Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / Killer Friends - Lora Sinner

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Killer Friends - Lora Sinner · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: In April of nineteen ninety eight, hikers in the Trinity
0:10
Speaker 1: Alps of northern California stumbled upon what looked like the
0:13
Speaker 1: remains of a burnt out campsite, that is, until they
0:17
Speaker 1: realized something human was buried beneath the ashes. The scene
0:22
Speaker 1: told investigators that this was not an accident nor a
0:25
Speaker 1: crime of impulse, but instead it seemed to be a
0:28
Speaker 1: victim of drawn out torture. The investigation that followed slowly
0:33
Speaker 1: unraveled a story no one could believe, one of betrayal, control,
0:37
Speaker 1: and violence carried out by people who were so called friends.
0:43
Speaker 1: This is the story of Laura Sinner.
0:47
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked
0:51
Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
0:55
Speaker 1: The following podcast and material more about your audience, listener,
1:03
Speaker 1: dis question and the countdown to Christmas is getting smaller
1:25
Speaker 1: and smaller. It is almost here. We're what like nine
1:28
Speaker 1: days away.
1:29
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a bit too close. If you asked me,
1:31
Speaker 2: it's a bit too close.
1:32
Speaker 1: Well, I hope everyone's making sure that they're on the
1:34
Speaker 1: nice list, not the naughty list, unless you want to
1:36
Speaker 1: be on the naughty list. And that's a whole adult
1:39
Speaker 1: conversation we're not going to talk about on this show, but.
1:41
Speaker 2: Oh, wow, you do you wow? I feel like the
1:45
Speaker 2: whole year, the whole year of twenty twenty five kind
1:49
Speaker 2: of went down quick.
1:51
Speaker 1: I hope so too.
1:52
Speaker 2: I don't know. Sometimes, I mean, most most years do
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Speaker 2: go pretty quick, but this one it just seems like
1:57
Speaker 2: you blanked and it was gone.
1:59
Speaker 1: I think that might be something that just comes a
2:01
Speaker 1: little more with age, too, Like the older you get it,
2:03
Speaker 1: it's like the years seem to go buy faster, you
2:06
Speaker 1: know what I mean maybe, which is actually funny because
2:09
Speaker 1: there's this frame of reference for that. When you're young,
2:13
Speaker 1: things seem to go so slow, like the year takes
2:17
Speaker 1: so long to go by. But that's because your reference
2:20
Speaker 1: for how long a year is well, one year if
2:22
Speaker 1: you're if you're ten, one year is ten percent of
2:26
Speaker 1: your life, So that's a lot, right, Yeah. But if you're,
2:30
Speaker 1: say fifty, I see, well that percentage of your life
2:34
Speaker 1: it's a lot smaller. So time seems to go faster
2:37
Speaker 1: the more you have under your belt, which is an
2:39
Speaker 1: interesting way to look at it.
2:40
Speaker 2: Shit, Yeah, I don't know if I've ever looked at
2:42
Speaker 2: it like that, to be.
2:43
Speaker 1: Honest, and so with the thing is like with time,
2:45
Speaker 1: Like over time, we've generated a lot of people who
2:48
Speaker 1: are signing up over on Patreon, and we have a
2:50
Speaker 1: lot of new people. We need to thank for that
2:52
Speaker 1: as well, Like Lance Kin said Shelby, Lynn Weerick, Abby Skidmore,
2:57
Speaker 1: Landen Hall, Tracy Calder, Nicole Monger, Rebecca Busby, and Courtney Ethritt.
3:03
Speaker 1: Shout out to you and thank you so much for
3:05
Speaker 1: supporting us over on Patreon.
3:07
Speaker 2: Man, I didn't even see that one coming. No, no,
3:10
Speaker 2: but honestly, thank you for signing up. We do appreciate it.
3:13
Speaker 1: We really do. It's just now become my thing to
3:15
Speaker 1: try and blindside it and work it into conversation as
3:18
Speaker 1: best as I can.
3:19
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I was about to talk about that a
3:21
Speaker 2: bit more, and then all of a sudden it was like,
3:22
Speaker 2: oh shit, we're thanking patron.
3:24
Speaker 1: Well yeah we are. But I don't really have a
3:28
Speaker 1: whole lot to talk about today other than you know,
3:30
Speaker 1: maybe the concept of time and reality as we know
3:33
Speaker 1: it and thanking patrons. So I think maybe if you're
3:37
Speaker 1: cool or you don't have anything to talk about, we
3:38
Speaker 1: just get in the case.
3:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if you want to hear us chit
3:41
Speaker 2: chat more. We did a pre show and Patreon, but yeah,
3:45
Speaker 2: I think here we'll just dive right in.
3:47
Speaker 1: Sounds good. So in the early morning hours of Saturday,
3:51
Speaker 1: April eighteenth, nineteen ninety eight, two hikers were moving through
3:55
Speaker 1: the Trinity Alps Wilderness in Shasta County, California, USA. It's
4:00
Speaker 1: the kind of place where people go when they want space.
4:02
Speaker 1: There's no camp hosts looking after every individual campsite that are,
4:06
Speaker 1: you know, shoulder to shoulder. There's no bathrooms or marked sites.
4:10
Speaker 1: It's just trees, cold air, and silence. If someone wanted
4:15
Speaker 1: to disappear out there for the weekend, they could, and
4:17
Speaker 1: if something went wrong during that time, well it could
4:21
Speaker 1: take a while before anyone realized. As the hikers went
4:24
Speaker 1: deeper into the woods, they came across a campsite that
4:27
Speaker 1: had been used fairly recently, perhaps somebody had been there
4:31
Speaker 1: just even days ago, and they certain exactly didn't clean
4:34
Speaker 1: up after themselves either. There was trash, litters scattered around,
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Speaker 1: and the remains of a rough fire pit, the kind
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Speaker 1: of mess that really tells carelessness and partying likely occurred
4:45
Speaker 1: here until you really look at it and see that, well,
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Speaker 1: there's something else because the closer they got, something in
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Speaker 1: the charred area of that fire pit didn't look like
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Speaker 1: food scraps or burnt logs. It had a familiar shape,
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Speaker 1: a shape that made the hikers stop cold because there
5:04
Speaker 1: were partially covered human remains that seemed to be poking
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Speaker 1: out of the dirt. They immediately left the area and
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Speaker 1: reported what they had seen to the Shasta County Sheriff's
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Speaker 1: office nearby in Reading. After the crews got their necessary
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Speaker 1: gear altogether, they all headed out to the location with
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Speaker 1: cadaver dogs, and they started to get to work. By Sunday,
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Speaker 1: April nineteenth, the situation became undeniable. In the remnants of
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Speaker 1: the fire pit, partially buried in a shallow grave, they
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Speaker 1: found the body of a young woman. When she was recovered,
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Speaker 1: she was completely unclothed, and even before an autopsy was performed,
5:41
Speaker 1: the condition of the remains made it clear that this
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Speaker 1: was a violent death. The woman had suffered extensive injuries.
5:50
Speaker 1: Her body was covered in bruises, not just in one area,
5:53
Speaker 1: but across her arms and torso. There were long cuts
5:57
Speaker 1: going down her arms that immediately stood out, especially on
6:00
Speaker 1: her wrists. Now around her head, investigators found a black
6:03
Speaker 1: plastic garbage bag that had been tied in place. It
6:07
Speaker 1: wasn't loose though the bag had been tied, and it
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Speaker 1: was even partially melted around her head.
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Speaker 2: Oh man, this is a brutal death.
6:15
Speaker 1: There were signs of burning. There was signs of being bound,
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Speaker 1: and an apparent attempt to destroy evidence or make identification
6:23
Speaker 1: more difficult. But the fire doing the burning, well, it
6:27
Speaker 1: hadn't done enough to erase everything. The injuries were still
6:30
Speaker 1: visible and the trauma was still very much so obvious.
6:34
Speaker 1: Now not far from where the body had been discovered,
6:36
Speaker 1: detectives also located a purse, and inside they found a
6:41
Speaker 1: driver's license with a name and a face. It was
6:44
Speaker 1: the victim, and it identified twenty year old Laura Sinner.
6:51
Speaker 1: An autopsy would later confirm what investigators already suspected. Laura
6:55
Speaker 1: had died from blunt force trauma to the head, at
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Speaker 1: least partially. They never did figure out exactly the cause
7:03
Speaker 1: of death, but that was certainly a contributing factor. The
7:06
Speaker 1: injuries she had were consistent with being struck multiple times
7:09
Speaker 1: from behind. There was also evidence suggesting possible exphyxiation, lining
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Speaker 1: up with the plastic bag found over her head. There
7:18
Speaker 1: were the cuts in her wrists too, nine in total.
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Speaker 1: They were shallow. They didn't look like the results of
7:24
Speaker 1: a determined suicide attempt or anything. There were much more superficials.
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Speaker 1: They were going lengthways down her arm, and they weren't
7:34
Speaker 1: going to be anything that would actually suffer an artery
7:37
Speaker 1: or cause a death. Okay, Now, Her toxicology report added
7:41
Speaker 1: another unsettling detail. Laura's blood alcohol level was extremely high,
7:46
Speaker 1: even near fatal. Actually, it was high enough that she
7:50
Speaker 1: would have been severely impaired, very vulnerable, and in no
7:54
Speaker 1: condition to defend herself at the very least.
7:57
Speaker 2: Holy frig this is just horrible. Like so, it just
8:03
Speaker 2: still strikes me sometimes what humans are capable of doing
8:06
Speaker 2: to other humans.
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Speaker 1: I agree, And just you wait until you actually figure
8:09
Speaker 1: out what happened.
8:10
Speaker 2: Okay.
8:12
Speaker 1: Now. At the scene, detectives also noticed a large dented
8:15
Speaker 1: can of chili beans, and there was blood and hair
8:18
Speaker 1: stuck to the can. Investigators realize this may have been
8:23
Speaker 1: used as a weapon to bludgeon Laura to death. They
8:27
Speaker 1: may have figured that part out, but what they were
8:29
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out. What they still didn't know
8:32
Speaker 1: was how Laura ended up in this campsite in the
8:34
Speaker 1: first place, who she'd been with, or why someone would
8:37
Speaker 1: go to such lengths to kill her and then try
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Speaker 1: and erase her presence afterwards in such a well terrible manner.
8:44
Speaker 1: So it was time to try and figure it out
8:47
Speaker 1: with her now identified. Investigators shifted into the reconstruction mode
8:51
Speaker 1: from the scene of the crime. The first task was
8:55
Speaker 1: establishing a rough timeline. Based on the condition of the
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Speaker 1: body and the campsite, detectives believed Laura had been dead
9:02
Speaker 1: for days, possibly longer than a week. Even the exposure
9:06
Speaker 1: the wildlife and the partial burns on the remains complicated
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Speaker 1: things a bit, so pinning down an exact time of
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Speaker 1: death was going to be very difficult, in fact, maybe
9:14
Speaker 1: even impossible. They worked outwards from the scene itself looking
9:18
Speaker 1: for any important details, and one thing they found was
9:22
Speaker 1: that there was no vehicle left anywhere nearby, not in
9:25
Speaker 1: the parking lot or nothing. So it meant someone had
9:29
Speaker 1: driven in the same vehicle as Laura to get into
9:32
Speaker 1: the wilderness and then they left in said vehicle afterwards.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so it might have been someone she knew.
9:39
Speaker 1: Exactly, So this detail tells investigators it's not a random attacker. Right,
9:43
Speaker 1: not a passing stranger, because whoever had this shared transportation, well, yeah,
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Speaker 1: they must have known her or at least been on
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Speaker 1: some sort of good terms with her to join in
9:53
Speaker 1: a shared.
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Speaker 2: Ride, I mean, or a potential kidnapping I suppose as well.
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Speaker 1: Right, potentially, I guess when you look it that way. Yes. Now,
10:01
Speaker 1: the campsite itself raised some more questions to there's empty
10:06
Speaker 1: liquor bottles that were scattered around, which suggested heavy drinking,
10:09
Speaker 1: which is lining up certainly with her blood alcohol level.
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Speaker 1: But this wasn't just a party that had gone out
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Speaker 1: of hand. The shallow grave, the fire, the garbage bag
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Speaker 1: tied around her head, those weren't actions of someone panicking
10:21
Speaker 1: in a moment. These were much more deliberate steps. These
10:26
Speaker 1: would have taken time to do. What stood out most though,
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Speaker 1: was what was not at the scene. There was no
10:35
Speaker 1: sign of Laura's clothing, no identification beyond her purse. There's
10:40
Speaker 1: no indication that she'd been there alone. Everything pointed to
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Speaker 1: other people being present and leaving together as well, So
10:49
Speaker 1: detectives turned their attention away from the forest and towards
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Speaker 1: Laura's life, who she'd been spending time with, where she
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Speaker 1: had been staying and who might who might know why
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Speaker 1: she never made it back. But to answer those questions,
11:03
Speaker 1: investigators had to read wind months before her body was found,
11:07
Speaker 1: back to a time when her life had already been
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Speaker 1: knocked off balance. In fact, Laura was born in nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy seven and grew up in Washington State, where she
11:16
Speaker 1: was raised alongside her brothers in a close knit family.
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Speaker 1: Those who knew her described her as kind, gentle, and
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Speaker 1: deeply trusting, sometimes to a fault. She was known for
11:26
Speaker 1: wanting to help others and for believing in the best
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Speaker 1: in people, even when they hadn't earned it. Growing up,
11:31
Speaker 1: Laura faced some challenges though. She struggled with the learning
11:34
Speaker 1: disability during her school years, which made parts of grade
11:37
Speaker 1: school difficult for her. Despite that, though she persevered and
11:41
Speaker 1: graduated high school in nineteen ninety six. Those close to her,
11:46
Speaker 1: while they later, said she worked hard to overcome the
11:48
Speaker 1: obstacles she faced, and she wanted to prove she could
11:51
Speaker 1: be a person to build a meaningful, independent life now.
11:57
Speaker 1: Faith also played an important role in Laura's identity. She
12:00
Speaker 1: was a Christian and spent time volunteering at a religious
12:03
Speaker 1: mission in Aberdeen, Washington. Where she worked with people with disabilities.
12:08
Speaker 1: It was during this period that she met Timothy Smith,
12:12
Speaker 1: a relationship that would soon become central in her life.
12:16
Speaker 1: Friends and family would later say that Laura often attached
12:19
Speaker 1: deeply to the people she cared about, sometimes relying on
12:23
Speaker 1: them for emotional stability. Now, after high school, Laura had
12:27
Speaker 1: enrolled in Gray's Harbor College in Aberdeen. She earned a
12:31
Speaker 1: scholarship to attend, but her time there, while it was
12:34
Speaker 1: short lived. Not long after starting college, she drifted away
12:37
Speaker 1: from school and began spending more time with tim and
12:41
Speaker 1: his circle of friends. It was in October of nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety seven when Laura's mother would tragically die after a
12:49
Speaker 1: fast and brutal battle with leukemia. The loss hit her hard.
12:55
Speaker 1: Her family members later said Laura struggled to find her
12:57
Speaker 1: footing afterwards, drifting between homes and trying to figure out
13:00
Speaker 1: what came next. For a while, she stayed with friends,
13:04
Speaker 1: then moved in with her father in Salem, Oregon. She
13:08
Speaker 1: was grieving and very vulnerable and searching for something that
13:10
Speaker 1: felt like stability, something to really ground her once again. Now,
13:16
Speaker 1: around that time, Laura was also in a very serious
13:18
Speaker 1: relationship with Tim Friends described this relationship as intense and
13:23
Speaker 1: very fast moving. In fact, within a year, they were engaged.
13:28
Speaker 1: In March of nineteen ninety eight, Tim convinced Laura to
13:31
Speaker 1: move in with him in Reading, California. You wanted to
13:34
Speaker 1: be closer to his younger brother, Paul Smith Junior and
13:37
Speaker 1: his half sister Laurie Smith. Now for Laura, the move
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Speaker 1: represented a fresh start, new surroundings, a future with someone
13:45
Speaker 1: she trusted, and distance from the grief she'd been carrying
13:48
Speaker 1: since her mother's death. But the stability she was hoping
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Speaker 1: for it unfortunately didn't last. Shortly after arriving in California,
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Speaker 1: Laura and Tim's relationship fell apart. In the engagement ended
14:02
Speaker 1: and Laura moved out of the apartment that they shared together.
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Speaker 1: She had very little money, no strong support system in Reading,
14:09
Speaker 1: and nowhere obvious to go. Despite her father offering to
14:13
Speaker 1: send money so she could return to Oregon, Laura chose
14:16
Speaker 1: to stay, trying to make something of her situation. So
14:20
Speaker 1: it's little that she had and no family nearby, Laura
14:23
Speaker 1: moved in with Paul Smith Junior and his half sister
14:26
Speaker 1: Laurie Smith, which was Tim's brother, right.
14:29
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, which is kind of odd really well.
14:32
Speaker 1: It wasn't meant to be permanent. It was kind of
14:35
Speaker 1: the circle of people that she knows there, right, So
14:38
Speaker 1: it's someone that she can connect with, someone who knows her.
14:41
Speaker 1: And it was supposed to be a safe situation, or
14:45
Speaker 1: at least supposed to be. It's the big word there,
14:48
Speaker 1: oh gosh. So it was meant to be just something quick,
14:53
Speaker 1: you know, something to get her to the next step
14:55
Speaker 1: of her life. But in this meantime, it quickly became
14:58
Speaker 1: clear that the arrangements were very tense from the start.
15:02
Speaker 1: Paul was twenty years old and living a very chaotic life.
15:05
Speaker 1: Laurie was eighteen and shared the apartment and was dating
15:09
Speaker 1: a nineteen year old named Eric Rubio, and so the
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Speaker 1: apartment became the regular hangout spot for their small social circle,
15:16
Speaker 1: and Laura suddenly found herself supported by people she kinda knew.
15:20
Speaker 1: The best way you can really describe it, relying on
15:22
Speaker 1: them for shelter, right. But the biggest source of tension
15:25
Speaker 1: through all this was centered on Paul's relationship his girlfriend.
15:30
Speaker 1: He was in a relationship with a fourteen year old
15:32
Speaker 1: girl named Amy Stevens even though he's twenty, which is fucking.
15:37
Speaker 2: Gross yeah and illegal, yes, But and.
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Speaker 1: I don't know how authorities never stepped in on that
15:45
Speaker 1: part of this story, But I digress.
15:47
Speaker 2: Okay, Wow, that's something.
15:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Laura didn't exactly like their age difference, and
15:53
Speaker 1: I can totally understand why. And she didn't exactly hide
15:56
Speaker 1: how she felt about it either. She openly criticized the relationship,
16:00
Speaker 1: telling Paul and others that the age gap was wrong
16:03
Speaker 1: and quite inappropriate. And according to later statements, this wasn't
16:07
Speaker 1: a one time comment. Laura brought it up fairly often.
16:11
Speaker 2: Well fair, I mean someone kind of has to step in.
16:14
Speaker 2: I agree a six year age gap isn't necessarily bad,
16:17
Speaker 2: but when it's that, when they're that young ish is.
16:21
Speaker 1: She's a child?
16:22
Speaker 2: Yeah?
16:23
Speaker 1: Now, fourteen year old Amy, for her part, didn't like
16:26
Speaker 1: Laura at all. She was openly jealous of the time
16:29
Speaker 1: Paul spent around her and resented the fact that Laura
16:32
Speaker 1: lived with her boyfriend. Even simple interactions between Paul and
16:36
Speaker 1: Laura repeatedly set Amy off. Now, over time, that resentment
16:41
Speaker 1: grew sharper, turning into hostility, and the apartment became a
16:45
Speaker 1: bit of a pressure cooker. To say, arguments were frequent
16:49
Speaker 1: alliances formed and shifted, and Laura, already emotionally fragile from
16:53
Speaker 1: the breakup and her mother's death, was increasingly isolated inside
16:57
Speaker 1: the very place meant to keep her safe. She had
17:00
Speaker 1: limited money and no nearby family. Leaving wasn't just easy,
17:04
Speaker 1: even if she wanted to. To investigators, this period became
17:08
Speaker 1: very crucial. It showed Laura was trapped in a small,
17:12
Speaker 1: unstable world where tensions were escalating and boundaries were being crossed,
17:17
Speaker 1: and it helped explain why. When a camping trip was suggested,
17:21
Speaker 1: a chance to reset in a group of friends, to
17:24
Speaker 1: get out of the apartment and away from all that
17:25
Speaker 1: constant friction, Laura agreed to go so. With Laura now
17:31
Speaker 1: identified in a rough timeline beginning to take shape, investigators
17:35
Speaker 1: shifted the attention to the people who'd been closest to
17:38
Speaker 1: her in the days before she disappeared. That focus landed
17:42
Speaker 1: quickly on her inner circle in Reading. Police started with
17:45
Speaker 1: her ex boyfriend Timothy Smith. He told investigators that he'd
17:49
Speaker 1: broken off their engagement around March thirtieth, more than two
17:53
Speaker 1: weeks before Laura's body was discovered. According to Tim, Laura
17:57
Speaker 1: moved out shortly after the breakup, and he hadn't seen
18:00
Speaker 1: her again since. When officers informed him that Laura had
18:04
Speaker 1: been murdered, he appeared genuinely distraught and upset. His story
18:09
Speaker 1: was consistent, and while he was an obvious person of
18:12
Speaker 1: interest early on, nothing immediately tied him to the crime scene.
18:16
Speaker 1: From there, investigators turned to the apartment where Laura had
18:19
Speaker 1: been staying. Laurie Smith confirmed that Laura had been living
18:23
Speaker 1: with her and Paul after the breakup. She described Laura
18:26
Speaker 1: as part of their friend group, but admitted things had
18:28
Speaker 1: become strained. She told investigators how tensions inside the apartment
18:32
Speaker 1: had been building for the last few days and weeks,
18:35
Speaker 1: even mostly centered around Paul's relationship with Amy. Laurie also
18:40
Speaker 1: acknowledged that Laura had openly disapproved of the relationship and
18:43
Speaker 1: that arguments had become common on that subject. Amy's interview
18:48
Speaker 1: was next, and it certainly stood out she didn't try
18:51
Speaker 1: to hide her dislike for Laura. She admitted there had
18:54
Speaker 1: been conflict and confirmed that a heated argument had occurred
18:57
Speaker 1: shortly before Laura vanished. Even she claimed she had given
19:01
Speaker 1: Paul an ultimatum either Laura had to leave or she
19:05
Speaker 1: would still. Amy denied knowing what ultimately happened to Laura,
19:10
Speaker 1: insisting that last time she saw her was during a
19:13
Speaker 1: group camping trip in the Trinity Alps. It seemed investigators
19:18
Speaker 1: now had a pattern, a background, but not proof of
19:21
Speaker 1: anything yet. Well, maybe a little bit. They now knew
19:26
Speaker 1: that the group was in fact camping in the Alps
19:28
Speaker 1: with her when she went missing.
19:31
Speaker 2: Well, I just have to say, is she the only
19:33
Speaker 2: one with values too? Because the fact that she does
19:37
Speaker 2: have a problem with this age gap makes her correct. Yes,
19:41
Speaker 2: And everyone just seems like, I don't know. Of course
19:44
Speaker 2: she would be speaking up about this. I feel like
19:46
Speaker 2: she has to. It's like almost her right as an adult.
19:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to protect someone of that age from predatory
19:53
Speaker 1: behavior someone who's much older, I gotcha. Yes, she's right,
19:57
Speaker 1: she should be standing up and agains the others in
20:00
Speaker 1: the group. Yeah, they're well, they're not so good.
20:03
Speaker 2: No.
20:05
Speaker 1: Now, everyone's stories overlapped just enough to seem plausible that
20:09
Speaker 1: they hadn't seen her since the camping trip. Yet conveniently enough,
20:13
Speaker 1: none of them had any explanation of the injuries found
20:15
Speaker 1: in Laura's body. No one mentioned a bag over her head,
20:18
Speaker 1: and no one could explain how she ended up buried
20:21
Speaker 1: at a remote campsite, so detectives couldn't make an arrest
20:26
Speaker 1: based on suspicions alone, and at this point the investigation,
20:30
Speaker 1: all they knew for certain was that Laura had been
20:32
Speaker 1: alive while surrounded by this group, and that whatever happened
20:36
Speaker 1: to her, it didn't happen at random. Not long after
20:41
Speaker 1: those initial interviews, Amy Stevens returned to investigators with what
20:45
Speaker 1: she said was the full story of what happened in
20:49
Speaker 1: the woods that day. According to Amy, the group had
20:52
Speaker 1: gone camping together as a way to cool off tensions
20:55
Speaker 1: and reset after weeks of arguments, right.
20:57
Speaker 2: Which is not necessarily a bad idea.
21:00
Speaker 1: It's, you know something, It's kind of like a group retreat, right,
21:04
Speaker 1: start fresh. The trip included Paul, Laurie, Eric Rubio, and
21:08
Speaker 1: Laura and Amy herself. There was alcohol, there was even drugs,
21:13
Speaker 1: and a lot of unresolved resentment was simmering underneath the surface.
21:17
Speaker 1: Amy admitted that she was jealous of Laura and didn't
21:20
Speaker 1: like her presence in Paul's life, but insisted things were
21:23
Speaker 1: never going to go as far as killing someone. Amy
21:26
Speaker 1: told detectives that at some point during the trip, Laura
21:29
Speaker 1: made a romantic advance toward Paul, which he of course rejected,
21:34
Speaker 1: and Amy said it deeply embarrassed Laura. So, according to Amy,
21:39
Speaker 1: Laura became upset and was intoxicated and emotional, and she
21:43
Speaker 1: said Laura ran off into the woods alone, disappearing into
21:47
Speaker 1: the darkness, and according to her story, no one followed her.
21:53
Speaker 1: The group instead waited for a while, assuming Laura would
21:56
Speaker 1: calm down and return, but when she didn't, they just
21:59
Speaker 1: eventually packed up and left the campsite, believing she had
22:02
Speaker 1: either walked back on her own or found another way
22:05
Speaker 1: out of the area. Amy insisted that was the last
22:08
Speaker 1: time she ever saw Laura alive.
22:12
Speaker 2: I have trouble buying that it just took her a
22:14
Speaker 2: few days to come up with that story. Maybe, Hey, well, I.
22:17
Speaker 1: Mean tell me, as to her credit, people do wander
22:20
Speaker 1: off while drunk at times. You know, that's not unheard of,
22:24
Speaker 1: to say the least, and arguments happened too. And the
22:28
Speaker 1: you know, the area of the Trinity Alps, it's this
22:31
Speaker 1: very vast and unforgiving landscape, especially at night too, when
22:34
Speaker 1: you're out in the wilderness and an unfamiliar area. So
22:36
Speaker 1: Amy's version, it offers a very clean explanation for why
22:39
Speaker 1: Laura was alone in such a remote place, But there
22:43
Speaker 1: was a lot of problems with her version two.
22:46
Speaker 2: I guess what I have trouble is believing that Laura
22:49
Speaker 2: made at a pass or like a move on on
22:56
Speaker 2: Amy's boyfriend. Yeah, I agree, Paul, That's what his name is, right, Yeah.
23:01
Speaker 1: But Devil's Advocate. Even if she did, even if she
23:05
Speaker 1: did make a pass at Paul, I mean, investigators already
23:10
Speaker 1: knew Laura hadn't simply wandered off like Amy's trying to say.
23:13
Speaker 1: Her body had actually showed signs of restraint. The wounds
23:17
Speaker 1: on her wrists weren't consistent with fall or exposure to
23:20
Speaker 1: just wilderness. The bag tied over her head, well, it
23:24
Speaker 1: ruled out accidental death alone, and Amy's account didn't explain
23:28
Speaker 1: the blunt force trauma attempt to burn or bury the
23:31
Speaker 1: body at the campsite. There was just too much. So basically,
23:35
Speaker 1: investigators didn't buy Amy's version of events for a single moment.
23:39
Speaker 2: Okay, good, Sure she.
23:40
Speaker 1: May cover a couple things, but everything else in her
23:44
Speaker 1: story contradicts it. The problem is, investigators still had no
23:51
Speaker 1: physical evidence tying Amy directly to the killings, so They
23:54
Speaker 1: couldn't exactly do much at this stage, so for now
23:58
Speaker 1: they documented her statements, no, did the inconsistencies, and kept digging.
24:03
Speaker 1: Amy may not have been telling the whole truth, but
24:05
Speaker 1: her story placed every future suspect from that friend group
24:09
Speaker 1: at the same campsite at the same time, during what
24:12
Speaker 1: investigators now believe were Laura's final hours. We have a witness,
24:17
Speaker 1: first hand account of an incident occurring right before she
24:23
Speaker 1: went missing, and they are present. So investigators began working backwards,
24:28
Speaker 1: trying to reconstruct what actually happened during that camping trip.
24:32
Speaker 1: Piece by piece, a different picture started to emerge. The
24:36
Speaker 1: group had chosen a campsite deep in the Trinity Alps,
24:39
Speaker 1: an isolated stretch of forest where there were no designated
24:43
Speaker 1: fire pits, no nearby campers, and no oversight of any kind.
24:47
Speaker 1: It was a kind of place people went specifically because
24:50
Speaker 1: no one else would be around. Paul, in fact, knew
24:53
Speaker 1: the area well, he'd hunted and trapped there before, and
24:57
Speaker 1: he knew how remote it was. According to multiple statements,
25:01
Speaker 1: alcohol flowed freely that night. Drugs were also involved, and
25:04
Speaker 1: whatever fragile balance existed between the group members quickly eroded away.
25:09
Speaker 1: Old tensions resurfaced, especially the resentment Amy felt towards Laura
25:13
Speaker 1: and Laura's ongoing criticism of Amy's relationship with Paul. But
25:17
Speaker 1: investigators knew this is where the reports don't tell the truth.
25:21
Speaker 1: They knew it that at this point the arguments turned
25:24
Speaker 1: physical somehow. They believed what would have began as shouting
25:29
Speaker 1: escalated into a fight involving at least three people. Laura
25:34
Speaker 1: would have been outnumbered, She would have been intoxicated and
25:37
Speaker 1: trapped in a place she could not easily escape. The
25:41
Speaker 1: can of chili beans found at the crime scene was
25:43
Speaker 1: grabbed in the heat of the moment and used repeatedly.
25:47
Speaker 1: The injuries on the back of Laura's head lined up
25:49
Speaker 1: with exactly the kind of blunt force trauma that can
25:52
Speaker 1: could inflict. Investigators also began to suspect that what happened
25:57
Speaker 1: wasn't quick, that this it wasn't a single blow, It
26:01
Speaker 1: wasn't a sudden accident. The evidence on Laura's body, it
26:06
Speaker 1: suggested prolonged violence, including restraints and deliberate acts, probably meant
26:11
Speaker 1: to control and perhaps silence her. So by the time
26:15
Speaker 1: the group left the campsite, Laura wasn't a missing friend
26:17
Speaker 1: who had just wandered off. She was already a victim,
26:22
Speaker 1: and the people who drove away from the Trinity Alps
26:24
Speaker 1: that night didn't call for help. They didn't alert authorities,
26:28
Speaker 1: they didn't even come back. Instead, they left her behind
26:31
Speaker 1: in the wilderness, buried under ash and debris, believing distance
26:35
Speaker 1: and time could possibly erase what they had done. Four days,
26:40
Speaker 1: investigators had been chasing statements, timelines, half answers out of
26:44
Speaker 1: this so called group of friends. What they didn't have
26:47
Speaker 1: yet was a hard break, something tangible that tied the
26:50
Speaker 1: people in Laura's orbit directly to what had happened in
26:54
Speaker 1: the mountains. But that all changed with the discovery of
26:59
Speaker 1: Laura's car. When Laura's body was discovered, her red Honda
27:04
Speaker 1: Civic was nowhere near the campsite, not the parking lot, nothing.
27:08
Speaker 1: That absence alone raised alarms. If she had truly wandered
27:12
Speaker 1: off into the woods, her car would have been nearby. Instead,
27:15
Speaker 1: it was gone entirely, meaning someone else had drove it.
27:21
Speaker 1: So police issued a notice to surrounding agencies to be
27:23
Speaker 1: on the lookout for that vehicle, and not long after,
27:27
Speaker 1: by chance, they happened to find it, not abandoned, though
27:30
Speaker 1: on a side road or hidden in the forest, but
27:32
Speaker 1: actively being driven. Eric Rubio was stopped while in possession
27:38
Speaker 1: of Laura's Honda Civic, and there was no innocent explanation
27:42
Speaker 1: for it either. Eric was not a relative, He was
27:45
Speaker 1: a casual acquaintance who had borrowed the car without permission.
27:50
Speaker 1: Clearly he was part of the same group that had
27:53
Speaker 1: gone camping with Laura shortly before her death, and the
27:55
Speaker 1: discovery instantly collapsed the far fetched idea that Laura had
27:59
Speaker 1: simply run off and disappeared, and Eric was detained and
28:03
Speaker 1: brought in for questioning.
28:04
Speaker 2: Well, that's super messed up. What is he saying that
28:08
Speaker 2: he's going to just get away with that? I guess
28:11
Speaker 2: that makes no sense that you have to be kind
28:13
Speaker 2: of dumb.
28:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do. Honestly, you have to be kind of
28:17
Speaker 1: dumb for any of that that actually happened, in my opinion. Now,
28:21
Speaker 1: at first he denied any involvement in Laura's death. He
28:25
Speaker 1: acted frustrated, even noyed, suggesting that he was it wasn't fair,
28:29
Speaker 1: for example, that he's the only one facing any sort
28:32
Speaker 1: of consequences. Now, which he may be right, but the
28:35
Speaker 1: fact remains investigators didn't have anything on anyone else in
28:38
Speaker 1: the group. Yet, however, he was found driving a murdered
28:42
Speaker 1: woman's car days after she vanished. So they pressed him
28:46
Speaker 1: on the camping trip on his relationship with Paul, on
28:50
Speaker 1: Laurie's relationship as well, and why Laura's vehicle was in
28:54
Speaker 1: his possession at all now. At first, Eric stuck close
28:57
Speaker 1: to the version of events Amy had already given. He
29:00
Speaker 1: admitted there'd been a fight at the campsite, but framed
29:02
Speaker 1: it as chaotic, brief, and ultimately not a big deal.
29:06
Speaker 1: According to him, Laura had been injured during an argument,
29:09
Speaker 1: wandered off into the woods after and was never seen again.
29:12
Speaker 1: He painted himself as someone who'd been present, but that's it,
29:16
Speaker 1: nothing more now. Detectives, of course, didn't believe him, and
29:20
Speaker 1: began confronting Eric with details he couldn't explain away, things
29:25
Speaker 1: like the condition of Laura's remains, the plastic bag over
29:27
Speaker 1: her head, deep cuts on her wrist, the fact that
29:30
Speaker 1: she'd been partially buried or burned. None of that happened
29:34
Speaker 1: to someone who simply ran off intoxicated, and so in
29:38
Speaker 1: an attempt to explain these things, Eric's story started to
29:41
Speaker 1: slowly change. He admitted the fight had been worse than
29:45
Speaker 1: he initially described. Voices were raised, alcohol was involved, Laura
29:49
Speaker 1: had been struck multiple times, but even then he tried
29:52
Speaker 1: to minimalize his role and shift responsibility onto others. He
29:57
Speaker 1: claimed he was scared, claimed he didn't know how bad
30:00
Speaker 1: things had gotten until it was just too late. Then
30:03
Speaker 1: there was the car. Eric told investigators he had driven
30:07
Speaker 1: Laura's HONDASIVC back to Reading the morning after the camping trip.
30:11
Speaker 1: He said he parked it at his mother's house, assuming
30:13
Speaker 1: Laura would come forward eventually, and when days passed and
30:17
Speaker 1: she didn't, he claimed he believed she just had left town.
30:21
Speaker 1: That explanation didn't make much sense to investigators either, and
30:24
Speaker 1: then they knew Eric was still telling maybe a half
30:28
Speaker 1: truth at.
30:29
Speaker 2: Rest, yeah, because it makes zero sense. But here, as
30:32
Speaker 2: soon as you said he was thinking this was unfair
30:35
Speaker 2: that he was the only one facing you know, charges
30:39
Speaker 2: or take having to be the person to take all
30:43
Speaker 2: the responsibility here, I'm like he's going to break.
30:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's way more to it then.
30:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:48
Speaker 1: The thing is that investigators weren't finished. They were done
30:53
Speaker 1: chasing words, and they were done chasing tall tales at
30:56
Speaker 1: this point What they needed now was something solid, something physical,
31:00
Speaker 1: something that would force the truth out into the open,
31:04
Speaker 1: since no one was willing to really volunteer it. So,
31:07
Speaker 1: with Eric and custody and multiple conflicting stories on record,
31:10
Speaker 1: detectives obtained search warrants for the apartment where Laura had
31:14
Speaker 1: been staying, as well as the vehicles connected to the group.
31:18
Speaker 1: What they found quickly dismantled any remaining doubt about whether
31:21
Speaker 1: Laura's death had been an accident or misunderstanding. In the
31:26
Speaker 1: bed of Paul Smith Junior's truck, investigators located a heavy
31:31
Speaker 1: metal tool known as an automotive dent puller. It's made
31:34
Speaker 1: for autobody work. It was long, solid and designed to
31:38
Speaker 1: deliver force, and when it was tested, traces of blood
31:44
Speaker 1: were found on it, blood that matched Laura Sinner. That
31:50
Speaker 1: single result changed everything in the case. Up until that
31:55
Speaker 1: exact moment, the case had been built purely on circumstantial evidence,
32:00
Speaker 1: but now there was a weapon with a direct tie
32:03
Speaker 1: to the victim found away from the scene. In fact,
32:07
Speaker 1: investigators also revisited that same dented can of chili beans
32:11
Speaker 1: too that was recovered at the scene. It too had
32:13
Speaker 1: blood and hair consistent with Laura. So this also proved
32:17
Speaker 1: that this wasn't just a single blow of what was
32:19
Speaker 1: a momentary thing. This wasn't just self defense of someone
32:24
Speaker 1: grabbing a can of chili beans nearby and swinging it
32:26
Speaker 1: on someone. And it certainly wasn't, you know, mercy, because
32:30
Speaker 1: there had been more than one weapon, which means the
32:33
Speaker 1: beatings were sustained, not quick and spontaneous. More than one
32:38
Speaker 1: person would have had to have grabbed a weapon and
32:41
Speaker 1: focus solely on the victim brutal.
32:44
Speaker 2: I'm sitting here wondering too, if this was just like
32:46
Speaker 2: planned from the start, if that was really what this
32:49
Speaker 2: camping trip was all about, or if things just did
32:53
Speaker 2: kind of escalate while they were there.
32:55
Speaker 1: It's possible that it could have been. I'll leave that
32:57
Speaker 1: up for you to decide when we get to the end.
33:00
Speaker 1: So now combine all this with the restrain marks, wrist injuries,
33:03
Speaker 1: plastic bag over her head, investigators were now looking at
33:07
Speaker 1: absolute torture. So with the forensic results in hand, detectives
33:12
Speaker 1: knew who to put in the interrogation room next, and
33:15
Speaker 1: that was Paul. And when investigators sat him down for questioning,
33:19
Speaker 1: Paul didn't appear uncertain or confused. He was very defensive, controlled,
33:23
Speaker 1: and very deliberate with his words too. At first, he
33:26
Speaker 1: denied any involvement in her death. The repeated parts of
33:30
Speaker 1: the early story while those those came out the same
33:32
Speaker 1: ones that the investigators had heard before already, that there
33:36
Speaker 1: was arguments, sure, people were drinking, sure, but she just
33:38
Speaker 1: run off in the woods. He suggested that if anything
33:42
Speaker 1: violent had happened, it was instigated by others. But detectives
33:47
Speaker 1: laid the evidence out in front of him, and they
33:49
Speaker 1: told him that the dent polar found in his truck
33:53
Speaker 1: while it was found with blood. They also told him
33:55
Speaker 1: about the chili bean can, but the restraints all of it,
33:58
Speaker 1: and that's when his story changed. Paul then admitted Laura
34:02
Speaker 1: had in fact been beaten, but he framed himself not
34:05
Speaker 1: as a killer, only as someone who stepped in at
34:09
Speaker 1: the end. According to Paul, the violence had spiraled out
34:15
Speaker 1: of control after a fight between Laura Amy and Laurie
34:19
Speaker 1: had occurred. He claimed Laura had been badly injured and
34:24
Speaker 1: was likely going to die from her sustained wounds. In
34:28
Speaker 1: his telling, what happened next wasn't murder, it was mercy,
34:34
Speaker 1: Paul told investigators he decided to end Laura's suffering himself.
34:40
Speaker 1: He said he believed she was already dying and what
34:44
Speaker 1: he did was meant to spare her pain.
34:46
Speaker 2: Oh man, like, fuck off, buddy.
34:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was a confession that acknowledged responsibility, but it
34:54
Speaker 1: also tried to strip intent and the cruelty in all
34:57
Speaker 1: the blame away. Now investigators, of course, just like you,
35:01
Speaker 1: they weren't buying it for a second. They were not convinced.
35:05
Speaker 1: They had already seen the injuries. Nothing about the evidence
35:07
Speaker 1: suggested a quick or compassionate act, and by the time
35:11
Speaker 1: they had finished collecting statements, evidence and confessions, a clearer
35:16
Speaker 1: and far more disturbing picture began to form. They now
35:19
Speaker 1: knew that at the campsite, Laura was intoxicated, vulnerable, and
35:24
Speaker 1: isolated among people who had already grown resentful of her.
35:27
Speaker 1: The initial argument escalated into a physical assault, and she
35:31
Speaker 1: was struck repeatedly, including blows to the back of her head,
35:34
Speaker 1: using whatever objects were within reach, and the injuries left
35:38
Speaker 1: her disoriented but still alive. They had all that in confessions,
35:42
Speaker 1: but what they didn't have is what they suspected took
35:45
Speaker 1: place next. Instead of stopping, the group tightened their control
35:50
Speaker 1: over Laura. She was restrained with her arms and legs bound.
35:54
Speaker 1: They believed that they were going to try and make
35:56
Speaker 1: it look like a suicide, so razor blades were taken
35:59
Speaker 1: to Laura's wrists, but they weren't actually deep enough to
36:03
Speaker 1: be fatal. Alcohol was then poured onto her wounds, As
36:07
Speaker 1: forensics discovered her arms were soaked and covered in alcohol,
36:11
Speaker 1: and then she was forced to drink more and more.
36:14
Speaker 1: A plastic bag was placed over her head at some point,
36:18
Speaker 1: and the violence, well, it didn't end quickly. It wasn't
36:21
Speaker 1: an attempt to help her or ease her pain. It
36:23
Speaker 1: was prolonged. The beatings continued and exphyxiation followed. By the
36:28
Speaker 1: time Laura died, she'd been beaten, restrained, cut, intoxicated beyond
36:34
Speaker 1: normal limits, and deprived of air. Afterwards, the group shifted
36:39
Speaker 1: into damage control. Laura's clothing was removed and burned. Her
36:42
Speaker 1: body was dragged to a shallow pit near the campsite.
36:45
Speaker 1: Ash and debris were piled on top of her in
36:48
Speaker 1: an attempt to conceal what they had done. Then they
36:51
Speaker 1: left her in the woods and drove away. Now with
36:56
Speaker 1: the full scope of what happened, finally coming into focus,
36:59
Speaker 1: Investigators moved fast. On April twenty first, nineteen ninety eight,
37:04
Speaker 1: just days after Laura's body was discovered, authorities arrested Paul
37:08
Speaker 1: Smith Junior, Laurie Smith, Eric Rubio, and Amy Stevens, and
37:14
Speaker 1: each faced serious charges. The legal path forward would not
37:18
Speaker 1: be the same for all of them. Because Paul, Laurie,
37:21
Speaker 1: and Eric were adults at the time of the crime,
37:23
Speaker 1: they were charged in adult court. Prosecutors accused them of
37:27
Speaker 1: first degree murder, conspiracy, false imprisonment by violence, and special
37:31
Speaker 1: circumstances related to the prolonged nature of the attack. Amy, however,
37:37
Speaker 1: was only fourteen years old. She was initially charged in
37:40
Speaker 1: juvenile court, though prosecutors would later attempt to have her
37:43
Speaker 1: tried as an adult due to the brutality of the crime. Now,
37:47
Speaker 1: one of the immediate challenges investigators faced was determining the
37:50
Speaker 1: precise date and time of Laura's death. Based on statements,
37:54
Speaker 1: physical evidence, and the condition of her remains, authorities estimated
37:58
Speaker 1: that the murder occurred somewhere after April first, likely over
38:02
Speaker 1: the course of several hours during the afternoon and the
38:05
Speaker 1: night of April fourth. However, heavy intoxication among the suspects,
38:11
Speaker 1: and the passage of time made it very difficult to
38:14
Speaker 1: pin down the exact timeline. Laura's autopsy, conducted on April twentieth,
38:18
Speaker 1: confirmed that she had suffered extensive blunt force trauma to
38:21
Speaker 1: the head, along with injuries consistent with restraints and asphyxiation.
38:26
Speaker 1: Her blood alcohol content was measured at extremely high levels,
38:29
Speaker 1: indicating she'd been heavily intoxicated at the time. While medical
38:32
Speaker 1: examiners could not isolate a single fatal injury, the finding
38:36
Speaker 1: supported investigator's conclusion that Laura had died as a result
38:40
Speaker 1: of sustained intentional violence rather than an accident, and as
38:45
Speaker 1: the defendants were arranged, all four initially entered pleas of
38:49
Speaker 1: not guilty. As the months passed, the strength of the
38:53
Speaker 1: prosecution's case became impossible for the defendants to ignore physical evidence,
38:58
Speaker 1: recorded statements, and overlapping testimonies had created a framework that
39:02
Speaker 1: was difficult to escape. What remained uncertain was how many
39:06
Speaker 1: of them would be willing to turn on each other
39:08
Speaker 1: to avoid the worst possible outcome. Now that aside, the
39:12
Speaker 1: first major decision came in Amy Stephen's case, despite the
39:16
Speaker 1: prosecutors pushing to have her tried as an adult, the
39:19
Speaker 1: court ultimately ruled that she would be prosecuted as a juvenile.
39:24
Speaker 1: The decision limited the maximum sentence she could receive, regardless
39:27
Speaker 1: of the severity of her involvement. In June of nineteen
39:31
Speaker 1: ninety nine, after an eight week bench trial, a judge
39:35
Speaker 1: found Amy guilty of first degree murder, torture, and lying
39:39
Speaker 1: in wait. She was sentenced to the maximum term allowed
39:42
Speaker 1: under juvenile law, which meant she would remain in custody
39:45
Speaker 1: only until her mid twenties. For the remaining defendants, the
39:50
Speaker 1: pressure only increased. Laurie Smith and Eric Rubio both faced
39:55
Speaker 1: the possibility of life in prison if convicted at trial,
39:58
Speaker 1: and prosecutors made a c clear they were prepared to
40:02
Speaker 1: pursue the harshest sentence available, and behind the scenes negotiations began.
40:09
Speaker 1: The group that had once worked together to hide Laura's
40:11
Speaker 1: body was now fracturing, each person weighing their own survival
40:15
Speaker 1: against loyalty to the others. By the summer of nineteen
40:19
Speaker 1: ninety nine, Laurie Smith was the first to break. She
40:22
Speaker 1: agreed to plead guilty to first degree murder in exchange
40:25
Speaker 1: for her testimony against Paul Smith. Junior and Eric Rubio.
40:29
Speaker 1: Her plea carried a sence of twenty five years to
40:32
Speaker 1: life in prison, but had spared her from facing the
40:35
Speaker 1: death penalty. Eric followed soon after, entering a no contest
40:40
Speaker 1: plea to second degree murder. Like Laurie, he agreed to
40:44
Speaker 1: testify against Paul. His sentence carried a minimum of eighteen
40:49
Speaker 1: years to life. Though he briefly attempted to withdraw his plea,
40:53
Speaker 1: the court denied his request and he remained bound to
40:56
Speaker 1: his agreement. Both Laurie and Eric later reported receiving death threats,
41:01
Speaker 1: either directly or through other inmates, warning them not to testify.
41:06
Speaker 1: Prosecutors then raise concerns about witness intimidation, primarily as Paul's
41:11
Speaker 1: trial approached now. Paul Smith Junior's trial did not begin
41:15
Speaker 1: until the summer of two thousand and two, more than
41:17
Speaker 1: four years after Laura had been killed. Delays related to
41:22
Speaker 1: the complexity of the case and the high volume of
41:24
Speaker 1: death penalty trials in Shasta County pushed the proceedings back repeatedly,
41:28
Speaker 1: leaving Laura's family waiting for years for the case to
41:30
Speaker 1: finally reach the court room. When the trial finally began,
41:34
Speaker 1: prosecutors laid out a methodical case built on physical evidence,
41:39
Speaker 1: recorded statements, and testimony from the very people who had
41:42
Speaker 1: once helped Paul cover up that crime. From the start,
41:46
Speaker 1: they framed Paul as the central figure in Laura's death,
41:49
Speaker 1: the person who escalated the violence, controlled the group, and
41:52
Speaker 1: ultimately ended her life. Jurors heard how the night unfolded
41:57
Speaker 1: in the Trinity Alps campsite, beginning with alcohol, in arguments
42:01
Speaker 1: and a deteriorating situation into prolonged violence as investigators suspected.
42:06
Speaker 1: Testimonies detailed how Laura was beaten with a can of
42:09
Speaker 1: chili beans, restrained, threatened, and cut. They described Paul's role
42:13
Speaker 1: in directing others, making statements about staging a suicide and
42:17
Speaker 1: warning the group that he would kill them if they
42:19
Speaker 1: did not cooperate. Amy Stevens, Now eighteen at the time,
42:24
Speaker 1: testified that she saw Paul placing a plastic bag over
42:27
Speaker 1: Laura's head and heard the final blows being delivered. Laurie
42:32
Speaker 1: Smith told the jury that Paul had explicitly threatened everyone afterwards,
42:37
Speaker 1: forcing them to help dispose of Laura's remains and keep quiet.
42:42
Speaker 1: Eric Rubio's testimony echoed these same accounts to reinforcing the
42:46
Speaker 1: narrative that Paul was not a passive participant, but instead
42:49
Speaker 1: the driving force behind the crime. The prosecution also introduced
42:53
Speaker 1: Paul's own words, as jurors were shown recordings and transcripts
42:57
Speaker 1: of his interrogations, including the moment he actually admitted to
43:01
Speaker 1: killing Laura, though in his version was a mercy killing,
43:06
Speaker 1: but still an admittance of delivering the blows. While Paul
43:11
Speaker 1: claimed he had acted out of mercy, prosecutors argued that
43:15
Speaker 1: the evidence showed anything but compassion. Paul's defense, of course,
43:19
Speaker 1: tried to shift the blame. His attorney argued that Paul
43:22
Speaker 1: had been heavily intoxicated and unconscious during key moments of
43:26
Speaker 1: the assault, and that the fatal injuries had been inflicted
43:29
Speaker 1: by others, specifically Laurie. According to the defense, Paul only
43:34
Speaker 1: intervened after realizing how badly Laura had been injured. After
43:38
Speaker 1: days of testimony and several days of deliberation, the jury
43:42
Speaker 1: returned its verdict on August twenty eight, two thousand and two.
43:47
Speaker 1: Paul Smith Junior was found guilty on all counts, including
43:51
Speaker 1: first degree murder with special circumstances. While Paul waited for sentencing,
43:56
Speaker 1: his behavior made it increasingly difficult for anyone to argue
44:00
Speaker 1: the violence that ended Laura's life had been an isolated incident.
44:05
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, while housed at the Shasta
44:08
Speaker 1: County Jail awaiting trial, Paul was involved in a brutal
44:11
Speaker 1: attack on a correctional officer. According to court records and testimony,
44:17
Speaker 1: Paul and another inmate managed to slip out of their
44:20
Speaker 1: cells during nighttime hours. Then they hid in the shower
44:24
Speaker 1: area and ambushed to guard as he made his rounds.
44:28
Speaker 1: The officer was beaten so severely that he suffered a
44:31
Speaker 1: fractured skull and jaw and was left in critical condition.
44:35
Speaker 2: Oh what would have been the point of that?
44:37
Speaker 1: Well, they they believe it was like an attempted escape situation.
44:42
Speaker 1: But why they had to wait and beat a guard,
44:44
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe if they get him, maybe they
44:46
Speaker 1: get his keys. Could have been their thoughts.
44:48
Speaker 2: Okay, jeez, though, yeah, clearly he is you know, this
44:52
Speaker 2: is his second massive offense.
44:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it and his attempt failed. But the implications
44:58
Speaker 1: were the big clear thing. Even under like constant supervision,
45:02
Speaker 1: Like Paul, he was demonstrating a willingness to like use
45:05
Speaker 1: extreme violence when it suited him, you know, so it's
45:08
Speaker 1: really showing his true colors totally. Now. The guard ultimately
45:12
Speaker 1: survived and later returned to work after ongoing reconstructive surgery.
45:16
Speaker 1: But the incident added quite another layer to Paul's already
45:19
Speaker 1: extensive record of violent behavior. Prosecutors took note, and so
45:23
Speaker 1: did the jury as well. When paul sentencing phase began,
45:27
Speaker 1: the jailhouse assault became a very big central part of
45:30
Speaker 1: the argument for the death penalty push. The state portrayed
45:33
Speaker 1: him not only as a murderer, but as someone who
45:35
Speaker 1: posed an ongoing threat to anyone around him. His history
45:41
Speaker 1: of aggravation was presented as evidence, and he was beyond rehabilitation,
45:46
Speaker 1: is what they said. In November of two thousand and two,
45:50
Speaker 1: after weeks of testimony and argument during the penalty phase,
45:53
Speaker 1: the jury reached its final verdict. Paul Smith Junior was
45:57
Speaker 1: then sentenced to death and sent to californ his death
46:00
Speaker 1: row then located at San Quentin State Prison. For the prosecution,
46:06
Speaker 1: the sentence reflected not only the brutality of Laura's murder,
46:09
Speaker 1: but Paul's pattern of violence before and after the crime. Now,
46:14
Speaker 1: for Laura's family, it was the end of a long
46:16
Speaker 1: and exhausting Chapter one that had stretched across four years
46:20
Speaker 1: of delays, hearings, and painful testimony. The other defendants were
46:25
Speaker 1: sentenced in the years that followed. Laurie Smith received a
46:28
Speaker 1: sentence of twenty five years to life for her role
46:31
Speaker 1: in the murder. Eric Rubio was sentenced to eighteen years
46:34
Speaker 1: to life after his not contest plea to second degree murder,
46:38
Speaker 1: and Amy Stevens, having been convicted in juvenile court, served
46:41
Speaker 1: the maximum time allowed under law and was released in
46:44
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine after aging out of the juvenile system.
46:48
Speaker 1: And that was that. However, in twenty fifteen, more than
46:52
Speaker 1: a decade after Paul was sent to death row, the
46:55
Speaker 1: California Supreme Court revisited his case. The court upheld his
47:00
Speaker 1: murdered conviction, but overturned the death sentence on procedural grounds,
47:04
Speaker 1: ruling that Paul had not received a proper sentencing hearing.
47:08
Speaker 1: Rather than order a new penalty phase, the court commuted
47:11
Speaker 1: his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole,
47:16
Speaker 1: and so Paul Smith, Junior remains incarcerated to this day
47:19
Speaker 1: and every other day for the rest of his life. Now,
47:24
Speaker 1: Eric Rubio was eventually granted parole in twenty fifteen. Laurie
47:28
Speaker 1: Smith was released in twenty twenty one after serving more
47:31
Speaker 1: than two decades in prison, and Timothy Smith, Laura's ex
47:35
Speaker 1: fiance and boyfriend, was never charged and was ultimately cleared
47:39
Speaker 1: of any involvement in the crime. For Laura's family, the
47:43
Speaker 1: outcome did not bring closure the way verdicts are often
47:46
Speaker 1: imagined to do. No sentence could undo what happened in
47:49
Speaker 1: the Trinity Alps. No ruling could return the life that
47:52
Speaker 1: was taken, or ease the knowledge of how many chances
47:54
Speaker 1: there had been to stop the violence. The court system
47:58
Speaker 1: had done what it could, but what remained was the quiet,
48:02
Speaker 1: permanent absence left behind. Laura is remembered as kind, trusting,
48:08
Speaker 1: and eager to belong. She had struggled after her mother's
48:12
Speaker 1: death and was searching for stability when she moved to California,
48:15
Speaker 1: hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she found herself surrounded
48:19
Speaker 1: by people who exploited that vulnerability rather than protecting it.
48:23
Speaker 1: People who mistook her compassion for weakness. People who had
48:27
Speaker 1: multiple opportunities to intervene and chose not to. That reality
48:33
Speaker 1: is what makes this case so difficult. There were chances
48:36
Speaker 1: to stop it. At each point of the argument, At
48:39
Speaker 1: each point of the beatings or the binding, someone could
48:42
Speaker 1: have stepped in, walked away, or even called for help. Instead,
48:48
Speaker 1: fear loyalty, manipulation, indifference, and pure evil one out instead. Today,
48:57
Speaker 1: laura Sinner is more than a victim in a case file.
49:01
Speaker 1: She is a reminder of how quickly humans can turn animalistic,
49:04
Speaker 1: how pack mentality and heard behavior can take over. I
49:09
Speaker 1: truly do not believe all four of these individuals set
49:13
Speaker 1: out to harm Laura. But something happened that night. Someone
49:18
Speaker 1: struck first. Whether they intended to and planned to or not,
49:21
Speaker 1: I do not know. But way off in the middle
49:24
Speaker 1: of the woods where no one could hear a scream
49:27
Speaker 1: or witness horrors, isolation turned deadly, and a group's dynamic eroded,
49:32
Speaker 1: personal responsibility giving way to barbaric behaviors we are supposed
49:36
Speaker 1: to have long since let go of. Laura's story doesn't
49:41
Speaker 1: end with a sentence handed down or a prison door closing.
49:45
Speaker 1: It lives on in the lasting ache left behind when
49:48
Speaker 1: humans go unchecked and no one chooses to stop the violence.
49:55
Speaker 1: And that's the story of Laura's Sinner.
50:01
Speaker 2: That is a nasty story. Yeah, she did not even like,
50:08
Speaker 2: it's unbelievable what happened to her. She did not deserve
50:11
Speaker 2: that in any fricking way, not in.
50:13
Speaker 1: The slightest because she was basically because she was speaking out.
50:18
Speaker 2: About, you know, something that was wrong.
50:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is absurd. Now, I'm not too sure what
50:28
Speaker 1: you think on if they set out to go camping
50:31
Speaker 1: and harm her. If that was the case, I do
50:34
Speaker 1: not believe. I wholeheartedly do not believe they all set
50:36
Speaker 1: out to do that. I think Paul may have.
50:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am having a bit of trouble with that one.
50:46
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think I'm leaning more towards it
50:51
Speaker 2: was set out that she was going to die out there,
50:54
Speaker 2: for sure, but maybe not by all of them.
50:58
Speaker 1: I do not think it was all of them. I'm
51:00
Speaker 1: not even sold that Paul set out to harm her
51:03
Speaker 1: out there. I think he planned to like go somewhere isolated,
51:06
Speaker 1: so yeah, maybe arguments or maybe even fisty cuffs could happen,
51:10
Speaker 1: you know, let them get it out of their system
51:12
Speaker 1: sort of attitude. He may have planned that, but I
51:16
Speaker 1: think once out there he took over and he was like,
51:21
Speaker 1: just fuck this, I'm ending this here now, and he
51:24
Speaker 1: roped them in with them, and that pac mentality took
51:26
Speaker 1: over and she was a victim of circumstance.
51:31
Speaker 2: I feel like her ex her fiance there like must
51:35
Speaker 2: have just been like horrified by this. Yeah, I don't know.
51:40
Speaker 2: I also just I don't know. My heart really goes
51:42
Speaker 2: out to Laura, even more so because I feel like,
51:45
Speaker 2: like losing her mom, then she also like you know,
51:49
Speaker 2: had a relationship end to and after losing her mom though,
51:52
Speaker 2: she's probably like searching for some sort of void to
51:55
Speaker 2: try to fill this void that you know later you
51:57
Speaker 2: realize you can never fill. And and this, I don't know,
52:02
Speaker 2: this was just like a spiral of just garbage. And
52:06
Speaker 2: then now her family, who also lost the mom, has
52:10
Speaker 2: now lost her in like the span of less than
52:12
Speaker 2: a year. Yeah, so holy shit, I don't even know
52:15
Speaker 2: how you go about dealing with that sort of grief.
52:17
Speaker 1: Well, and then there's don't get me wrong, like Laura
52:20
Speaker 1: is the victim here and their family is suffering massively,
52:23
Speaker 1: but there's the byproduct as well. Timothy, I mean, yeah,
52:27
Speaker 1: he also had an engagement end too, right, Whether he
52:32
Speaker 1: was the one to part departing it or she was,
52:34
Speaker 1: it's not fully clear, but he had a relationship end,
52:38
Speaker 1: which is not easy, and then he had his brother
52:42
Speaker 1: kill his ex fiance, not even over their relationship issues,
52:47
Speaker 1: but because she spoke up over his fourteen year old girlfriend. Yeah,
52:52
Speaker 1: so now you have this tragedy involving your brother. He's
52:56
Speaker 1: a murderer now and murdered someone that you once loved
52:59
Speaker 1: and cared for. That can't be easy easy either.
53:02
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I feel like the the engagement couldn't have
53:06
Speaker 2: been that terrible of an end if she went and
53:10
Speaker 2: moved in with like his family, you know, yeah, fair enough? Yeah,
53:14
Speaker 2: so holy shit, Well.
53:16
Speaker 1: This this murder was not over that relationship.
53:19
Speaker 2: Well no, no, but I mean, like, I don't think
53:22
Speaker 2: that relationship could have ended horribly bad if she's going
53:27
Speaker 2: and moving in with his family kind of thing.
53:29
Speaker 1: True, but even still it would have been difficult and
53:33
Speaker 1: one hundred.
53:34
Speaker 2: Percent yeah no, oh man, but three of them are
53:38
Speaker 2: already out of jail, correct.
53:40
Speaker 1: And the fourth will never see light a day again.
53:43
Speaker 2: And I don't exactly know how I feel about that,
53:45
Speaker 2: especially like I don't know Amy. I'm just like she
53:52
Speaker 2: was lucky that I guess she was that young, and
53:54
Speaker 2: I feel like she may not. I hope that she
53:57
Speaker 2: like really learned from this and as an adult now
53:59
Speaker 2: is better person.
54:00
Speaker 1: But frick, I honestly feel like she would have been
54:03
Speaker 1: a driving force in the story. Is my personal impan
54:05
Speaker 1: It kind of came across that way. Yes, I think
54:07
Speaker 1: she is because I think Paul acted in that manner
54:11
Speaker 1: because of her.
54:12
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Well, she was giving him choices.
54:14
Speaker 1: And stuff, ultimatums and everything. She was angry, she was
54:17
Speaker 1: very jealous. She was probably pissed off and wanting something
54:21
Speaker 1: to happen to Laura and pushed for this, and then
54:24
Speaker 1: Paul went overboard and led the group to do it.
54:28
Speaker 2: Yeah jeez. So yeah, that's why. And she didn't serve
54:34
Speaker 2: very much time. So that's why. I'm just like, I
54:35
Speaker 2: hope she learned from this shit, because, like you said,
54:41
Speaker 2: she kind of was the driving force there.
54:43
Speaker 1: I hope Laura is on every single one of those
54:46
Speaker 1: people's minds.
54:47
Speaker 2: For the rest of their ta oh, she better be,
54:49
Speaker 2: she better be. God, how could you even move on
54:51
Speaker 2: from doing something so horrible?
54:53
Speaker 1: Right?
54:53
Speaker 2: I don't think I I mean, I would a never
54:55
Speaker 2: do anything that horrible, but be I don't think I
54:57
Speaker 2: could ever not have a minute in my life without
55:02
Speaker 2: thinking about that.
55:03
Speaker 1: The only thing I think I could murder is like
55:05
Speaker 1: an entire sleeve of oreos, you know, in one sitting
55:09
Speaker 1: just sitting down, like, that's what I would kill.
55:11
Speaker 2: Do you know that? I think last episode you said
55:13
Speaker 2: that you weren't going to be eating oreos because we're
55:16
Speaker 2: on an elf kick well or something.
55:18
Speaker 1: I think I'm trying to be a bit healthier and
55:21
Speaker 1: I haven't been eating oreos, but if someone were to
55:23
Speaker 1: present them to me, I may falter and I may
55:27
Speaker 1: murder a whole thing of oreos. But that I digress. Anyways,
55:31
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. You guys are incredible. Don't
55:33
Speaker 1: forget to check out the description of this podcast for
55:36
Speaker 1: more information, more stuff. We have a website which is
55:39
Speaker 1: honestly in the midst of being completely redone because it
55:42
Speaker 1: is very outdated, so you may see a cool new
55:45
Speaker 1: website soon if you check out some of those links.
55:47
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a review. It goes a
55:49
Speaker 1: long way. We're an independent podcast. There's no big company
55:52
Speaker 1: pulling our strings. It's us. We do it all and
55:56
Speaker 1: because of you, we get to keep doing it. So
55:58
Speaker 1: thank you, and until next time, stay wicked.