Transcript of The Telltale SUV

It was early, too early for most college students, especially during Christmas break. Then again, Danita Smith was not one for sleeping in. At 25, Danita was as disciplined as a Marine, maybe because she had a lot on her plate. As a grad student at North Carolina Central University in Durham, Danita was just months away from finishing her master's degree in English. Schoolwork, volunteer work, a magazine internship, and a wedding to plan. Anyway, it was the internship that had her up at that hour, the bosses liked her to be at her desk by 8: 15 AM. It was eight minutes after 8: 00 when Danita opened her door on the third floor and started down the stairs. Did Danita see someone waiting on the second floor landing? We'll never know. We do know that as she turned to take the last set of 16 steps down to the parking lot, a bullet pierced the back of Danita's head and sent her tumbling down the stairs. For nearly two hours, Danita Smith lay in motionless repose on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building, building 1100, completely unnoticed until another student stepped out of his apartment and saw the contents of Danita's pocketbook scattered on the stairs.

He dialed 911. Done 911, where's your emergency?

I think this girl to straight down the stairs. I just walked down my apartment. She's at the bottom of the stairs, head busted up in blood everywhere. Okay, and is she breathing? I can't tell. I don't want to touch it. Do you want me to touch it? If you can look at her or if you can just observe. Hey, baby girl. Hello. Okay. She responding to you at all? She's not even moving. Okay. All right. Just so you know, the ambulance is already on the way. Do you want me to get her idea? If you can, if you feel comfortable doing that. Her name is Danita Monique Smith. Danita? She's moving, man. Okay.

This is the story of what happened to Danita Smith and the hunt for a killer. It's about love and hate, trust and betrayal. It's about truth and lies and the deadliest of sins, lust, pride, envy, and wrath.

It just shows you that our actions have consequences. It may seem as though it's, Hey, we're all grownups here, but stuff happens. In this situation, some pretty bad stuff happened.

Oh, yes. This is a story about bad stuff, all right. It's about revenge and the reckoning that eventually comes for anyone with a conscience.

One selfish act destroyed two families.

I want her remembered for her intelligence, for her beauty, for her class, someone who just entered your life and made it even more spectacular than before. Just a bright light in this world.

I'm Josh Mankowitz, and this is Deadly Engagement, a podcast from Dateland. Episode One, The Telltale SUV. When the EMTs arrived, they rolled Danita Smith's body out of her back and methodically set out to confirm the obvious. Lips blue, no pulse, her pupils fixed and dilated. Danita Smith was gone. At first glance, it looked as if her death could have been caused by a slip and fall, maybe even a tumble down the stairs during a snatch and grab robbery attempt. Robbery, however, seemed an unlikely motive. Her cash and credit cards were still in her wallet, and Danita was still wearing a gold necklace, earrings, and a diamond engagement ring. No, this felt like murder. Those suspicions were confirmed when the forensic team located a small hole about the size of a pencil eraser in the back of Danita's head. It was around 11: 45 when a detective in his mid-30s ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and walked up to the sheet-covered body on the sidewalk. He looked as if he just stepped onto the set of a TV crime drama. Salt and pepper hair, black leather coat, black shoes and pants, white shirt, gray tie, and a badge.

So by the time we get there, the scene is pretty well established, and we're immediately briefed as far as what injuries, what witnesses, who the collar is, the whole nine yards.

That's the voice of lead Detective Sean Pate. Though Pate had been with the Department for 13 years, he was still new to being murder police. This one would be his first homicide case.

I wasn't really nervous because it was the first murder I investigated, but it wasn't the first crime. Before that, I came from Special Victims Units, and the only difference is in Special Victims, usually your victim can talk.

His first step running the investigation was to look for witnesses. The Campus Crossing's apartment complex is about two miles from the NCCU campus. Although a lot of college students live there during the school year, most had not yet returned from their Christmas break. Those who said they'd heard a loud bang that morning had actually seen nothing and had little of value to tell the detective.

One person told me that they remember hearing one shot A couple of people said that it was more than one. It was probably the echo bouncing off the buildings.

Because the native was killed with one bullet.

One bullet.

And you didn't find any other slugs anywhere.

No, that's it.

By early afternoon, the campus Crossing's apartment building where Danita Smith had died was crawling with cops and investigators. Agents from the State Bureau of Investigation helped canvas the complex and the campus, looking for witnesses places, and also anyone who could tell them something about the murder victim.

After we started asking around, we realized that Danita was getting ready to graduate in a couple of months. She was actually looking to go to possibly Ohio State to get her a PhD. We learned that she was actually one of the more popular people on North Carolina Central's campus. And a lot of people in the apartment complex and at North Carolina Central University were really devastated.

So this wasn't somebody who was going through life unnoticed?

Oh, no. This was a rising star.

A talented photographer for the campus newspaper, Danita had done a summer fellowship with the New York Times. A gifted writer. She'd volunteered at the campus writing lab, mentoring underclassmen. She was an editorial intern at QRS, a fast food industry magazine based in Durham. And on top of that, she'd recently gotten engaged to a man who'd had a couple of years ahead of her at NCCU. They'd been dating since her freshman days.

They were like the it couple.

Those first minutes of police work revealed to Detective Pate one clear truth. Danita Smith had a lot of friends in Durham.

Everybody was jealous of her and her relationship, that she had a well-educated boyfriend that was fairly successful in his job, and she She came to be going places. And I guess that's why she had so many people that she mentored, because they wanted to go in that same direction.

One woman who heard the commotion that morning, stepped outside her apartment and spoke with an officer who happened to be standing nearby.

And she said, That's my roommate. And then the reporting officer said, Well, how did you know that's your roommate? And she said, Well, one, I'm looking at her. Secondly, that's the purse she carries. She recognized her key ring and all the stuff that were strewn down the steps.

Danita's roommate told investigators she was in bed when Danita left the apartment that morning. She said she remembered hearing the apartment door close, and right after that, a loud bang. The sound was so loud, she said, she rolled over and looked out the window beside her bed. She saw a man in a black truck pulled to a stop alongside someone in a burgundy SUV.

She doesn't see anything else out of place, and she lays back down after that, and she did glance at the clock and see that it was, I think, 8: 18, 8: 19. And that's all she knew until she woke up later on and all the commotion was out because Danita was not actually found until after 10: 00 AM.

As the roommate told her story, the investigator investigator started to get a sense that the roommate's relationship with Danita was off. She didn't seem as emotionally connected as others who'd known Danita well. She just didn't speak of her recently murdered roommate with the same tone of admiration. Oh, she talked about herself freely enough, her family, and her hometown. No problem there. It was when the detective asked the roommate how Danita had gotten on with the roommate's boyfriend. Well, that seemed to be a sensitive subject, and the roommate clammed up.

And something just didn't feel right there. I mean, you're telling me about yourself. You're telling me about your mother, but you won't talk to me about your boyfriend. So that drew my attention that day.

Eventually, the roommate did tell the detective her boyfriend and Danita had recently had words over what she didn't remember. So you start looking at the boyfriend.

Looking at the boyfriend and looking at her also.

What did you do to do that?

First thing we did is we put a tracker on her car. She wouldn't tell us where her boyfriend was. So during one point in the investigation, we put a tracker on her car.

It was just a hunch, the kind detectives get when they've got nothing else. No evidence, no witnesses, no suspects. Sometimes it comes on them like an unscratchable little itch between the shoulder blades. The detective wondered if perhaps, Danita Smith was not as universally loved as he first thought. We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. Five, six white people pushed me in the car.

I'm going, what the hell?

Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroine.

All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it. Just accept it.

She was very upset, crying.

Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Sting wherever you get your podcasts.

Danita's Mom, Sharon Smith, was at work that Thursday morning when her phone rang.

My son called me and said, Mom, Danita fell down the steps at her apartment. You need to call. He gave me the guy's name, so I did. And he told me, he said, Ms. Smith, Danita fell. She's unconscious, but they're trying to revive her.

This was somebody who worked at the college? Mm-hmm.

And so So he said, Are you coming to Durham? And I'm still trying to wrap my head around, You fail, unconscious, revive. I said, Yes, I'm coming.

How far away is that?

Two hours.

So you get in the car?

Mm-hmm. So I went to school. My youngest, she was a senior in high school. Picked her up, went home, got my son, and we hit the road going north on 85.

It's possible the person Sharon spoke with didn't know Danita was already in the next life. It's also possible that person didn't want to be the one to break that news to a mother who was about to get behind the wheel. And Sharon Smith had a lot of people she needed to reach out to. One of the first was Danita's fiancé, Jermia Stroud, who was a police officer in Greensboro.

And I said, Jermia, I need you to get to Durham. Now, Danita has failed. She's unconsciously trying to revive. Because I knew from Greensboro to Durham, he would be there before I would. He said, Well, I'm getting ready to go to work. No, you're getting ready to go to Durham. I need you to go to Durham. I'm on my way. I'm on the highway. I need you to get there. He said, Okay. He said, Well, let me call and see what I can find out. And so he did.

There was a lot for Sharon and her two younger children to think about between phone calls on that long ride to Durham. Each, no doubt, said silent prayers. Well, they watched the gray highway roll by, each desperately hoping for Danita's full recovery.

She was a happy person. Everybody loved her. She loved everybody.

Danita was Sharon's first born, and to her mind, the girl had been blessed at birth with both beauty and brains, the drive to Excel, and the talent to succeed.

As a child, Danita either wanted to take the picture or she wanted to be in the picture. She's always loved the camera. The camera was her friend. The camera was her way of expressing herself. And she would see things that probably the average person wouldn't see.

Whatever it is that makes a good photographer, Danita had it. She had a way of anticipating the telling moment and capturing its essence. It didn't matter if that was a news conference, a sporting event, or a birthday party. Sharon recalled conversations, particularly after Danita's summer fellowship with the New York Times, in which her daughter spoke about having an exciting career in journalism. Now, she was within months of getting her master's in English, and lately, Danita seemed to be thinking about extending her education. She was talking about getting a PhD. Sharon was about halfway to Durham when her phone rang again. This time, it was the NCCU campus police. Police.

He said, Ms. Smith, where are you at? At that time, we were just on this side of Greensboro. He said, Okay. He said, Well, when you get here, come to the clubhouse. Not the apartment? He said, No, come to the clubhouse.

That's when Sharon Smith pressed the gas pedal a little harder. As her car sped toward Durham, she half expected another call from someone telling her to go directly to the hospital where her daughter was being treated. That call never came. It was about 10: 15 that morning when Danita's best friend, Edith Kearns, got her first hint of trouble over at the campus Crossing's Apartments. It came in a phone call from someone who lived in the apartment directly below Danita Smith.

And they were like, By any chance, have you spoken to Danita this morning? I said, Well, no. I said, But it'll Probably in a little while, she'll call or something on my break, and we'll talk like we normally do. They were saying, It's like something going on out here. Somebody heard some strange noises early in the morning.

Edith and Danita had been close since their undergrad days at NCCU. They had shared an apartment Danita's senior year, and the night before, they talked on the phone, laughing and joking about money, movies, and wedding plans.

She was like, Well, yeah, we're going to make an appointment soon to start looking at bridesmaid dresses or figure out how we're going to do this.

As soon as Edith got word there was police activity outside Danita's apartment building that morning, Edith dialed Danita's number.

I want to make sure she's safe, so I was calling her phone, and she wasn't answering, which was after I call your phone several times as a best friend, somebody's going to call you back. So I was like, That's strange. So my instinct just said, Call Jamir really quick just to touch bases with him.

Danita and Jamir were already the it couple on campus when Edith met Danita. And over the years, Edith had come to think of Jamir as a big brother.

I spoke to Jamir and I'm like, Have you made contact with her? But I felt like I didn't get a definite answer.

What do you mean?

When I said, Did you speak with her? He didn't really give me a yes or a no. He was asking me, Are you trying to get in contact with her? I'm like, Yes. I heard there may be some concerns at the complex. I just want to check, make sure everything's okay.

And what did Jermier say?

He was like, Well, sit tight and give me a little while, and I'll try to call you back if I hear anything.

What Jermir did not say was that he'd already heard from Sharon Smith, Danita's mom. And he also did not mention that at that very moment, he was on the highway headed for Durham.

He just sounded a little rushed, like, Edith, sit tight, stay calm. I'm sure we'll get to her, so just let me talk to her first. You go back to your work morning, and we'll go from there.

Well, Edith was not about to sit tight and wait, not when the well-being of her best friend was in question.

So pretty much my family gets off work and they come get me, and they escort me to Campus Crossing.

Like Danita's mom, Sharon, Edith was directed to the Campus Crossing's Clubhouse, about 100 yards from Danita's apartment. It was there that some of the most important people in Danita's life would learn the brutal, undeniable truth.

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When Edith Kearns entered the large high-ceilinged clubhouse at the campus Crossing's Apartments, she saw several people standing around in conversational clusters. Most had grim faces, and a few looked as if they'd been crying.

I saw my professors from my program when I graduated, and he's like, Edith, what are you doing here? And I'm like, I'm here to see what's going on. I'm like, I'm here to check on my friend Danita, actually. I've been calling I was like, What are you all doing here? They were like, Unfortunately, she's not alive. Everything in me just went into shock, of course. I was like, Are you sure? I'm like, Maybe it's mistaken identity. This can't be. And they were like, Sweetheart, the ID, and just things to identify her by we're there and nearby. And they said, We're sure.

For a few minutes, the world stopped turning. All Edith could do was sob and gasp her breath. And then across the room, she caught sight of the one person she thought might need a comforting hug even more than she did.

The family had not arrived there yet. Jamir was there already.

How did Jamir look?

It's like a blank expression.

He was calm.

I think he was a little concerned about me because I was just in full-blown tears by then. And I walked over to him, and I'm just like, Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. And he was just quiet, and he was like, It's going to be okay. Calm down. And I'm like, What happened? Where did this come from? I just spoke to her last night, and everything sounded fine, seemed fine, and I'm just so sorry. I was like, My heart is breaking right now, and it's breaking for you, too, because this is your future wife. And that was pretty much how that conversation went.

Right around then is when Sharon Smith and the rest of her family walked through the glass doors to the clubhouse and into the worst news of their lives.

So they took us in a room, and I told them, I said, Well, is Jamir here? And they said, Yes, he's here. They said, Well, do you want him in here? I said, Yeah. Because I didn't know what they was What are you trying to say. Because I'm thinking, Okay, you need to say this so I can get to the hospital. And so Jamir, they went and got him. And so that's when they explained that Danita was found, and she was dead. And at that point, my life just changed completely. Everybody lost it, including Jamir. Jamir already knew once he got there because he's an officer.

Do you remember what Jamir said?

Jamir didn't say anything. Jamir cried. We all cried, but he cried. He didn't really say a whole lot.

In Investigators weren't saying much either. Even though a bullet hole had been found in the back of Danita's skull earlier in the day, police did not tell the family they suspected homicide. As far as family and friends gathered at the clubhouse were concerned, Danita Smith's death had been the result of a bad fall. Detective Pate was still thinking about Danita's uncooperative roommate when a veteran sergeant in plain clothes walked up and told him there was someone he needed to interview.

Sergeant Cates told me that Michael Hedgpeth was the maintenance supervisor, and he had a description of a person that left the area that day and was near the sound. So obviously, I'm going to speak to that person.

The detective found Michael Hedgpeth at the apartment complex office. He told the detective that sometime between 8: 00 and 8: 30 that morning, he'd been outside smoking a cigarette. When he heard a a bang coming from the direction of Building 600.

When he heard the sound, he looked to the left, and he saw a black female, about 5, 10, so almost 6 feet, grabs his eyes. A thin building. She was walking very quickly away from the direction of the sound.

Hedgpoth said he got into his black pickup and headed in that direction.

And as he's driving, he encounters a female in a burgundy the SUV. He stops her and he weighs her down. And as soon as she rolls down the window, he looks and can tell she looks distraught. So he asks her, Did you hear what sounded like a gunshot? If she has her hands over her mouth, then she's shaking her head up and down, indicating yes.

This woman looked frightened or-I think he said she was distraught. The SUV's rear windows were tinted, so Hedgpoth said he couldn't tell if the young woman was in the vehicle alone. He did notice she was wearing some greenish-colored uniform shirt with a patch on the sleeve that had some red in it.

He says, Wait right here. So he drives around the building to see if there's anyone down or anything. But he goes in the direction of building 600. Building 600 and 1100 aren't as far as part as the numbers would indicate.

Hedgepath told the detective that as he was circling around the complex in the area where he thought the loud bang had come from, he again encountered the woman driving the burgundy SUV.

She's still sitting there with her hands over her face, and he says, You know what? Just stay right here. I'm going to call the police.

911, where is your emergency? The camp is calling Department.

This is that call to 911. It was placed at 8: 18, nearly 2 hours before Danita Smith's body was found.

We heard a gunshot somewhere around here.

Yeah.

I don't know exactly what it meant, but you could hear it. How many shots did you hear? I'd like to. Do you know if anybody's injured? No. I can do it with young lady to say, though, she heard it, too. If she's upset and shaken and stuff like that.

We'll have to run out as soon as possible.

All right. Thank you.

Within minutes of that call, a Durham Police Department squad car had arrived at the campus Crossing's apartments. Although the patrol car cruised around the buildings where the maintenance man said he thought the loud bang had come from, they never drove past building 1100. If they had, they would have seen Danita's body on the sidewalk. As for that woman in the burgundy SUV, well, she had evaporated generated like the morning do. What do you make of that?

That's like me being in the back of our neck stand up.

It was a tantalizing tidbit, to be sure. Unfortunately, it was nothing the detective could really follow up. After all, there had to be thousands of burgundy SUVs in the Raleigh, Durham area, and the maintenance man had failed to get the license plate of the only one that mattered.

We didn't even have a brand. It could have been anything, any year.

Early the next morning, Jermier Stroud checked out of his hotel room and headed home to Greensboro. He hadn't been on the road long when curiosity got the better of him. Jermier called the Durham Police Department to ask if they knew the cause of Danita's death. It wasn't long before a supervisor from Homicide came on the phone. Hours earlier, the coroner had made it official. Danita Smith Smith had been killed by a bullet to the brain. The slug was too mangled to determine the gun used. The coroner said it likely came from a 38 caliber handgun, fired from at least two feet away from the back of Danita's head. When that supervisor came on the line, Jermier quickly discovered the cop had more questions than he did, beginning with this one.

Do you know anyone that drives a burgundy SUV? And he said, Oh, my God. Those were his exact words. He said, Oh, my God. I'm turning around now.

Later, In this series, the shame in his eyes was it was there for everyone to see, everyone to see.

I heard a shot.

Not even a minute later, he was running down the stairs and he was putting a gun down in his waistband.

You are the suspect in this case, and so I am not sharing information with you. I will get information from you if you want to give it, but I'm not going to give you any information.

The hardest thing for me is that knowing my child and knowing that no one believes her This podcast is a production of Dateland and NBC News.

Tim Beacham is the producer. Marshall Hausfeld, Brian Drew, Deb Brown, John Koster, and Billy Ray are audio editors. Kimberly Floris-Gainer is Associate Producer. Adam Gorfein 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 head of audio production.

Hey, guys.

Willy Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Eva Longoria to talk about her rise from the small Texas ranch where she grew up to the heights of Hollywood as an actress, producer, director, and philanthropist. You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.