When a Killer Calls /// Part 2 /// 554 | Forensic Files

thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage and this is part two of When a
Killer calls [Music] hello [Music] the next day with pictures and detailed information from the time I picked
Cherry up at the mailbox and chill up till tonight in my departure from this Earth sure Smith might as well call it
off it's over I will not be taken Alive Don told me to turn myself in or turn myself over to God or I'll never live in
peace and never be forgiven and go to heaven well turn yourself over [Applause] all you had to do was let her go I was
scared she she was dehydrated so damn bad you could have called me for medicine I would have met you anywhere
yeah that's irrelevant now oh I mean all you had to do was let her go such a beautiful young life I know that I mean
why I have to join her now hopefully and uh Mrs Smith please please okay well that's it I got together did she know
you when you stopped and you'll see you brought a picture of her car door and cars in the background
and uh there'll be pictures all there I think there's about eight pitchers and Charlie Kai's will be receiving a set
and a detailed letter like I told you at his house and I if the mail doesn't slow
it down which you probably will if you don't get it tomorrow you get it the next day you'll get exact copies of
pictures that he gets and uh exact letters too do you know all of us or just Sherry the whole family
unfortunately that's why I can't face you if I decide different I've already coached on what's going to happen here
tonight only need to be collect and I'm gonna allow myself enough time just enough time to get back in the area to
set everything up if you don't hear from me tonight and Sheriff mess and Charlie
kinds I used him as a medium today because I knew the calls were being traced and they came real close to
catching me three or four different times and they were correct I am in a red vehicle what kind I'm sorry I I
don't want him to catch me before I meet my maker Judgment Day you think the maker is going to forgive you now
he'll do that or I'll be crucifying to go to hell that's right now and you need to meet with somebody
that can talk to you well like a lot to think about and I'm gone Mr Smith and please I I know this might be selfish
but y'all please ask yourself a prayer for me your daughter said that she was not afraid and she was strong-willed it
she uh knew that she was going to heaven was going to be an angel and like a choked on she was going to be singing
like crazy when she said she was smiling did you tell her you were going to kill
her yes I did and I gave her the choice like it's only recording uh she asked her if she wanted to be drug overdose
shot or uh suffocated and she picked supplication my God how did you well [Applause]
[Applause] thank you the day after they found the body of Sherry Smith the killer called the home
again and this time he called collect he asked to speak with Dawn he told her he would be sending the family the
photos of Sherry and he asked her for forgiveness and for their prayers he said he was going to commit suicide
because this thing got out of hand and all he wanted to do in the beginning was to make love to Dawn and that is why he
was watching her Dawn startled by this interrupted the man and asked the man make love to whom
then he corrected himself and he said the name Sherry and he hung up the phone later that same day the killer called a
local TV network and asked for a specific reporter and told that reporter he planned to turn himself in at some
point and he would give the reporter an exclusive interview yeah this guy's changing his stories I'm going to kill
myself I'm going to turn myself in he should have just killed himself yeah you wonder if it's just does he need to
get forgiveness from the family for some reason or is this attention seeking it seems like a lot of work and a lot of
effort risky behavior for some attention yeah but he's a complete Wackadoo and the FBI didn't believe or they say they
didn't believe the man would turn himself in or kill himself at any point they believe that the calls were in fact
seeking forgiveness from Sherry's family but also to manipulate and control the situation as much as he possibly could
and that this guy would eventually kill again yeah well this guy's a giant piece
of [ __ ] well what would have been nice though is if he would have put himself in a brown paper bag and then rang
somebody's doorbell and lit himself on fire okay so I do want to touch on this though because we do know from this last
phone call that he says that in the beginning all he wanted to do is make love to Dawn
Dawn's 21 years old Sherry Smith is 17. and they actually you can find there's quite a bit of uh
photos and images of both of them on the Internet and you can see that the two of
them look very much alike okay so this is when he makes this slip when he says Dawn instead of Sherry when he's on the
phone with Dawn I was really curious why the FBI didn't update their profile because remember they said at one point
that if he had killed before his victims would have been children or young girls
right okay well Sherry yes she's 17 and that's more closer to being an adult but
Dawn is absolutely an adult so you almost wonder if now at this point if you're going to say if he is killed
before is there a chance that Dawn was actually the intended victim you know because he's not going to see
her or see a girl that he perceives to be Dawn at the mailbox and walk up and ask her if that's are you Dawn you know
right but he did take some pictures before so then you wander throwing it out there maybe this individual's
supposed to wear glasses but doesn't and so is it is it that simple of a mistake and then when he gets closer
it's the wrong girl but it's too late at that point I think it's I think it's very much like that I think it's he the
intended victim was Dawn he hoped to abduct her and do whatever he did with Sherry with her
but I think at some point he would accept the substitution or like you said I mean I think it's kind of too
late look he probably opened up that door for the person and and at that point it's too late in his mind well the
man called John Smith again at this time he told Don that he gave Sherry a choice
of how she would be killed and the choices were overdose shooting or Suffocation and Sherry chose Suffocation
he told Dawn he killed Sherry by placing duct tape over her mouth and nose until
she died two weeks after the Abduction of Sherry nine-year-old Deborah May helmick was playing with her
three-year-old brother at their home in Richland County when she was abducted from the front yard of the family's home
a neighbor saw a vehicle pull up and a man get out of the car the man spoke with Deborah then grabbed her through
the screaming girl into his car and drove off now the neighbor immediately alerted Deborah's father who was inside
their home they called police and after the two of them jumped into a vehicle and they went speeding after the
abductor's car but were unable to track down the vehicle well this sounds similar so is the FBI immediately
thinking this is our guy and Sherry's case yeah yeah they believe the offender is one in the same and with
the addition of the second victim especially a younger victim the FBI didn't really change their profile but
they did add to the profile they added that the Killer and abductor is a white man outwardly shy may be
overweight but it the very least is not attractive to women so he's no Bradley Cooper those close to him May notice one
or more of the following the offender is experiencing weight loss drinking heavily not shaving regularly
and he would be eager to talk about the crimes as he is following the investigation coverage on the evening
news or in the papers he's also a collector of pornography that likely focused on bondage and or is
of sadomasochistic nature and because of the young age of the second abducted victim Deborah only being nine years old
they believe the offender would be too ashamed to call or correspond with Deborah's family
well this turned out to be true no phone calls and no letters the killer also stopped calling the Smith house
the FBI believed that the phone calls would be the easiest way to trap the killer yeah I believe it would be as
well and since he's not calling or riding it's almost like they would want to put out a taunt to him like you know
he already contacted news reporters before have that same news reporter do a report on how this guy has become weak
and vulnerable because he hasn't reached out to the FBI so knowing that the Unknown Subject Was following the case
in the news and in the papers the FBI decided to enlist the help of a reporter of a single reporter see they wanted to
force this man out into the open or at the very least get him to call the Smith's home once again
they wanted to use Dawn Smith as bait for their trap now the Smiths begrudgingly went along with this
so they held a memorial service for Sherry Faye Smith they wanted the Smith family and Dawn present at this memorial
service and during the ceremony they had reporter Snap photos of dawn holding a stuffed animal belonging to Sherry and
flowers for her Memorial meanwhile undercover agents wrote down license plate numbers for all the vehicles that
were present in the area now this didn't seem to flush out the killer out into the open but he did once
again call the Smith home this time calling long distance and collect you have a collect car from a
giant piece of shot well that's interesting that you say that Captain because okay so in these collect calls
you would if you were calling someone collect you would be given a brief uh set of time there where you could
announce who you are so it would say you have a collect call from so and so and then the person receiving the call who
would be paying for it can decide if they're going to accept the call except the charges or not so during this
portion where the caller can announce their name and who they are it's a man's voice but he says that his
name is Sherry Faye Smith okay Dawn does accept this call this time the man was not using the voice
Distortion device he told Don that God wants her to join Sherry Faye saying it's just a matter of time this month
next month this year next year you can't be protected forever then he asked Don if she had heard of
Deborah Mae helmick Don said she had to which he tells her listen carefully go One Mile West turn left at Bill's
Grill go three and a half miles through Gilbert turn right at the last dirt road
before you come to Two Notch Road go through the no trespassing side go 50 yards Deborah May is waiting God
forgive us all right yes I'll take the call thank you doc yes you'll notice it in the hoax correct
right all right did you find Cherry face ring I know I didn't yes it's just a matter of time just
bought Xbox this year next year you can't be protected all the time and you know uh have you heard about Deborah Mae
Hamrick huh no the 10-year-old ATL MIT uh Richland County yeah uh-huh okay listen carefully go one North
the one West turned left at Peach Festival Road or Bill's Grill go three and a half miles through
Gilbert turn right last dirt road before you got to stop sign at Two Notch Road go through chain and no trespassing
signs go 50 yards and to the see your time is there God forgive us and protect us all wait a second here
what happened to the pictures that you said you were going to send to me what happened to that picture that you were
gonna send because when they have they have feminine they're not here [Music] listen you said you were gonna wait for
God's Direction you did not give me that picture [Music] but obviously he's using Sherry Smith's
name so they know who is calling without him giving his name just like they keep
asking him hey you got a red car is it a Jetta but he can control the conversation
because he can always hang up and and he knows that well and he's controlling the conversation too by
reading from a script so you can hear anytime he's kind of sidetracked with a question
that's exactly what happens to him he gets sidetracked and he doesn't know he hesitates he doesn't know where to pick
up where he left off from the script but the script is very smart on his part and
it shows a certain level of organization by this killer that this is probably an
organized criminal because he has a message that he wants to give to the family and by creating that script in advance
he is assuring himself that oh if I'm going out of my way for this risky behavior of contacting the family then
at least it's worth it because I am I'm guaranteed to get my message out to them
if I stick to the script the thing here we get to see a little bit of it's either just straight up lies by the
killer which we we know these types lie often but it might also be some of his psychosis
where he says in one of the calls that he's a family friend and that's why I can't face y'all and that's not true at
all he doesn't know these people these people do not know him right but he was also
watching Don for a time period so like you said in his thoughts in his mind he might have been a family friend to them
in his mind right and you see this situation where he's kind of all over the shop and what he's telling Dawn
Smith and the family he's saying look I'm going to kill myself I I need to meet my maker you can't take a life and
continue living your life right but you know when he goes on to say that he won't live in a cage and he doesn't
want to go to prison he's not going to be electrocuted yeah he's not going to be caged like a dog yeah and I think the
the statement of well I'll be armed but I'll no longer be dangerous when they find me meaning he'll probably still
have the gun in his hand from offing himself right uh he won't be using that gun on law enforcement when they find
him but then he goes out of his way to say Sherry Fay wants you to join her Don and you can't be protected all the time
it could be next week or next month or a year from now you would think that if he's not completely gone off the rails
here that he is somewhat aware that he can't both kill himself or even turn himself in and then follow
through on that threat that he's just made to Dawn yeah I wonder because and it's your
contention that Don was the initial Target and that possibly he just took Sherry by
accident or he took Sherry as a surrogate for for Don right and I I almost wonder if he takes this
nine-year-old Deborah as whatever I say to Don on the call by me taking another victim
makes everything I say more real this is not a hoax I mean he says it again on this call you know this is not
a hoax like why you have to keep bringing that up and it's almost like he's saying like
look what I just did and your time's coming whether it's next week next month next year
your time's coming it's almost like I have this victim I've been stalking and I did not
take and I didn't take her to be my victim but I am not going to stop until she becomes my victim
right and with the Deborah helmick case we're probably talking about a situation
that's a crime of opportunity he sees this little girl in her front yard and for whatever reason he makes a
connection to his previous crimes and decides to abduct the girl I really think that it's
a crime of opportunity that he just happened to see her and it was a victim that he knew he could easily snatch and
flee with with very little trouble to himself but it goes against everything that he's saying to Dawn
in regard to the Sherry Faye Smith case right where all this just went too far I
just wanted to make love to her making it sound like he loves her or or believed that he loved her and it just
went too far and he didn't know that she was sick she had a rare form of diabetes
that required her to consume large amounts of water if she couldn't get her medicine
and obviously when he abducts her he's not taking her with her medicine because he one doesn't know that she's sick and
she's not prepared to be without that medicine so it really flies in the face of everything that he says to Dawn in
regard to the Sherry Faye Smith case it really makes it feel like a lot of his words have no real meaning yeah well
he's a lying chip bag but I almost feel like he took Deborah to keep living out this fantasy of what he wanted to do to
Don what's up next is the final call that we have and this is a call to a different person it is still from our
perpetrator but now he is calling Charlie Keys who's with a local news outlet and he wants Charlie keys to be
relaying information from him to law enforcement videos okay now listen carefully huh
um can't live with myself Charlie and I need to turn myself in and I'm afraid and you're very intelligent person and I
want you to be there with Sheriff's Nets and all officers he wants and uh at his
home in the morning at six a.m and you answer the phone and who's home at Sheriff Matt's home all right now don't
answer any questions unless I ask yes or no ask off you be there and you answer the phone
and his phone home phone is 356 2118 now I'll verify that when you report tonight on channel 10 TV at seven
because I want to make sure this is not a hoax call and it'll I'll prove it to you by after I finish talking you call
Sheriff Smith to talk to him directly and tell him that he received the letter from Sherry Henry it was her wheel and
laugh acceptance and on a prompt page it had 3 10 in the morning and today 6-185
and on the left hand side it had goddess love and was two pages long it was a legal yellow pad and he'll know this is
not a hoax Charlie please help me now are you willing to work with me yes okay now be there like I said you after the
function and reconfirm that phone number over the uh creamy tonight make sure I got it right okay I don't know if I'll
be able to do that you could just call me back no no just on the TV say if anyone has any information call Sheriff
Smith or will no access home funnel notes will just find out if his name is James R Metz and if it is it's the right
number then in the phone book can you work it in some way or another like that um we'll work try to do that where it's
not stick out yeah I'll see what I can do okay now seven o'clock do that it just went bad I know her family and
her will and uh I just made a mistake it went too far all I wanted to do was make
love to her and I didn't know she had the rare disease and it just got out of hand and I got scared and I have to do
the right thing Charlie now please work with me because I feel like I can trust you and I've listened to you many times
that's why I picked you as a medium 6 a.m tomorrow morning Charlie okay I'll see what I can do don't see please work
with me right don't worry okay now as soon as you call it [Music] bye foreign [Music]
[Music] we're back you filthy animals cheers to everybody cheers to everyone make sure you check out our other show
off the record you can find that at truecrimegarage.com if you need a little more True Crime Garage in your life
the FBI is now worried in regretting the ploy of Using Dawn as bait because of the received threat uh during all of
this law enforcement was still submitting the letter from Sherry titled the last will and testament to every
possible test the letter was drafted on yellow lined legal paper from a pad so they decided
to use an SD machine this device can detect even the slightest indentations on a piece of paper they wanted to see
if they could pull any possible information from indentations that were made from writing on pieces of paper
above the last will in the legal pad and they found some interesting leads they found a partial grocery list and a
sequence of numbers with further testing they could detect nine numbers of a possible 10 digit
sequence the numbers are in this order two zero five eight three seven one three blank eight
this was a phone number in Huntsville Alabama so working with the phone company they
checked all 10 possible phone numbers for a connection to Lexington County South Carolina
where Sherry and the Smith family lived one of the numbers in Huntsville received several calls from a residence
just 15 miles from Sherry Faye's home the home belonged to Ellis and Sharon Shepard
law enforcement went to the home and interviewed Ellis and Sharon the Shepherds told police they had made
phone calls to Huntsville where their son was stationed in the Army but they were out of town when both of the
murders were committed they explained a man who worked for Ellis as an electrician Larry Jean Bell was put in
charge of house sitting for the six weeks that they were away Larry was in his early 30s divorced
lived with his parents he was neat and orderly and when he picked them up from the airport he spoke constantly about
the unsolved murders that occurred while they were away he had noticeably lost weight he was
unshaven and he was irritable the sheriff asked Mr Shepard to show him the room where Larry stayed while watching
the home under the bed they found Mr Shepard's handgun jammed in pornographic magazines
featuring bondage on the cover now regarding the sequence of numbers the couple wrote down the telephone number
for their son and gave it to Larry Jean Bell before they left for their vacation
with instructions that if anything were to come up with the house to call their son
the police played a portion of the last call received by The Smiths this is the one where the killer did not use the
voice Distortion device right and the Shepherds confirmed it sounded just like Larry's voice
armed with this information they did some digging and they found that a vehicle registered to Bell was
seen at the memorial service for Sherry Fay the officer wrote down the plate number and noted that the driver did not
exit the vehicle he simply drove by the vehicle was less than three years old early the next morning police surrounded
Larry's parents home and arrested him as he was leaving their home to go off to work
a quick background check revealed Bell was twice arrested for attempted assaults on women on both of these
occasions he attempted to force a young woman into his car at knifepoint unsuccessfully under questioning Bell
admitted to nothing inside Bell's parents home in his bedroom police found hairs on the bed
matching hairs from Sherry Fay Smith and Larry's desk they found a sheet of stamps from which the stamp used to
marry Sherry's last will and testament originated from the neighbor that witnessed the Abduction of Deborah May
told police after the arrest it was in fact Bell who he saw pulling the screaming child into his car that day
under further questioning Bell still admitted nothing so they played the tape of his voice
from the phone calls for him and still Bell admitted nothing so they brought in the FBI to further
continue the questioning they took a different approach rather than to continue to question him they explained
to him that they had a lot of experience in dealing with these types of crimes and that the perpetrator of these types
of crimes never gets the opportunity to explain themselves and their side of the
story often the offenders too afraid and ashamed to admit what they have done and
once they are in court their attorney will not let them take the stand right so this individual is then trapped in a
nightmare that never goes away and he goes away to a lengthy prison sentence and no one understands him no one knows
what the hell he was going through at that time well I like their tactic here but we could always employ my scary
clowns where we dress up like clowns and we beat the guy to the inch of his life
to get him to start confessing well as they're explaining this to Larry they notice that Larry Bell is nodding his
head up and down he's he's agreeing with what they have to say and seeing that he's responding they leaned in for the
kill and asked him when did you start to feel sorry about the crime Larry did they whisper this I don't know okay so
it seems like it could be a powerful move you know come on Larry tell us what you know
we gotcha well they asked him when he started to feel sorry about this crime and to which he says it was when he saw
a photograph of the Smith family right then they asked him if he could have possibly done this sort of thing and
Larry told them quote all I know is the Larry Jean Bell sitting here could not have done this
but the bad Larry Jean Bell could have so that is going to be the closest thing to a confession that Larry Jean Bell
would ever give regarding both of these murders so we do have a confession or a loose confession right implied
confession we have some of Sherry's hairs found in his room on his pillow in his bedroom okay and then we have
eyewitness that saw him taking the nine-year-old girl away and the and and then the car registered
yeah so him driving by the memorial is not really any evidence you know it's stacking pieces on the case right yeah
but but there is a lot of evidence like you said you not only do you have the hairs that match Sherry Faye Smith's
hair in his bedroom I mean how the hell is that going to get there two you have the sheet from which the stamp came from
that the last will and testament was mailed you also have all these little connecting factors to the letter itself
you know the indentations that they found using the SD machine and then you have the uh Shepherds for which he is
home you know he's house sitting for and they say yeah that's his voice on right right on that recording and this
is the killer that's calling and taunting the Smith family and that's not as good as picking him out of a lineup
or anything but that's that's something right and and to which I guess for the lineup purposes you have a bit of less
evidence regarding the abduction and murder of the little girl of Deborah May helmick yeah but you do have that
eyewitness who says okay you know I see this picture of Larry Jean Bell on the news and he calls up
police and says that's the same guy that I saw take that little girl so we have all this evidence mounting up
and like you said this real loosey-goosey somewhat of a confession you know he doesn't say I didn't kill
these girls he says the bad Larry Jean Bell could have done this would have been uh capable I guess of doing this
but the good Larry you know he's serving his community and he's serving God Sherry Faye Smith's older sister Dawn
she was super brave and strong during the investigation into her sister's abduction and murder she went on to be
crowned Miss South Carolina in the following year she was the runner-up in the Miss America contest
and February of 1986 Larry Jean Bell was convicted of murdering and kidnapping Sherry Faye Smith
the jury recommended the death sentence and the trial judge imposed the sentence
in accordance with the jury's findings in 1987 in a separate trial Bell was convicted of murdering and kidnapping
Deborah May helmick and again he was given a sentence of death for nine years Larry Gene Bell filed and
played the appeals game trying to work the courts but on October 4th 1996 the state of
South Carolina in accordance with his sentences Larry Gene Bell was strapped into the electric chair and killed
a large crowd cheered as the Hearst carrying Bell's body left the Broad River Correctional Institution
one of his defense lawyers said quote we have executed a sick delusional psychotic man this is one of those weird
situations Captain where life kind of mimics art here and things that we've seen on TV in these fictional crime
stories where a town an area is aware that there is a serial killer out there on the loose claiming the lives of
victims and it's a race against the clock to catch the perpetrator and stop the madness stop the murder
Larry Jean Bell was very much that situation he terrorized this area for a little less than a month and it was a
situation where the police needed to bring in the Heavy Hitters the FBI and sled and people that were better
equipped with better resources to track down this killer before the list of victims continued to grow now
unfortunately as far as Larry Jean Bell is concerned these are not the only cases that he was suspected of there has
been some suspicion over the years that he may have been involved in three cases
that remain unsolved to this very day two of which are Denise Newsome porch from 1975 and Sandy Elaine cornette from
1984 and in those two cases neither of their remains have ever been recovered [Music]
but wait we have more more exclusive audio content for our beautiful listeners this week we were very excited to
re-release our original coverage of the last will and testament case the Sherry face Smith case and that's because as we
said earlier John Douglas well he wanted to sit down and talk about his involvement in this case and his new
book that's coming out that's titled win a killer cause a haunting story of murder criminal profiling and Justice
and a small town for those of you that don't know of legendary FBI profiler John Douglas well he is a former FBI
special agent and the bureau's criminal profiling pioneer he's a founding chief of the investigative support unit at the
FBI Academy in Quantico Virginia and one of the creators of the crime classification manual and we were lucky
to speak with him this week in regard to his new book When a Killer calls but he's been on our show before and we're
happy to have him on again if you'd like to check out our previous John Douglas episodes those are titled the mind
Hunter episode number 302 and mind Hunter John Douglas episodes 445 and 4 46. and now here is a preview of my
conversation with the great John Douglas one of the worst things about this I mean it was it was horrific was that the
mother received some of the calls as well as the sister Don and then the mother asked him the mother
says that my daughter knows she was going to die and Bell says yes uh you know she did
and I gave her a choice and she could pick uh drug overdose gunshot or Suffocation and your daughter selected
Suffocation and so what he did he proceeded to use duct tape while she was alive and duct taped her her head and
then he waits he waits days for the body to decompose uh before he tells us that
tells the family through now Dawn the other the other sister where we can find find Sherry Faye Smith and the reason
that began that tells you something about him too because he doesn't want to leave anything forensically for us to
determine like the cause of death to locate any kind of hair and fiber evidence but what you could see is that
then we and we knew about the duct tape just by the evidence as she uh her hair after he duct taped her head he removed
the duct tape because he didn't want to leave any fingerprints on the duct tape and he would end up cutting some of the
hair on her head to totally remove the duct tape from us so it was just it was just an unbelievable case and and uh to
set up he stopped communicating with us so that's that was a problem when I finally went down there you stopped
communicating with with the police uh with the the family I had to get him to talk I had to get him to get back on the
phone so I I sat down with the investigative reporter and I told the investigative reporter uh that I wanted
her to come up with a story where Sherry Faye is is buried we want to have a memorial service and uh I'm not going to
write it for you I can't do that it's an agent but I want you to make it poetic and we're going to set up at the the
grave site we're going to put a kind of a lectern a white lectern with shy face picture on
it and uh when I was at the house I asked to see Sharif face bedroom and Dawn her sister showed me the bedroom
and and in the bedroom where dozens upon dozens of of koala bears and I started thinking in my brain what can
I what can I do here what can I do and I saw a small koala bear that was hanging
from a string and it took that you pinched the shoulders and it opens up and I'm thinking without telling anyone
I'm going to use this at the gravesite I'm going to have Dawn who now he was targeting Dawn uh the other sister
placed that at the uh at the graveside on a flower and the hope is uh Nick is that he will will pique his curiosity
because we do know from the research that I conducted and my colleagues they like to call it souvenirs mementos
relative to the to the crime so we did all it did all those things uh unfortunately from an investigative
perspective I had no control over this uh but she was buried very very close to the road if and he would not take that
kind of risk but we were monitoring the vehicles and we would catch him another way but had we not caught him another
way that we talk about in the book we would we would have come across some eventually because we had we had his
license plate number he stopped along with other cars and we were recording all of those vehicles and from him once
we would do it say a criminal check you know on these people who were stopping we would find with him that he had
history he had a criminal history of attempted abduction early on in his life he was involved in obscene telephone
calls you try to abduct a nine-year-old girl besides a uh another teenager so we
would have got him sooner sooner than later but we got bottom other ways forensically
[Music] join the colonel and John Douglas for their interview on part three until then
be good be kind and don't litter [Music] thank you [Music]

When a Killer Calls /// Part 2 /// 554

Part 2 of 3 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week we have a real treat for all of our Garage friends. A three part series featuring an in depth case review by the True Crime Garage guys that includes rare audio from the killer. In Part 2 we pick up where we left off with a review of our “Last Will and Testament” case. It’s a case that rocked and terrified the great state of South Carolina. It’s the rare occurrence when a community is aware that a serial killers is at work, right under their noses. Who is next and how many lives will he claim before they finally catch the killer. We have gone back and added the actual phone calls that the victims family received from the killer. Additional commentary has been added as well so the listeners can hear the calls from the killer and analysis of the calls. There is even a special surprise at the end of part 2. This is the case of Shari Faye Smith and Debra May Helmick. Gather 'round, grab a chair, grab a beer and join us for this special three part series.

Recommended Reading: When a Killer Calls; A Hunting Story of Murder, Criminal Profiling, and Justice in a Small Town

This is the latest book from Legendary F.B.I. Profiler John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, the best selling authors of Mindhunter.

Our show - True Crime Garage “Off the Record” is available only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

Larry Jean Bell's disturbing phone calls to Sherry Smith's family reveal manipulation and lead to his eventual capture and execution.

Key points

A Haunting Reflection. A chilling moment where the killer reflects on his actions.
The Killer's Confession. The killer admits to giving Sherry a choice of how to die.
Ominous Warning. The killer warns the family about their impending fate.
Twisted Justification. The killer reveals his distorted view of love and control.
The Arrest of Larry Jean Bell. Larry Jean Bell, suspected of multiple murders, is arrested after police connect him to the victims.
Confession or Not?. Larry Jean Bell's ambiguous statement raises questions about his guilt in the murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I will not be taken alive.

A desperate declaration from the killer.

1:35WatchOct 29, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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