John E. Douglas - When a Killer Calls - A Haunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town

I t had already been a busy day for Shari Smith. After rushing through breakfast and her parents mandatory short devotional and prayer session for her and her fifteen-year-old brother, Robert, shed raced to school for practice for Lexington Highs Class of 1985 graduation at the University of South Carolinas Carolina Coliseum on Sunday. She and Andy Aun had been selected to sing The Star-Spangled Banner, so they had to rehearse with Mrs. Bullock, the chorus teacher. Once she got out of school, the rest of the day would be an unending sprint from one activity to the next, much, but not all of it, in preparation for the senior class tripa cruise to the Bahamas the following week.

Shari loved to sing, and at Lexington High shed been the jazz band soloist, a chorus member, and a singer and dancer in the stage choir. Shed made All State Chorus Honors her sophomore and junior years and participated in the Governors School for the Arts as a senior. That was all in addition to three years of student council. She had auditioned for a singing and dancing job for the summer at Carowinds amusement park up on the state line with North Carolina, southwest of Charlotte, where her older and look-alike sister, Dawn, was already performing. Despite the fact that they seldom took high school students, Shari had won a place, and she had looked forward to spending the summer performing with Dawn, who was living in Charlotte in an apartment with two roommates for the summer, and like Dawn, to majoring in voice and piano at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina. The two stunning, blue-eyed blondes had regularly sung solos and duets at Lexington Baptist Church where the Smiths belonged, and the Smith Sisters, as they came to be called, had fulfilled numerous requests to sing at other churches in the area. Shari liked to practice her dancing on the paved basketball court in front of the garage when Robert wasnt shooting hoops. Sometimes she would bring their mom and dad out to be her audience.

But Sharis dreams for the summer had been dashed. She had spent several weekends at Carowinds learning her routines for the country show. After only a few rehearsals, she became hoarse and had trouble projecting. Her mom and dad had taken her to a throat specialist, who gave them the bad news: Shari had developed nodules on her vocal cords. She would need complete voice rest for two weeks and no singing after that for another six. Shari was heartbroken that she would not be able to work at Carowinds that summer. The only consolation was that shed be joining Dawn at Columbia College in the fall.

At about ten oclock that morning, Shari called her mom from school and said she would call again when she was leaving so they could meet up at the bank to get travelers checks for her trip. She called again around eleven oclock, saying she was not yet ready but would call back soon. Their parents generally insisted she and Robert call in frequently to let them know where they were, but that was one of the rules she didnt object to, because Shari liked to talk. For the yearbooks Senior Superlatives, Shari had been voted Wittiest. Shed also been voted Most Talented, but you werent allowed two superlatives, so shed relinquished that one to another girl, who was thrilled with the honor.

There was still so much to do to get ready.

About 11:30 A.M. , Shari called home again and said her mom could meet her in half an hour at the South Carolina National Bank branch in the Lexington Town Square shopping center. Shari asked her to bring her a bathing suit and towel for the pool party she was going to at her friend Danas house a few miles away in Lake Murray after the bank. She could change out of her baggy white shorts and black-and-white-striped pullover top when she got to her house.

At the bank, Shari connected with her boyfriend, Richard Lawson, and her good friend Brenda Boozer. She was so happy to be surrounded by three people she felt so close to. After getting the travelers checks, Shari and Brenda headed over to the party with Richard, leaving their cars in the shopping center parking lot.

Shari called from Danas at about 2:30 that afternoon and said she was coming home, throwing a shirt and shorts on over her two-piece bathing suit before she and Brenda left with Richard. About fifteen minutes later the trio got back to the shopping center, where Brenda and Shari could each retrieve their cars. Brenda said goodbye, and Shari and Richard sat in his car for a little while by themselves. Then Shari got into her own little blue Chevy Chevette hatchback and took off for home, with Richard following her until she turned down Highway 1, heading toward Red Bank.

The Smiths lived out in the country, in a house they built on twenty acres of land on Platt Springs Road, about ten miles outside of Lexington. The house was set back from the road on a rise, up from the 750-foot-long driveway, so there was plenty of privacy. The girls werent thrilled about moving from their previous home on a cul-de-sac in the comfortable Irmo community in Columbia, where their friends were close by and their schools only a mile away, but their dad had been raised in the country, and he thought it would be the best way to raise his own children. At their new home, there was enough land to build a swimming pool and for Dawn and Shari to keep horses, though by the time Dawn left for college, Shari and Robert had become more interested in riding a small motorcycle around the property and the horses were sold. The two kids would ride, sometimes for hours at a time, playfully squabbling about who was getting more time on the bike. Despite her feminine, blond beauty and angelic singing voice, unlike Dawnwhom her younger sister used to tease as a goody-goodyShari had a lot of tomboy in her.

Somewhere around 3:25, Shari pulled into the Smith driveway and stopped the Chevette to check for mail at the pole-mounted wooden mailbox, as she always did when she came home. Since it was only a few steps from the car, she kept the motor running and didnt bother slipping on her black plastic jelly shoes.

It was Friday, May 31, 1985.

BOB AND HILDA SMITH HAD BEEN LOUNGING AROUND THE BACKYARD POOL WHEN Shari called to say she was leaving Danas party. They came in shortly after that so Bob could get ready for the golf game hed scheduled. Bob, an engineer who had worked for the highway department, now sold electronic scoreboards and signs for a company called Daktronics and often worked at home. He also volunteered to minister in prisons and boys correctional schools. Dawn and Shari often accompanied him to sing. Hilda was a part-time substitute public school teacher.

As she glanced out the window, she saw Sharis blue Chevette parked at the beginning of the driveway. When the car hadnt moved after a few minutes, Hilda concluded Shari must have received a letter from Dawn and stopped to read it. Shari loved hearing from Dawn, and Hilda was more than a little afraid that Shari was living vicariously through her big sister since her summer plans to sing and dance at Carowinds had been wrecked by the vocal cord problem. Hilda and Bob were devoutly religious people and had tried to bring up their three children with the same reverence and faith. Shari was so shattered by not being able to be with Dawn that summer and share the stage with her that Hilda sometimes questioned why God had delivered such a big disappointment to her younger daughter.