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A Killer Waited Inside the House for Hours _ Homicide_ Hours To Kill · The Mind of a Man

0:04
Speaker 1: This was planned. There was malice. This is a person
0:08
Speaker 1: who came to this house with a deranged mind.
0:11
Speaker 2: A brutal killing.
0:16
Speaker 3: She was controlled. His mission was to destroy both of them.
0:23
Speaker 4: A dark mystery with multiple suspects.
0:26
Speaker 2: This is a very personal murder.
0:29
Speaker 1: He's going to be in charge. He's going to be
0:32
Speaker 1: in control and never be told no. You're dealing with
0:35
Speaker 1: someone who's a complete psychopath.
0:39
Speaker 3: A stalker's like having your own personal terrorist assigned to you.
0:43
Speaker 4: The truth will be revealed.
0:46
Speaker 1: It was chilling that someone's out there that can do
0:49
Speaker 1: this kind of thing.
0:54
Speaker 4: Every day in North America, dozens of people are murdered.
0:59
Speaker 4: The key to solving the toughest of these homicides lies
1:02
Speaker 4: in the final 24 hours of the victim's life. To
1:06
Speaker 4: crack the case, detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline, the
1:12
Speaker 4: minutes and hours containing evidence that can help unlock the
1:15
Speaker 4: mystery and catch the killer. East Cobb, an affluent suburb
1:31
Speaker 4: located just north of Atlanta.
1:35
Speaker 5: It's a community that's really centered around families. It's known
1:39
Speaker 5: for having good schools, so people move there a lot
1:42
Speaker 5: for that reason. It's low crime, and it's considered a
1:47
Speaker 5: really safe area.
1:50
Speaker 4: But days before Halloween, this quiet community is shocked by
1:54
Speaker 4: a real-life horror.
2:00
Speaker 1: It came through as a 911 call. A little five-year-old
2:03
Speaker 1: boy came home from school, and he was stabbed about
2:06
Speaker 1: 18 times in his chest. When you hear of a
2:12
Speaker 1: child who's injured by somebody, you're more with your foot
2:16
Speaker 1: through the firewall, driving as hard, as fast as you
2:19
Speaker 1: can to get there.
2:21
Speaker 4: As detectives arrive on scene, five-year-old Nick Smith is rushed
2:26
Speaker 4: to the trauma center.
2:29
Speaker 1: Was with a neighbor girl, Christina, who lived upstairs.
2:38
Speaker 2: She said they saw a shadow pass by the door.
2:44
Speaker 2: Assuming it was his mother, Nick ran into the room
2:47
Speaker 2: where a person grabbed him from behind and began violently
2:51
Speaker 2: stabbing him in the chest. Christina wasn't able to really
2:56
Speaker 2: give us any identifying features. It was such a traumatic
2:59
Speaker 2: event for her, hearing the screams, that she literally ran
3:03
Speaker 2: out of the house.
3:07
Speaker 1: What could this little five-year-old 60-pound boy have done to
3:09
Speaker 1: anybody to have deserved to have been stabbed repeatedly in
3:13
Speaker 1: the chest in such a violent, violent situation?
3:19
Speaker 4: Cobb County detectives Randy Harris, John Dawes, and major crimes
3:25
Speaker 4: prosecutor Jesse Evans began investigating the vicious assault.
3:31
Speaker 1: It was an older residence in an established neighborhood. You
3:36
Speaker 1: walk around the back side of the house, you see
3:38
Speaker 1: this sliding glass door that accesses the basement from the back.
3:44
Speaker 1: Is there a suspect still in the house? What else
3:46
Speaker 1: is going on? Has anybody else been injured? The two
4:01
Speaker 1: things that stood out the most were the broken knife
4:05
Speaker 1: blade separated from its handle. That was the weapon covered
4:10
Speaker 1: in blood, obviously used in stabbing Nick. We were able
4:15
Speaker 1: to determine that that knife blade didn't match the cutlery
4:19
Speaker 1: that Carmen Smith had in her apartment. And in the bedroom,
4:30
Speaker 1: The carpet showed Nick's blood, where he was initially stabbed.
4:37
Speaker 1: And in the bed was five layers of bedding. It
4:43
Speaker 1: didn't look right, so the officers pulled the bedding back
4:45
Speaker 1: on one side. And there lies the lifeless body of
4:56
Speaker 1: Nick's mom, Carmen Smith. It's heart-wrenching to be involved in
5:04
Speaker 1: a case like this, and there's extra pressure and stress
5:08
Speaker 1: to try to find out who did it.
5:12
Speaker 4: Police must uncover the details of the pair's final day.
5:18
Speaker 6: Establishing the timeline as it relates to the victim and
5:21
Speaker 6: the last hours of that person's life, critical in any investigation.
5:27
Speaker 6: It generally opens the doors for the detectives first to
5:31
Speaker 6: understand the lifestyle of the deceased. And from that, you
5:36
Speaker 6: will draw the information to try to solve the crime.
5:42
Speaker 1: Carmen was a beautiful, young, strawberry blonde.
5:46
Speaker 5: She had a lot of friends, and she was outgoing.
5:50
Speaker 1: She's a loving mother. She absolutely devotes her time to
5:55
Speaker 1: her son, Nicholas. She's there for him. She does everything
6:02
Speaker 1: that she can. Just a good mom. She's also a
6:07
Speaker 1: flight attendant. So she can be gone for a day
6:13
Speaker 1: or two or three at a time, depending on her schedule.
6:17
Speaker 1: She's a different victim. Because when she's home, she's with
6:20
Speaker 1: her kid. And when she's working, she's out of state flying.
6:24
Speaker 1: We want to know her routine. Did she go someplace
6:29
Speaker 1: where someone may have been checking her out?
6:34
Speaker 4: They looked to establish Carmen's time of death.
6:41
Speaker 1: Nick got home at about 3 o'clock from school, and
6:44
Speaker 1: the rigor mortis, the lividity, Carmen clearly had been dead
6:48
Speaker 1: for a number of hours. Everything told us that her
6:54
Speaker 1: death had occurred in the morning.
6:56
Speaker 2: That's significant. The assault on Nick didn't happen until much later,
7:01
Speaker 2: hours after she was killed and placed in the bed.
7:05
Speaker 1: The time frame between taking Carmen's life and then assaulting
7:10
Speaker 1: Nick the way he was assaulted was just odd.
7:16
Speaker 3: He intentionally waited on that child to come home because
7:19
Speaker 3: he could have left a long time earlier. So his
7:22
Speaker 3: mission was to destroy both of them.
7:26
Speaker 2: You start by saying, who would want to do this
7:28
Speaker 2: to Carmen? Who would want to do this to Nick?
7:32
Speaker 3: To be honest, I just couldn't think of a reason
7:35
Speaker 3: why a five-year-old would be attacked.
7:39
Speaker 4: Detectives worked the crime scene and examined Carmen's injuries for
7:43
Speaker 4: clues to the identity of her attacker.
7:46
Speaker 1: You collect anything and everything that could be evidence, blood
7:51
Speaker 1: or hair or any other forensic evidence, phone records, In
7:56
Speaker 1: that time, it took weeks, months to get the phone records.
8:03
Speaker 1: There were marks on her wrist, bruising, that were parallel lines,
8:09
Speaker 1: very consistent with handcuffs.
8:13
Speaker 2: She had an abrasion to her chin. It was an
8:17
Speaker 2: abrasion consistent with sort of carpet burns or having been
8:20
Speaker 2: face down as the ligature was pulled tight against her neck.
8:25
Speaker 2: In addition to that, she had two small puncture wounds
8:28
Speaker 2: to her back, which would not be lethal, certainly would
8:34
Speaker 2: have been painful. The puncture wounds to her back were
8:37
Speaker 2: consistent with having been caused by an ice pick type instrument.
8:42
Speaker 2: And there was an out of place cord, almost like
8:46
Speaker 2: a cord that you would use for pulling some blinds
8:49
Speaker 2: back that was there on the scene.
8:52
Speaker 1: It didn't match anything in the downstairs of this residence,
8:57
Speaker 1: or even upstairs. It may have been the weapon that
9:02
Speaker 1: was used to strangle the life from Carmen Smith.
9:09
Speaker 2: We're talking about really four different weapons at a minimum here.
9:12
Speaker 2: You've got the ligature, you've got the knife that was
9:14
Speaker 2: used to stab Nick, you've got an ice pick, and
9:16
Speaker 2: you've got handcuffs that were being used to effectuate this
9:19
Speaker 2: crime as well. The fact that you have more than
9:22
Speaker 2: one instrumentality involved in causing the injuries to Carmen was
9:27
Speaker 2: pretty significant.
9:30
Speaker 1: It's not a crime of opportunity. This was planned. There
9:34
Speaker 1: was intent. There was malice. This is a person who
9:40
Speaker 1: came to this house with a deranged mind and accomplished
9:45
Speaker 1: what he came to do. The scene itself told us
9:52
Speaker 1: that there had been control. She was under the physical
9:56
Speaker 1: control of handcuffs and some kind of torture going on
10:01
Speaker 1: from behind.
10:02
Speaker 6: When you see a form of torture, there's a level
10:06
Speaker 6: of rage in there. So it starts to narrow down.
10:10
Speaker 6: This wasn't someone who broke into the house to steal
10:12
Speaker 6: the vault.
10:17
Speaker 1: It was chilling. that someone's out there that can do
10:20
Speaker 1: this kind of thing.
10:28
Speaker 4: Police attempt to speak with Nick, hoping for a description
10:33
Speaker 4: of his assailant.
10:37
Speaker 3: The child was rolled out on the gurney, and I
10:40
Speaker 3: saw a massive amount of blood on his upper torso.
10:45
Speaker 3: and overheard an emergency room trauma doctor asking him what
10:49
Speaker 3: had happened. And what I heard at that time was
10:54
Speaker 3: Batman hit me with a walk in a child's language.
10:57
Speaker 3: And that was telling to me that this child is
11:01
Speaker 3: not even old enough to know what had happened to him.
11:07
Speaker 1: This little kid, adorable little kid, laying on the hospital bed,
11:11
Speaker 1: just medical hardware all over him, trying to fight for life.
11:18
Speaker 1: Nick fought and fought and fought.
11:22
Speaker 3: Most people that sustain that type of wound don't survive. Fortunately,
11:27
Speaker 3: none of the vital organs were penetrated. The child would
11:31
Speaker 3: be in and out of consciousness, and he was heavily
11:33
Speaker 3: medicated and was recovering. I was gonna hang with a kid,
11:38
Speaker 3: you know, regardless of everything else. I was able to
11:43
Speaker 3: kind of let him know, hey, I'm your friend, you know.
11:49
Speaker 3: He needed someone. I tried to reassure him it was
11:56
Speaker 3: gonna be okay. I asked him, did you see who
12:01
Speaker 3: attacked you? Do you know what color his clothing was?
12:07
Speaker 3: which he described as black. Could you see his face?
12:12
Speaker 3: And he replied that he was wearing a mask, and
12:15
Speaker 3: the mask was the same color, black. He said, I
12:21
Speaker 3: want my mommy. It was heart wrenching.
12:30
Speaker 4: They need to locate Nick's father.
12:34
Speaker 2: Mike Smith was the ex-husband of Carmen.
12:38
Speaker 1: There are always automatic thoughts for a detective. One is
12:44
Speaker 1: Carmen in the victimology, recently divorced. So you begin to
12:48
Speaker 1: look at the ex-husband.
12:50
Speaker 3: You hear there's a divorce. You hear, well, there may
12:52
Speaker 3: be anger. There may be rage.
12:57
Speaker 4: Detectives learn Nick was supposed to be at his dad's
12:59
Speaker 4: house all weekend until his mom picked him up unexpectedly.
13:05
Speaker 1: Mike kept Nicholas when Carmen was out of town. We
13:11
Speaker 1: learned that a couple of days before Carmen's death, she
13:14
Speaker 1: was working. And she wasn't feeling well and came home
13:18
Speaker 1: a day earlier than her schedule had provided. She wasn't
13:25
Speaker 1: supposed to be home.
13:27
Speaker 4: This means her killer likely knew about her last-minute change
13:31
Speaker 4: in schedule.
13:32
Speaker 1: Mike Smith knew that she came home a day early.
13:35
Speaker 1: because he was angry that she interrupted with his visitation.
13:41
Speaker 1: In any divorce situation, especially where there's a minor, the
13:45
Speaker 1: parent who doesn't get as much time suddenly doesn't have
13:48
Speaker 1: their kid to look at and talk to and play
13:51
Speaker 1: with every day of the week. They're upset. It's just
13:55
Speaker 1: a volatile situation. Emotions get out of control, and some
13:58
Speaker 1: people can't control themselves. People knew that there had been frustrations,
14:04
Speaker 1: knew there had been arguments, knew that there had been
14:06
Speaker 1: a lot of problems because of the divorce.
14:10
Speaker 3: But the fact is, he could walk through that door
14:12
Speaker 3: of the hospital, and if he was our violent suspect,
14:15
Speaker 3: then I needed to know that.
14:22
Speaker 4: Detectives identify Mike Smith as a person of interest in
14:26
Speaker 4: the brutal murder of his ex-wife, Carmen.
14:31
Speaker 3: The hospital started telling me that there were visitors being received,
14:35
Speaker 3: family members, friends. In a lot of cases, somebody that
14:41
Speaker 3: means you to do harm will come to the hospital
14:44
Speaker 3: and try to finish what they started.
14:48
Speaker 4: They track Mike down, and after a brief interview at
14:51
Speaker 4: the station, he's brought to the hospital.
14:55
Speaker 1: His emotions are obviously at a high point. The main
15:01
Speaker 1: thing that came to us was studying Mike, backgrounding Mike,
15:06
Speaker 1: sitting down and talking to Mike, looking at his face.
15:10
Speaker 1: He acknowledged accurately the relationship, the cause of the breakdown,
15:14
Speaker 1: and everything that had been going on.
15:18
Speaker 4: Mike tells detectives he spoke to Carmen by phone at 7.30
15:22
Speaker 4: AM that morning, right after Nick left for school.
15:27
Speaker 6: The interview of the last person to speak to the
15:30
Speaker 6: deceased is very important. It starts to narrow down the
15:34
Speaker 6: time of death. You learn from the last person generally
15:39
Speaker 6: the state of mind of the deceased.
15:44
Speaker 4: Mike admits they argued on the phone.
15:46
Speaker 1: Mike Smith was angry that she came home early and
15:50
Speaker 1: grabbed up Nick. Mike was going through a lot of
15:54
Speaker 1: emotional issues.
15:58
Speaker 3: They did have some jealousies going on. with dating new
16:01
Speaker 3: people and that sort of thing.
16:04
Speaker 1: The motivator with Mike always comes back to the same
16:06
Speaker 1: thing for me. Do I think that Mike had concerns
16:10
Speaker 1: that Carmen would see another man and there was some
16:12
Speaker 1: jealousy there?
16:13
Speaker 5: Yes.
16:14
Speaker 1: Do I think that Mike would have had concern about
16:16
Speaker 1: another man being involved in his son's life? Yes, absolutely.
16:22
Speaker 4: His familiarity with their home is another factor.
16:26
Speaker 2: A large component in the investigation was how somebody got
16:29
Speaker 2: into the house. When police officers respond to the scene,
16:33
Speaker 2: they don't find that there's any forced entry. There's not
16:36
Speaker 2: a door that's been kicked in. There's not a broken
16:38
Speaker 2: window or anything like that. This is clearly somebody that's
16:45
Speaker 2: found their way into this crime scene and done so
16:47
Speaker 2: in a stealthy manner. We learned Mike would oftentimes come
16:52
Speaker 2: to the house and stay with Nick when Carmen was
16:54
Speaker 2: absent due to her work schedule.
16:57
Speaker 1: He knew the house. He knew the inside of the house.
17:00
Speaker 1: You can do the outside of the house.
17:03
Speaker 7: So you've got motive and you've got opportunity, but you
17:06
Speaker 7: need something else because beyond a reasonable doubt is a
17:09
Speaker 7: very high standard. So the police have to nail down
17:14
Speaker 7: that suspect's alibi because if they can't nail down an alibi,
17:18
Speaker 7: that opens a crack through which the defense will.
17:22
Speaker 3: Drive a truck.
17:26
Speaker 1: My kind of alibi was work. But there was still
17:29
Speaker 1: a part of that day when he could have gone
17:31
Speaker 1: over there and committed a crime and left.
17:36
Speaker 6: Alibis are very difficult at times to disprove. Police officers
17:41
Speaker 6: often work on gut feelings. So when you have a
17:43
Speaker 6: gut feeling, you have to pursue it. You know your case.
17:48
Speaker 6: You are living it. You're breathing it.
17:51
Speaker 4: Police need to find another way to rule Mike.
17:54
Speaker 2: In or out. Law enforcement intentionally allowed him to see
17:58
Speaker 2: Nick because they wanted to gauge the demeanor between the
18:00
Speaker 2: two of them. If it was your loved one and
18:04
Speaker 2: you realized that something this horrible had happened to them,
18:07
Speaker 2: you would expect that there was going to be an
18:08
Speaker 2: emotional reaction. When you don't see that appropriate demeanor, that's
18:12
Speaker 2: a red flag.
18:14
Speaker 3: I gave them space and their privacy, but I moved
18:18
Speaker 3: to a window where I could observe. And when that
18:23
Speaker 3: child woke up and reached up, At that moment in time,
18:28
Speaker 3: I said, he's not a suspect. If his father had
18:32
Speaker 3: had anything to do with that, he certainly wouldn't have
18:35
Speaker 3: expressed that kind of comfort. His dad was in tears,
18:39
Speaker 3: he was in tears.
18:44
Speaker 1: Mike had a lot of difficulty with the divorce, but
18:47
Speaker 1: did he stab his son 18 times? No, not a chance.
19:00
Speaker 4: Detectives get word that forensic analysis of the crime scene
19:03
Speaker 4: has turned up a new clue.
19:07
Speaker 1: There were short black hairs on her body. So there
19:13
Speaker 1: was obvious personal contact from a person who didn't match
19:18
Speaker 1: Carmen's strawberry blonde hair or Little Nick's solid white hair.
19:24
Speaker 8: If you have a hair with a follicle attached, there
19:27
Speaker 8: is sufficient DNA for testing. The difference between good DNA
19:32
Speaker 8: and bad DNA is quality and quantity. Quality means that
19:38
Speaker 8: you want to have well-preserved DNA.
19:40
Speaker 2: It's not going to be degraded.
19:42
Speaker 8: Quantity would be having a sufficient number of cells in
19:46
Speaker 8: order to amplify the genetic material But.
19:50
Speaker 1: In 1995, DNA were three letters that nobody knew what
19:54
Speaker 1: it meant. So even with a root, the skin tissue
19:59
Speaker 1: involved at the end of a hair, it just wasn't
20:03
Speaker 1: enough from a scientific standpoint.
20:09
Speaker 4: On a mission to determine who the hair belongs to,
20:12
Speaker 4: police interview people who had access to Carmen's home, starting
20:16
Speaker 4: with Carmen's upstairs neighbor, Lottie Spencer.
20:22
Speaker 5: Lottie moved in a few months prior to the murder.
20:28
Speaker 5: She had worked in a doctor's office and had a
20:30
Speaker 5: 10-year-old daughter.
20:33
Speaker 2: Christina was a few years older than Nick, but they
20:35
Speaker 2: rode the bus together, and stayed in the same house,
20:37
Speaker 2: different portions of the house. Lottie and Carmen did have
20:42
Speaker 2: a unique setup in that they both happened to be
20:44
Speaker 2: single moms living in the same house. There's really no
20:47
Speaker 2: evidence to show that they had any really close relationship
20:50
Speaker 2: or anything like that. It was more of a roommate-type situation,
20:53
Speaker 2: one renting the top portion and one renting the bottom portion.
20:58
Speaker 4: Lottie tells police she left for work that morning just
21:01
Speaker 4: after 7 a.m., the same time Nick and Christina left
21:05
Speaker 4: to meet the school bus.
21:08
Speaker 2: She had heard from her daughter, Christina, what had happened
21:11
Speaker 2: and left work early to go to the house to
21:13
Speaker 2: check on her daughter.
21:16
Speaker 4: Lottie then reveals that Carmen's death may be somehow connected
21:20
Speaker 4: to an unstable individual from her past.
21:24
Speaker 2: Lottie was able to articulate for us a pretty terrifying
21:28
Speaker 2: series of events that had been going on for almost
21:30
Speaker 2: a full year in her life. Lottie and Wasim Dacre
21:35
Speaker 2: met playing paintball on the same team with each other.
21:39
Speaker 2: So they started off kind of getting to know each
21:42
Speaker 2: other in a social context.
21:44
Speaker 5: She said that she had initially reached out to him
21:47
Speaker 5: and tried to be a friend. She was trying to
21:49
Speaker 5: be like a big sister to him because he was
21:51
Speaker 5: confiding problems at home.
21:54
Speaker 4: At the time, Dacre was a 17-year-old student at Georgia
21:57
Speaker 4: Tech University.
21:59
Speaker 5: He started to become obsessed with her. He was going
22:04
Speaker 5: to her office. He was following her around to restaurants.
22:08
Speaker 2: Pretty soon, she wanted a more hands-off relationship with him.
22:12
Speaker 2: She was becoming more concerned about his bizarre behavior. So
22:15
Speaker 2: it got to a point where he just wouldn't take
22:17
Speaker 2: no for an answer.
22:19
Speaker 4: After repeated requests to be left alone, Lottie went to
22:23
Speaker 4: the police.
22:25
Speaker 2: He was charged with harassing phone calls. There was a
22:28
Speaker 2: stalking charge against him. He was ordered to undergo some
22:33
Speaker 2: psychiatric treatment.
22:37
Speaker 4: In the fall of 1995, Lottie was starting a new
22:41
Speaker 4: life in East Cobb and moves in with Carmen Smith.
22:45
Speaker 2: Lottie had just learned that Dacre had been released from
22:50
Speaker 2: a hospital.
22:52
Speaker 3: He was free to do whatever he wanted to. He's
22:57
Speaker 3: a stalker. And a stalker is like having your own
23:01
Speaker 3: personal terrorist assigned to you.
23:08
Speaker 4: The discovery of a man stalking her upstairs neighbor dramatically
23:12
Speaker 4: shifts the focus of the Carmen Smith murder investigation.
23:17
Speaker 2: Law enforcement focused very quickly on wanting to find out
23:19
Speaker 2: where he was and to talk to him about his
23:22
Speaker 2: situation and talk about what he had been doing. Eventually,
23:28
Speaker 2: police located him at his parents' house.
23:37
Speaker 5: He's kind of a weird and awkward guy and troubled,
23:41
Speaker 5: it seemed, you know, from all indications, and yet very intelligent.
23:47
Speaker 2: His statement was he didn't even know where Lottie lived,
23:49
Speaker 2: so he denied any involvement in the case.
23:51
Speaker 3: Did you know about this woman? I never even heard
23:55
Speaker 3: about it until you guys told me about it. Did
23:57
Speaker 3: you kill Carmen Smith?
23:59
Speaker 5: No.
23:59
Speaker 3: Did you stab her son repeatedly with a knife?
24:03
Speaker 5: No.
24:06
Speaker 4: Dacre tells a different story about his relationship with Lottie.
24:11
Speaker 2: Lottie had always said that it was a platonic relationship.
24:14
Speaker 3: Mr.
24:15
Speaker 2: Dacre claimed the opposite. He claimed that he had been
24:17
Speaker 2: in a romantic relationship with her for some period of time.
24:21
Speaker 9: Lottie's telling me one thing. You're telling me another. So
24:25
Speaker 9: I don't know who's telling the truth about how this
24:30
Speaker 9: relationship actually was going on.
24:33
Speaker 2: She denies it completely, but we felt a complete sexual
24:36
Speaker 2: and romantic relationship. With these situations, the cases can be
24:41
Speaker 2: very difficult to prove because it's a he said, she
24:45
Speaker 2: said kind of situation.
24:47
Speaker 4: Dacre also claims he has an alibi for Carmen's murder.
24:52
Speaker 2: He claimed that he was home all day, that he
24:55
Speaker 2: was playing computer games with friends. There's a game that
24:58
Speaker 2: required that you play over a modem, that you had
25:01
Speaker 2: to use a home phone.
25:04
Speaker 7: I know I was home, and I was playing the set.
25:07
Speaker 3: Talked to Colin, and I'm not worried.
25:12
Speaker 2: When we did finally speak to his friend, yes, indeed,
25:15
Speaker 2: he said that he had been playing this game with Mr.
25:17
Speaker 1: Dacre.
25:19
Speaker 4: His alibi appears solid, and a fundamental question still remains.
25:25
Speaker 1: Why Carmen Smith? What's his motive to cause any injury
25:31
Speaker 1: or the death of Carmen Smith? Everything that we looked
25:36
Speaker 1: at in the case told us that Carmen and Baker
25:39
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't know each other if they saw each other
25:41
Speaker 1: on the street.
25:45
Speaker 4: Detectives turn their attention to other men in Carmen's life.
25:50
Speaker 2: We talked to family members about her lifestyle and people
25:54
Speaker 2: that she was seeing, people she had dated before. Carmen
25:57
Speaker 2: had just turned 30 years old, a very beautiful young lady.
26:01
Speaker 2: The police wanted to find out a little bit more
26:03
Speaker 2: about their background to see if they could have been
26:04
Speaker 2: a person capable of doing this to her.
26:09
Speaker 4: They learn about one individual Carmen had been spending a
26:12
Speaker 4: lot of time with lately.
26:14
Speaker 3: John was in communication with her. I believe he knew
26:17
Speaker 3: about her flight that weekend.
26:20
Speaker 1: John lived not too far away. He knew her routines,
26:25
Speaker 1: her schedules.
26:27
Speaker 3: He knew where she lived.
26:31
Speaker 4: John is brought to the station for questioning.
26:35
Speaker 6: When you interview someone, you're looking for a number of tells.
26:40
Speaker 6: Body language is just one of them, and it's a
26:42
Speaker 6: very small part. There's certain very basic defensive positions people
26:46
Speaker 6: take when they are not sure, when they feel threatened
26:51
Speaker 6: by the question, the crossing of the legs, the crossing
26:53
Speaker 6: of the arms. Will they look you in the eye when.
26:57
Speaker 3: They're talking to you?
26:59
Speaker 1: When John was interviewed, he acknowledged his attraction to Carmen Smith.
27:04
Speaker 1: He acknowledged that they had been out. He talked about
27:07
Speaker 1: Carmen had confided in him. Carmen hadn't been divorced that long,
27:12
Speaker 1: and guys are stupid. We are what we are. So
27:17
Speaker 1: could there have been some jealousy that maybe she was
27:19
Speaker 1: seeing somebody else?
27:19
Speaker 5: Yeah.
27:22
Speaker 4: Detectives need to uncover exactly where John was the morning
27:26
Speaker 4: Carmen was attacked.
27:30
Speaker 1: The alibi that he provided wasn't anything that really could
27:34
Speaker 1: be substantiated because he was alone. So that makes it difficult.
27:42
Speaker 1: You can't say, okay, this person's here. They're clocked in
27:44
Speaker 1: at work. Other people saw them or they're shopping and
27:46
Speaker 1: they have a receipt. There wasn't anything like that available.
27:52
Speaker 5: So.
27:52
Speaker 1: The lack of alibi was a concern.
27:56
Speaker 4: Without a clear alibi, it becomes a question of motive.
28:01
Speaker 2: This was not a chance murder. This was not a
28:04
Speaker 2: quick murder. This was a very deliberate act.
28:08
Speaker 1: There was nothing about him that would suggest that he
28:14
Speaker 1: was controlling and possessive and would be angry about anything
28:21
Speaker 1: that was going on in her life. Again, there was,
28:25
Speaker 1: I mean, do you like somebody?
28:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.
28:29
Speaker 1: Do you want them to see somebody else?
28:31
Speaker 2: No.
28:35
Speaker 1: Would you kill him over it?
28:36
Speaker 2: No.
28:40
Speaker 1: He's not that kind of guy. It was pursued. It
28:47
Speaker 1: was looked at. And in the course of all that,
28:50
Speaker 1: had dropped out.
28:54
Speaker 4: For detectives, this means a disturbed killer is still walking
28:58
Speaker 4: the streets of East Cobb.
29:01
Speaker 3: On violent crimes, you certainly want to find who's responsible
29:05
Speaker 3: and get them locked down.
29:07
Speaker 2: If you talk to most law enforcement professionals involved in
29:11
Speaker 2: working homicides, most of them would probably tell you that
29:14
Speaker 2: they expect that they're going to be able to solve
29:16
Speaker 2: their case quickly and be able to make sure that
29:18
Speaker 2: you can bring justice to your victim and make sure
29:21
Speaker 2: that the general public is protected from future crimes. One
29:25
Speaker 2: of the frustrating parts though is you don't have that
29:27
Speaker 2: crystal ball at the time to know whether this is
29:29
Speaker 2: a case that's gonna go cold. I want to, as
29:32
Speaker 2: a personal matter and professional matter, make sure that I've
29:35
Speaker 2: done everything that I can to bring justice to Nick
29:38
Speaker 2: and to bring justice to Carmen.
29:43
Speaker 1: I remember the stress, and I remember the focus in
29:47
Speaker 1: the office.
29:48
Speaker 6: This is it.
29:49
Speaker 2: You live it.
29:51
Speaker 1: You breathe it. You eat it. You sleep it or
29:54
Speaker 1: don't sleep it. I don't sleep much. It's an overwhelming burden.
30:00
Speaker 1: You have to do everything. And in order to do that,
30:02
Speaker 1: you have to live that case. That victim is mine.
30:08
Speaker 1: Carmen and Nicholas Smith are mine.
30:13
Speaker 4: After weeks of waiting, they receive a key piece of evidence.
30:18
Speaker 2: Probably one of the first times that law enforcement had
30:20
Speaker 2: obtained phone records in a case like this.
30:24
Speaker 1: I remember in 1995, it was a very difficult task
30:28
Speaker 1: to figure out whose number was called.
30:32
Speaker 4: Within the massive paper trail lies a shocking clue.
30:36
Speaker 1: There were calls made from inside the home that day.
30:41
Speaker 2: One call was placed from the downstairs portion of the house,
30:44
Speaker 2: Carmen's portion of the house, upstairs to Lottie's portion of
30:47
Speaker 2: the house. And the records clearly showed to us that
30:53
Speaker 2: this call was placed after she had been murdered.
31:01
Speaker 4: Records show a call was made from Carmen's phone to
31:04
Speaker 4: the upstairs neighbor in the hours following her murder.
31:09
Speaker 2: Because we knew the time of death was in the morning,
31:11
Speaker 2: this was a pretty significant piece of evidence.
31:15
Speaker 4: Police believe the call, which came in at 11.32 AM,
31:19
Speaker 4: suggests the killer must have had a connection with someone upstairs.
31:24
Speaker 6: When you're looking at a piece of evidence, your gut
31:27
Speaker 6: leads you often to the right conclusion. All you do
31:32
Speaker 6: is follow the evidence, follow the phone calls.
31:38
Speaker 3: We've got a guy, a documented stalker.
31:43
Speaker 2: We really needed to take another look at this guy, Mr.
31:46
Speaker 1: Dacre.
31:48
Speaker 2: Perpetrator in the world would take the time to not
31:51
Speaker 2: only remain in a crime scene, but to be so
31:53
Speaker 2: obsessed with the person upstairs that they're going to make
31:56
Speaker 2: that phone call. He already demonstrated that he is incapable
32:02
Speaker 2: of controlling himself in terms of the harassment and intimidation.
32:05
Speaker 2: He had continued to stalk Lottie, continued to contact her
32:13
Speaker 2: against her will.
32:16
Speaker 4: Believing Dacre poses a threat, detectives act swiftly.
32:21
Speaker 2: It became clear that law enforcement could prove several counts
32:25
Speaker 2: of aggravated stalking here in Cobb County. A decision was
32:30
Speaker 2: made to arrest him for those counts against Lottie in
32:34
Speaker 2: the hope that they could further their investigation.
32:37
Speaker 1: There was never a, we can't get him for this,
32:39
Speaker 1: so let's get him for this. The aggravated stalking was
32:42
Speaker 1: an obvious crime, and it's a dangerous crime.
32:48
Speaker 2: He was brought to the police station. He continued to
32:51
Speaker 2: deny knowing Carmen.
32:55
Speaker 4: As part of his arrest, Dacre provides blood and tissue samples.
33:03
Speaker 4: Police also execute a search warrant of his home.
33:06
Speaker 2: You can't crawl inside somebody's mind and see what they
33:18
Speaker 2: were thinking at the time they committed these very horrible acts.
33:25
Speaker 2: But you can sort of get a glimpse of it
33:27
Speaker 2: by understanding what their lifestyle is like and what they
33:29
Speaker 2: were involved in. In this house, there were thousands of
33:35
Speaker 2: images of pornography that were found on a laptop. A
33:43
Speaker 2: lot of the images involved binding up and torturing women,
33:47
Speaker 2: matched almost identically to the type of crime that we
33:50
Speaker 2: were dealing with. We found some email correspondence in his
33:58
Speaker 2: inbox where he had apparently asked for books about some
34:02
Speaker 2: really terrifying things. How to break into houses, how to
34:10
Speaker 2: kill people without joy. One of the books in particular
34:14
Speaker 2: talked about how you could effectively use an ice pick
34:17
Speaker 2: as a weapon to control your victim. We did find
34:21
Speaker 2: ice picks that he used routinely to clean his paintball
34:25
Speaker 2: guns and some knives that were the same brand as
34:30
Speaker 2: the broken knife blade that was left at the crime scene.
34:36
Speaker 2: So he had access to the type of weapons that
34:38
Speaker 2: were clearly used on Carmen.
34:43
Speaker 1: In the search of Wasim's room, there was a safe.
34:51
Speaker 1: When I was 17 years old, I didn't have a
34:53
Speaker 1: safe because my mom wouldn't let me hide anything. But
34:56
Speaker 1: there's a safe, and when it was open, there's a
35:00
Speaker 1: handcuff box, and it's empty. Where are the handcuffs?
35:10
Speaker 4: The most telling evidence is found discarded in his room.
35:13
Speaker 2: A couple of letters that were found in a trash can.
35:17
Speaker 2: He was writing about his thoughts about Lottie, one of
35:21
Speaker 2: which was particularly chilling. It was ripped up, where he
35:24
Speaker 2: closed the letter by basically saying that he had a
35:26
Speaker 2: foolproof plan to get back at Lottie, but that he
35:29
Speaker 2: was going to somehow let her live.
35:32
Speaker 1: My impression is that he wanted to cause Loretta Spencer
35:36
Speaker 1: Blatt more pain than she could tolerate without putting physical
35:40
Speaker 1: pain on her.
35:44
Speaker 2: You start to understand that this might be a case
35:46
Speaker 2: of displacement, where an offender is clearly taking out his
35:50
Speaker 2: anger against one person and using it against somebody else.
35:58
Speaker 4: On September 19, 1996, Dacre is found guilty of stalking
36:03
Speaker 4: Loretta Spencer.
36:06
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The investigation
36:10
Speaker 1: never stopped. into the murder of Carmen Smith and the
36:13
Speaker 1: assault on Nicholas. Every step of this case, every piece
36:19
Speaker 1: of evidence, every thought, every circumstance went right back to
36:23
Speaker 1: Waseem Dacre.
36:25
Speaker 2: We never quit. These cases are not wasting away in
36:29
Speaker 2: some old file cabinet. These are always fresh on our minds.
36:34
Speaker 1: But in 2005, Waseem Dacre is nearing the end of
36:38
Speaker 1: his prison sentence for the aggravated stalking.
36:42
Speaker 2: Make no mistake about it, Mr. Dacre is not your
36:44
Speaker 2: average criminal. He is an extremely intelligent individual, and that
36:49
Speaker 2: makes him that much more dangerous.
36:50
Speaker 1: He's not going to be told no by a judge
36:54
Speaker 1: or a doctor or anybody else. He's going to do
36:58
Speaker 1: whatever the hell Waseem Dacre wants to do.
37:01
Speaker 3: You certainly want to keep that individual off the street.
37:06
Speaker 3: There's always a sense of urgency, and we're going to
37:09
Speaker 3: bring you to justice.
37:17
Speaker 4: Police are convinced Waseem Dacre is the man responsible for
37:21
Speaker 4: the murder of Carmen Smith and the brutal assault of
37:24
Speaker 4: her young son. Now, they have to prove it.
37:29
Speaker 1: He's a dangerous individual. Once he was released from prison,
37:35
Speaker 1: he's going right back to Lottie.
37:38
Speaker 2: So he was released in 2005. He was out amongst us.
37:45
Speaker 1: There's extra pressure. and stressed to try to grab him up.
37:52
Speaker 1: Our best evidence in this case was heroin that we
37:55
Speaker 1: hadn't been able to do anything with.
37:58
Speaker 2: It was crucial where this evidence was located. It wasn't
38:00
Speaker 2: just found at some area of the crime scene. It
38:03
Speaker 2: was literally recovered from the body of Carmen Smith underneath
38:06
Speaker 2: her shirt.
38:08
Speaker 4: By 2009, DNA testing has dramatically improved.
38:13
Speaker 2: Some of the hair evidence that was preserved on the
38:15
Speaker 2: slides from 1995 had biological material root. We sent those
38:21
Speaker 2: hairs to a private company in Texas so that they
38:24
Speaker 2: could obtain a profile.
38:27
Speaker 4: Detective John Dawes delivers the sample personally.
38:32
Speaker 1: It was quite a day leaving Atlanta before daylight. Maintaining
38:36
Speaker 1: the evidence with me in a hotel room that night,
38:39
Speaker 1: knowing the importance of it, and the value of it.
38:46
Speaker 1: And it worked. December 31st of 2009, I got a
38:52
Speaker 1: call from the scientist that it was Waseem Dacre. And
38:57
Speaker 1: the percentages that it might have been a duplicate profile
39:01
Speaker 1: of his DNA were so ridiculous, there aren't that many people.
39:04
Speaker 9: In the world.
39:06
Speaker 4: Between this evidence and the phone call made from inside
39:09
Speaker 4: the apartment, Detectives know Dacre's original alibi was manufactured.
39:15
Speaker 1: We have overwhelming circumstantial evidence. Now we have DNA. Let's go.
39:21
Speaker 4: Using the reconstructed timeline, they can now prove he's the killer.
39:28
Speaker 3: He waited until the children. got on the school bus.
39:32
Speaker 3: He waited until Lottie went to work.
39:37
Speaker 2: He entered the home at some time in the morning.
39:41
Speaker 1: He knew how to avoid detection.
39:53
Speaker 2: We know that at some point she was placed in handcuffs.
40:00
Speaker 2: We know that he stabbed her in the back with
40:03
Speaker 2: an ice pick. There were deep ligature marks that were
40:09
Speaker 2: left on her neck, clearly showing that she died of
40:11
Speaker 2: ligature strangulation.
40:18
Speaker 1: He went there to commit a heinous assault. He's absolutely
40:27
Speaker 1: a consciousness, unremorseful killer. And then to sit with her
40:37
Speaker 1: dead body for hours relishing in what he's accomplished to
40:46
Speaker 1: the point that the five-year-old son comes home and to
40:52
Speaker 1: grab him around the neck and stab him repeatedly in
40:56
Speaker 1: the chest.
41:06
Speaker 4: On September 13, 2012, Waseem Dacre, acting as his own lawyer,
41:12
Speaker 4: pleads not guilty.
41:16
Speaker 5: Nick testified that he took his mother from him and
41:19
Speaker 5: that he was always going to have Waseem's rage stamped
41:22
Speaker 5: on his chest, basically, in the form of those stab wounds.
41:26
Speaker 1: Nick grew out of being a victim right there that
41:30
Speaker 1: day on the stand in the trial of his mom's
41:33
Speaker 1: murder and his assault.
41:36
Speaker 2: It was just a pit in your stomach, hoping that,
41:39
Speaker 2: praying that the jury was going to see it the
41:41
Speaker 2: same way that we did.
41:44
Speaker 4: After a two-week trial, it takes the jury just four
41:47
Speaker 4: hours to reach their decision.
41:50
Speaker 2: The guilty verdict was a huge relief. It was a
41:55
Speaker 2: relief to my team. It was a relief to John
41:58
Speaker 2: Dawes to be able to look Nick in the eyes
42:00
Speaker 2: and be able to confirm for him that we had
42:02
Speaker 2: finally done what we hadn't been able to do for
42:05
Speaker 2: so terribly long, which is to not only hold the
42:08
Speaker 2: person accountable that took his mother away from him, but
42:10
Speaker 2: to hold the person accountable that had dramatically impacted his life.
42:17
Speaker 1: That is profound. the best thing that I'll ever receive
42:23
Speaker 1: from a case that we got through.
42:28
Speaker 4: Waseem Dacre is sentenced to life in prison, plus 47 years.
42:33
Speaker 4: His latest appeal was denied in 2016 by the Georgia
42:37
Speaker 4: Supreme Court.
42:38
Speaker 1: This case was an honor and a privilege to be
42:42
Speaker 1: a part of. It was sheer effort, but the best
42:45
Speaker 1: of some of the hardest working people that you've ever seen.
42:49
Speaker 3: And I believe that's our role as homicide investigators, is
42:52
Speaker 3: to speak for the dead. Because, you know, damn it,
42:56
Speaker 3: there's a story to be told. And just because you
42:59
Speaker 3: took somebody's life doesn't mean we're not going to tell it.
43:22
Speaker 2: Thank you.