insight, deputies head to the dealership where Mike worked.

Mike never indicated to anybody at work that he was leaving for Florida or planned on quitting.

It was bizarre anyways because nobody knew.

I do remember him being a no-show to work, which was very not common for him.

It was on the day that he went missing.

He'd been in a mandatory 401k meeting at work, and he was talking to coworkers about how he was was going to invest money.

The fact that he was talking future-looking plans directly related to his employment led us to wonder, you know, why would he just up and take off?

As police continue speaking to coworkers, one woman says she heard a rumor about Mike.

He had been seen in a gay bar.

The location that he had been found near was rumored to be next to

an infamous truck stop where maybe certain activity would have been taking place.

So the gay rumors were running rampant.

Coming up, did a secret lifestyle play a role in Mike's death?

Because Michael was seen in a gay bar.

You can say maybe a gay lover did this.

As the investigation deepens, new suspects emerge.

They have made statements that if Mike did come back, that he would kill him himself.

I asked you if you shot Michael, what you said?

I would say no.

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In late December 2002, investigators discovered that 30-year-old murder victim Mike Smith might have been leading a double life.

Weeks before his disappearance, Mike was spotted somewhere that seemed completely out of character.

Michael was seen in a gay bar up there.

So you can say, well, maybe a gay lover did this.

You take a look at the body and it's got a t-shirt and it's got no pants.

Why doesn't doesn't he have any pants on?

Was there some type of sexual assault?

Had Mike been killed by a jilted lover?

Mike's co-workers tell detectives they should speak to a man named Dan.

There was an employee at the dealership and in talking to him he said that he'd been at an establishment where one night of the week was a big night for gay clientele and he ran across Mike in there one night.

According to Dan, Mike seemed out of place.

Mike was intoxicated and Mike was trying to hit on a couple of women who apparently were lesbians.

And Danny told Mike, you know, go home.

You don't know what you're doing here.

People go into gay bars.

You can't say that you're gay because you went into a gay bar.

My dad was one of those guys that anywhere there's booze, he's going to be there.

Ruling out the likelihood of a scorned secret lover, detectives turn back to Rebecca.

We had multiple conversations with Rebecca.

As we're working through the investigation, it's kind of incumbent upon us to keep her abreast of what's going on with it as it evolves.

On December 23rd, four days after Mike's body had been discovered, detectives sit down with Rebecca once again.

We desperately need your help out of this, okay?

We need you on our team.

Okay.

And the only way we can do that, you probably know what's coming because we have to take arguments to clear you off completely.

Okay,

okay.

You'll be fine.

As soon as the polygrapher is available, three days later, Rebecca comes to the station for her polygraph exam.

Chris Lanfrey was the polygraphist, great investigator.

Arguably, polygraph operators are the supreme interviewer.

You do what's called a pre-test interview.

You go through things that had happened.

That's all done prior to giving her the actual examination itself.

As polygrapher Chris Lanfear talks to Rebecca before her test, she reveals new details involving a man named Randy Parks.

She was in the process of moving out of the marital home.

They were being evicted.

She had a guy that she used to work with.

He was helping her because he had a truck.

Rebecca said that this friend had made statements to her that if Mike did come back, that he would kill him himself.

She did insinuate that Randy Parks may have very well been responsible for the murder.

Why would this friend take such violent action?

Rebecca has an idea.

She kind of intimated at one point that this friend may have been kind of burning a candle for her.

Around 7 p.m., Rebecca's polygraph commences at the Oakland County Sheriff's Department.

In the sheriff's office, the polygraph is conducted between the test subject and the polygraphist.

And then we get the report afterwards.

She ultimately failed.

And she was confronted by the polygraph examiner that she was lying.

Detectives are eager to confront Rebecca as well.

If you're not involved, you pass the test.

If you are involved, you fail it.

It's real, simple.

Real, real, simple.

You would not have failed that polygraph at all.

You deliberately withheld information.

Who are you protecting?

I'm not protecting her anybody.

Detectives press Rebecca about her relationship with her former co-worker, Randy Parks.

How long have this thing been going on with Randy?

I have never had an affair with Randy.

I have never been

home with him.

But you know, he's got a crush on him.

Yeah?

How'd you know that?

By the way, Aaron, Corny.

There's only one thing Randy's plan.

It's time for the the truth.

You're obviously trying to protect him.

I have no knowledge of anything doing anything to my home.

Then, detectives turn the tables.

Could you plan with any other person to have Michael Kettle?

Last person to see a homicide victim alive is the first one to see him dead, which is pretty simplistic, but I mean, that's who you're looking for.

So, at this point, we've got a little more interest in Rebecca because we've yet to locate anybody that saw Mike anytime after she did.

You and Michael weren't weren't getting along.

You're the last one to see him, and we can't verify that.

Do you understand the problem here?

Yes, they do.

Do you understand the seriousness of the situation you're in?

It's funny.

And I'm helping you

with your mom and

did as he did this of his own.

Detectives release Rebecca after a tear-filled interview.

When detectives track down Randy for questioning, he seems calm and cooperative.

We went to him and said, hey, your name came up in this investigation.

It's a search for the truth and the facts.

I'll tell you this.

We've cleared three or four people, and there are some people that we're unable to clear or haven't cleared yet.

The people we have cleared, obviously, are not suspects, but everybody else remains.

Does that mean Irene?

You betcha?

Describe your relationship that you and Rebecca have.

Well, I thought we were pretty good friends.

You know, she always called, they just called Michael.

Drinking it, I can understand drinking part.

Did she want anything more

for me?

Absolutely not.

What about you with her?

One of the things that came out with Randy was that, you know, he was happily involved in a relationship.

However, according to Randy, Rebecca had expressed animosity towards her husband, Mike.

Back in August, she said, you know, you wish you would just go away and die.

She made that comment to you and tried.

I

asked you if you shot Michael, you said, I'd say no.

I asked you if you 100% know who shot Michael, but you said, I'd say I don't know.

If I asked you those questions, I'd apologize.

I college you could high pass it.

Would you be willing to take Michael?

Sure.

Man, I didn't do nothing, so.

He could not wait to come in for the polygraph.

I mean, it was like, yeah, let's go do it right now.

That evening, investigators receive Randy's polygraph results.

He passed.

There wasn't a problem.

There was nothing to indicate any deceptive behavior.

Randy was completely forthright with us.

We cleared him out.

Based on Randy's polygraph results, detectives believe he had no involvement in Mike's murder.

But they're not so sure about the person who pointed the finger at Randy.

Now we're starting to talk about the grieving widow is becoming a suspect.

Coming up, new evidence exposes a chain of lies.

When confronted about the phone call on the night that he went missing, she said, all right, I wasn't being honest.

And autopsy results reveal a bizarre twist.

He had at some point been frozen silent.

After failing a polygraph exam, 28-year-old Rebecca Smith has landed herself on detectives' radar during the investigation into the murder of her husband, Mike.

There had certainly been marital issues.

She had indicated to, I believe, some of her friends, or relatives, that she had planned on divorcing Michael Smith, the victim, at some point in time.

She had indicated that she wanted him dead.

She wished he would just go away and die.

Were Rebecca's statements serious threats or the harmless venting of an angry wife?

Detectives subpoena the Smiths' phone records and sift through the list of calls made around the time Mike was last seen.

Investigators find a call on December 10th to the home of Rebecca's grandparents.

Their phone records indicate there was a call to Mary Jane's house made from the marital home of Mike and Rebecca.

Police reach out to Rebecca's grandmother, Mary Jane Jordan.

We interviewed the grandmother, she's all young Mike called that night, 8.30-ish in the evening, looking for Rebecca.

Mary Jane says when she asked Rebecca about the call the next day, Rebecca told her Mike was on the road to Florida.

That was verified by phone records that the call was made from their home in Berkeley.

Certainly, he was not on a bus at 6:30 in the evening when he made a phone call at 8:30 in the evening.

On January 9th, 2003, Oakland County Sheriff's detectives summoned Rebecca back to the station to address the discrepancy.

Somebody calls at 8:29 because she looks right at the clock.

Do you know when I called Richard's friend?

There's no resistance.

Nothing.

When confronted confronted about the phone call on the night that he went missing, she said, all right, I wasn't being honest.

He came back that night.

But I didn't want to tell my grandfather because Mike was supposed to be out of my life.

Rebecca says when she learned they were being evicted in November of 2002, her grandfather agreed to pay for another apartment on one condition.

My grandfather made a big, big speech about after when we had signed the lease, literally as we're leaving the apartment office, you know, Michael never sets foot in his house.

Rebecca says she'd agreed to her grandfather's terms, but she secretly convinced her husband to go to rehab instead of ending the relationship.

She wanted to make her marriage work.

You know, she wanted her boys to have their dad in their life.

She wasn't divorcing him.

She wasn't doing any of that.

Rebecca says that after she dropped Mike off at the bus station on December 10th, he found his way back to their house.

You can't admit it.

He came back because it would disappoint your grandparents that's it isn't it this is not about disappointing your grandparents

everything is

no it's not tell us what happened

let's get through it

she admits that she lied and then comes up with a second story that was the next day that she uh drove him to the bus stop and then he was going to take off back to florida rebecca you know i would love to believe.

I really would.

And I saw them, you guys.

Yeah, but see, but see, see, you're not telling us anything to garner any more trust than you did before.

The only thing that's changed is the fact that instead of taking him to the bus Tuesday night, you took him to the bus Wednesday night.

We attempted to verify that, and all of a sudden it was able to determine that that's a lie as well, because there's no tickets that was ever sold, and the victim was never seen in the bus station on the 10th or on the 11th.

So

the grieving widow lies to the police who are trying to find out who killed her husband.

I know I've made myself look like

you know you've made yourself look guilty.

You made yourself the number one suspect.

That is what you've done.

Look at it from her point.

Why wouldn't you?

Let's do this.

Why don't we just give me another polygraph Tuesday before the morning?

To test Rebecca's news story, another polygraph is scheduled for January 14th, and she is released.

That same day, detectives receive a comprehensive report from the medical examiner's office.

There were two bullet wounds, one to the heart, and one to the liver on the right side, and based on their assessment, either of those would have been lethal wounds.

A unique discovery by the medical examiner shed some light on the circumstances of Mike's murder.

One distinctive feature that we discovered through the investigative process was that he had at some point been frozen solid.

Mike was not murdered there at the scene because of the condition of the body.

We believed that it had been done several days prior.

And ultimately, the body was stored and then transferred to some type of refrigerated atmosphere and then transported from that to the ditch itself.

On January 10th, 2003, investigators execute a search warrant at the home Mike and Rebecca lived in just before his disappearance.

In Mike and Rebecca's bedroom, there was a closet, and the doors were off the closet.

The dimension of the closet was something like 20 inches by 60 inches.

Mike's measurements in that fetal position were about the same as that closet, likewise.

Our working theory was that Mike had been in that closet for a period of time.

The crime lab came in and did some testing and they'd actually discovered some blood in the seams between where the tongue and the groove meet.

We cut the floor up and sent it off to the state police crime lab.

Investigators are eager to speak to Rebecca again, but when the time comes for her scheduled polygraph, Rebecca doesn't show.

A lawyer representing Rebecca calls police the following day.

and tells them that Rebecca will not be speaking to them again.

She knew she was getting into real hot water and probably the best advice that anybody could give her was to lawyer up.

You can't ask for any further questions, so they concentrate on the investigation and other aspects of it.

When police revisit the phone records from Michael and Rebecca's home, they discover an outgoing call to a 1-800 number dialed on December 20th, the day Mike's body was identified.

Investigators soon connect the 1-800 number to a life insurance company.

They obviously went to the insurance company and verified that through their interviews with people there.

The life insurance policy that she had on him was a $200,000 policy.

On the 20th, she makes a call to the insurance company to put a claim in before she even calls the victim's mother to advise the mother that Michael Smith had been killed.

During their conversation with an insurance agent, detectives learn that December 20th wasn't the first time Rebecca called.

She called in October to find out the status of the policy.

And the insurance company told her, well, it's basically lapsed, but if you make a payment,

you can get it caught up.

And so she made a payment.

So now we start talking about, oh, there's a big flag, there's a motive.

In addition to the discovery of Mike's insurance policy, investigators soon receive forensic evidence that further solidifies their suspicions of Rebecca.

The blood and the floorboards are sent to the crime lab for purposes of DNA analysis.

They did testing, and the blood came back through DNA as Mike's blood.

Coming up, investigators work to unravel the ceaseless schemes of their adversary.

All right, honey, expect a letter from me like Tuesday or Wednesday, and I can take care of it from there, okay?

It was pretty Machiavellian.

And a killer's deception is dissected in court.

She had a proclivity for anger management.

She wanted to get rid of him.

By early 2003, Oakland County detectives have zeroed in on Rebecca Smith as the prime suspect in the murder of her husband, Mike Smith.

Investigators believe Rebecca killed her husband after several years of spousal resentment boiled over.

The fact that the victim in this case had had certainly had an alcohol issue, as well as the financial issues, where all of a sudden she's going to be losing her home.

I think that all led to a certain amount of frustration.

Feeling confident in their case, detectives pass it to the state for an indictment.

I was determined at that point in time that there was insufficient evidence to go forward with a criminal charge.

Without an indictment, investigators reach an impasse.

It gets to a point where our argument is not going to get any better.

You know, we got what we're going to get.

We're not going to get a videotape of her doing it.

What I wanted was the truth to come out.

That's all I wanted was the truth.

And if they felt that they needed some time,

then I already kind of just prepared myself to do that.

For the next four years, family members and investigators keep close tabs on Rebecca.

It was grueling, you know,

she got a life insurance policy, and it was very frustrating.

We were a little disappointed when she got it.

As I recall, she bought a house.

She never went out, never had very many friends unless they came over to the house and watched X-Files with her.

She was always doing stuff with us, making sure we were okay.

Until 2006, when a turnover in elected officials brings fresh eyes to the the case.

There was a new administration that came into office, and several cases were then looked at again, this being one of them.

It was determined that there was sufficient evidence to go forward, and a warrant was issued for open murder against Rebecca Smith.

It was inconsistencies.

It comes down to the totality of the information, the various stories she told to people about the relationship.

All I ever wanted was the person that did this

to be held accountable.

And now this is happening.

It's really happening.

As Rebecca awaits her trial at the county jail, her phone calls are monitored as part of standard practice.

On July 6th, 2007, Rebecca asks her sister, Rachel, a cryptic question.

Anytime I send you something, check the back of a letter because I always write something on the back thing.

I don't trust the f ⁇ ers around here.

Because I was wondering why you always wrote stuff on something.

That's exactly why.

All right, honey, expect a letter from me like Tuesday or Wednesday, and I can take care of it from there, okay?

After the suspicious exchange, authorities begin to monitor Rebecca's mail on July 9th, 2007.

They soon intercept letters Rebecca sent to her sister and a friend.

When she's in jail, she's asking them to basically pretend that they are the killer to write a letter to the court, to the media, and also to her lawyer to indicate that somehow they're out there, that they're the real killer.

That was basically a gift from the defendant to the prosecution.

I think it clearly indicated showed her intent.

I just couldn't believe she done that.

I totally thought there's nothing that made her look more guilty than that.

Ultimately, Rebecca, I think, was charged with obstruction of justice on top of the murder charge.

Rebecca's trial begins on October 26, 2007.

Prosecutors tell the jury they believe the murder occurred on December 10th, 2002.

He was in bed, asleep.

It appeared like she walked in the bedroom

and shot him in the chest and in the stomach.

My theory is that Rebecca then moved the body to a closet in the bedroom of the Maribel house where they were living at the time.

And then at some point, Rebecca moved the body to another location where the body froze.

And that on the night of December 19th, Rebecca drove the body to Springfield Township, stopped on the shoulder of Oak Hill Road, and pushed the body down into the ditch.

Prosecutors say that the motive was simple.

She was just tired of struggling.

She was tired of living with her family.

I don't know if them losing their apartment maybe for the umpteenth time was more than she could bear.

If he were to be eliminated, that eliminates her problem with him, and it also eliminates her financial issues.

And it goes along with her statements that she just wished he would go away and die.

However, the defense claims that although the marriage wasn't perfect, Rebecca would never turn to violence against Mike.

My mom still loves him, still has a picture of him pinned up right next to where she sleeps.

She doesn't hate him at all.

I think

Becca remembers him and thinks of him as just a confused lost soul.

And I think she wanted to save him, but he didn't want to save himself.

As for the damning letters from jail, the defense says that those are just the work of a desperate but ultimately innocent mother.

She wanted to get granted bail so that she could get out and see us before she went away.

And I believe that.

My mom cared very dearly for me and my brother.

On November 6th, 2007, after two days of jury deliberation, Rebecca learns her fate.

The jury came back with a verdict of second-degree murder.

The court then sentenced her above the sentencing guidelines to 30 to 60 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections.

To some, Mike wasn't the only casualty.

I don't think anybody could ever know what that could do to a kid.

Not just to lose a parent in such a violent way, but at the hands of their other parent.

I don't think that it gets any worse than that.

My mother being taken for the murder devastated me much more than the murder of my father.

It was the most devastating thing that ever happened to me.

The Bible tells me that I must forgive, that vengeance is mine.

He'll take care of it.

So I'm going to say, I forgive Rebecca for what she did.

I believe justice was served, and that was all that I wanted to happen.

After Rebecca's incarceration, her sons were raised by her grandparents.

Rebecca will be eligible for parole in 2032.

She will be 57 years old.

For more information on Snapped, go to oxygen.com.

How hard is it to kill a planet?

Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.

When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Are we really safe?

Is our water safe?

You destroyed our town.

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

We call things accidents.

There is no accident.

This was 100%

preventable.

They're the result of choices by people.

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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