Man confesses to 1994 cold case murder, claiming he's "a serial killer who's only killed once" | Forensic Files

When you're dealing with a 30-year-old coal case, it seems like there's not a lot of hope.
>> It's a great photo, Robin. >> Mhm. But look what happened in the Robin Lawrence case.
>> Something sparked it. that nobody ever expected. That just caught everybody offguard.
Her husband Olly had been trying to reach Robin all weekend. Olly was out of the country.
>> Who else was in the house? >> Nicole, her baby. >> Well, Olly contacted me. He said, "Would
you mind going over to the house and checking on her?" And I was like, "Yeah, sure."
There's no answer at the front door. So went around to the back. So when you go around to the back deck, what do you
notice? >> That the window screen is cut. That was the first time I thought, "Oh
my god, something is wrong here." I had to climb in through the window and Nicole comes, you know, down the hall.
Her eyes were just so big and her little face was just there's no expression on it. I'm going down the hall and I can
see into the master bedroom and I can see on the wall these large splatters and swaths of blood.
I was terrified and I went and I called the police. It was a very, very violent attack on
Robin. She was stabbed 49 times. It looks like a personal attack. It looked like Nicole had been kind of
roaming around the house. Clearly, she had been in that room with her mom. It's hard to think about.
>> It's like a horror movie, but it's not a movie. This is our family. This is our
lives. This was Robin's life. >> I did think that maybe it was someone she knew. That always kind of sat with
my mind like who did she know that could have done this? Here's the photo of the washcloth where
the key piece of evidence is a washcloth that they find in the bathroom and it has blood on both sides. I knew that we
had a really strong DNA profile which obviously stood out. So detectives just kept waiting to get that phone call from
the lab saying that we have a match and unfortunately that call never came and then just another year would go by
and another year would go by. So you switch tracks and try what we call genetic genealogy
and that was becoming really big at that time. That's when we turned to the help of a
volunteer and she said, "Genealogy is a hobby of mine. I dabble in it on the side. I'd be willing to do this case for
free when I have spare time." I knew it was going to be a needle in the haststack, but I thought it was worth
trying. 6 7 8 9 10 generations away from even these people. >> And I think it's August of 2023, she
sends me an email. She says, "I think I found someone of interest." >> What happens as you start looking into
him? >> Well, we find out computer programmer up in New York, married to a defense
attorney, two kids in high school, nice house in the suburbs, not so much as a speeding ticket on his background.
>> I am a serial killer who's only killed once. Heat. Hey, Heat. So, here's the crime scene pictures.
There's a bunch of contact sheets in here. You can tell it starts from the pictures from the outside of the house
and then moves in to the scene. Cold case detectives Melissa Wallace and John Long of the Fairfax County Police
Department began reviewing Robin Lawrence's murder case in April of 2021. >> That's like your worst nightmare.
>> Here's the bedroom. Obviously, her body's here, but you can see >> they were struck by the sheer violence
of the attack on the 37year-old mother. >> It looked brutal. >> See, is that blood on the book? That's
the reason why you tell your loved ones to make sure that your doors are locked at night. He is the boogeyman.
On November 20th, 1994, Robin's friend Lorie Lindberg had entered her home to check on her and saw blood on the
bedroom walls and Robin's 2-year-old daughter Nicole wandering around. Alarmed, Lorie called 911 and then
rushed the little girl to the hospital. Although Nicole did not appear hurt. She
had undergone a liver transplant after she was born and her health was fragile >> because of course she's taking
imunosuppressive medications. I mean, this is life-saving medication. She needs to have it
>> cuz you don't know how long she's been in that house by herself, >> right? >> Lead crime scene detective Mark Garmin
was one of the first on site. This is what we determined to be the entry point to the home.
>> According to Detective Garmin, who photographed the evidence, the intruder came through that window off the back
deck, the one Lori had used to get inside. He entered the house the same way. >> I had no idea what the scene looked like
until I walked around the corner and into the master bedroom. Tell me the state that Robin was in when
you saw her. >> Very damaged. A lot of knife wounds. Severe gaping knife wound in her neck.
Unbelievable number of defensive wounds on her hands, knife wounds in her back, on her legs.
>> He says signs of a struggle were obvious in the room. >> This is the phone that was on the floor
near Mrs. Lawrence. The phone cord was cut. She was assaulted in the bed and then fought her way out of the bed and
um continued to fight and struggle. >> Garmin says one of the first things that stood out were bloody tissues scattered
around the house and near Robin's body. He believes it was Robin's daughter, Nicole, who left them behind trying to
help her mother. Even at that age, kids know what blood is, and bloods come from
wounds and cuts, and they know that mom puts tissues on them or band-aids. I think she was trying to stop the blood.
>> And there was another heart-wrenching discovery. Empty baby bottles had been left around her mother's body.
>> Having kids, when they got hungry, they brought you your baby bottle. And that's
what I'm thinking. Nicole would have taken it to mom. While investigators process the scene,
officers at the hospital asked Lori to call Robin's parents. Robin's dad answered.
I think I said Robin is dead. But what I remember is um Jesse, her mom must have just been in
the overheard cuz she was just just wailing. Just a sort of primal anguish. That was really horrible. That's
probably the most horrible thing that's ever happened to me is calling. Robin's father, Robert War Senior, a
World War II veteran and now 101 years old, says he tried to forget that call. But one memory has never left him.
>> My granddaughter was right next to where she was murdered. I'll never forget that. Never.
He had to break the news to his surviving children, including his daughter, Mary War Coins, and his son,
Robert Ward, Jr. >> After the words, "Robin is dead," I It was like a nightmare.
>> Yeah. You're just like, "Your world shattered." >> Mary says in those first few days, they
didn't have a clear picture of what had happened to their sister. The details were very sketchy and slow
to come. And the police asked, "Well, do you know anybody who had a grudge or something against Robin?" And of course,
the answer is no. Robin was a gifted artist with a fine arts degree from Carnegie Melon
University. After college, she was selected to mold the first medal for the Martin Luther King Jr. nonviolent peace
prize which was awarded to Rosa Parks. >> That was a big deal. And for my parents
who grew up in Memphis, Tennessee during Jim Crow and they could not ride in the
front of the bus. They could not go to the zoo except on Tuesdays. That was a big deal.
>> Robin's father, Robert Senior, says his daughter's accomplishments were his greatest source of pride.
She was a powerful lady in this world. Her drawings are not just paintings, they are powerful.
>> Lorie first met Robin in ballet class. >> I was like, "Oh my god, this woman is
beautiful." But what was really fun about Robin was she's very personable, very funloving, just very down to earth.
Lorie and Robin shared an apartment in Washington DC around the time Robin was dating her future husband Olly. Lorie
says they were a great match. >> Ali has a very calm and kind demeanor and you kind of feel very confident
around him, very at ease with him. >> The couple were married on New Year's Eve 1989.
3 years later they welcomed their daughter Nicole. At the time of her death, Robin was working in advertising.
Olly, who was away on a business trip in the Bahamas, was an executive at an airline.
>> Well, I think they had a relatively what I call normal family life. They were working on doing
home improvements, getting the yard fixed up. >> Now, that home with so much promise was
an active crime scene. There were valuables that were in the bedroom. There was cash. There was jewelry. There
wasn't anything stolen. >> Investigators suspected Robin was killed by someone she knew.
>> They started looking at the family dynamic. They started looking at the marriage.
>> Was Olly cooperative? >> He was. >> But as authorities dug further, they learned something. Olly had been having
an affair with a colleague. >> Then what does that mean? You think, "Oh, how convenient. The weekend you go
out of town for three days, your wife is brutally murdered. It just was surreal.
It really was like for me walking in a through a dream state cuz you just can't make sense of it.
>> Just 3 days after what would have been Robin's 38th birthday on November 26th,
1994, her family and friends gathered for her funeral. We were still very much just bewildered
and lost. >> Mary says Robin's injuries were so severe the family had a closed casket.
>> And that was hard for me cuz I never got a chance to see her one last time. I
always wanted to be able to say goodbye and see her. As Robin's family mourned her death,
investigators pieced together a timeline and determined that the last time anyone
had heard from Robin was around 6:00 p.m. on Friday, November 18th. >> We believe Robin was killed around
9:30ish. >> Her body was discovered 2 days later. Investigators zeroed in on her husband,
Olly, who they had discovered was having an affair. They followed up on his alibi.
>> The detectives flew down to the Bahamas, confirmed that he was on the flight he
was supposed to be on. He was at the hotel he was supposed to be at. >> Detectives also interviewed Ali's lover,
but found no evidence she was involved. Robin's sister and brother were surprised to learn about the affair. But
they say they never believed Olly had anything to do with Robin's murder. I never thought that though, that he
harmed her. >> And how about you? Did it ever cross your mind? Maybe he's involved in this
somehow? >> No, I I didn't think that. He's not that type of person. >> Ali chose not to talk to 48 hours about
his experience. Investigators didn't have much else to go on. The killer left no fingerprints, but something had
caught crime scene detective Mark Garmin's eye while he was documenting the bathroom.
>> On the towel rod to the sliding tub door, there's a washcloth. I do notice a small stain on uh this towel right here.
Small brownish stain. That brown stain turned out to be blood, and authorities extracted DNA from it,
but it didn't match anyone close to the case, including Ali or the woman he had had a relationship with. Detectives
believed it belonged to Robin's killer, and uploaded it to the FBI's national database. The suspect's DNA is uploaded
to Cotus. >> Yes. But Cotus also returned no matches and with no new leads, the investigation
stalled. How much did the adults tell you? >> Nothing. >> Mary's daughter, Lauren Oans, was just 8
years old when her aunt Robin was killed. >> I remember her being angelic. She says even though her family
avoided the topic, she could feel the void Robin's murder left behind. >> Out of all of my family members, she was
the most like me. So, everybody always called me Robin. It just knew that they were still thinking of her.
>> Can you describe what you lost when you lost Robin? I think I lost an extension of myself
because she was the one who just taught me to be comfortable with who I was. So you you you I lost a piece of me.
>> Lauren says she stayed close with her cousin Nicole, who rarely spoke about her mother.
>> I think she didn't know much about her mother, so there wasn't really much to
share. and I didn't want to ever bring it up because I didn't want to make her anxious or make her nervous. Um, it was
better just left unsaid. >> The family eventually resigned themselves to the idea that the case may
never be solved. >> When my mother died, I that was kind of like, well, she went to her grave not
knowing, right, >> what happened to her child. And and at that point I said, "Well, just I have to
just kind of let it go. I have to let it go." >> Then decades later in 2019, investigators turned to Parabon Nano
Labs, a DNA technology company, hoping genetic genealogy could identify Robin's killer. Ellen Greyac is the director of
biioinformatics at Parabon. We take DNA from a crime scene. We upload it to JedMatch and to Family Tree DNA, which
are two databases, and what they give us back is people in our database who share
DNA with your unknown person. Grey Tag says that while their analysis showed Robin's killer likely had European
ancestry, tracing him through his relatives proved nearly impossible. >> So, in this case, the the database
matches were just really distant. They only shared little tiny pieces of DNA, which means that their shared ancestor
with our unknown person was pretty far back in time. And that means that those people had a lot of descendants today.
>> Parabon gave us a solvability rate of zero on the case and essentially said, "You do not have the time nor the money
to get it moving forward." Investigators say they could have walked away, but Liz, an amateur
genealogologist and volunteer with the police department who asked that her last name not be used, offered to take
on the case in her spare time for free. >> I just felt I wanted to give something
back to the community and I believed that I could actually be helpful in solving some of these cases.
Investigators gave Liz everything Parabon had uncovered about the suspect's ethnicity.
>> It was about half Eastern European, about 25% Irish. Another 25% was a combination of I think English and
Italian and Scandinavian >> along with a list of cousins who shared his DNA. >> So what I got was approximately 1500
cousins. I was not certain that I could crack it. There were no first cousins or
second cousins. There was really more fourth to sixth. As Liz worked to trace the suspect through his family tree,
Detective Wallace turned to another DNA tool and asked Parabon to produce a phenotyping sketch of Robin's killer.
DNA phenotyping, it means actually predicting what that person looked like from their DNA.
>> But would anyone recognize him? In 2021, nearly 30 years after Robin Lawrence's
murder, Parabon Nanolabs was tasked with producing a composite of the man investigators believe was her killer. So
I get a report from our Bionromax scientists and it lays out all the predictions from the DNA.
>> Scientists created this facial model based on the DNA predictions. >> It starts off with his skin color, which
he's predicted to have very fair or fair skin color. He's most likely going to have a larger chin than average, wider
jaw or cheeks than average, kind of a narrower nose than average. Tom Shaw, a forensic artist at Parabon, says his job
was to refine the model by applying other details like hair and eye color. >> I've kind of outlined where his eyes are
because I'm going to be putting new ones in. So, here's one kind of that dark blue that are predicted. I'll do
eyebrows. We're looking at kind of most likely like like a lighter brownish hair. And
so I gave him a little bit lighter eyebrows to match what his hair color is going to be. I'll go and find a
hairstyle, something generic. >> Shaw says DNA doesn't reveal a person's age. So the composits are generated as a
young adult, typically around 25 years old. >> So this is him. >> Did this look like their mailman? Was
this the neighbor's kid? Was it somebody from work? Detective Melissa Wallace set
up a video call with Robin's husband, Olly, to see if he recognized the man in the composite.
>> I was really hoping that when Ali saw that that he would go, "Oh my gosh, that
looks exactly like so and so." >> And did he? >> He did not. He said, "That doesn't spark
my memory at all. Looks like nobody I know." The investigation stalled again, but
behind the scenes, volunteer genealogologist Liz kept working with that list of 1,500 cousins distantly
related to the suspect. Liz had eventually traced some of the suspect's ancestors to Canada where they had
settled. That's where she found two cousins that were not related to each other.
>> And so I ended up with two trees that were highly reliable. They were the people that I that were truly cousins to
the suspect. >> Where did their two trees come together? >> Liz says if she could figure out where
those two trees were linked through a marriage, the suspect would be a descendant of that couple.
>> And what I found was this woman on this tree married this man on this tree. That
was it. That was the aha moment. That was when I realized that he is a descendant of this couple right here.
After three and a half years, Liz finally had a lead and it pointed her to a man named Steven Smirk.
>> I felt like this really was him. I didn't know it for certain, but I believed it was. Contacted the
detectives. So, she sends me an email. She says, "I think I found someone of interest."
>> What happens as you start looking into him? Well, we find out computer programmer up in New York, married to a
defense attorney, two kids in high school, nice house in the suburbs, not so much as a speeding ticket on his
background. I'm thinking, there's no way this is our guy. >> But according to detective John Long,
things got a bit more interesting when they found his yearbook photo at age 16. >> It looked very similar to the
phenotyping sketch. We're like, well, you know, maybe this does make sense. >> Steven Smirk lived in Niskauna, a town
in upstate New York. So, investigators decided to pay him a visit. Does he know you're coming?
>> No. No. >> They were hoping he would cooperate and provide his DNA. Wallace and Long say he
appeared to be home alone, so they knocked on his door. >> All we said is, "We are detectives from
Fairfax County, Virginia, and we're looking into a cold case from the '90s. Do you mind if we come in and talk to
you?" He said, "Sure." He invited us in and >> Okay, hold on a minute. So, you say,
"We're from Virginia. We're investigating this murder." His initial reaction? >> No reaction.
None. >> None. >> Stonefaced. >> There was no surprise. There was no fear. Nothing.
>> They found his demeanor unusual. >> When we're asking for DNA, this conversation typically takes a solid 45
minutes. People generally have a lot of questions like, "What do you mean someone in my family has committed a
murder, who was killed?" There was not a single question from him. We were in and
out of his house in 5 minutes with his DNA. >> Yeah. consent form signed, swab collected, packaged up. That was it.
>> After the visit, detectives checked into their hotel. But then, Detective Wallace
got an unexpected call. >> It's Steve Smart calling me. And he says, "I'm at the police department to
turn myself in." And I said, "Turn yourself in for what?" And he said, "I'm here to turn myself in
for the murder." A million things start going through my mind. >> Smurk told detectives he was having
trouble getting into the Niskauna Police Department, which was locked. >> So then I'm thinking it must be a
smaller police station. And I said, "Okay, what I need you to do is we're going to hang up. I need you to call 911
and tell them that you're there." >> Steven Smurk's call was recorded. >> 911, the address of your emergency.
>> I'm actually here to turn myself in for a cold case crime. You're here to turn
yourself in. >> Well, they collected DNA, so it's >> What's your last name? >> Wow. So, when do you tell him?
>> Oh my god, I was freaking out. So, I'm >> She freaked me out. >> I run down to his room and I'm banging
on his door. I'm like, "We got to go to the police department. He's turning himself in."
>> Wallace also reached out to local police and Steven Smirk was taken into custody.
The adrenaline was pumping so hard because the reality hit and um it sounds like he's going to talk to us about it.
>> Detective Long says they had to refocus fast and figure out how they would handle Steven Smirk's interrogation.
>> We need to make sure this is a sound interview that could potentially be used
in court down the road. >> All right, go ahead and have a seat. >> When they finally sat down with him,
>> where do you want to start? Investigators say he didn't need much prompting. >> It was 100% intentional. I am a serial
killer who's only killed once. >> You've come here to turn yourself in for a 1994 murder. When investigators met
with Steven Smirk on September 7th, 2023, they were skeptical. >> This doesn't happen every day. So, we we
had to really think through, well, why is he doing this? >> Detectives had not yet received the
results of the DNA samples Smirk had provided, linking him definitively. >> We needed to be very careful to make
sure that we weren't getting a false confession. >> So, then what was your approach going to
be? We start talking about things like, "Hey, let's make sure that he's going to
bring up details of the case without us telling him first." >> Can you remind me her name again? Can
you say that? >> I can. Do you remember anything about the person? >> She was Africaname.
>> Okay. >> That's all I remember. >> He started volunteering information, which is great.
>> So, it was just like he wanted to talk about, you know, his weekend or uh some
other family event that he went to. It was a very calm conversation. nonchalant.
>> I was not in the right frame of mind. >> Okay. >> Steven Smurk told detectives that back
in November 1994, he was a 22year-old soldier stationed at Fort Meyer in Arlington, Virginia. And
on the night of the murder, he had been drinking beer. >> I was uh drunk and under
a federan. >> He says he had been taking ephedrin pills. a stimulant. >> Something inside me said that
it's hard to explain. >> I knew that I was going to kill somebody. I did not know who I was going
to kill. It was like this overbearing thought in my brain that I just had to kill somebody.
>> Smur said he drove to Robin's neighborhood because he was familiar with the area. He visited friends who
stayed in a house nearby. Had you had any contact with her, spoke to her or anything like that?
>> No, I didn't even to be honest with you, I don't know. Didn't even know who lived
there. I never met this person before or seen her or anything. >> Smirk confirmed he entered the house
from the back deck and told detectives he was wearing a ski mask and leather gloves.
>> And I went in and noticed that she had a baby in one of the rooms. He said he
went down the hall to Robin's bedroom. >> I startled her. She got out of bed. She
was on her knees. She was just begging for her life. I cut her up pretty good. I did everything they taught me in the
military. Hand to hand combat. >> Mhm. >> I'm highly highly influenced by demons.
>> Okay. He told investigators one of the reasons he enlisted was because he wanted to kill.
>> But I want to tell you right now that I she's the only person that I've killed.
>> I'm married. I have kids there. I honestly believe that if it wasn't for my wife and my kids, I
probably would be a serial killer. Detective Wallace knew it was critical to link him to that washcloth found in
the bathroom. So, she asked him if he'd been injured that night. >> She clawed at my face.
>> I had a little bit of a scar here. >> Did you ever go into her bathroom at all?
>> I don't remember that. If I did go into the bathroom, it would have been to look
at what she did to my face. That's when I knew that that we were in business with putting him in the bathroom and why
his DNA was there. That was the biggest confirmation. >> As the interview wrapped up, Detective
Long asked Smirk if he wanted to express any remorse to Robin's family. >> Um, how do I say this?
>> I don't know. You're recording. I don't feel anything for the family. >> I can't say that any other way. I
feel bad that I did it because I knew someday my personal freedom would be affected.
>> I think what you see is 100% what you get from him. Arrogance, uh, entitlement.
He wanted to do it, so he did it. And that's it. Detective Wallace believes Steven Smurk
confessed because he knew he was caught and wanted to turn himself in on his own
terms. It wasn't because he was sorry. It wasn't because he was tired of running for 30 years. He wanted to
maintain control. >> Former FBI profiler Mary Ellen Tulle, who reviewed the case for 48 hours,
agrees that Smirk wanted to control the narrative. He was prepared that he was going to tell his version of the story.
>> Otul says she doesn't buy Smurk's claim that Robin's murder was random. She classifies it as a missionoriented
homicide. >> Went down the hallway, bedroom was a ahead. >> He brought the weapon with him. He had a
mask. He had gloves. It also happens to be on an evening when the victim's husband is in a travel
status. This was purposeful when inside somebody's home took enormous risk. So that suggests to me more of a targeting
than it does randomness. >> In her analysis, Otul says she was struck by Smirk identifying himself as a
serial killer. >> I am a serial killer who's only killed once. He did come across as someone that
had admiration for them. So, here's kind of like the big question, though. Do serial killers stop killing? Yes, they
do. According to Otul, serial offenders can sometimes channel their compulsion to kill into other crimes like stalking
or voyerism. I think it's also possible that he engaged in other behaviors much less serious than homicide that um
satisfied him. He has no criminal history of any kind. How unusual is that? Not very unusual. But here's the
important thing to keep in mind. The absence of a wrap sheet does not mean that criminal behavior is absent. It
means that they didn't get arrested for it. >> Can I take care of this process? Okay.
>> After his confession, Steven Smirk was arrested and charged with the murder of
Robin Lawrence. Detective Wallace says her first phone call was to Robin's daughter, Nicole.
>> You could tell the shock, but she didn't um break down or crumble. I could tell
that she was like, "Okay, now my job is to notify the rest of the family." How is it that he could live his life
with his family when he blew up our family 30 years ago? >> Where's the justice in that?
>> Robin's family prepared for the next step. >> We really wanted to do a trial. We
wanted the world to know what he did and I think we wanted the spectacle of that,
a satisfaction. But would they get that chance? A week after Steven Smirk's interview
with police, forensic testing confirmed Steven Smirk's DNA was a match to the blood on
the washcloth found in Robin's bathroom. >> It's a one in over 7 million chance that
it would not have been his DNA. On April 4th, 2024, Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Dano's
office presented the case at a preliminary hearing to determine if there was enough evidence to move
forward. >> Look, I've dealt with murderers before. I can tell you that in my mind, Steven
Smirk stands alone as somebody who represents a true danger to the community. Robin's family saw Steven smirk for the
first time at the hearing. >> I was amazed how big he was. He needed two baiffs around him. The first thing I
thought of was like, "My aunt didn't stand a chance." >> Prosecutors played Smurk's confession
and the family heard the details of Robin's murder in Smurk's own words. There was no emotion. It It didn't feel
real. It just made me feel angry. Like, how could he have done that? >> The judge found probable cause that
Steven Smirk killed Robin and allowed the case to proceed to a grand jury. On April 15th, a grand jury indicted him.
But 6 months later, he accepted a plea deal for firstdegree murder. >> We got guaranteed accountability. Dano
says the agreement ensured Smirk would be held accountable. >> We had the challenge of some witnesses
passing, other witnesses their memories uh becoming a little bit cloudy and not as sharp.
>> Robin's family, however, say they were disappointed. >> We wanted him to be put on trial.
On March 7th, 2025, Steven Smirk returned to court for sentencing. As part of the mitigation strategy for a
more lenient sentence, his attorney, Don Bddarak, told the judge that in the early 90s, Smirk was a troubled young
man struggling with alcohol and substance abuse. >> He eventually decided, I'm going to join
the military, thinking that that would be a good choice for him to maybe get his life stabilized. He said he joined
the military so he could kill people. What did he mean by that? >> I never asked him what he meant by that.
I think it was an idea that if I go, maybe I can take my anger out on this. Maybe this will get me back on the right
track. >> According to Budarak, Smirk was also crippled with an undiagnosed mental
illness. It wasn't until several years later that he eventually was diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder and when you add
aphedra and alcohol, he was struggling a lot. The FDA banned some ephedra products in 2004. And Budarak says that
was in part because when abused with other substances, they could trigger dangerous psychiatric side effects.
>> Did Steve Smirk tell you that he ever had hallucinations or heard voices or anything along those lines while taking
a fedra? No, but you have to remember at the time also he had undiagnosed bipolar. So, it's hard to figure out
exactly what his mental state was attributable to. She says by the time investigators
came to Smurk's door nearly 30 years later, Smurk had sought help for his mental health problems and become sober.
Burak says her client confessed and waved his right to a trial because he felt genuine remorse.
But over the 30 years, did he think about Robin? >> Every day. >> Every day. >> Every day he'd think about it.
>> But during his statement to investigators, he doesn't express empathy or remorse. He always wanted to
accept responsibility. Acceptance of responsibility is one form of remorse. >> In the end, the judge sentenced Steven
Smirk to the maximum sentence allowed under the plea deal, 70 years. with the possibility of parole.
>> I think what he got, as long as he never comes out of prison ever, brings closure for me.
>> After the sentencing, Olly Lawrence gave a statement to the press. >> The Warren Lawrence family are grateful
that justice has finally been done for the murder our of our beloved Robin. Lauren answered a few questions with
Robin's daughter Nicole by her side. >> As much as this a sigh of relief, we still have to live with this. Just
doesn't go away. >> She's strong. She stood next to me and she held my hand. >> Oh my god. If her mom could see us.
Um, it was great. >> How do you want people to remember your aunt? I want people to remember her as
creative, exuberant, very vocal, caring, a beautiful mother. She just had a light that shine from
within. >> I feel like she is living through her art because her art everywhere emotes.
So when you do look at her art, what do you see? I kind of see the spirit of Robin,
who she was, how she looked at the world, you know, through her eyes. And I was good things, happy things,
warm things. Welcome to Postmortem. I'm Natalie Morales filling in today as your host to
talk about a story that 48 Hours correspondent Anie Green reported on. It's about the cold case murder of Robin
War Lawrence, which was finally solved after nearly 30 years with the help of advances in DNA testing and the tireless
efforts of a pro bono genetic genealogologist. Amarie, so good to have you with us. What a fascinating story to
be able to report on. >> It really is. It's a case a lot of people thought would never be solved.
And just want to remind our listeners once again, if you haven't listened to the 48 hours episode yet, you can find
the full audio just below this episode in your podcast feed. Go take a listen, then come on back here for our
conversation. Well, it was on the night of November 18th, 1994 when Robin War Lawrence was
at her home in Springfield, Virginia, when an intruder broke in and stabbed her multiple times to her death. Her
husband Ali was away on a business trip in the Bahamas. And after being unable to reach her all weekend, he then asked
their friend Lorie Lindberg to stop by and check on his wife. Well, 2 days after the murder, Lorie entered the
house and saw blood on the wall and of course the couple's 2-year-old daughter, Nicole, just wandering around by
herself. So tragic. I mean to think of little Nicole there at that young age, you know, witnessed whatever she
witnessed. >> Yeah. Well, that's the thing about it. You know, that's what Lorie says in the
hour that she could just see this sort of vacant expression on this little girl's face. She knows like there's
something really, really bad that has happened. And she doesn't even really venture any further in. She sort of
peaks down the hall. She sees that something has happened in the in the bedroom and immediately she's like out
of there. She grabs Nicole and you know she's with another friend. So they call um police.
>> Yeah. And and investigators they learn that Ali, her husband, who as we said was away on a business trip in the
Bahamas, they find out that he had been having an affair. Was that something that aroused suspicion with
investigators early on? Any? Yeah, I mean, you know, Natalie, we've done so many of these. Of course, it's the
spouse is sort of the first person you look at, and then you find out he's having an affair, but you know, they
thoroughly vet him. They they his alibi checks out. He is in the Bahamas, very far away um from the scene of the crime.
And and they also, you know, look at the woman that he was having the affair with
as well, and they're able to kind of rule her out. And eventually his he is cleared. I should say Robin's family
never suspected Olli. Um, yes, you know, they were surprised he was having an affair, but as far as they were
concerned then and now, he would never do anything like this. So, what evidence did investigators have from that crime
scene? Again, you know, this is dating back to 1994 and, you know, this case was cold for over 30 years, so I imagine
there wasn't a lot to go on initially. >> There wasn't. Uh, there were no fingerprints. Um, it's certainly a
bloody scene and it's a a messy scene in the bedroom. Um, but other than that, there is really not a lot, but we have
this one crime scene investigator and I mean their job is to look at minute details and collect anything that could
possibly be evidence. and he notices a little bit of blood in the bathroom on a washcloth. Other than that, the bathroom
is pretty clean, almost pristine. Now, they had, you know, uploaded the sample to Cotus. There's no matches. But boy,
30 years later, it was going to make a heck of a difference when it came to solving this this case. And all these
years later, you interviewed Robin's family, including her sister Mary, her brother, Robert Jr., and their father U.
Robert Senior. So, Robert Senior was 100 when we interviewed him. He's 101 now. And I have never met somebody this age
who is just so with it. Um, you know, he lives on his own, his own apartment. Somebody comes in, you know, to help him
out a bit, but he's on his own. The apartment is the the the cutest, most picture perfect little apartment with
Robin's art everywhere. And I'm just going to I'm going to have to look down a little bit at my note to sort of list
off some of the stuff that Robert Senior has done in his lifetime. Right. He was
the first elected African-American school board member and elected council member in Syracuse. In 1962, he became
the president of the Syracuse chapter of the NAACP, the first African-American engineering consultant at uh General
Electric. >> My goodness. Wow. What a list. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're all they're
all like super accomplished. >> And so was Robin as an accomplished artist. >> Yes. And he was so incredibly
proud of her. She had just created that first metal, right? the Martin Luther King Jr. medal which we see in the story
and I can't help but to think where she would have gone from there. Um what would have inspired her because when you
look at her art it's the range of styles of subject matters you know individuals
to landscapes uh different types of mediums I mean who knows where she would have gone. So decades after the murder
in 2019, cold case detectives, they start digging through the case again to see if there is anything new, new
advances in DNA technology and what they could possibly use to be able to push this case along. So how significant were
the advancements in the technology that then allowed them to relook at this case
once again? >> Yeah, it's huge. The investigators send the DNA to a company called Parabon
Nanolabs. What they figure out is that the killer is of European descent, right? So that
helped in terms of identifying a possible suspect, but still I mean Parabon said to investigators, this is
probably a zero probability that this case will be solved. >> Yeah. I mean this is 2019. They get this
little bit of a breakthrough. But still, I imagine has to be so frustrating and investigators said that they could have
walked away at that point, having reached what they thought was the end of the road when it came to what they could
extract from that DNA. But then one person did come out of the woodwork. And you got to give so much credit to Liz.
She worked this case pro bono, hundreds of hours. She's a volunteer with the police department, an amateur
genealogologist, but she threw all her knowledge and all her effort into helping try to solve this case, which is
so remarkable. So, Liz is is fascinating. First off, she didn't even really want to talk. She
preferred to stay anonymous. She wouldn't let us use her last name. Liz's background, she was a successful
attorney. She had a very successful career. um and she retires and decides, nah, I'll probably spend some time with
my grandkids. I'll help help my daughter out. But when you have a mind like that,
your retirement is not like other people's retirement. You got to stay busy. Um she was looking for a way to
give back to the community and she had a passion for genealogy and so this was sort of the perfect opportunity for her.
But this is a hard case, right? It's it's probably estimated that she put in 1,400 hours of work on this case over
three years. COVID hits, she can't go anywhere. So, she's in the house on the computer. And there were so many times
she said that she would be like, "That's it." You know, there's nothing more I can do. And then she would lie in bed
and be like, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What about this? What about that? What about that?" And she just
never gave up. Amazing. Thank goodness for people like her who just throw all their knowledge at something and she
finally cracked the the puzzle. She solved it. Well, when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more
about Liz, the genetic genealogologists, and how she was able to piece together that family tree that then led
investigators to their suspect, Steven Smirk. Welcome back. Well, let's get into now
how Liz was able to narrow in on the suspected killer, Steven Smirk. So, there is the sample of DNA that comes
from that washcloth. What Parabon did is upload uh the DNA sample to two sites, Family Tree DNA and Jed Match. These
sites allow law enforcement to access the database. you can opt out of that if you don't want, you know, your
information to be seen by law enforcement. Um, but generally they have quite large databases which allows them
to then uh, you know, identify possible familial connections when they have suspect DNA. And so from that comes all
of these cousins, over a thousand cousins. So what she has to literally do, Liz does, is build family trees for
all of these cousins until she finds the right person. And she does that by going
all as far back as she can and identifies the one side of the family and the other side of the family in
Europe. She traces them over to Canada where they settle. She then parses out the people who moved to California and
slowly finds one family where the two family lines crisscross. Follows that down and sees a family that
has two sons. One of those sons was in Virginia at the time of the murder. And that is the name that she sends to the
police. I mean, the amount of work and effort that went into that major breakthrough, what was that moment like
for her, Amry? I mean, she said it was like magic. Like, you hear the phrase needle in the haststack. It was a needle
in a needle stack, right? Like, what are the odds of her figuring this out? It was phenomenal.
>> Okay, so they the investigators get this possible match, but they also then have
to think, you know, okay, does this guy fit with who we think it could be? And in 2021, investigators, they worked with
a forensic artist at Parabon Nano Labs. This was so fascinating to me because with that DNA sample, then an artist at
the lab there then can create a phenotype drawing, a rendering of what they believe the suspect might look like.
That to me was a moment of like, oh my gosh, they could figure out the shape of his face, his chin size, his nose size,
his hair. I mean, it's remarkable. >> Like, that is what surprised me the most about
using DNA in this way because I didn't think that it could get into that kind of detail. And they then compare that
sketch to Steven Smirk's high school yearbook photo. And it bore such a striking resemblance. I mean, it was it
was pretty good. It was pretty damn good. I'm going to play for you now an unaired clip of Mary and Robert Junior's
reaction to Liz's help on the case. >> If you could say something to Liz, what would you say to her?
>> Thank you. Thank you very much for your hard work and dedication. I I would say you are an angel, Liz.
You You brought comfort and closure to this family after so many years. >> And if it wasn't for your tenacity and
hard work and keep keep going, we would not know who killed Robin. And that means everything.
That means everything to us. >> Um, you can see they're softspoken and measured. Um, you know, I think it was
important for them to kind of maintain um emotional control, you know what I mean? They're
reserved. Um, and so this tragedy is completely kind of out of the norm of anything that that they
would have envisioned for their family. What we learn about Steven Smirk in 2023, he was living in Niskeuna, that's
a town in upstate New York. And you know, it's it's incredible to me, as we learn in the hour, he had no criminal
history. I mean, not even a parking ticket. and Marie. That's more than I could say for me. I think I have a
couple of parking tickets. >> Yeah, it's remarkable. At least on the surface, this is as average of a guy as
you can get. Uh the police learned that he's a computer programmer living in upstate New York. You mentioned Iskauna,
you know, smalish town, married to an defense attorney. He has two kids in high school. And just
to add sort of another weird coincidence is uh Mary's daughter Lauren actually went to the same high school as Steven
Smirk's kids. Um obviously not at the same time. Lauren's older than them, but I mean that's how kind of physically
close these two families had been. But there is really nothing particularly remarkable about this guy and the way
he's living his life. you know, when when police finally catch up with him. >> Yeah. Except when investigators show up
at his front door there in upstate New York and they knock on the door, he opens it up, he willingly lets them
inside. And you know, to the detectives, what was so interesting, he didn't seem
surprised at all when they start to ask him questions about a murder that's going back 30 years. I mean, he didn't
ask a single follow-up question, and he willingly provides his DNA. And then after the detectives left, he then turns
himself in to the Niskeuna Police Department. I mean, what did investigators think at the time about
all of that? They the intention was to just drive by his house and take a look and then go check into their hotel. But
then when they saw him, they thought, "Well, what the heck? Let's just go over there and talk to So, they were not
expecting things to unfold as quickly as they did. He welcomed them in. They talked for a while. Um, and they were
shocked when just a few hours later, he is turning himself in. I don't know what
was going through his mind. Detectives Melissa Wallace and John Long uh told us that Smirks told them that his wife said
something along the lines of do the right thing. But Steven Smurf's wife had no idea this
was part of his past. And he says she had no idea. >> Well, that interrogation was so chilling
when he he said he openly says and admits, "I'm a serial killer, but I've only killed once before." Um, yeah. I
mean, that took my breath away. I was like, "Wow." Um, so what do they start to learn as investigators dig into his
background? What do they find? Um, we spoke to his defense attorney who gave us a little more information about his
past. Uh, his parents are divorced. Uh, his mother, when his mother left, she moved in with another woman. After this
divorce, things changed in his life. He kind of fell into uh a rough crowd. Um, there was an interest with that crowd,
an interest in studying sort of the occult. There was some drug use. But then, you know, he meets his wife the
same year that he kills Robin. And he credits meeting her um with kind of what prompted him to really turn his life
around. She talks to him about some of his anger problems, some of his drinking issues, and he goes to rehab and he gets
sober and he kind of is on the road to recovery at that point. So later on, this is 2024, he's already pleading
guilty. He undergoes a forensic psychological evaluation. It was done by Dr. Marcus uh Vanickle. He is the
defense's witness. Um and he does a psychopath test, which I think we've all kind of heard of before. And he scores
incredibly low, four out of 40. So low in fact that former FBI uh profiler Mary Ellen Otul who you see in
the hour who we asked to review this these documents she was not a part of this case. She thinks it's so low it's
suspiciously low that you know maybe he was trying to game the test a little bit. Um he says that he has an
undiagnosed mental illness and I should also point out that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the early
2000s. It's something that officers didn't find out about till much later, but this is part of what he says was
his, you know, undiagnosed mental illness that he may have been suffering from in the '9s that he says may explain
some of his behavior. But there's no evidence at this point, though. Or or was there anything that connected Smirk
to Robin? I mean, did investigators think this was a totally random attack? >> Um, I mean, he says it is.
He says that he just, you know, he had this compulsion that night and he didn't know she was home alone. Um, and he just
picked the house randomly. Marie Ellen Oul, who once again I'll say, you know, wasn't a part of this case, just
reviewed the documents, finds that suspicious, his his assertion that it was completely random. So, I
want to actually play a little bit more from former FBI profiler, Mary Ellen Otul.
>> It doesn't feel like it's a random killing to me. In the FBI, we do an assessment of victims and it's based on
their lifestyle and and this victim lived a pretty lowrisk lifestyle and she is in her own home and it's at night and
it's a a low crime area of Fairfax County. Um, so you have an offender basically who um breaks into the home
and seems to have some kind of understanding of the layout of the home. At least the behavior suggests that. But
you also have an offender who is thinking ahead enough to bring gloves and to wear uh a cover for their face um
to bring the weapon and and to take the weapon with them. And I think it's also very interesting
that it also happens to be at night on an evening when the victim's husband is in a travel status. So all of those
features for me do tend to take away some of the randomness of it. So there you go. In October 2024, Steven Smirk
accepted a plea deal for firstdegree murder. He was later sentenced to the maximum sentence allowed under the plea
deal. That's 70 years with the possibility of parole. Smirk will be eligible for parole in 2037.
So Amry, does the War Lawrence family feel though that justice has been served, at least knowing finally who the
killer is and knowing that he is behind bars, but yet they didn't get a trial. I
think they were incredibly relieved to have identified the killer. They wanted a trial. they felt like he kind of got
off a little bit by not having to sit there and and really hear the damage that was done, you know. Um, this is
what I'm going to I'm like pulling out this book. So I told you how the the War Lawrence family is this incredibly
interesting family and Robert War senior actually wrote a book covering the family and he writes about what an
amazing person Robin was and he also writes about Nicole and how well Nicole is doing and how she graduated from
university. She's traveled abroad and worked as an Opair. She's now married. She works in the hospitality uh industry
and Nicole is doing fine which I think a lot of people would be sort of curious about. He writes about when he heard
that Steven Smirk had been arrested and he said, "I cried and grieved for the many years not knowing who killed Robin
or why. My beloved wife Jesse died without ever knowing the person responsible would pay for their crime."
I shouted, "Hallelujah!" when we received a phone call that Robin's killer had been found after 29 years.
Well, we can only imagine that at least finally having an answer has to give them all some peace. An Marie, once
again, such great reporting. Thank you so much for bringing the hour to us. And I do want to remind our listeners, if
you like this episode, please rate and review us on Apple Podcast or Spotify.

Watch "Closing the Cold Case of Robin Lawrence" and then catch up with "48 Hours" correspondents Natalie Morales and Anne-Marie Green on "Post Mortem" as they discuss the cold case of Robin Lawrence, who was home with her 2-year-old daughter when she was murdered by an unknown assailant.

00:00 Closing the Cold Case of Robin Lawrence 41:41 Listen to the "Post Mortem" podcast

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

The cold case murder of Robin War Lawrence was solved after 30 years through DNA and genetic genealogy, leading to Steven Smirk's confession.

Key points

A New Lead After Decades. In 2023, a genealogist uncovers a potential suspect after years of investigation.
A Father's Painful Call. Robin's father receives the devastating news of her murder, a moment he can never forget.
The Composite Sketch. A phenotyping sketch is created to help identify Robin's killer, but does it spark recognition?
Steven Smirk's Confession. In a shocking turn, Smirk admits to being a serial killer who only killed once.
Family's Reaction to Justice. Robin's family grapples with the reality of Smirk's confession and the impact on their lives.
The DNA Match. Forensic testing confirms Smirk's DNA matches evidence from the crime scene, solidifying the case against him.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I am a serial killer who's only killed once.

Steven Smirk's chilling confession during interrogation.

3:54WatchDec 14, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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