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A father sits in his home office, just like he does every day during the week. It's late afternoon and his 17-year-old daughter arrives home from a high school graduation pool party. He looks out towards the window and his daughter. How proud he is of her. Back to work he goes. Five minutes pass. He hasn't heard the front door swing open. Ten minutes pass.
He still hasn't heard the sound of his teenage daughter's voice. Why hasn't she come inside yet? The father puts his work aside and heads out down the driveway until he stops at his daughter's car. The door is wide open. The engine is still running hot. His heart skipped a beat. His teenage daughter has been abducted right there on the driveway in less than one second.
This week on Forensic Tales, we tell the complete story of the murder of Sherry Faye Smith. ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney. Each Monday, we release a new episode that discusses real, bone-chilling true crime stories and how forensic science has been used in the case. Some cases have been solved through cutting-edge forensic techniques.
while other stories have been left sitting on the shelf collecting dust in the cold case division, just waiting to be solved by forensic science. If you love the show, please leave us a rating with a review because this will greatly help promote the show to other true crime addicts. Also, please consider supporting the show on Patreon at patreon.com slash forensic tales.
Now, let's get to our story. The case that we're going to cover this week is known as one of the most popular episodes on Forensic Files. And actually, the case involves not just one murder in South Carolina, but the murder of two young girls in Lexington County. The stories of these two young girls really captured the attention of the entire state of South Carolina and then the entire country.
This episode is going to focus on 17-year-old Sherry Smith, but it's also important to share the connection that her story has with another young girl just a few miles away. In May 1985, 17-year-old Sharon Faye Smith, who went by the nickname Sherry, was entering a whole new and exciting chapter in her life.
I can remember when I was only 17 years old and I was just about to finish high school and I remember how excited I was to become an adult and go off to college and get to do all of the things that I couldn't do at my parents' house as a teenager. Of course, now I'm in my 30s and I totally wish that I could go back to being 17 years old again.
On May 13th, 1985, Sherry was just two days shy of graduating from Lexington High School in Lexington County, South Carolina. She was even given the honor of singing the national anthem at her high school graduation, which she was super excited about the opportunity.
After graduation, Sherry had plans with a couple of her friends to go on a cruise as a way of celebrating finishing high school, which I must say, I certainly didn't get to go on a cruise for my high school graduation, so I can only imagine just how excited she must have been.
So with just two days until her high school graduation ceremony, at 3.38 p.m. on May 31st, Sherry arrives back at her parents' home from a graduation pool party that she had attended with a couple of her friends. Once Sherry arrives home, she decides to stop by the mailbox to see if she had any mail, which is about 700 feet away from her front door.
So it's a little further away from the house than your typical mailbox. Sherry's house had a long dirt driveway that led from the mailbox right up to the front door. Sherry's father, Bob, actually could see Sherry drive up to the house from his home office window. So he thinks, okay, great. My daughter made it home safe and sound from the pool party. So he goes right back to his work like you would expect.
But five minutes go by, then ten minutes, and Sherry still hasn't come inside from checking the mailbox. Her father, Bob, thought it was kind of strange because the mailbox was literally right outside that front door. Sure, it was a little bit of a walk, but you could see the mailbox from the house. He thought, what could possibly be taking Sherry so long to come inside?
So he says, okay, let me just go outside and see what's taking her so long to come inside. So he walks down to the mailbox, but he doesn't see Sherry anywhere. So he walks a few steps past the mailbox and he sees Sherry's car. And as he gets closer to it, he can see that the door is wide open and the motor is still running. Sherry's father's heart starts to race.
Not only is the sight of the car door being open and the motor still running absolutely terrifying, he can see Sherry's purse just right there on the front passenger seat. It's as if Sherry Smith vanished into thin air right there on her very own driveway. Sherry's father, Bob, panics.
He can see one set of footprints from Sherry's car to the mailbox, and that's it. He knows that something is terribly wrong because Sherry's car is still running with her purse right there inside. So he decides to run back up to the house where he finds his wife, Hilda Smith. Bob tells his wife that their daughter's car is at the end of the driveway, still running, and Sherry is nowhere to be found.
So Bob and Hilda quickly called the Lexington County Sheriff's Department in fear of the worst. The response from the Sheriff's Department was quick because based on the circumstances, it was pretty obvious that Sherry didn't simply walk off on her own. One of the first responding officers to arrive at the Smith's house that afternoon was Officer James Mett of the Lexington County Sheriff's Department.
Officer Mett spotted several pieces of mail just laying in the dirt right below the mailbox. Like someone, likely Sherry, had opened the mailbox, pulled out the mail, and was caught completely off guard by someone or something. Police suspected right away that Sherry Smith had been kidnapped, confirming Bob and Hilda's worst nightmare.
The search for 17-year-old Sherry Smith started one of the largest manhunts in Lexington County history. And right after the news broke about Sherry's disappearance right there from her driveway, the media around Lexington County was in a complete frenzy to cover the story. No one could really believe that a bright, beautiful teenage girl could go missing from her very own driveway in broad daylight.
and to just vanish when her father was only 700 feet away inside of the house. It just seemed so odd and so terrifying that something like this could happen in this small, close-knit community. Police were just puzzled by Sherry's disappearance as the public. The police in the community couldn't think of a single reason why someone would want to kidnap her.
She was a good girl. She didn't run with the wrong crowds. And in fact, no one could even think of a single person who didn't like Sherry. She wasn't into drugs or anything that could explain why someone like her could simply vanish. It was especially heartbreaking because she was literally just two days away from graduating high school. Who could have possibly taken her and why?
But police couldn't think of a single motive or person who would want to kidnap Sherry. They started thinking that her kidnapping could be some sort of ransom, meaning someone took Sherry with the intention of extorting her family out of money or something else. And this became the likely theory in the minds of the police because the Smiths weren't just your average family in Lexington.
The family was described as being a very influential family in the community, which opened up the possibility that Sherry's disappearance just might be a ransom. So the Lexington County Sheriff's Department and the Smith family just had to sit back and wait for the suspect to call Sherry's family in an attempt to collect a ransom, if that was even the motive.
Sure enough, the police and the Smith family didn't have to wait very long to hear from the suspect. Just two days after Sherry Smith was kidnapped from her driveway, the Smiths receive an eerie phone call from a man who sounds like he's intentionally distorting his voice.
There's actually a fantastic episode of this case on Forensic Tales from 2003 that actually plays part of this first ransom call to the Smith family. And the voice on the other end of the line sounds like someone who was talking through, like one of those voice changers you messed around with when you were a kid. So it sounds super artificial and super distorted.
You can clearly tell that whoever this person is isn't using their real voice for some odd reason. The man on the other end of the line specifically asks to speak to Sherry's mother, Hilda Smith. So Hilda gets on the phone and starts a conversation with this man, who by all accounts took her daughter.
And the man tells Hilda that he's the person who they're looking for. He's the person who kidnapped Sherry right there from her driveway that sunny afternoon. And he says he can prove that he's the one who took her as he begins describing the black and yellow colored bathing suit Sherry was wearing underneath her shorts and t-shirt the afternoon that she was kidnapped.
He goes on to tell the Smith family that their daughter is perfectly okay and that he hasn't harmed her in any way. According to the caller, Sherry is even eating just fine and she's actually been spending most of the days watching television. The caller promises the Smiths that he will return Sherry safe and sound and that they will receive a letter in the mail in the following morning.
He didn't make any demands for money or anything like that. He just simply told the parents that they should hang tight and that they should wait for this letter to come in the mail. Which I can't even begin to imagine the absolute horror and pain Sherry's mom and dad must have felt in this moment.
There's no way for them to know if that what this person over the phone is saying is true or not about her being okay. And he clearly is the one who kidnapped Sherry because he was able to describe in detail what she was wearing that afternoon.
Sherry's parents had to do probably one of any parent's worst nightmares and speak directly to their child's kidnapper right over the phone. When the sheriff's department learns about the letter, they know that this letter is going to be their best shot at finding Sherry.
So instead of waiting for the letter to arrive in the mailbox, the sheriff's department sends a bunch of deputies down to the local post office to begin sorting through all of the mail that was to be delivered the following day. All of the deputies put gloves on and they just start digging through thousands and thousands of pieces of mail.
And after several hours of digging through the entire county's mail, they find the letter that they're searching for. They find a letter that was addressed to the Smith family written in Sherry's handwriting. When they opened up the white envelope, they could have never prepared themselves for what they were about to read in that letter.
When the deputies opened the envelope addressed to the Smiths, the letter was titled Last Will and Testament. Inside the envelope was a two-page letter written by Sherry herself. The letter basically described how much and how deeply she loved her family and tells them not to let her disappearance ruin their lives. It goes on by telling her parents to keep on living one day at a time for Jesus.
She ends the letter by writing, quote, my thoughts are always with you, end quote. Somewhere in the letter, the words closed casket were written in parentheses. What a truly horrifying and sickening thing for any parent to have to read from their daughter and their abductor.
And it became so puzzling because the letter was titled Last Will and Testament. But remember, the kidnapper who called the Smiths just one day before assured her parents that Sherry was alive and well. But the language and how this letter was written tells a completely different story. The letter was immediately sent off to the State Law Enforcement Crime Lab for testing.
Although Sherry's handwriting was apparently on the letter and envelope, police were pretty hopeful that the crime lab would be able to obtain some valuable forensic evidence. So they tested the envelope and letter for anything and everything, including hand printing and handwriting patterns, and even trace evidence like DNA, hair, or fibers.
They were looking for anything that would lead them closer to Sherry and her kidnapper. While the letter was still being tested at the state crime lab, the kidnapper makes a second phone call to the Smiths.
This time, he asks Hilda if she believes him now. And Hilda responds, and she's like, well, you told me on our last phone call that Sherry was okay, but I still haven't heard from my daughter. She's like, I need to know if my daughter is okay or not. So the kidnapper tells Hilda that she will know if her daughter is okay in two to three days. And then he simply just hangs up.
A few hours after the second phone call, the kidnapper calls the Smiths yet again. Once again, the caller tells the family that Sherry is perfectly fine and that he was actually planning on releasing her very soon. But what he says next is extremely odd and just straight up disturbing. He begins telling Sherry's mother that Sherry has now become a part of him.
not only spiritually, but emotionally and physically a part of him. And before Hilda could get any explanation as to what he meant, the caller hangs up. Since this was now the third phone call Sherry's kidnapper made to the Smith family, police had already set up a phone trace to try and figure out who this caller was and where this person was calling from.
But we're in the mid-1980s, and our ability to trace phone calls has obviously changed drastically over the years. So back in 1985, it took law enforcement about 15 minutes before the trap and trace would pinpoint a caller's location. And by this point, after 15 minutes, Sherry's kidnapper was long gone from wherever he was making the phone calls from.
So after 15 minutes had gone by, police were able to track the call to a payphone in downtown Lexington. But like I said, the call only lasted a few minutes. So by the time law enforcement were able to get to the payphone, the caller was long gone. The caller was able to just slip right away.
Five days after Sherry Smith was kidnapped from her very own driveway, her kidnapper called the family yet again. This time, the caller didn't just want to speak with Sherry's mother, Hilda. He also asked to speak to Sherry's 21-year-old sister, Dawn. The kidnapper tells Hilda that at 4.58 a.m.,
But then he corrects himself and says, no, no, no. At 3.50 a.m. on Saturday, June 1st, which was the day after Sherry was kidnapped, Sherry wrote the handwritten letter that was titled Last Will and Testament. He tells Hilda that she became one soul. And Hilda's like, what, what, what are you talking about?
The killer wasn't making any sense and wasn't even really speaking in complete sentences. So Hilda begs and she pleads with the caller to not let anything happen to her daughter. And before she could even finish her last sentence, the phone line goes dead once again. The next morning, he calls again. This time, the kidnapper gives Sherry's mother very specific directions.
He tells her to take Highway 378 West to Traffic Circle, take Prosperity Exit, go one half mile, turn right at the stop sign, go one fourth mile, turn left at White Frame Building, go to the backyard, and six feet beyond the White Building, he said, quote, we're waiting, God chose us, and then he hangs up.
Police recorded the entire phone conversation between Sherry's mom and the kidnapper. And by this point, Sherry's mother Hilda begs the police to go with them, thinking that the kidnapper's directions will finally lead her to her daughter, who she was so desperate to see.
But the police insist on her staying back, probably out of fear of what they would discover once they followed the kidnappers directions. The body of Sherry Smith was discovered exactly where the kidnapper described on the phone call. And she was wearing the same exact pair of shorts and T-shirt that she was last seen in.
Her body was immediately transported to the coroner's office for an autopsy. And based on what the autopsy revealed, police were actually able to determine that Sherry had been dead for days. Investigators believed that the kidnapper and now killer of Sherry Smith may have just slipped up when he was on the last phone call with Sherry's mother.
The kidnapper told Hilda that her daughter Sherry wrote the letter at 4.48 a.m. on June 1st, but then quickly corrected himself and said that she wrote it at 3.50 a.m.,
Police believe that Sherry was likely killed at 4.58 a.m., at least one hour after she wrote the letter. And if this was true, that means that Sherry was only alive for about 12 hours after she was kidnapped from her driveway. Detectives believed that the kidnapper and now killer was trying to essentially buy some time.
So he started making these taunting phone calls to the Smith family, telling them that their daughter was alive and well and that he was planning on releasing her. But in reality, he was only stalling because this would allow Sherry's body to remain outside in the elements and lose a lot of valuable forensic evidence.
which is certainly true that the longer a body remains outside and exposed to things like weather and potential wildlife, you really do run the risk of losing a lot of forensic evidence that can provide some pretty deep insight into what happened to the victim.
At Sherry's autopsy, the medical examiner retrieved duct tape residue from around her mouth, which indicates that most likely the cause of death was suffocation. But there wasn't any actual duct tape left on her body or around her mouth.
The medical examiner could only find the residue, which indicates that her killer was very careful to remove the duct tape and to not leave behind any valuable forensic evidence. Police were pretty certain that whoever was responsible for Sherry's abduction and now her murder was fairly criminally sophisticated, and this might not even be the first time doing something like this.
The FBI created a criminal profile for who Sherry's killer might be, and they thought he was likely a white male, somewhere in his 20s, even his 30s, probably divorced and someone who had a history of sex crimes. The FBI also conducted a signal analysis on the voice distortion that was used on the phone calls to Sherry's family.
and they found out that the killer was using a variable speed control device that he may have gotten through his job or he might have past experience with electronics. The FBI's analysis also concluded that when the killer called the Smith family, he used a script and he planned out the phone calls to a T.
Using a script could explain the mistake he made on the earlier phone call to Sherry's mother, saying what time exactly Sherry wrote the letter. The phone calls to the Smith family didn't stop after Sherry's body was discovered. Believe it or not, the killer even called the family the night of Sherry's funeral service, just to further taunt them.
But then, a few weeks go by, and the Smiths don't hear from the killer until one evening. But this time, the killer didn't want to talk about Sherry Smith anymore. A few weeks after Sherry Smith's funeral, 10-year-old Debra Mae Helmick went missing in Richland County, South Carolina, just 24 miles away from Sherry's house.
Just like Sherry, Deborah May was abducted from her own front yard with her father only about 20 feet away inside of the house. Witnesses told police that they remembered seeing a car pull right up to Deborah May's house, grab her, and then the car sped away before her father would have even known. A couple days later, Sherry's killer calls the Smith family yet again.
but not to talk about Sherry anymore. He wanted to talk about 10-year-old Debra May. The person on the other end of the phone gave the Smiths directions just like he did with Sherry. The caller said, quote, turn right last dirt road before stop sign at two knots road.
Police follow the caller's directions, and that's where they discover the tiny body of 10-year-old Debra Mae Helmick. By this point, police suspect that they are hunting a serial killer.
Police from South Carolina create another profile of the killer, and they believe that after killing these two young girls, he is likely displaying compulsive behavior, possibly lost or gained weight, he might have started drinking heavily, he might appear to be unshaven, and probably someone who was likely talking about the murders often.
Which honestly, I can't begin to tell you how many murderers are caught simply because they can't keep their mouth shut. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division only had one piece of hard evidence in Sherry's murder. And that was that last will and testament that Sherry wrote sometime before she was murdered.
The letter was handwritten on lined legal-sized paper from a notepad, so police wanted to see what kind of forensic evidence they could get from the letter. So the letter was sent to Mickey Dawson, a forensic document examiner in South Carolina. Dawson studied the indentations made from a previous page on the notepad that appeared on Sherry's last will and testament.
meaning the forensic document examiner could see that a letter above Sherry's note had been written on and was used. To get a clearer picture of what the indented writing said, investigators can use a method referred to as electrostatic detection apparatus, or ESDA.
ESDA can reveal indentations or impressions in paper that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. This was important because police believed that this type of test could reveal valuable information about who the killer might be based on other writings on the notepad.
The process of ESDA in Sherry's case involved placing each sheet of the letter into a humidified box because the humidity helps increase the chances of getting a better result of electrostatic charges. The letter is then placed on a plate where magnetic charges pass through it. The letter is brushed with a powder that is very similar to fingerprint powder
and the latent images or writing appears so that you're able to see anything that had been indented from the previous page of the notepad. Mickey Dawson, the forensic document examiner, could immediately make out what appeared to be a grocery list and a list of emergency telephone numbers written on the page right above Sherry's last will and testament.
they were able to only get a partial telephone number from the indentation, which started with 205, the area code for Western and Central Alabama. The next three digits were 837, the area of Huntsville, Alabama. But after that, investigators could only make out the next three out of four numbers.
So they plugged in the nine digits one at a time and on one of the numbers, they got a working telephone number. So investigators call the number and they speak to a guy in Alabama. Police ask him if he knows anyone in South Carolina and he tells police, well, yeah, my mom and dad both live in South Carolina.
And this is where they learn about his father, Ellis Shepard. Ellis Shepard and his wife live only about 15 miles away from Sherry Smith's house. So police really want to talk to Ellis and find out why his son's phone number was indented on Sherry's last will and testament and came from the same exact notepad.
Police are even more anxious to speak with Ellis when they find out that many of the phone calls that the killer made to the Smiths' house were actually made from Ellis Shepard's residence. When police sit down and talk with Ellis, he is shocked that they even want to speak with him about Sherry Smith's murder. And he tells police, look, I have no idea why my son's phone number was on that same notepad.
So police ask Ellis where he was around the time Sherry was abducted from her driveway. And he tells them that him and his wife were away on vacation and police were quickly able to determine that they were actually hundreds of miles away at the time of Sherry's disappearance.
So police decided why not play a recording of one of the phone calls to Ellis and see if he recognizes the voice. Because after all, many of the phone calls came from within Ellis Shepherd's home. And the second that Ellis heard the first recording, he said, I know exactly who that is. Ellis Shepherd identified the voice as Larry G. Bell.
Larry Bell had actually worked for Ellis Shepard doing some electrical work over the years. And as it turns out, Larry Bell had actually house sat for Ellis Shepard and his wife while they were on vacation. The same exact time that Sherry Smith was abducted and murdered.
Ellis had left Larry Bell a list of emergency contact numbers, including his son's phone number that was found on the same notepad used to write Sherry's last will and testament. So police look at the last page of the notebook and superimposed it over Sherry's letter and the notes were a perfect match.
This proved that Sherry Smith used the paper directly underneath. It also proved that Sherry Smith was inside Ellis Shepard's home and that Larry Bell was house-sitting at the time. Ellis Shepard even told police that when Larry Bell picked him and his wife up from the airport after their vacation, Larry could not stop talking about Sherry's disappearance.
He was so interested in the case and what was going on with it, which we've learned from previous episodes of Forensic Tales, that when someone is overly or unusually interested in a case, it's typically seen as a huge red flag.
Larry Bell had also lost a lot of weight and was mostly seen to be unshaven, which again is exactly what the criminal profiles thought their suspect might be going through after Sherry's murder. Police executed a search warrant on Ellis Shepard's home, where Larry Bell was house-sitting at the time of Sherry's murder.
They were able to collect six blonde hairs in the carpet that came back as an exact match to Sherry Smith. Police also found the same stamp that had a picture of a duck on it that was used to mail Sherry's last will and testament. Police had all they needed to arrest Larry G. Bell for the murder of Sherry Faye Smith.
And on June 27th, that's exactly what South Carolina police did. Not only was Larry Bell charged for the murder of Sherry, prosecutors also charged him for the murder of 10-year-old Debra May. During his trial, Larry took the stand in his own defense for over six hours, which certainly did his defense absolutely no justice.
He basically sat on the stand, didn't answer any of the prosecutor's questions, and was pretty much just rambling about different random things completely unrelated to the trial. At one point, he made statements to suggest that he had a mental illness and claimed to be Jesus himself. Well, the ramblings at trial didn't sway the jury, and Larry Bell was found guilty of two counts of murder and was sentenced to the death penalty.
What's interesting is that Bell actually chose to die by the electric chair instead of lethal injection. But besides interesting, it's also kind of strange to me because lethal injection seems to be the easier way out compared to being electrocuted. But that's what Bell chose and he was actually the last death row inmate in South Carolina executed by electrocution until 2004.
Besides the killings of Sherry and Deborah May, Larry Bell has been suspected in two other disappearances, including the 1984 disappearance of Sandy Cornett and the earlier 1975 disappearance of Denise Porch. Both girls disappeared in Charlotte, North Carolina, and to this day their bodies have not been found.
Although Sherry Smith and Deborah Mae Helmick will never be brought back, we can certainly thank Forensic Science for bringing their killer, Larry Bell, to justice.
It's all thanks to the work of a forensic document examiner that was able to find indentations of an incomplete phone number on the same notepad that was used to write Sherry's last will and testament that led police investigators right to her killer. ♪
Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio Production. If you'd like to read more about Sherry Smith and view photos from this week's case, check out our website, ForensicTales.com. You can also email me directly at Courtney at ForensicTales.com. I would absolutely love to hear what you think about this week's case.
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