Bone Fragments & Trashed Trailers

In March 2007 Shemiah Smith, a 23-year-old exotic dancer who worked at Kahoots in Vernon, Connecticut under the name Maya, disappeared. She lived with her parents and her boyfriend in East Hartford. details of the account remain covered until revealed He also owned a 75-acre property in Stafford with a trailer and a shooting range. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now Cell phone records later placed her phone near his Stafford property that day, although he insisted she had never been there.

On 14 March Maya left her parents' house, telling her boyfriend she was going to work and then to meet a client who owned a large parcel of land and drove a black truck. She did not name him. She never arrived at Kahoots and did not come home. Two days later her family reported her missing to the East Hartford police. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now He also said she had told him she meant to stay with a female friend. He denied ever taking her to his Stafford property. His account did not fit the evidence. His cell phone records showed him moving around on 16 March, connecting to towers across the area, rather than lying at home. They also placed him near his property on the evening of 14 March and during the following two days.

On 21 March the police went to his house. He asked to be interviewed at the police station so as not to disturb his wife, and before leaving said only, 'It's sad about Maya.' details of the account remain covered until revealed That same day the police learned he owned the 75-acre Stafford parcel. On 23 March they searched it and found an unlocked trailer. A helicopter flyover showed a trailer, two sheds, a fire pit, tractors and tracks in the snow, and the fire pit was clear of the snow that had fallen on 16 March.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Almost at once he raised a moral turpitude clause in his employment contract, saying he could lose a lot of money if his employer's reputation were damaged. He then suggested they move to a more private place and chose the car park of another strip club on the same street. There he got into the police car and directed them around the route he said he had taken with Maya, but he could not find the community college and drove in circles before coming upon it by chance. He repeated that he had never taken her to Stafford. He consented to a search of his truck, where police found ammunition for .40, .357 and .38 calibre guns in a locked safe, and he agreed to a search of his property the next day.

On 8 April cadaver dogs searched the Stafford land. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it In the fire pit they recovered pieces of human tissue, numerous bone fragments, teeth, part of a human foot, a set of Maya's keys, two .40-calibre shell casings and a .38-calibre hollow-point bullet, plus a third .40 casing elsewhere. At the trailer site they found an empty Cheetos bag, a Clorox ready mop with human blood on the handle and mop head, a six-foot by two-foot piece of carpet with a four-foot by one-foot bloodstain, and a vacuum cleaner bag containing plastic and linoleum with traces of blood.

Michael Carpenter, a family friend, told police that on 14 April he and his father returned a borrowed backhoe and saw the trailer crushed and partly burning. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now On 19 April Kathleen retained a Manchester attorney recommended by her husband and filed for divorce that day. She filed notices of lis pendens on the marital home at Woodmill Road in Ellington and on the Stafford land. details of the account remain covered until revealed

On 9 May the Smith family began a wrongful death action and obtained a $4.5 million prejudgment remedy. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He was carrying more than $10,000 in US and Canadian currency, a newly issued passport, toiletries, pill bottles and medication. His lawyer said he was there to collect a business associate and that the money was for legal fees, but the judge, Raymond Norko, called the crime heinous, set bail at $5 million cash and ordered the case transferred to a court that handled more serious matters. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed

Forensic work tied the recovered material to Maya. Because no direct sample from her was available, analysts compared DNA from the fire pit and the bloodstained items with her parents' DNA and confirmed that the remains and blood were consistent with their biological daughter. The blood on the mop, plastic and linoleum matched her. The carpet stain could not yield a profile because rain had soaked it, but the shape was consistent with a person lying there. Edward McDonna, the deputy chief medical examiner, said the remains smelled of gasoline, toxicology found nothing but could not rule out drugs because of the heat damage, and the burning made the cause and manner of death impossible to determine. Albert Harper, a forensic anthropologist, said the bones had been burned in a very hot fire approaching commercial cremation, requiring temperatures of 1,500 to 2,000 degrees over many hours, possibly several days, and that the intact skin and muscle on the foot suggested she had been dead about a month. He said a deliberately cremated body indicated someone trying to prevent discovery. Edward Jacomowitz of the State Police Forensics Laboratory testified that the .38 bullet could have come from either the .38 or .357 revolver but was too damaged to say which. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

The defence conceded that Maya had bled heavily on the carpet, the linoleum and the mop, but argued there was no proof of intent to kill: the death could have been manslaughter or an accident, the cause of death was unknown, and there was no motive. It pointed to the shooting range on the property and to Robert Malt's testimony that he and his wife had fired revolvers and semi-automatic pistols near the fire pit. It also noted that two cigarette butts found at the trailer site had not been tested for DNA and that no identifiable fingerprints were recovered from the mop handle. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed In July 2012 Kathleen asked for the guns back, including the murder weapon, saying she would sell them and put the money in escrow. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

The civil case went on. Liability was decided for the Smith family on 30 September, and after a damages hearing in early November the estate was awarded $9,158,233. About $6.8 million was non-economic loss, including nearly $1 million in punitive damages. The judge calculated $10,000 a month for the 57 years Maya might have lived, and $1.3 million in economic damages on the basis that she would have become a hairdresser rather than remaining a dancer. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it