Betty Fran Gladden-Smith and John Smith

0:00 Hi. I'm Tina and I'm Rich. If there's one thing we've learned and over twenty years. Of marriage, it's that some days you'll feel like killing your wife. In some days you'll feel like killing your husband. Welcome to love, Mary Kill Hi Rich, Hi Tina. How are you? I'm doing good? How are you good? How are we on the marriage meter today? Oh, we're good. We're in really good. I think we're in really good shape. How are we on your marriage meter today? Good? I'm a little I'm a little moody, but you're lovely.

0:44 So it's all on me. So that's not the marriage meter. That's the Tina meter. I guess. But the Tina meter affects the marriage meter. That's just we all. Know there's a strong correlation between this. Yeah. The case we're going to talk about today is about a man named John Smith. Oh I know him. He was just going to ask you, do you have you known a John Smith? Honestly, I don't think I have personally known anyone named John Smith. Do you know anyone with the last name Smith? I couldn't think of any off the top of my head, so I took a quick break and checked LinkedIn I've worked with four people named Smith. I just forgot. They're like, the name is so common that it's not a John Smith, not a John Smith. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone I know currently with the last name Smith, unless I go back to like high school. Well, the name John Smith is one of the most common in the English speaking world, though it has declined in recent decades.

1:37 In the US, about thirty seven thousand men share it, while in the UK it remains among the top three names. Its ubiquity comes from pairing John, once a top boy's name until the mid nineteen eighties, with Smith the most common surname in both countries. So in the United States, the last name Smith is still the most popular. Almost one percent of the population is named Smith, a. Lot of people. I'm not surprised that John Smith is declining, though, because who would want to name your kid John if your last name was Smith. I think the name John, I think it's a very nice, nice name, but definitely it's on the decline. Naming your kid John Smith is like sentencing him to a life of you know, basically just getting lost in the shuffle.

2:19 Well, if you are a criminal, that might be a good Oh, that's true if you want your kid to grow up and be a criminal. I'm just saying, if your name is John Smith, you might be able to get away with a crime or two. Good point. What do you think are some other common last names? I have the top ten last names in the United States. Jones, yes, Brown, Yes. Very good. That's all I got. I think I don't know. Johnson, John Williams, Garcia, Miller, Davis, Rodriguez, and Martinez. Okay, yeah, those were all those should have all been obvious. I just couldn't come up with anymore. Your last name, we have different last names is barely common, fairly Yeah, mine is too.

3:01 Yeah. We think he goes to ourself because we're weird. Mine is probably more common in England. I'll just say that. I think today people are being more creative with their kids' names. When we were in school, they were at least six Jennifers in every class and. Four Laura's Mike Tom. Everyone was named Mike. Yeah, I think everyone. I think people are getting more original. But what happens is it's a cyclical thing. Somebody gets original, and then that name becomes popular, and then it's no longer original anymore. And then so it's like a cycle that just keeps going on and on. True, I'm so sorry if my brain I'm already moved on to snack and I really don't have any idea.

3:45 You just I'm sure it was really interesting. I'm not sure I have any idea what I just said either. I'm just saying sometimes. You say something that like with such confidence and you just lose me and I'm like, does that word said or is my brain just networking. Basically, what I'm saying is people come up with a name that seems creative and original, but over time that name isn't creative, we're original anymore because other people adopt it. Oh so you were like the first rich and then everyone else copy. No, I was on the tail. And I don't just. Say, all right, well, I did bring you a snack. And this is a snack that I've been wanting to make for you for a while. It's from recipe Tin Eats. Remember when we did the case about Aaron Patterson and the mushrooms and we talked about Naggi from recipe tin Eats, Okay, and this is her recipe for peanut butter stuffed brownie. Oh, do you want to give him a try?

4:37 Yeah, they look really good. Did you like the brownies cream and those? No? No, no, it's not interesting. It's just peanut butter. I liked them, but there was like a weird, like sour flavor to the peanut butter that I thought. Was a little No, it's literally just peanut butter. I think you saw it in the free You first take peanut butter and you melt it, and then you put it in the pan so it has the shape of your pan. And then you take the peanut butter out, and then you bake the brownie or you make the brownie mix, then you put the frozen peanut butter up on top, and then you put more brownie mix on top of that. Interesting.

5:17 You know, I'm a little disappointed in the recipe too. I thought, oh, you're gonna love it. I think part of it might be the recipe said use dark chocolate. It didn't say you know how dark, And I feel like the chocolate might. What it is, Yeah, because I'm sensing just a little bitterness in there or something. Yeah, I think that I used chocolate that's a little too dark. Interesting, it's not bad. I'm just it's not quite as good as something I would hope for with a chocolate peanut butter brownie type. I almost use the Garadeli brownie mix and just put the peanut butter on that. And I kind of wish I would have done that, because I don't love the brownies and I think the peanut butter is pretty good. Yeah. I also put a layer of chocolate on top, because I am. I have a problem. I have a problemsted my first step. Well, there's a family debate about that.

6:02 Then we'll go into yar. Kids don't like a frosted party, so weird, they really are? All right, are you ready to get to John Smith? I am. On Tuesday, April twenty second, nineteen eighty, along County Road four hundred North in Newton County, Indiana, better known as Hopkins Park Road, construction crews were out making routine spring repairs. What they stumbled upon that day would be anything but routine. The road, about forty miles south of Chicago, runs east to west and links western Indiana to eastern Illinois. The spring thaw had left the road in rough shape, with deep muddy ditches on either side, choked with springs, fresh growth mixed with last season's brush. Among the brush, one of the workers spotted a wooden box. It appeared to be homemade, constructed crudely from plywood and nails hastily hammered into place. The box was about four feet long and two feet wide. They carried the box to their work track and pried it open with a crowbar. An unpleasant odor met their nostrils as they lifted the lid. Inside was a dirty green blanket, possibly an army blanket. Under it was a pair of jeans and a plaid flannel shirt.

7:13 Sam Kennedy poked around the box with the crowbar, afraid to touch anything. He jumped back in shock and horror when he uncovered a human skull. The men called law enforcement, who came and took possession of the box from the rattled road workers. The coroner drove the box to the funeral home that he worked out of the box had several items of women's clothing inside, including a pair of bell bottom jeans, a churquoise peasant blouse, two nightgowns, a bright red dress, a multicolored dress with puffy sleeves, a blue dress, a black and white dress, a striped shirt, a plaid skirt, a blue western style shirt, a bathrobe, and several bras. There was also a pair of blue jeans with a smiling mushroom patch on the crotch. Nearly all the items were sized small. Two rings, a gold crucifix on a chain, and strand of brownish hair were also in the box, as well as the rest of the skeletal remains. The bones appeared to be from a small framed woman in her twenties. Disturbingly, the leg bones had been severed by a saw. The feet were missing, and anthropologist later analyzed the bones and determined the young woman had never borne a child and might have been hispanic.

8:21 The media coined the Jane Doe the lady in the box. Nearby police were contacted to see if someone fitting the description of the Jane Doe was missing from their communities. Local officials in Newton County buried the remains in a child sized coffin and mark the grave with a simple marker that read Jane Doe nineteen eighty. When flowers began appearing regularly on the grave, police decided to stake out the grave, but they soon learned that the culprit was a thoughtful local woman who felt badly for the Jane Doe. It would be decades before her identity was revealed. When you were describing the road workers finding her body, I could just put myself in that position of finding this box, starting to open it and the smell is emanating.

9:03 That would be just so like terrifying. I don't know, it's just so like creepy to not knowing. Just really sah. Yeah, I think that would stick with you and probably give you nightmares. Yeah, for sure. On Labor Day weekend in nineteen ninety one, fran and John Smith checked into the Stricklands Mountain Inn for a belated honeymoon. Fran Or Betty fran Gladden Smith, forty eight, and her fourth husband, John David Smith, the third, forty, had married barefoot on a Florida beach the year before. Recently, they had settled in West Windsor, New Jersey, near Princeton for John's new job. Their marriage had been off to a rocky start, and they hoped a weekend that the Poconos themed motel might rekindle their bond. Instead, disasters struck.

9:49 Franz slipped on the slick tile after stepping out of the motel's red heart shaped tub, shattering her hip and landing her in the hospital for surgery and a metal pin left her bedridden for weeks. The forest downtime gave Fran too much time to think and to regret. She couldn't bring herself to admit it to her daughter or her sister, but deep down she knew that she had made a terrible mistake marrying John. Quick check in on timeline here, So this is nineteen ninety one. The Jane Doe's body was found in nineteen eighty. Those were eleven years. Yeah, why do you think those two things were related? I don't know, just that I have a feeling. Betty fran Gladden was born in August nineteen forty two in Alabama. She grew up on military basis in a close knit family. She and her sister Sherry were very close.

10:37 They shared a kind of sixth sense, an unspoken connection that told them when the other was in trouble or needed help. They called it the Thing. Fran was petite and blonde and did some modeling when she was younger. She was shy, but had a warm and bubbly personality. After her second marriage ended in nineteen eighty one. She was single for almost ten years, focusing on her children. I had several sources for this case, and they were unclear on her husband's I don't have a lot of background information on Fran, but I believe she had four husbands, John Rich, Bill and another John John Smith was her fourth husband. Her sister said in her book that she married one of them twice, but she didn't say which one.

11:23 Okay. Fran had three children, Todd, Rod and Deanna or ded DeeDee Wheeling was twenty six, a single mother with two young children, and she lived in Houston. Much of Fran's family lived in Niceville, Florida, in the Panhandle, thirty miles east of Pensacola. In nineteen eighty nine, Rod An Army ranger was seriously wounded in Panama during an Operation two extract Manuel Noriega from office. Soon Fran found herself as caregiver for her ill mother, her eighty three year old grandmother, and her injured son. Her granddaughter Nick He was also living with her for a year. Frean had a lot on her plate. She also worked at Chrome Alloy Technologies as an executive assistant. When she met her fourth husband, John David Smith. John was a lifelong Mennonite and contract engineer at the company. He was socially awkward, prone to an overly broad, gummy smile and talking too loudly, eager for approval, lacking confidence, he often overdressed in colorful suits and ties, regardless of the occasion. While some dismissed him as an odd duck, Fran found his quirks endearing. She really didn't know much about John's family or childhood. He was very private about his past. She hoped with time he would open up to her. After just two months of dating, John proposed and Fran accepted. They built a custom home next door to Frand's mother, and, with John earning a good salary, he encouraged Fran to quit her

12:54 job to focus on her family. Hesitant to give up her income and independence, she eventually. Agreed proposal two months into the relationship. That's pretty quick, it is. And you would think when you're on your fourth marriage or fifth marriage, that you might be a little more cautious and take your time. Yeah, I would think so. I think John was very convincing and charming. Some people describe John as looking like Howdy duty, and others call him John Boy Walton. H Okay, did you ever watch the Waltons when you were a very young child. I loved the Waltons. I am going to show you a picture of him really quick, and then I'm going to ask you to describe it. Of course, we will post these pictures on our social media. I do see a little John Boy Walton resemblance. But his eyes are crazy eyes.

13:36 Yes they are. And in a lot of pictures he's wearing this serial killer glasses. That own Jeffre Dahmer glasses exactly. Boy. John David Smith the third was born on April second, nineteen fifty one, in Homerville, Ohio, to Grace Cheney and Carl Smith, who married soon after his birth. His brother, Michael was born three years later, but the Smith's marriage didn't last. Grace filed for divorce on the grounds of most neglect of duty and extreme cruelty. After the divorce, Grace John and Michael moved in with her parents, Ethel and Chester Cheney in Seville, Ohio. Seville is a small village in Medina County, about forty miles south of Cleveland, known for its quiet, rural charm Saville has a historic downtown with shops and restaurants, and is surrounded by farmland and rolling countryside. Seville, Ohio, is perhaps most famous as the one time home of Martin and Anna Bates, known as the Seville Giants. The couple gained international fame in the nineteenth century as the world's tallest married couple, with Martin standing seven feet nine inches tall and Anna seven feet eleven inches. They were made for each other. Anna became pregnant twice, both resulting in tragic outcomes. Their first, a daughter, was stillborn weighing eighteen pounds. Their second child, a son, weighed over twenty pounds and measured nearly two feet long at birth, but he survived for only a few hours. That's very sad.

15:00 Sorry, that was very superfluous, but I just thought that was really interesting. How these two giants were married to each other. Must have had a really high seat. I hope they had high ceilings on. Hope so too. Grace bought a house two doors down from her parents, who helped raise John and Michael Chester owned and operated a Marathon gas station that sat behind their house, across the street from the town's funeral home. More than just a place to fill up. The station became a local gathering spot where neighbors traded stories and town gossip. Chester spent a lot of time with his grandsons, taking them fishing, hunting, or watching sports. Neighbor and owner of the funeral home, Richard Armstrong said of the Cheneys, John and Michael were practically raised by their grandparents. The Cheneys were good people, pillars of the community. John was tall, gangly and pale, freckled with a shock of red hair that looked as if it had been cut around a bowl.

15:52 Right and considered the favored child. He excelled in school and on the track, where he proved himself a strong runner, winning many medals. When John and Michael were teenagers, their mother, Grace, married wealthy real estate developer Sam Malls. Preoccupied with work, Sam had little impact on the boys lives. Grace and Sam later welcomed the son of their own, Stephen. Sam was Jewish, and I read one account that said that Grace was disowned after she married him. Oh wow. When John turned sixteen, he bought a leather jacket and a motorcycle, but neither made him any cooler. At nineteen, John met Janis Hartman from the nearby town of Doylestown. Janis was the third of four children born to Betty and Neil Hartman on March second, nineteen fifty one.

16:37 Ten years later her youngest sister arrived, but by then her parents' marriage was unraveling and they soon divorced. Janis was a bit of a tomboy with a rebellious streak. Had she gone to the same schools as John, she might never have noticed the nerdy boy. Years later, when asked why she got involved with him, she simply said, beats the heck out of me. I guess it was the motorcycle. So apparently it did make him a. Little cooler, right, it did. But my point was, you know, had she known him in high school, she had been like, no, thank you. Yeah, I'm not very nice to John in this case. After high school, Janie left for Saint Louis to attend flight attendant training, while John enrolled at Ohio State University to study engineering. Just a few weeks later, unable to stay apart, they eloped in Detroit and were married at City Hall. Janis's parents had never even met John. Eventually, when Betty, Janis's mother met John. She said he did talk a lot. He liked to hear himself talk. He was the biggest bullshitter you ever saw. He was going to build bridges. He had it all planned out. Grace was furious over her son's impulsive marriage. She locked him out of her house and refused to give him his belongings.

17:46 Both of their families believed the couple was too young to be married and were throwing their futures away. Undeterred, Janis and John moved to Columbus, where John continued his studies while Janis worked as manager of a gas station. Tracks soon appeared in the marriage. John was controlling and prone to angry outbursts, while Janis was the only one earning money, leading to frequent clashes. Their relationship deteriorated further when John's anger turned into physical abuse. Janis hit back at John, but his strength and size left her at a disadvantage. She was covered with bruises and scrapes. The abuse became so commonplace, John didn't try to hide it and thought nothing of slapping Janis across the face in front of friends and family. In nineteen seventy one, John dropped out of Ohio State University. Before earning his degree, Janis confided to her mother that John once threatened her if you ever leave me, I'm going to kill you.

18:42 In August nineteen seventy four, Janis separated from John and moved into her father's mobile home behind a bar in Doylestown. Relishing her independence, she bought a Mustang that she treasured, took a job as a go go dancer, and even began working undercover for police on drug cases. I could not confirm that fact. The police never confirmed it, but it was in several articles and the books I read, it was said that she worked as an undercover informant. Okay, but Janis's new life carried risks. On November tenth, nineteen seventy four, while visiting a friend's house, she was brutally attacked by a group of five men. One threw her to the floor, tore off her clothes, and dragged her into a bedroom, telling her that quote which is like you don't deserve to live. Several others held her down, striking her as they tried to assault her. At one point, a blonde man entered with a loaded shotgun, pressed it toward her and said quote narks always have an easy way out. Another voice shouted not to kill her, and eventually the men released her. Bruised and scratched. Janis went straight to the police to report the attack, suspecting it was retribution because of her undercover work had been exposed as a terrifying story.

19:54 Yeah, Janis sounds like she was very scrappy and tough, and she was small, so she tried to fight back. Yeah, but I mean five men were attacking her. Yeah, She's fortunate she survived that, it sounds like a Few days later, on November fourteenth, her divorce from John was finalized. With no children or significant assets to divide, the process moved quickly. Their split was described as amicable, with no signs of lingering hostility between them. Without Janis's financial support, John dropped out of Ohio State University and moved into a mobile home in Wooster Adrift. With too much time on his hands, he began stalking her, but their relationship was confusing, sometimes that they still spent time together amicably, and sometimes jan wanted nothing to do with him.

20:41 We'll be back after a break. When Betty Fran and John got married, he never told her about his first wife. Nine months into the marriage. On February fifth, nineteen ninety one, after j John left her work, a sheriff's deputy bring Fran's door bell and handed her divorce papers. She was gobsmacked. When she confronted John, He said it was a big mistake, pleaded with her to forgive him, and withdrew the petition. How do you accidentally have divorce papers? I don't know? Okay. Soon after John lost his job at crow Alloy. He wasn't able to find work in Florida and was forced to take a job in New Jersey working for a company called carb Arundum as a manufacturing manager. Fran didn't want to leave her family behind in Florida, and moving even farther away from her daughter and grandchildren in Houston paid heavily on her Still, she couldn't bear the thought of facing a fourth divorce, so to New Jersey she went.

21:46 They moved into a furnished condo and John put the rest of their furniture into storage. A year into their marriage, Fran was surprised to discover that John owned a house in Connecticut. He said his sister Kathy lived there tree while caring for his two Border collies, Amanda and Christopher. Until then, Fran hadn't known that John had two dogs or a sister. Do you remember me talking about John having a sister? I don't because he didn't. So Fran wanted to meet Kathy and see the beach house and meet the dogs, but John hedged making that meeting happen. He was off and away, tied up with frequent travel and long weekends at his new job.

22:27 John's full of secrets. I guess he sure is. In August nineteen ninety one, Fran returned home to their condo to find that John had secretly moved out and left her with only fifty dollars to her name. She had no access to their bank accounts or even a credit card. He took their radio and TV and all of his possessions. Fran thought he was gone for good. She called her daughter Dede sobbing. John left a note, when you decide to start wearing your wedding band again, I'll come home. The diamond in her ring was loose, and she didn't even think about mentioning it to John because he wasn't around a lot, So she took it to the jewelry store to you know, have them tighten the so he noticed. Instead of like having a conversation, he's like, I'm leaving. A few days later, Fran called his office and he acted as if nothing was wrong. He answered the phone, Oh hi, honey, it's good to hear from you, and she was like, oh, what's going on John. He explained that he'd been sleeping in his car and just needed some time on his own.

23:29 When he returned home, Fran told him things needed to change. He needed to be more open with her if their marriage was going to continue, and he needed to tell her about his past, and she insisted that he give her access to their bank accounts. After Fran broke her hip, she sank into depression. Normally outgoing and social, Fran hadn't yet built a circle of friends in New Jersey, where she and John had only been living for four months. Their condo was on the third floor with no elevator in the building, leaving Fran stuck inside, relying on crutches or a walker to move around. She hated being housebound. With John working long hours and rarely able to take her out. Fran felt increasingly isolated and alone. I think she was in a great deal of pain too.

24:15 Yeah, I'm sure she was. Dedey hated to see her mother so unhappy. Although Fran was still in a cumbersome cast, she got her sewing machine out to pass the time. Determined to make their condo cozy, she sewed a dust ruffle for her bed and curtains. During one of their daily calls, Fran asked Dedy to send her some patterns so she could start sewing clothes for her grandchildren. The last conversation they had was on September twenty eighth. After her calls when unanswered for several days, Dee Dee began to worry John wasn't answering his phone at work either. Desperate, she called Fran's doctor to see if she'd made it to the office for her appointment that week. She had not, the receptionist told Dede. In a full panic, Dee Dee called John at work on Wednesday, October second, and this time he finally answered, where's my mother? John? She asked, I thought she was with you. I came home to a note on Tuesday that said feed the fish. I'll be back in a couple of days. She talked about coming to visit you and your brother in Florida, so I thought she had come to see you. Dede asked John for the note, but he said he'd thrown it in the trash.

25:24 Detey knew it was impossible for Fran to travel with her broken hip, but John didn't seem the least bit concerned. Dredd settled into her gut. She knew Jean was lying, but why. Deete called her aunt Sherry, and together they came up with a plan. Sherry Gladden Davis, living in Indiana and Deedey in Houston, didn't have much money for unnecessary travel, but they were desperate to find Fran. They urged John to file a missing person's report, yet he seemed largely unconcerned. By Friday, three days after Fran had vanished, the women threatened to come to New Jersey themselves, and only then did John go to the West Windsor Township Police station to submit a report. John arrived at ten pm.

26:10 Officer Tom Moody took down the report, but it was the young officer Robert hilland who couldn't shake him when their eyes met across the station, hilland saw something chilling in John's cold, vacant stare. Decades later that haunting memory would come full circle when Hilland and Smith based off once again. That's called foreshadowing. Rich oh I see very well done. Asked for a picture of his wife. He said that he didn't have any because Fran was camera shy. This was not at all true. Fran used to model and she loved having her picture taken. John admitted that he wasn't sure how Fran was getting around with a broken hip and limited money. Initially, he said that she only had two hundred dollars with her, but later he increased the amount to two thousand. Fran had her own car, but she left to behind. She must have taken the bus.

27:02 Smith claimed he was sure that she was visiting her family, but Sherry and Deedi assured the police that she was not with them. Fran's beloved mother was in the ICU on a ventilator, struggling with emphysema, unable to talk. Every breath was a battle, and Franz's family knew that she would never disappear without contact during such a critical time, Franz's mother could only communicate by using a chalkboard. She wrote her daughter's name over and over her eyes, pleading with her family for more information. She died soon after at age sixty five, without knowing what happened to Franz. So sad, it is really sad. Detective Michael Dansbury was assigned to Fran's case. A week after her disappearance. He visited John at his condo, and John hesitantly invited him inside.

27:51 Dansbury found the condo tidy and nicely furnished, but was immediately on alert when he saw Franz walker. John assured the officer that he and Fran had a happy marriage. He wasn't sure where she went, but he thought she'd gone to visit friends or family. The only items missing were her purse, a yellow suitcase, to two piece jogging outfits, and Fran's crutches. Officer Dansbury checked with bus drivers, taxi service, and even airlines to see if Fran had purchased a ticket, but the search came up empty. And surely like Fran, you know, with crutches, was having a hard time getting around, right. I think people remember seeing.

28:32 Deeedy and Sherry created and dispersed missing persons fires with the following information. Betty Franz Smith missing person notification born eight four forty two. Age at time of disappearance forty nine female five two, one hundred pounds, blonde, medium length hair, blue eyes, white, light complexioned. Identifying marks a scar on her left knee scar from hysterectomy, pin and right hip, no bone in little hoe of right foot. Front teeth are temporary caps and slightly yellowed. Also known as Fran. Circumstances of disappearance unknown Missing October first, nineteen ninety one, from Princeton, New Jersey. John refused to help distribute the flyers beyond filing the missing Persons report. He hadn't lifted a finger to search for Fran and showed no sense of urgency or alarm in finding her.

29:24 On October sixteenth, Officer Dansbury returned to John's condo to further question him. This time, John was more open about his past, admitting that he had been married once before Fran, to a woman named Janice Hartman in nineteen sixty nine. They had separated amicably a few years later, when Janie left him to join a commune in Florida. He explained. Dansbury wasn't willing to let the case go his twenty plus years as a police officer led him to trust his intuition that something was a miss. With John, I frankly don't think this would require a lot of intuition. I think it seems fairly obvious that something is a miss. But oh does it? Detective Bridge, But maybe that's hindsight. He interviewed John's boss and co workers and found that John hadn't told anyone that Fran was missing. On December third, nineteen ninety one, John agreed to take a polygraph test, Although the results weren't revealed publicly. John told Dede that he had failed miserably.

30:18 After the polygraph, investigators narrowed their focus on John and requested that he come to the station for a formal interview. He was read his rights and declined to have an attorney present. The investigators learned that John had filed for divorce from Fran the previous year, which he'd failed to divulge. When confronted about the house he owned in Connecticut, he claimed it was rented by a woman named Kathy, not his sister, who he had known for seven to eight years. Detectives with the local police department visited the house at twenty three point Beach Drive in Milford, Connecticut tax records confirmed that John David Smith owned the beachfront home, purchased in nineteen eighty six for two hundred and thirty two thousand dollars. No one was home, but neighbors filled the officers in. The occupant of the beach house was a dark haired woman named Sheila Sawder. She had lived there for about five years and was frequently visited on weekends by a red haired man. M Detective Dansbury, along with Detective Frank Barr from Milford, Connecticut, knocked on Sheila's door with her sister and brother in law in tow in early January nineteen ninety two.

31:25 So they hadn't been able to get a hold of Sheila, and they think they knew that what they were going to tell her was going to rock her world. So they had found her sister and brother in law and had them along to be there for her. Okay, so they. Questioned, g gotcha. Sheila was confused why they were all there, but soon she understood that her whole world was about to fall apart. The officers told her that they were there to investigate the disappearance of John Smith's wife, Betty fran Gladden Smith. Sheila told them that she was John's girlfriend. On his last weekend visit on December eighteenth, as he was leaving, he casually said, by the way, I'm married and my wife is missing this guy.

32:05 Do you imagine, mare, Sheila, No, I can't imagine. This guy is just so strange. He's very odd. Sheila and John had been together for eight years. They met in nineteen eighty three when John applied for a job at Avco Lycoming, where Sheila was the HR manager. She knew that he was divorced from his first wife and had even met his family, his mother Grace, brother Michael, and grandparents Chester and ethel Cheney. They bought the house together and adopted the two dogs. John had moved to Florida for work, but Sheila stayed behind. John visited when he could. Between September and the last time she had seen him, right before Christmas, he had visited almost every weekend.

32:46 The police asked if she would help them with their investigation, and she agreed tentatively. So remember that friend was alone a lot on the weekends, and John said that he was working while he was actually in Connecticut with Sheila. I mean he led a double life for a long time. It sounds like, well, hopefully you've gotten a sense too, that John moved around a lot. He was in these jobs, and he was constantly working at new jobs. Okay. By February nineteen ninety two, with no new leads and little information to go on, Dede and Sherry traveled to New Jersey. They stayed with John. While John was at work, they searched his condo for evidence. They found that Fran's closet and drawers were still filled to the brim.

33:29 She took very few, if any, of her possessions with her, and Fran loved her clothing, shoe, and jewelry collections. There were also expensive family heirlooms left behind. It didn't make any sense to Deity and her aunt. It was also odd that John had very few possessions in the house and almost no food. When they found a blue comb in Fran's car, their worry turned to panic. While it seems like a trivial detail, she loved the comb and never left home without it. Searching through a storage closet, the women found one more startling thing, a yellow suitcase. Remember John said that she had taken a yellow suitcase with her right. They brought their findings and accounts of John's suspicious behavior to the police, convinced that he had done something to Fran, but officers told them there wasn't enough evidence to press charges.

34:16 They were just as frustrated as the women. Devastated yet resolute, Deedy and Sherry returned home determined to uncover the truth and to make sure that John paid. They called John every day for a year and asked him where Fran was. Sherry was relentless. Over the years. John moved states and jobs often, and each time she found him. She told Dateline that she wrote letters to each new workplace, tucking a missing flyer of Fran inside. She wrote the letters not to hr. That's a waste, Sherry said. You write to the receptionist. She knows everything, She tells everything as. A farmer receptionists. It's very true, isn't it. I love a good story of a tenacious family member who is not going to give up and does whatever they can.

35:01 You're going to make the emotional that these two are just just hats off to them. They're amazing. Sherry honed in on one fact that she knew about John, that he was from Ohio and had married a woman named Janice Hartman in the nineteen seventies. In Detroit. She called information and began dialing every Hartman with a two to one six area code, asking if they had a relative named Janice. After several days and hundreds of dollars later, a man named Gary Hartman in Wadsworth, Ohio, said that he had a sister named Janice who had married a man named John Smith from Seville, Ohio, in nineteen sixty nine, and they later divorced in November of nineteen seventy four, three days before Janice disappeared. When Sherry asked Gary how they could get in touch with Janie, his answer nearly knocked the breath from her. He explained that Janice had vanished days after her divorce from John was final. Sherry almost dropped the phone, her mind raised as she blurted out that her own sister had also been married to John Smith and had also disappeared. Gary later recalled the haunting moment, the hair on the back of my neck literally stood up. I couldn't speak for several seconds. DeeDee and her Anne then turned to the media, appearing on news magazine programs like a current affair and hard copy in hopes of drawing public attention to Fran's disappearance, and their efforts worked. Soon reporters were following John Smith under the spotlight. He made several awkward remarks. He told one reporter quote, the feeling is one of disappointment. I would have hoped fran would have been home by now. He

36:33 suggested that DeeDee and Sherry didn't know all the facts about Franz's disappearance, saying, when you don't know what happened, you just have to look at all the angles. And when asked about the fact that both of his wives had gone missing, he brushed it off as one of those strange coincidences. Ye strange coincidence. John Gary Hartman, Janis's brother, was also talking to the media. He told the Trenorian newspaper that John fit all the characteristics of a sociopath to a tee. He lied, pathologically, manipulated people, and showed little remorse or empathy. His co workers, too, were relentless teasing and pulling pranks on him, once leaving a mannequin covered in ketchup in his locker. Oh man, we'll be back after a break.

37:24 The Wayne County, Ohio Sheriff's Department sits near Wooster, about fifty miles southwest of Cleveland, a small community known for its fertile farmland and small town charm is home to the College of Wooster and has a vibrant downtown filled with shops, restaurants, and historic architecture. Surrounding Wooster are thriving Amish and Mennonite communities, which have been part of the area since the nineteenth century. Their presence has shaped Wayne County's agricultural heritage and cultural identity, giving the region a unique character that blends tradition with modern life. If you remember back at the beginning, said that John was Mennonite, and I really wasn't able to find any more information about that, and I am curious as to how it shaped his upbringing. Yeah, I really don't have any other information on that fourth story. In March nineteen ninety two, Detective Brian Potts sat at his desk and Booster when his phone rang. On the other end of the line was Detective Dansbury from the West Windsor Township Police Department, inquiring about the investigation Wayne County had done into the disappearance of Janice Hartman Smith in November nineteen seventy four.

38:35 Potts dug up the police report, which described Janis as petite, pretty blonde haired, much like Fran Both women were friendly and warm. Janie, the report continued, frequented several bars and was known to be boisterous. The following incident was included in the report. Complaintant John Smith advised that he was with Janis at sun Valley Bar on eleven seventeen. Complaint advised that she was with another friend at the time, but he can't advise name, only descriptions. Stocky man with mustache. Complaint advised his wife was to meet at John Richardson there at twenty two hundred hours. Complaintant then left Janie. Janis later took Kathy Paradon home. Kathy advised a man was with Janis at the time, but she did not know who the man was. Complaint advised that Janie must have returned home sometime on Monday eleven, eighteen seventy four in early morning hours, as her car was back at Lot one sixty seven Melrose when he got up. He advised that he didn't think much about her not being there.

39:37 Because he thought that someone had picked her up to take her into Wooster to file charges against Ron Pamer and several others. She has not been seen since taking Kathy parrod On home. Kathy advised Mail and Carr when she went home. Was white male, dark hair, beard, medium billed with a bad case of acne. County Alert was given to summarize Janis Hartman's final night was clouded in uncertainty and conflicting accounts. Although her family believed she was divorced from John Smith, he claimed that she was still living with him in Wooster in a trailer park. On November seventeenth, nineteen seventy four, Janis and John were seen at the Sun Valley Bar in Doylestown, where she was also accompanied by an unidentified stocky man, possibly named John Richardson, that she was supposed to meet that night, but it was unclear. Later, she reportedly took her friend Kathy home and this man accompanied her. He had a bushy mustache and bad acne, raising further questions about who she was really with. Investigators tried to track down Richardson, but a James Richardson in Doylestown denied involvement again leaving it unclear whether he or someone else was with Janie. The next morning, John Smith found Jan's Mustang at his Wooster mobile home, but assumed that she was staying with a friend. Her disappearance was especially troubling because it occurred just before she was scheduled to file criminal charges against several men, suggesting a possible motive. Remember those men that had attacked her

41:10 right Conflicting witness accounts, questionable identifications, and references to other cases left investigators piecing together a confusing and mysterious timeline. Perhaps because she worked as a go go dancer and spent time drinking in bars, law enforcement didn't put much effort into finding her. There was never a formal investigation into her disappearance. Her car and mobile home were never searched. No one was questioned until years later, not even the men who had attempted to sexually assault her. That's really crazy. I thought maybe they didn't figure it out because there were a lot of potential culprits involved here, But it sounds like they didn't really do their job and do a thorough investigation.

41:52 Money es Actually, if she was working with them, it seemed like they would have a lot of interest in helping to find right exactly. Betty, Janis's mother, was devastated by her daughter's disappearance. She relentlessly pressed law enforcement, reached out to the FBI, contacted her governor and senators, and even hired a private investigator. But despite her efforts, the trail went cold. Refusing to believe that Janie was dead. Each year, her mother still bought and wrapped Birthday and Christmas presents for her. And as for John, he never followed up with Betty or the police to see how the investigation was going. In nineteen ninety two, Betty was moved to erect a tombstone for her daughter in their family plot, eighteen years after she vanished. I just felt like she needed a place. I wanted to show that she had passed through this world.

42:41 That is really heartbreaking, it really is. I don't know how families go on when someone is missing. Yeah, for eighteen years, that's a long time. After Janie disappeared, John moved back and with his grandparents and bought a flashy Mustang. By summer, he had landed a solid management job and started dating a woman named Sandy. Before long, the two were living together. He told Sandy how much he loved his first wife, but explained that she'd been killed after becoming addicted to drugs and owing her dealer's money. He told someone else that she joined a cult, right or a commune. Yeah, But Detective Potts wasn't going to give up on Janis. Wayne County decided to reopen her case. Potts sent over one hundred letters to every coroner and police station in Ohio, both big and small, seeking help in the investigation, although he didn't receive any promising leads.

43:34 So this reopening the investigation on Janis. This happened after Fran's disappearance. Yes, okay, just want to make sure you have the timeline right. So the New Jersey detectives came to Ohio to work together on their related cases. They started by interviewing John's family, who weren't much help. They weren't a close family. Many of them were a strange and didn't know that John had remarried. They hadn't even met Fran. Investigators were able to track down Kathy Parrodon, who had been with Janis on the night that she went missing. She claimed that she did remember John Smith or much of that night. After traveling to Ohio, the New Jersey detectives felt confident that John Smith was involved in both of his wife's disappearances.

44:14 In April nineteen ninety two, they searched his condo, car, and office and asked him to come to the police station for an interview. Nothing of note was found in his condo, but two yellow suitcases that Fran's daughter had found were still there, and police thought that was significant, along with the full closet and drawers. Nothing seemed to be missing. When the police asked John for a photo of Fran, he'd originally claimed that she was camera shy and that he didn't have any photos of her. Now that they'd been inside of his condo, they realized that he had been lying. There was no shortage of pictures of Fran, a former model. What a weird thing to lie about, which is very strange. John was questioned for twelve hours and submitted to a polygraph exam, which he failed. They questioned him about Nis.

45:00 The detectives knew that Janie's musting had been found by John's mobile home, but he told them it had been found on the highway one hundred miles from Seville, with the doors opened. John was calm and unflappable during the interview, which was unsettling to the detectives. He displayed no emotion, never went to the bathroom, ate a bite of food, took a drink of water, or even removed his coat. Each time he told the story of what happened to his wife's it shifted slightly. He struck them as a compulsive liar and a master manipulator. After John was allowed to go home, Sheila, John's girlfriend, called him from Connecticut. Unbeknownst to John, law enforcement sat with her recording the call.

45:43 Sheila told John that police had told her about Janice and showed her pictures. Who is she? Janis Hartman was my first wife when I was nineteen years old. What happened to her? Janis Hartman and I got divorced, I left the area. I have not seen Janis since I left, and I reported her missing. I found out today that in all these years, that she's never been found and that she was legally declared dead. That's it, point blank, simple facts. Do you know her family? No, I don't know her family, and no I haven't talked to her family. How could you not talk to her family? We were divorced. I thought that she was headed her way, and I headed my way. I mean, I didn't know she was missing all these years. You know, how could you not know that she was missing?

46:26 Did anyone? Like, no one told you that she was missing? No one told me she was missing. All this time, I thought she was back with her family. By now, I hadn't maintained any contact. I didn't know it. I didn't know. I didn't know that. I didn't know that she was still missing all this time until today. I didn't know that she was still gone until today. I didn't know that she was declared legally dead until today. Well, let's get real simple here, okay, I mean real simple. Okay, let's just start with honesty. Right, You've got to start with honesty. You've just got to lay it on the line. I have started with honest. Here you are in your condo, this is totally Everything is just falling to pieces because you're lying to everyone around you.

47:07 That's correct. Okay. So the officers now had John lying on tape, and while it was progress, it wasn't enough. There still wasn't any evidence tying him directly to Janis's disappearance. John Is just so weird getting trying to get in his head. There really is messed with me. I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to ask you to do it again later too. John grew tired of the attention and accusations in New Jersey, quit his job and moved to Connecticut to his little house. Sheila had broken things off with him and moved out. John met a sex worker named Janie Miller, who lived with him for a short time. After that relationship ended, John moved to New Hampshire and worked for a company that made labels and began dating a coworker briefly before he returned to Ohio in early nineteen ninety four to help his mother run the family real estate business after his stepfather's death. The business was very successful, worth almost thirty million dollars. John got into legal trouble in nineteen ninety seven when, after a car accident, he provided law enforcement with a false social security number. His driver's license was suspended, but he had continued to drive. Detective seized the opportunity and pulled him over and hauled him in for questioning. Again in the disappearances of the two missus Smiths, again, the Ohio and New Jersey detectives worked together. They kept Smith there for ten hours, but in the five years since they had last questioned him, there had been no new evidence and John was still slippery. They let him go, frustrated that they still didn't have enough probable cause for

48:40 a rest. Soon after, John Smith disappeared from Ohio and law enforcement lost track of him for a couple of years. So this is the benefit of having the name John Smith. He was able to fly under the radar or move to a different area and they couldn't track him down. Yeah, I can imagine. The disappearances of Janice and Franz Smith haunted Detective Michael Dansbury of the West Windsor Police Department. He was convinced John had been involved in both of his wife's vanishings and was determined to prove it. Enter Bob hilland after seven years with the West Windsor Township Police hilland moved to the FBI's New York office in nineteen ninety seven. Early in his career, back when he was still a rookie patrolman, he had looked at John Smith in the eye and he had never forgotten the unsettling interaction. Years later, while catching up with Dansbury one afternoon, their conversation turned to his frustration over Smith's unknown whereabouts.

49:36 Hilland now part of the FBI's cold case homicide unit, thought he might be able to help. His superiors told him he would have to pursue the case on his own time, and he agreed with that. He set out to re examine the evidence. Determined to bring a fresh set of eyes to the investigation, and he started from scratch. Bob worked with the FBI's profilers to better understand Smith. He used every resource at his hand to pinpoint John's location. Tracking down a man named John Smith wasn't easy, but investigators eventually located him near San Diego. Working at a high end Italian auto customization company called La Forza, where he was part owner. Bob found that John was renting a room from a coworker and dating a woman named Diane, whom he went on to marry in September nineteen ninety eight.

50:25 She later told the FBI that John was very secretive about his past. She only knew that he had a wife who had died of cancer. John kept a large photo of Fran in their house. Isn't that weird. That is very weird. A neighbor in the apartment complex where Diane and John lived told the Akron Beacon Journal that John was unfriendly. Quote, he stayed to himself, He didn't talk to anyone. He was weird. He never went to the mailbox, and he always drove fancy cars Ferrari Maserati. They seemed like the perfect couple. She didn't say much either. I guess you can go into any neighborhood, no matter how nice, and people have their own little secrets. Because John Smith had lived in at least six different states, the FBI began to wonder if Janis and fran weren't his only victims. He certainly seemed to have away with women and was never single for long. Could they have a serial killer on their hands? I was kind of wondering that myself. On May fifth, nineteen ninety nine, twenty five FBI agents and detectives quietly fanned out across the country to interview people from John's past ex girlfriends, friends, relatives, acquaintances, while preparing to question John himself. The timing was deliberate, they didn't want word getting back to him. Among those interviewed was his brother, Michael, whom agents believed knew more than he had admitted previously. John agreed to come in for an interview. It took place at a nondescript holiday in express. John again didn't request a lawyer. As the

51:56 interview began, agent Hillans showed him a photo John in the center, surrounded by the twenty five people being questioned that same day, spokes radiating out like a wheel. Hill and told John they were all being interviewed simultaneously. As the implication sank in, John shifted uneasily. His typical composure faltered when agents pressed him on every crack in his story about his missing wives. The weight of it finally broke him. My life is a nightmare. I'm tired of living this nightmare. I want the nightmare to end. Those words were music to the agent's ears. They could feel a confession coming, But soon John's demeanor shifted again. He began to cry, complaining of an excruciating headache and asked for a leave. While one agent ran to a nearby pharmacy to get the pain reliever. John sat rocking back and forth in the fetal position under a blanket on the couch. Moments later, he said he wanted to go to the hospital. He thought he was having a heart attack.

52:55 The medical emergency cut the moment short, abruptly ending what agents believe was nearly a confession. When E. Mts arrived, they found no heart problem, but they needed to bring him to the hospital to be sure. As he was being wheeled out on a gurney, he winked at Agent Hillend. Oh can you imagine, Oh, Agent Hillen must have been ready to choke him. I think he really wanted to. Meanwhile, in Ohio, agents questioned John's younger brother, Michael. He worked as a handyman for some of his mother's rental properties and carried a quiet resentment toward John, who had always been the favored son. Investigators new Michael had once warned female tenants to stay away from his brother, calling John dangerous, but when pressed, he denied ever saying it.

53:42 They also interviewed John's new wife, Diane. She was stunned to discover that her husband had been married twice before, and that both of those wives had vanished under suspicious circumstances. I can't even imagine that feeling, like finding out you're married to someone who had two wives disappeared suspiciously. Yeah, poor Diane. Yeah, well, lucky Diane. Yeah. About two weeks after his meeting with the FBI, guilt began to gnaw at Michael Smith. Janie haunted his dreams, appearing again and again in nightmares that he couldn't shake. Finally, he decided he couldn't stay silent any longer. He had to tell authorities what he knew. He recalled to investigators that in nineteen seventy four, before the Ohio State Michigan game, John had asked him to load bags of women's clothing into his van. They drove to their grandparents' house, where Michael settled in to watch the game while John disappeared into the garage. At halftime, curiosity got the better of him, and he went to check on his brother. John was crafting a crude box made out of plywood, an oblong box about a foot and a half wide and four feet long. He said it was for Janis's belongings, but Michael thought the box was too long and skinny to be of much use. John told him that jan had been working as a drug informant and was going into a witness protection program. Michael said that John was emotional while building the box, even shedding a tear. John filled the box with Janis's clothing and stored it, and his grandparents rarely used garage for five years until one day

55:15 in nineteen seventy nine when Chester called Michael in a panic and asked him to come over. Together, they pried the lid off of the box. Inside they found women's clothing, bones, and what appeared to be hair that Michael described as rainbow in color. Poking around the box. A skull with skin stretched over it like a mummy, looked back at them. Michael said it was undeniably Janis's face. Although investigators said that this was not possible. I'll explain when we get to the end, okay. Michael told his grandfather that they had to call the police. Ethel and Chester were both in failing health, with Ethel recovering from a recent heart attack. Chester asked Michael not to call the police. It was a brutal decision. Michael said, I did not want to kill my grandmother. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do for her. The person in the box. I did not want to kill my grandmother.

56:08 Chester ordered Michael to call his brother with a warning, come get the box and never set foot in his house or contact him again. He had kept John's secret, but it came at a price. In Hammond, Indiana, John got the message and tore off toward the house in his sleek new black corvette with the tea tops removed. During the drive, he had had enough time to conjure a tale to tell his grandfather and Michael. John told them that two men, allegedly an FBI agent and a Wayne County Sheriff's deputy, had drugged him or knocked him out. When he regained consciousness, he claimed he was in a warehouse with Janis dead beside him, while the men laughed, saying they would frame him for murder. He said he was knocked out again and later woke in a trailer in Wooster, Ohio, still with Janis's body, which he then put in his van and drove away just as a sheriff's car arrived. Well, it seemed like a perfectly plausible story to me, So.

57:01 He can lie just as easily as he breathes. Yeah, Michael admitted he wanted to believe his brother's story, no matter how outrageous, because of their bond as brothers. He struggled between accepting the bazaar tale or facing the possibility that his brother had killed Janis, whom he had genuinely loved. John loaded the box into his corvette. It was a tight fit. They never spoke of it again, although his relationship with his family was forever changed. One last detail Michael provided to police was that one of the properties he helped his family manage, a complex called Grace Lane Apartments, was constructing garages in nineteen seventy nine. He had mentioned to John that concrete would be poor the next day and that might be a good way to dispose of Janis's remains. Finally, twenty five years after Janis's disappearance, Michael Smith had unburdened his soul and provided law enforcement with information that could finally put John behind bars, but there was still no evidence to back up his eye landish story. The next day, a reliable search dog named Eagle went to the Grace Lane Apartments and promptly alerted on one particular garage floor. A large slab of the garage floor was removed with small hand tools and screens.

58:14 The dirt beneath was searched for human remains. Fragments from two teeth were found, a canine and an incisor, but nothing more. When mitochondrial DNA from the found teeth was compared to that of Janus's mother, there was no match. Where did the teeth come from? Could it have been another victim of John Smith's. You might be wondering, Welcua that they have been Fran's teeth, But the timeline was not right. The garage had been built, the cement had been poured, okay, before Fran had disappeared. Gotcha. Later investigators searched John's grandparents' house and garage once more. No physical evidence was uncovered, but a scent dog alerted in the garage, right where the box had sat for years.

58:56 So the dog was probably alerting just on the smell of death that had been there, because that box had been in the garage, not because there were any remains there. Right, makes sense. We'll be back after a break. Nervous that he may be charged as an accomplice, Michael Smith agreed to cooperate with the FBI and allow his phone conversations with John to be recorded. Here is one conversation from June nineteen ninety nine. There's one thing I've got to ask you, and I've never ever wanted to discuss this with you again. John, Okay, the box and granddads?

59:37 Yeah, the goat? Yeah, what about it? It's nowhere around Seville, is it? No? No, the goat isn't anywhere near Seville. Okay. After the first call didn't give them much incriminating information, law enforcement wanted Michael to be more aggressive on the next call and tell John that he'd been summoned to appear before a grand jury. But also the goat. I think he's trying to, you know, make it sound like someone left a goat, right as a joke. Yeah, and he put it in a box in his dad's garage. One right would never do. I'm going there to New York and I'm going to tell them the truth. That's it. That's exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm going to tell them that we've seen you build a box, granddad, and I opened the box we found Jan in it. You know, That's what I'm gonna do. I cannot see another way out of this. I'm not going to go to jail for you, John.

1:00:28 No, I wouldn't expect you to. Okay, you know, there's just no way around it. Okay, unless you got some idea. No, I don't have any idea. Unless there's unless there's some kind of something. No, there isn't. I mean, that wasn't. I don't know what else to tell you. You know, that was a joke or something that somebody dropped off in the box. That wasn't Jan in it. But if that's what you believe. John, that was Jan in the box. We opened the box up. Her fucking legs were cut off. Do you want me to continue? No? Anyway? All right, So you're going to New York on August fifth. Huh. Yeah. And here's the best part. Okay, I get to do a polygraph test the next day. You do, Yeah, I do? Okay, So I'm not going to lie.

1:01:11 No, I don't expect you to. So that wasn't true. Michael was just trying to get John to admit to something. The next day, Friday, July twenty third, nineteen ninety nine, John disappeared. His wife Diane called the FBI. They moved Michael and his wife to a hotel for safety, but by Monday, John resurfaced, looking dirty, rumpled, and unshaven, with a large cut on his forehead. He told his wife that the FBI had locked him into a room all weekend and wouldn't let him leave. Of course this wasn't true. We don't know where he was or what he was doing. Possibly he was burying another body. The prosecutor weighed taking the case to a grand jury, but with no bodies and no forensic evidence, they chose to wait in hopes that new evidence would surface. Remember Dede and Sherry I do. They warned Diane about her new husband, and they even hired a private detective to follow John, trying to keep her safe. Soon after, Diane discovered photos of John with other women, pictures that looked romantic.

1:02:17 She handed them over to the FBI agent hilland met with her and warned her too of how dangerous John Smith could be, especially if she tried to leave him. By December, Diane filed for an annulment, and the filings she wrote that she had a very brief dating relationship with John before getting married, and that after their marriage she learned that he was an accomplished liar, and although he exhibits a gentle face, he has an explosive temper. Among the lies that he had told her was that he had been married to Fran for seven years, when in fact it had only been seventeen months. Fearing for her safety, Diane changed the locks, got a new phone number, and her daughter move in with her for protection, but John's temper was relentless. One night, he broke into the house in a blind rage. The fury only subsided when he suddenly came face to face with Diane's daughter Summer and that brief pause, Diane managed to call the police.

1:03:17 Soon after, she secured a restraining order against him. Sensing a breakthrough was near, Detective Brian Potts set out another round of letters, similar to the one that he had written in nineteen ninety two, but this time he focused on Indiana's Jane Doe cases. Last time he sent the letters to Ohio. He wrote, Dear Sirs, I am Detective Sergeant Brian Potts with the Wayne County Sheriff's Office in Wooster, Ohio, investigating the nineteen seventy four disappearance of Janice Hartman Smith. She was last seen after her divorce from John David Smith, who later reported another wife missing in nineteen ninety one in New Jersey. Information suggests that Janis's body was preserved, placed in a plywood box and hidden in a garage.

1:04:03 In nineteen seventy nine, the box was discovered by family members. John later removed it and claimed to have dumped it in a field. We are asking all Indiana coroners and sheriffs to review records of unidentified Jane Does from nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty. Janis was a white female five four one hundred fifteen pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. Date of birth three two, nineteen fifty one, aged twenty three at disappearance. Sincerely, Brian Potts Sherry assisted with a letter writing campaign. By then, the families of Fran and Janice had become united in their grief, leaning on one another for strength and support. Both determined to find their loved ones and get justice. When the letter crossed Detective Jerry Berman's desk later that month, his jaw dropped.

1:04:51 Whether it was fade or good luck, Berman had been among the officers called at the scene along Hopkins Park Road some twenty years earlier. He'd never forgotten the plywood box filled with a young woman's possessions and skeletal remains, whined the lady in the box, by local media. Her remains were partially buried in a potter's field section of a cemetery in Morocco, Indiana in nineteen eighty. Her skull and a few bones had not been buried, but kept in evidence and hopes her identity would someday be revealed. On March second, Janice Hartman's birthday, the Lady in the Box was exhumed and taken to Toledo for examination by a forensic anthropologist. The bones were found to be from a petite female in her early twenties. There was no determinate cause of death. Remember, the Lady in the Box's leg bones were cut, maybe by a circular saw, because of the precise cuts. Well, further examination revealed that the cuts were likely made by a serrated knife, which would have just taken yeah, so much force and time. After six weeks, the FBI confirmed the Lady in the Box to be Janice Hartman by matching DNA from the femur found in the box to that of her mother, Buddy House. Finally, Prosecutor Joscelyn Stephenson felt like there was enough evidence for a grand jury to hear the case. On August twenty fifth, two thousand, the grand jury in Wayne County, Ohio, voted to indict John David Smith her aggravated murder, facing up

1:06:21 to twenty years in prison, which was the maximum sentence in nineteen seventy four. On Tuesday October three, two thousand, John forty nine, was arrested without incident and taken into custody at the San Diego County Jail. Detective Brian Potts flew to California to accompany Smith back to Ohio. On the flight, Smith didn't speak a word when they landed. He was taken to the Wooster Jail to await his first court appearance. Sherry told Dayline that a detective called her from the jail. I have something you might want to hear, he said, as he slammed the door on John's cell. We did it, he said. At his arraignment a week later, Sherry Fran's sister was there to look John in the eye. He pleaded not guilty. Bail was denied, and the trial was set for January two thousand and one.

1:07:09 Sherry told the Beacon Journal, I wanted him to see me sitting there when he walked into court. I wanted him to know I'm not going any place until I know where my sister is. I'm just glad a body was found to at least get this far. One down, one to go. He has let it be known that he despises me more than anyone else in the world because of everything my family has done to make his life miserable for the last nine years. After John was arrested in two thousand, law enforcement was not satisfied with their case against him. They continued to search for more evidence. Once again, they hired Eagle to send dog to search a storage unit that belonged to John. Eagle alerted he found three small pieces of human skull. They did not belong to Janice or Fran. What yeah.

1:07:56 Wow. The original trial date was postponed several times due to pre trial motions, one motion forbade mention of Betty Fran or her disappearance. The trial began in July two thousand and one. Isn't that so frustrating with it that evidence is excluded? You know it just it seems awfully relevant to me. It's a pattern, right. The jury, nine women and three men, filed into the cramped courtroom, their faces set with quiet determination. The room buzzed with reporters and curious onlookers eager to witness the trial of John Smith. At the defense table, John, now fifty years old, sat stonefaced, his expression unreadable, betraying nothing as the proceedings unfolded around him. The prosecution portrayed John as a controlling husband with anger issues who snapped when his wife sought a divorce. Though he was first drawn to her fun, rebellious spirit. Once married, he tried to quash it. The defense tried to shift blame onto Janice, arguing that her job as a go go dancer and her drinking and drug use made her a target. The prosecution suffered a back when key witness Kathy Paradon had an anxiety attack just before taking the stand. A close friend of Janie, Kathy had been with her on the last night of her life. Janis had even driven her home back in nineteen seventy four. Kathy reported that a man with a bushy mustache and severe acne was in the car with Janis when she got out. She had also witnessed John's slap Janis, but overwhelmed and unable to testify, Kathy was removed from the witness list. I think you

1:09:28 mentioned earlier that she said she couldn't even remember much of that night anyway, So it seems like I'm not sure how good of a witness she would have been. Regardless, Well, she was going to testify that she had made that story up. Oh, and that there was not a bushy man, not a bushyman, but a man with a bushy mustache. Gotcha. A week into the trial, Michael Smith took the stand with prosecutorial immunity. The night before, his mother had allegedly begged him not to testify against his brother, but Michael was determined to write his past wrongs. The defense duns attacked his credibility, highlighting his lies, half truths, and even his mistake about the weekend he saw John building the wooden box, but the prosecution countered effectively arguing that the timing didn't matter. What mattered was that he had seen his brother make the box. The box, by the way, sat in the courtroom every day of the trial.

1:10:20 That box sitting there in the courtroom must have been jarring. Yeah, that would be showed you what a monster John was. Yeah, I think that would be a very effective prop to have in the trial. Another witness testified that John used to wear a lady's diamond watch to work, and coworkers often made fun of him for it. The watch was significant because John had given Janis a diamond watch as a gift and claimed that she had been wearing it when she disappeared. It took twenty seven years to finally bring John Smith to trial, yet the proceedings lasted less than two weeks over the course of twenty seven witnesses. No murder weapon was produced, and no forensic evidence linking John to Shannis's body was ever found. The most devastating blow came from John's own brother, Though the defense fought hard to discredit him as unreliable, it took the jury about eight hours to reach their decision. After their initial vote, five jurors voted to acquit him, but they eventually agreed and found John Smith not guilty of aggravated murder, but guilty of murder. You had me scared right there as I was reading that sentence, Smith sat stonefaced. The jury later said the most convincing testimony was that of Michael Smith.

1:11:32 If Michael hadn't come forward, I really don't think they had a case. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it During sentencing, Gary Hartman addressed the judge, the prosecution's done an excellent job. My mother, even my father may forgive John for what he's done, but my brother, my sister, and I will never forgive you for what you've done. You kill women in your life that you loved, and that's very hard to understand. I'll say one other thing about Michael's testimony. The family will forgive Michael. We hope that his nightmares go away and that you receive them. Fran's sister Sherry spoke, as a family, we have proved to be a force to be reckoned with. For the past two and a half weeks, Janice has spoken in this courtroom, and through these proceedings, Janice has found justice for herself and her family. Fran has not spoken yet, but we as a family will continue our efforts to give Fran's memory the justice it deserves with the help of authorities. This family has tracked you for nine years, nine months, eighteen days to get to this day. But this is not over for our family.

1:12:33 We are not going away until you tell us what you did with my sister's body after you killed her. I promised my mother on her deathbed that I would find my sister. I will, to my last dollar, my last breath, work to fulfill that promise. Finally, the judge passed down his sentence. You are sentenced to a fifteen year to life term. I can't speak for the parole board, but I'm confident that you will serve the rest of your life in an Ohio prison. And it's it's not going to happen today, but maybe someday you will do the right thing and respond to the questions of these people. You can't overcome, you can't change the bad that you've done, but since you are going to be living, albeit in prison, you do have the opportunity to do good and to answer their questions, and I would hope that you would take that to heart. Even John's third wife wanted to help get justice for Fran and Janice. After the trial, she went to the prison and looked John squarely in the face and asked him where Fran's body was. I'm innocent, he responded.

1:13:31 The way these people bonded together to get justice just is so touching. It's really moving. Yeah, it is. John Smith came close to winning an appeal the jury had mistakenly been given access to States Exhibit number forty eight, a document referencing the disappearance of Betty Franz Smith. It was a clear prosecutorial error, but the judge ultimately ruled that the information hadn't influenced the jury. Remember, fran wasn't supposed to be mentioned at all. Just the fact that this document had, you know, her name, could have been enough to you know, change them. In October two thousand and one, Sherry and Dedi sued John Smith for the wrongful death of fran The judge found in their favor and awarded them one million dollars, which, of course, they will never receive a penny of. In twenty nineteen, a new Jersey grand jury indicted John Smith for Franz murder, thirty years after she vanished. When it was ruled that evidence related to John's murder of Janice Hartman Smith would be excluded, the prosecutors decided to offer John a plea deal.

1:14:37 If he gave up the location of Fran's body, they'd offered him immunity. He accepted. Under the terms of the plea deal, he didn't have to divulge why, how, or even if he murdered fran He claimed that he wrapped her body in a blanket and threw her into the dumpster at Carborundum, where he worked at the time. Sherry Dedey and Robert Hilen were all crushed by this decision. The prosecutor defended their decision without being able to use the evidence of Janice's murder, they really had no case. They wanted to bring closure to Franz family and this was their best option. Diane, John's third wife, told the San Diego Union Tribune that she married him for financial stability and had no idea about the first two missus Smiths.

1:15:23 I never loved him. The marriage was a farce. I would never have married him had I known. Their marriage wasn't old in July two thousand and one. But Diane is one of the few people who maintained a relationship with John once he was in jail, calling him and writing to him. That's surprising. Today John Smith remains imprisoned in Ohio, with his earliest chance of parole in twenty twenty nine, when he will be seventy eight years old. Franz remains have never been. Recovered, So so sad and. Oddly, like Janice's beat whatever happened to like, you know, her legs and her feet. They have never been recovered either. Strange rest and peace to Janice Hartman Smith and Betty fran Gladden Smith. Their lives were tragically cut short, leaving behind grieving families who never stopped searching for the truth.

1:16:09 Made their memories live on, not in the shadows of how they were lost, but in the love and light that they brought to those who knew them. Never stop looking, believing and hoping. There's always someone out there who knows something. Remember when Michael Smith said that he saw Janice's face in the box, right, what investigators think he saw was there was a bunch of clothing in there, and one of them was like a filmy nightgown that was a multi colored nightgown and it was placed like over her face and over you know the time that it was over her face like the shroud of turin, like her face was her face. Okay, yeah, and the multi colored hair.

1:16:51 I think that maybe some of the dye had leached out from the you know, the clothing onto her hair. So it wasn't that he was having he was wrong. It was just that's what he saw, Okay. Oh, that's interesting. So I have a question for you about a couple of other things that we talked about earlier that I don't think ever got resolved. So there were teeth found under the garage of one of their rental units, and I think there was pieces of a skull found in a storage unit too. Were those ever identified of who they belonged to? No, they weren't. It's disturbing, isn't it. Yeah, so, and we don't know where he was, you know, all these times, and it's possible that you know, there are more victims. Yeah, wow, that's really really disturbing.

1:17:32 I just wanted to talk about the family and how amazing are you know these people who you know, didn't give up finding their loved ones and working together. It is just, yeah, it's really soving to me. How do you think John got so many women? I have no idea I was. I was wondering that throughout the whole thing, because he didn't I mean, the pictures he showed me didn't really seem like that much of a look or he seemed like a very odd guy, like just very weird. So I don't know. So some of the girlfriends that he had said that he was like very loyal and devoted and very sincere, like in their one on one relationships with him, that they really felt like he was earnest and meant everything that he said to them.

1:18:15 Okay, yeah, it seems like he was a good manipulator. Why do you think Janice's legs were cut the way that they were? I don't know, it's really weird to fit into the box or something. Maybe, I really I wondered if that was possible, But that would have been such like a just a gruesome, tedious task. I saw away with the serrated knife, and the reason they thought it was a serrated knife was just a serrated knife, just the way that the cuts look. Yeah, it's such a bizarre thing to do. I can't imagine the prosecutor in the case. I don't want to take credit for saying this, but at the trial she said that he cut the legs off so she could never walk out on him again, because he really and Fran was probably plotting to leave him too. Yeah, and he really hated the idea of anyone leaving him.

1:19:03 Wow. Yeah, whatever the reason, that's really creepy thing to do. We talked about Eagle, the scent dog a few times in this story, and Eagle sounds like definitely at the top of his game. He was like one of those dogs that police really really trusted. Sounds like a good boy. Definitely a good boy. Yeah. I just want to shout out to dogs. I mean dogs that police dogs and scent dogs, cadaver dogs. They are amazing, amazing. I think I have given scent dogs a hard time sometimes because they don't always work out great. But Eagle was, you know, really a superstar. Yeah. Absolutely. I did a little bit of research about scent dogs.

1:19:45 All cadaver dogs are scent dogs, but not all scent dogs are trained to detect human remains. They're kind of two different skills. That makes sense. Yeah, I do want to name my sources. The main source that I use for this case is a book called The Stranger in My The True Story of Marriage, Murder and the Body in the Box by Michael Fleeman, written in two thousand and three. Who's a good book, a lot of great information. Just on September second, Robert Hilland wrote a book called Chasing Evil. Wow, And because I was halfway done with the case, I didn't read his book. It sounds really interesting, but he wrote it with John Edward. Do you know who that is? No, he's a psychic.

1:20:27 Oh. Interesting, So I just want to take a minute to Oh and the other book I read, probably a third of was written by Sherry Gladden Davis Fran's sister. It's called My Sister Is Missing, Bring a Killer to Justice. The book I don't think is in print anymore. I will link this in show notes. I was able to find it on archive dot org and I will put that in the show notes. It was definitely interesting to hear her account. I wanted to talk about Robert Hillan and John Edward's book a little bit, Like I said. It was just released on September second. Co authored it about their twenty five year relationship, and it's called Chasing Evil. John Edward is a well known psychic medium. Hilland claims that over the years he has leaned on Edward for help in solving cases. Here's an excerpt from the book related to the John Smith case. It was the first time the men had met hilland was a huge skeptic.

1:21:21 I'm seeing a woman. She looks older than her actual age. She's crossed over. She has two names like Mary Anne, Barbara Ann, but people call her by the second name. There's an f like Fern or Fran. Wait, it's Fran. She was vain about her appearance. She had breast implans they're showing me serial numbers on them, and dyed blonde hair, blue eyes. She wore a lot of makeup. Pran was a smoker. I smell cigarette smoke and strong perfume, like when a person tries to cover up the smoke scent with a lot of perfume. She's also showing me that she couldn't walk, like she broke her leg. She's showing me crutches. I feel a strong pain in the back of my head. She's struck in the head. Yes, she was hitting the back of the head with something. She didn't see it coming. Weird. I felt like she was tricked into going somewhere by someone she trusted, a boyfriend or her husband. He is still here, He hasn't crossed.

1:22:12 He has a simple name, a J name like John or Jim or Joe, and a second name s very common like Smith. I shivered. This was unreal. John put down the glasses and picked up the hair brush after she was hit in the head. The j S name, let's call him. Smith strangled her to make sure she was dead. Not like a bloodbath or anything. It was like he knocked her out with one blow and then strangled her. He was much younger than her, John continued, maybe ten years. She was angry. Was there another woman? She thought there was another woman, but not in the same state they were living. She's showing me stairs. They were upstairs on our third floor, if not higher. There was an argument. She confronted him about a bunch of things, not just one issue. Feels like a whole bunch of different things. Smith was lying to her and she knew it.

1:22:58 She called him out. He felt like his worlds were crashing together. So that's kind of wild. I don't know how much I believe in that. Call me a skeptic, but okay. Right, no, I totally understand being a skeptic. But Robert Hilland like, if you see him in person and you hear him speak, he's like the most serious, like FBI guy that you can see. Yeah, I just think it's really interesting that these two men have had a twenty five year relationship and Hilland feels like Edward has helped him solve a lot of cases. And I know what you're thinking, Well, if he has solved so many cases where our France remains, Edward thinks that fran was dismembered and possibly put in a storm sewer.

1:23:39 Oh okay, interesting. So I was going to actually ask you about the deal that they made where he said that he had put her body in the dumpster at his workplace, which was he was disappointing because they never actually found her body. So do you think he was like lying about that or do you think that they just never found her body because it was then taken to a landfill or something and just you know, no way. I think that's a really good question. And the investigators believe that he was lying because they said that, you know, it was an open air dumpsters. Dumpsters are a lot different today, especially in you know, industrial settings, but it was just an open air dumpster, and they just don't think that he would have just thrown her body in there. Yeah. Interesting. And remember like at the at the end of the episode when we were talking about how he disappeared for a few days and he came back looking like really dirty and disheveled, and they believe that he probably was burying another body during that time.

1:24:33 Wow, it's John Edwards, the psychic. I do I've heard of him, like he used to have. Oh, he's very well known. Yeah, think he had a commercial. Yeah, I think he's worked with a lot of investigators. Try to find more information about cases in which you know a psychic has actually helped solve the case. Yeah, it's I haven't heard of any either. I've heard of quite a few where they've gotten involved. But I can understand the allure of it, like, yeah, we need help and we're gonna, you know, take every opportunity that we can. Yeah. Yeah, So that is the story of John Smith. Wow, fascinating story and what a horrible guy. Yeah. I forgot to mention this at the top. I'm so glad I'm remembering it now. I want to say thank you to our Patreon member Meredith for suggesting this case a long time ago. I failed to put it in our spreadsheet. I found it serendipitously when I was going through email. So I really hope that you're hearing this, Meredith.

1:25:25 Thank you so much. Very interesting case. Oh before we go to there's one more thing I wanted to mention. There's always one more thing, always one thing we do The Dateline episode that I watched was really good. We are trying to be more careful about which clips we use and not stealing anyone's clips. There's a lot of like the conversation between John and Michael is in that episode, as well as I think the conversation between Sheila and John interesting. It was a really good episode. We recreated a lot of that perfectly. I'm guessing, right, I know, why would you want to listen to the actual audio when you have our amazing recreations. But a lot of times Dateline episodes are hard to find. And I probably shouldn't even mention this because it's probably going to be gone, but it'll be on show notes. It was on YouTube, and that was a gift because a lot of times we aren't able to find older episodes.

1:26:11 All right, well that was a lot. That was a lot. You are a little distracted. How dare you? You're looking at sports scores? I'll see you, I see you over there. I told you, I warned you. This time of year is a busy time for me and sometimes I have to multitask. Well, I am proud of you. During this case, we talked about Ohio quite a lot. Yeah, and we even a Michigan Ohio football game reference. I try to put Michigan in every case if I can. But that was an interesting point too that they were talking about. I didn't really talk about this, but they said that Michael had the wrong weekend because win is the Ohio State Michigan game every year.

1:26:55 It's right near Thanksgiving always. Yeah, and he had said something about he gave the wrong weekend, but it was easily proven. But it didn't matter because you know, that's still when it happened. But you didn't say anything derogatory about Ohio, And for that I. Tried really hard. I know we have listeners that are in Columbus. Loved listeners from Ohio. We have a lot of yes, But in general, people in Michigan and Ohio we don't really get along, especially when you talk about the University of Michigan and. Yeah, when it comes to football though. One of the great rivalries in college football. I believe, yeah for sure. All Right, So this episode is going to drop a couple of days before our third podcast anniversary three years we've been podcasting.

1:27:42 Believe it, No, I really can't believe it. I feel like we're going to have the same exact conversation that we had a year ago. So I apologize if you have just listened to one of those episodes that we talk about our anniversaries, I've. Forgotten what that conversation was all about, and hopefully most other people have to. Did you think that we would make three years? Hell? Do you think we'll make it another three years? Another? Oh gosh, I don't know. Three more years is a lot. I don't know. I really, I really don't know. I wouldn't have thought we'd made this far, So. Yeah, who knows. Maybe who knows. Maybe we'll just keep going for another twenty five. Years, a decade, two decades, Yeah, why not? Well, one thing I know for sure is that we would not be podcasting. Oh gosh, I'm gonna get emotional if you guys weren't listening. We've had so much support and love along the way, and we are just so grateful.

1:28:30 I think sometimes we talk about it too much, but it still amazes us really that people like what we're doing, that they can tell that we're nice people, because we really are just like an average, nice couple next door. There's nothing really super special about us, but we just appreciate your support so so much. We do and when we started it, you know, I think we had like one hundred listens on our first episode or something like that. I remember the first day, the first day we had, we had seventeen. I was like, that was just like exceeded our expectations even by having seventeen. And now, you know, we're still a small podcast, but we get thousands of downloads every day, and you know, we started, you know, with seventeen. It's just, yeah, remarkable.

1:29:14 I was just gonna say, I don't think we definitely would not have kept doing this. We enjoy doing it, Like I think it's really fun for us to have something that we do together, but we definitely would not have kept doing. It unless people were listening, unless people were. Enjoining it and yeah, really liking what we were doing. So it really is very Yeah, it's it makes me really emotional to think about it. Yeah, right, favorite episode. I have a really hard time with this because I forget so many episodes that we've done, but the one one that I always come back to is the Carrie Farvar, Liz Galliar, Dave Krupa. I think I think I got those names right. That episode was just Bananas. It's just one of the craziest episodes. I think that I can remember.

1:30:00 How about you, that's really hard to answer. I think the favorite thing about doing the podcast for me is the connection I feel to the cases. Yeah. Yeah, and like the case that you just did last week, I could tell how emotionally connected you were. That one is going to stick with me for a long time. Then that's that's Corbett case. That's how I feel about several of them, I think because it's recent. I really did love the Betty Broderick. Yes, and one of my probably emotion most emotional case is the Heart Family. I just yeah, I'll never forget those those little kids. Well, yeah, when we do cases that involve children, those are always really, really tough. Yeah, I'm looking back at the cases we did this year, the Phil Hartman case. I really enjoy that one. We got to play so many funny clips. But yeah, I mean, we really do enjoy doing the podcast. We hope that we can keep doing it. And again, I mean, you guys, we love you like family, and we're just so grateful. Yeah, we know that not everyone wants to or can be a Atreon member, and that's totally okay, all the ways that you can support our podcast, and you guys are really doing a great job supporting us on social media, engaging with our content, leaving messages, leaving comments, and the Reddit comments, Oh my gosh, those are just so bad.

1:31:17 It really helps us so much when people are hearing from other listeners that they recommend this podcast, because we can go out all we want and tout our own podcast, but. We don't really do that. No, we don't do that, first of all, and even if we did, it wouldn't really mean a lot. But when you all comment on Reddit or Facebook or wherever and recommend us to people. It helps a lot of new people find us. Yeah. Well, before we end this, I want to give us sincere thank you to you for all the work that you do and your support and encouragement. And I'm not always the easiest oh wow. So I'm really proud of both of us. But I love you and I'm thankful for you and well done. You put a lot into this podcast of your heart and soul, and I really appreciate having you as a partner in this effort. So yeah, thank you as well.

1:32:04 I love you. I love you too. Until next time, don't kill your wife. Don't kill your husband.