Transcript of Good Neighbors

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Willy Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Tony and Grammy winner and Academy Award nominee, Leslie Odom Jr. As he returns to the role that made him famous as Aaron Bur in Hamilton, 10 years after the original run. You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts. June 20th, 2008 was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. To Shannon Crawley, it must have felt like the longest day of her life. According to her, the day began with a four-hour sexual assault in the predawn hours. From that moment on, she had scarcely a moment to herself. In the hours after she reported the attack, she'd been poked and prodded by doctors and nurses, questioned by police.

I'm with the police Department, and I just want to talk to you about a few things, and it's going to be a long day in trying to straighten this out and get them to take care of you.

After she was released from the hospital, Shannon's mother and sisters hover over her like bees on a tulip. While out in the hall, she likely heard the crawling men folk murmuring softly to one another, making sounds of sympathy and concern.

She was really not talking much that night. She was just very sore.

That's Shannon's brother-in-law, Chris Williams. He and his wife, Brandy, Shannon's sister, had come down from New Jersey.

I think she had some issues with men being around her, so I just stayed back a little bit from engaging in any conversation with her to enter with him that night.

Through bits and snatches of conversation, the had gotten a good idea of what Shannon said had happened.

I asked how she felt and how she was doing.

If she had pain, if she needed anything, those sorts of things. That is Keith Crawley, Shannon's dad.

I got more or less let her spend time with his sisters and her mom. Just having a woman, I think, is more important than me being in the way.

The story Shannon told was awful enough, but one detail Shannon seemed to recall most vividly was horrific.

Use the knife to penetrate me.

In this episode, you'll hear how the knife Shannon says was used to attack her was found at the home of the man she said raped her, her former lover, Jamir Stroud, a man who'd been engaged to Danita Smith. The woman Shannon stood accused of murdering 18 months earlier.

Both worked for the police department. I was a 911 dispatcher and the agent police officer. We met there, we dated, we broke up.

You'll hear how within days of that knife's discovery, the sexual assault case against Jermere Stroud was suddenly in question. No one wants to be that officer that says, You know what, lady? You're a lie.

I just feel that this is injustice. It's this pure injustice.

And you will hear how that knife helped strengthen the prosecution's case as the date of Shannon Crawley's murder trial drew ever closer.

It seemed obvious not only who was stalking who, but who was trying to frame her at that point.

I'm Josh Mankowitz, and This is Deadly Engagement, a podcast from Dateland. Episode 5, Good Neighbors. Blue Stem Court is a little suburban cul-de-sac on the north side of Greensboro. It's a quiet street with friendly neighbors and hedges that are almost never allowed to get out of control. In 2008, It was home to Jermier Stroud. Very little of note ever seemed to happen there. And then, one steamy Thursday night in June, something did. Thursday is trash day on Blue Stem Court, so there were a few empty bins still out by the curb. One of them belonged to Jermier. At about 10: 30 that night, one of his neighbors, out watering her flowers, heard a car enter the cul-de-sac.

Yeah, I went all the way to the end of the cul-de-sac and took a little loop, and came back and stopped at his trash can and drew something else.

I just figured that he was throwing out a bottle or something.

A guy who lived next to Stroud was outside, transferring some guy stuff to the new car he and his wife had just bought that day. He saw the same thing.

I was messing in the car and I heard a. And so I got out of the car and peaked around the car.

I saw the vehicle driving off from Jermier's Can. I was thinking to myself, well, maybe they had a McDonald's bag or a drink or something they're just trying to get rid of.

The next day, an attentive neighbor on Blue Stem Court might have noticed a Charlotte police car parked in front of Jermier's Stroud's house. And then later, seeing how Jermier's trash can was still in the street, some thoughtful soul dragged it back up the drive and parked it by his back door. Those are the neighbors you want, and Jermier Stroud had them on Blue Stem Court.

I just assumed that it was just one of my neighbors there, and I just put my trash cans back up in my house.

Jermier did not give the question of who moved his trash can a second thought, maybe not even a first thought. At least not until Monday, when he happened to take out the garbage.

I lift up my trash can again, boom, I looked down, and I see this It's just Big A knife. And I'm like, Okay. And considering all the circles, it's unfolding. And I'm like, That's just odd and weird.

Odd and weird? Oh, yes. You see, days earlier, Jermier's former lover, Shannon Crawley, had accused him of raping her with a knife. That's not all. Shannon Crawley was, at the time, out on bond, awaiting trial for the murder of Jermier's fiancé. Anita Smith.

Shannon was indicted. In May of 2007, Shannon, she was released in jail. And She issued statements that had gone to the Grand Police Department, blaming me for being involved in the lawyer.

On Saturday morning, the day after she said she'd been raped, Shannon Crawley said she was feeling a little better, well enough, at least, to talk a bit about her ordeal. Shannon was still complaining about continued discomfort and bleeding.

She stayed up because she wouldn't get in my bed. Shannon's mom, Anne. We tried to leave her alone, and she said she was bleeding. And she said it wasn't normal.

The Crawlies thought it possible the medical team that had seen Shannon after the reported rape had missed something. Shannon had not allowed the medical staff to do more invasive diagnostic procedures because she'd said she was in too much pain. Now, the Crawlies wanted doctors to take a closer look. It made sense. It was Shannon who resisted.

Because Shannon, her concern was that people would think she did this to herself, and that we will believe that she was actually attacked.

In In the end, the Crawley family prevailed.

So we convinced her, finally, to go to the hospital, and I told her her sisters would take her.

That's Shannon's mom again.

They took her to the hospital and texted me and told me that she had But the doctor's face didn't look good when she came out of the room.

According to the Crawley sisters, a second and more thorough examination showed they were right. Shannon's bleeding had been caused by internal injuries that had gone undetected the day before.

They did an internal exam, and she got a lot of bruising inside and a lot of cuts.

That's Shannon's brother-in-law, Chris Williams.

They were going to make a note on an attitude, I guess, a previous report of the initial examination.

The Crawlies were not sure what the hospital staff did for Shannon that night other than give her something for the pain.

She was in extreme pain. She felt like everything was falling out.

Shannon's mom, Ann.

She just laid down. She cried. She cried. That's all she did, just cry. She was in a lot of pain, and she just cried a lot. So she slept in my bed with her daughter. That made her feel better when her daughter was near her.

In a strange way, that scene might well have reminded the Crawlies of some more innocent times when Shannon was growing up.

Shannon was a thumb sucker. She was the second oldest, but she really is the baby of the family. Easy to cry, very sensitive, stubborn.

The overwhelming thing I think about her is just being very sensitive and accommodated.

She cried about for a half.

For several days, Shannon rested and recuperated in the comforting cocoon of family, surrounded by people who'd known her all her life, people who loved her, sheltered her, and who believed every word she'd told them about her former lover, Jermir Stroud. Well, that wasn't nearly enough. In the weeks and months to come, she would need to convince total strangers to believe her as well.

I'm Julio Baqueiro, anchor of Noticias Telemundo.

You can watch Dateland, the hit true crime series on Telemundo. And now you can listen to Dateland as a podcast. Stories of love and betrayal, of secrets revealed, of the men and women who stand between evil and justice. Every twist and turn can now be heard in Spanish, with new mysteries arriving every week. Just search Dateland en español wherever you your podcasts and start listening.

I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paula Ramos. Together, we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians, artists, and activists to bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. The Moment is a space for the conversations we've been having as father and daughter for years. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paula Ramos on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every mystery has an answer, but some have way more than one possibility. I'm Yvette Gentile. And I'm her sister, Rasha Petcarrero. Every week on our podcast, So Supernatural, we invite you to explore the unknown and to consider the many theories behind each unsolved mystery. We'll guide you as you question the world you think you know through investigations into spine-chilling hauntings, unexplainable encounters, strange disappearances, and so much more. If you're ready to be haunted by stories of the unsolved and of the unknown, listen. If you dare, to So Supernatural every Friday, wherever you get your podcast.

For Jermir Stroud, that night, knife was absolutely the last straw. For months, he'd heard how his former lover, Shannon Crawley, had been talking smack about him. That was unpleasant, but not unexpected. This was something else. And now Jermier had had enough.

I have been accused of murdering my own fiance. And then two weeks after I was supposed to marry the woman that she murdered, she's now accusing me of rape. And I knew I I wasn't there.

As he staring at the knife lying at the bottom of his trash can, his mind raced back and forth, switching between memories and scenarios like a teenager with a remote. Three days earlier, cops from Charlotte had come to Jermier's house and questioned him about that alleged rape. And Jermier said he had told them everything. On duty till after midnight, then McDonald's, on the phone with a friend, then to bed. All of it checked out. Cops had the McDonald's receipt and phone records, a printout showing his cell hitting a tower in Greensboro right around the time he was allegedly raping Shannon, a hundred miles away. After asking Greensboro police to come collect the knife, Jamir called the Charlotte Police Department. He was put through to the Crimes Unit. Detective Pam Zen Khan was the lead detective on this case, and she picked up.

It was a fold-in blade type blade fold-in, but it was unfolded, just out.

What blade was it? Can you describe the blade?

I don't know. It was at least like a four-inch blade. When I say four-inch blade, I'm talking at least minimum of four inches. I'm talking about the exposed part of the blade. It was like a real fat blade type deal.

Jermir told Detective Zen Khan he had never seen that knife before. He knew for certain he had not put it there. Jermir says once he saw it, he just shut the lid and started checking with his neighbors.

So first thing I did was I caught my neighbor that was most likely would be the guy that takes care of my mail and stuff when I'm out of town. I said, Did you have to put my trash cans up on it? I'll buy my house shit.

Now, I want to So Jamir asked his neighbor who lived on the other side, a guy named Brandon.

I said, Hey, man, you put my trash cans up on my house? He said, No, I didn't touch trash cans. He said, But you know what? I did see something weird. I saw a guy, I saw somebody pull up. I saw a late models with Buick. Come down to the other end of my cul-de-sac, circle around, pull up to my house, stop, slow down. Somebody got out, put something in my trash can and throw it off.

What time of night was this?

Any I recall the time directly. And I told him, I said, Don't worry about telling it to me. I'll make sure you talk to all this.

Later, Jermier says he asked one more neighbor, a woman named Jessica, if she had been the one who moved his trash can. And they go.

She said, I put this trash can in your house. I said, Okay, thank you. She said, Yeah, they were out there trash day. I just figured out, get them out the street and pull them out there for you. I said, Great. I said, Did you happen to leave a knife in there or anything? She goes, Oh, gosh, no. A knife? I said, No. She said, No, I didn't leave anything in there. She said, But you know what was weird, though? I did see somebody pull up. It was weird. Somebody just pulled up, got out, dropped something in there. I just thought it was strange that they would do that, and they pulled off.

The neighbors described the person they saw as either a white male or a light skin black male. The car he drove, they described as being greenish-gray or possibly blue. A late model vehicle, rounded and bubbly, Jessica said. Brandon said it looked like a Buick. Jermier could not think of anyone he knew who matched that description and who drove a car like that. However, the timing was suspicious. Jessica and Brandon had seen the man drop something into Jermier's empty trash can on Thursday night. That was four or five hours before Shannon had claimed her rapist grabbed in the backyard of her mother's home in Charlotte.

The one neighbor, Jessica, who said she saw the white male. Number one, we have white males that would be involved in this. So she had somebody else working with her. Number two, somebody It's providing her with my schedule somehow. When she killed my fiance, she knew that I would be home alone and dead by myself. When she called me back in January, she knew I would be home alone and dead by myself. When this knife got dropped, I've seen Somebody knew that I would be at work. And when this alleged rape thing happened, she knew that I was home alone and dead by myself. You know what I mean? That's not a pattern that an idiot can pick up on. You know what I mean? Right.

The Detective and Jamir spoke several times over the next few days.

Hey, Jermier. Hey, this is Detective Zincan. Pam Zincan. How are you doing?

I'm all right.

Hey, I got a quick question for you. I spoke to your neighbor. The one thing I do need to ask you just to say I did, when you located the knife in the trash, you lift the lid, and then what happened? What did you do?

In those calls, Jermier sometimes vented his frustrations over the slow pace of the investigation.

All I can do is think from my end. And from my end, I'm thinking, and I don't know what you all had. From my end, I'm thinking, this is so ridiculously obvious. I didn't do it. You know what I'm saying?

You know what? If it was that ridiculous obvious, then I wouldn't have been working on this case for almost over two weeks. Okay? So you know what? Maybe you should go into investigations. Okay? Because nothing's that ridiculously obvious.

All right? I'm just doing my job.

Jermir told the detective that after all he'd been through, what he most wanted was Shannon Crawley to be arrested for falsely accusing him of rape.

One of the worst things you could ever accuse a man of is rape. That's just nasty. Okay. And not being prosecuted is good enough for everybody else, but cleared is what I want.

Cops have a slang term for evidence like that knife that seems to conveniently fall from the sky and implicate a suspect. They call it snowflaking. To Jermier, this felt like a blizzard. It was then that Jermier suggested, speaking cop to cop, that Shannon Crawley would likely get away with this slander because he said, Everyone knows cops are not in the business of arresting women who say they are rape victims.

I understand you all's position as to why you all can do that. But I feel like it's a political thing keeping you all from doing it.

That suggestion was a step too far for Detective Zen Khan.

Well, Jamir, let me tell you something right now. I don't appreciate that. Okay? Law enforcement, I don't appreciate what you just said to me. I have worked very hard on this case, and I'm still working hard on this case. If I find fact enough to say that it didn't happen, I will do that. If we can find out that she is lying, then we'll make an arrest. But you just can't decide. You just can't get a feeling or one of those officer senses that someone's lying. How long have you been in the... You said you've been a cop five years, and I've got to explain this to you.

No, ma'am.

I didn't say that- That's your feeling. You can't I ask people on feelings. You should know that. Well, I know that. Okay, then why are you thinking I need to right now?

Well, if you notice, I didn't say that I think the one of the things that makes you all have to be so careful about doing that is you guys have to make sure you all have a mobile evidence, which means if I can produce any information that can help you all come to that determination, I will, which lets you know that I know that you all don't have enough to be able to find that fact.

You know nothing because I am telling you nothing, just like I am not telling her anything. You are the suspect in this case. And so I am not sharing information with you. Now, I will get information from you if you want to give it, but I'm not going to give you any information. And you make a comment about me not making an arrest for political reasons, and that is incorrect. I am doing my investigation, and you will know the result of that investigation when it's done. I don't appreciate that comment.

Well, I apologize for offending you because my attention was definitely not to offend you.

Well, I apologize, except it. But just know, because we have done nothing but work on this case and try to figure out what we can do to the fullest. And I'm not whining about how much I've been working on this case because it is my job, okay? But I can assure you that I have been doing my job.

A few days after that phone call, Detective Zenkan got her hands on a critical piece of information she'd been waiting for. The results of the rape kit were in. The one performed after Shannon said Jermier had raped her repeatedly. The lab reported finding not a trace of Jermier Stroud's DNA, not on Shannon, not on Shannon's clothes, and not on the knife found in Jermier's trash bin. It is likely an audible sigh of relief was heard miles away in Durham, where the district attorney had been eagerly waiting to hear whether the key witness in his murder case would be charged with raping the defendant.

There was no semen on the vaginal swabs.

That's Durham County prosecutor David Sacks.

There's a little blood on one of the swabs, but nothing that would be conclusive proof that the rape had occurred. She indicated that there should have been Jamir's DNA on her. And it wasn't there. It just wasn't there. They tested her clothes. They tested her the underwear, everything they could, and it just was not there.

The damage, which you would think would be caused by his using a knife. Correct. That wasn't really there either.

Clearly not seen All the medical personnel confirmed for both the Charlotte police and for us that they did not see that injury to her. That would have occurred.

Durham County Detective Siôn Pate, who had spent hours interviewing Shannon and then later arrested her for the murder of Danita Smith, was not surprised to hear that her latest accusation against Jermere Stroud had turned to vapor. Again, that was with the Charlotte Police Department. I know it took them, if I remember correctly, about 10 days to figure out this never occurred, and which, to be honest with you, is very, very fast for a rape because no one wants to be that officer that says, You know what, lady? You're lying. No one wants to be that person. I mean, you're just supposed to start by believing. In the end, Jermier was not charged with rape, and Shannon was not charged with filing a false report. However, that was not the end of the finger pointing. Oh, no. Soon, the fingers were pointing at police.

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As far as Shannon Crawley was concerned, the evidence meant nothing. Not the rape kit results, not the medical reports, none of it. Jermier Stroud, she said, had raped her with a knife. And if the cops couldn't find evidence to support that, well, then that proved what she and her family had long believed. The cops were covering up for Jermier, one of their own. She knew what she knew, and that was that.

I believe that after, for whatever reason they contacted the Durham police, I feel that it was completely inappropriate for them to even involve Durham. It had nothing to do with that case. But when they did, their whole story changed. The way they treated me, everything changed after that. They made me feel like I made this up, and I know that I didn't.

I mean, clearly, it's got something to do with that case. I mean, it's the guy that you say is the actual killer trying to intimidate you.

It made them change their position on what happened to me. How they treated me initially is not how they ended treating me after they talked to the Durham police.

You think the Durham police what, convinced them that you're a liar?

Yes, because everything changed after that.

But why would the rape kit come back inconclusive? Why wouldn't Jamir's DNA be found?

I'm sure he did that on purpose. How was he going to explain why he had attacked me?

When you say he, you mean Jamir? Yes. So what? He did what on purpose?

He's a police officer. He made sure that his DNA would not he found. But when they found the knife, they found the knife in his trash can, he had an excuse for that. Oh, someone must have put it there. He's got a neighbor that says, Oh, well, I saw someone drive by and put the knife in his trash can.

Okay, well, his cell phone records put him on the phone at the time that you say this assault was going on.

And I don't believe that he was ever talking to anyone on the phone. I know where he was that night.

As for Shannon's parents, the Crawlies, well, they trusted Shannon, and they believed the fix was in.

After they talked to the prosecutor. Yes, he called down there and-Nurse changed her story. Everything changed.

Everything changed. This is what? One big conspiracy? It sounds like it.

It sounds like it.

We got to look at the way it is. So many things that just don't hold together. To the Crawlies, it seemed a clear case of the Blue Wall. Police officers covering for another police officer. Cops will protect other cops. They know what department they're in. Shannon's father, Keith Crawley senior, was himself once a Sheriff's Deputy in another state. There are always that few, not many.

There's always that feeling that we'll cover up for a cop who's not even know it.

You were in law enforcement? Yes. You cover up crimes by other officers? No, I never did. The Crawlies absolutely believe their daughter, but it It seems her lawyers may have had their doubts. Six months after Shannon accused Jermier of rape, and just a month before her murder trial was set to begin, Shannon's attorneys withdrawn from her case. In their court filing, they cited a ethical dilemma stemming from the Bar Association's Cander toward the Tribunal Rule. Essentially, that's an ethics rule that says lawyers can't knowingly lie to the court or allow their client or one of their witnesses to present testimony which the attorney knows is false. What was the precise nature of this ethical dilemma? We don't know. We do know the late withdrawal of Shannon's attorneys caused her murder trial to be postponed. The Crawlies did not mention an ethical issue when I spoke with them years later. In their telling, it all boiled down to money.

The first attorneys, one in particular, kept asking for more and more and more and more money.

And when he realized There wasn't any more to give, that's when he wanted to back out of the case.

After? Yeah.

After we spent all that money. The court ended up appointing Shannon a new attorney. He was appointed by the state after we had already spent all there was to spend. Two years after her daughter's death, Sharon Smith was emotionally spent. It had taken months for the sharp pain of losing Danita to dissipate into a constant dull throb. It was an ache that never went away. It took longer still for her thoughts to turn from the horror of Danita's death to wistful memories days of her short but exceptional life.

She touched a lot of people in the 25 years that she was on this Earth.

That is Sharon Smith, Danita's mom.

I did not realize that But she did. And she accomplished more in her 25 years than what some of us do in the lifetime.

And although the family has marked Danita's birthdays with photos of her posted on social media. Danita has never aged. She is forever 25. There are no new pictures of her celebrating life's achievements, no photos of Danita proudly holding her own children.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to plan her wedding or see her come down the aisle or the excitement of her having her children or even see her go across the stage for the second time to get her masters.

Danita was gone, but far from forgotten. In the year since Danita's death, her mother turned her attention to the case being built against Danita's accused killer, frequently calling both the detective who had arrested Shannon Crawley and the prosecutor she hoped would put Shannon away for life.

Danita's mother was in constant contact with our office and with me personally.

Durham County prosecutor, David Sacks.

She would call me up and we would talk, and I would let her know where things stood and what we were doing and what the next steps were and things of that nature. And this took a long time to get to trial. And so there were a lot of conversations with Ms. Smith.

Early on, a lot of those discussions centered on Sharon's would-be son-in-law, Jermere Stroud, and Danita's accused killer, Shannon Crawley. Do you ever worry they're in The wrong person?

Shannon versus Jermia.

Well, Shannon versus- Anybody.

At first, I did. At first, I did.

When Sharon learned, Shannon had said it was Jermia who killed Danita, Sharon says she initially believed her.

I was very angry. I was very angry because I had gotten to know Jamir, welcomed him in my home. And if he had went down, if the evidence supported it, evidence supported it.

By January 2010, the prosecutor was ready to take his case against Shannon Crawley to trial. He was confident he had the evidence to get a conviction. What he was not sure about was how his key witness, Jermir Stroud, would come off in front of a jury.

What became very hard was to deal with his mannerisms. I have a very specific memory of sitting down with Danita's mother, and we actually watched together Jermir's videotaped interview because I wanted her to see what I was dealing with because you would watch his interview, and it would just strike you that he's hiding something or something, and she had the same impression. And she was like, That's just not the Jimmy here I know.

It was an odd position to be in after three years of investigation. The DA was plainly worried that if this approaching day of reckoning became yet another round of he said, she said, the prosecution could still lose.

It comes across squirrely sometimes. It just comes across squirrely. There's just something not right.

Next time.

The whole trial was basically us saying that Shannon Crawley committed this murder and the defense saying, Jameer Why did this murder?

The tone was definitely somber. Shannon's family here, and you got Danita's people on the other side. Tense is a good word for it. I do know that my belief is that Jamir is going to pay for this one day.

This podcast is a production of Dateland and NBC News. Tim Beacham is the producer. Marshall Hausfeld, Brian Drew, Deb Brown, and Billy Ray are audio editors. Kimberly Flores-Gayner is Associate Producer. Adam Dorphane is co-executive producer, Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, Sound Mixing by Rich Cutler, Bryson Barnes is Executive producer. Liz Cole is Senior Executive producer. From NBC News Audio, Soundmixing by Rich Cutler. From Head of audio production. Hey, guys. Hey, guys. Willy Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Tony and Grammy winner and Academy Award Nominee, Leslie Odom Jr. As he returns to the role that made him famous as Eric famous as Aaron Bur in Hamilton, 10 years after the original run. You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.