Judy Smith was born on December 15, 1946, in Hyannis, Massachusetts (USA) as Judith Eldredge. The woman was a nurse. However, she did not work in the hospital but looked after the patients in their homes. In the mid-1980s, she met Jeffrey Smith. Judy spent a week helping his father, who needed professional care after a throat operation. Jeffrey, who was divorced and had an adult daughter, liked the care and dedication that characterized the nurse. Soon the man began dating Judy (then named Bradford), who also had two adult children from a previous marriage. It turned out that Smith was also associated with health care. He worked as a lawyer for the Northeast Pharmaceutical Conference. It was an organization of scientists. In September 1996, after ten years of relationship, the couple got married.
Eight months after the wedding, the spouses planned their first journey together. Jeffrey was invited to attend a conference in Philadelphia on April 9-11, 1997. Judy was to accompany him. Then they planned to visit friends in nearby New Jersey.
On April 9, 1997, the couple traveled to Boston's Logan Airport for a flight to Philadelphia. On the spot, the 50-year-old realized that she had forgotten her driving license or passport. The regulations that entered into force several months earlier required airlines to verify the identity of passengers, even if they were domestic flights. So Judy decided that she would come home to get the necessary documentation and fly on another plane. It also happened. That evening, the woman met her husband in the lobby of the DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Philadelphia, where the conference was held. Judy apologized for her oversight and bought flowers for it.
The next morning, Jeffrey woke up in front of his wife and went to eat breakfast. When he returned to the room, Judy was taking a shower. The man encouraged his wife to visit the restaurant because he liked the breakfast so special. He went to a conference shortly after that.
The previous evening, the couple had agreed that Judy, who was visiting Philadelphia for the first time, would visit this important city in US history. The couple then decided to meet at the hotel for a banquet, which was scheduled to start at 6:00 PM. Jeffrey returned to the room after completing the conference activities. But Judy wasn't there.
At first, the man thought that his wife had come back to the hotel after a busy day, changed clothes, and went to the party. But when he went downstairs to check it out, he found no wife there. Smith circled the party and the room several times, but Judy was nowhere to be found. He then became concerned and asked the concierge to call the local hospitals.
The lawyer figured his wife would normally contact him if she was to be late for some reason. Jeffrey left the party and paid the taxi driver to slowly follow the route of Philly PHLASH's tour bus. For he remembered Judy about to use the services of this company. The man hoped he could find any trace of Judy.
He also called her children in Boston and asked to go to their house. He thought there might have been some message from his spouse on the answering machine. However, these actions did not bring any results. Finally, around midnight, Smith went to the police to report Judy's disappearance.
The man was then informed that he had to wait with the application until 24 hours had elapsed since the last time he saw his wife. So Jeffrey spent a sleepless night in his hotel room. Earlier, he also spoke with the Mayor of Philadelphia, Ed Rendell, and John Perzel, a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He was appalled by the disrespectful approach of the officers to the whole case.
The support of influential friends was helpful. When Smith returned to the police station, two detectives were waiting for him. The man was also treated with courtesy and respect. A few months later, however, Jeffrey admitted that one of the detectives kept saying that he thought Judy was having a midlife crisis and had fled to get attention.
The missing woman's husband also believed that the police, while helpful in general, were overly focused on him as a suspect. "When you look at the statistics, 85 to 90 percent of [murdered] women are killed by someone very close to them: family member, spouse, boyfriend," Police Captain John McGinnis later explained. "Statistically, we have to view Jeffrey Smith as a suspect until it is proven that he is not," he added.
According to some, it was suspicious that the woman had to abandon the joint flight due to the lack of a document. There were also doubts as to whether Judy had ever flown to Philadelphia. According to police, only one witness besides her husband, who was the receptionist, confirmed that he saw Judy at the hotel. However, there was no requirement to check-in, so he did not confirm her identity with any document. In August, one of the conference participants remembered seeing a woman in the hall that day. The police treated these declarations with caution as they were unfamiliar with Judy and could have been wrong.
In addition, the officer who searched the Smiths' hotel room admitted that she found it unusual that all the clothes Judy had left behind were not worn. This suggested that the woman was wearing the same clothes on the day of the disappearance as on the flight from Boston. No toiletries were found in the bathroom either. Judy's daughter, however, said that both of these behaviors (wearing the same clothes for two days and using cosmetics very rarely) were typical of her mother.
Police also appeared suspicious that Jeffrey had refused to submit to a lie detector test. The man, on the other hand, claimed that he had only insisted that such a test be carried out by the FBI. It was supposed to result from the fact that he did not fully trust the police. According to McGinnis, however, Jeffrey knew that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had no formal means to join the case.
A few days after Judy's disappearance, the newspapers and television in Philadelphia became interested in the matter. The woman's husband, friends, and family put up posters with her photo, counting on information from possible witnesses. In fact, reports began to surface from people claiming to have seen the missing person in the city and beyond. They pointed to a woman who matched Jude's description but appeared to be having mental problems.
Society Hill Hotel staff saw a woman like Judy who stayed there between April 13 and 15. Upon checking in, she gave the surname "H.K. Rich / Collins ". She was remembered by the staff as she was masturbating in front of an open window while talking to herself. Then she loudly announced that the "emperor" would send her money when she needed it to extend her stay at the hotel.
Other witnesses mentioned a woman described as confused. She was spotted at the intersection of Broad and Locust around 3:00 PM the day Judy was last seen. There were several other reports as well. However, the police and the missing person's family believe that those who saw the woman mistook Judy for a local homeless person who was very similar to her. So much so that even Smith's son, when he saw her across the street, though he had found his mother.
Among these reports, the report from a homeless man stood out. He saw a picture of Judy and insisted that he saw her and not the homeless woman. Smith was supposed to sleep the night before, April 14-15, on the bench next to him. It was the last time anyone had identified Judy from her photograph.
Judy is said to have seen several people on or around the PHLASH bus. A hotel employee said the woman asked in the morning of April 10 where the nearest stop was. The bus driver said he picked it up at the corner of Front and South Street in the early afternoon. He remembered getting out near the hotel.
Reportedly, the missing person has also been seen entering and exiting the city's Greyhound bus terminal, possibly to use the bathroom. The terminal is located near Chinatown in Philadelphia. Since Judy loved Chinese and Thai food, it is assumed she may have gone there to eat dinner. However, no one in any of the many local restaurants remembered the woman.
Judy was also to be seen shopping at Macy's store on Deptford Mall in Deptford, NJ, across the Delaware River. The woman was able to get there by taking bus number 400, which ran hourly to the mall from Market Street and the intersection of Broad and Cherry Streets.
The salesman and one of the customers remembered a woman who looked very much like Jude. She said that she was shopping for her daughter, admitting that she usually didn't like gifts from her. The Smith family confirmed afterward that this was true. Judy was said to have a hard time hitting her daughter's tastes. The witnesses remember the characteristic red backpack, which she almost always took with her, especially when traveling. When the woman decided to leave the store, she tried to persuade a younger woman, whom they considered her daughter at the time, to go with her. However, her identity could not be established.
A man who left a Wawa store near Rittenhouse Square saw a well-dressed white woman just before 6am. She was sitting in front of a gourmet grocery store. The sight seemed unusual to him at this time of the day. Later, he saw a newspaper article about the missing person and realized that the woman looked very much like Judy.
There were also reports that Judy was seen a few days after her disappearance in Easton, which is 90 km north of Philadelphia. However, this is considered unlikely. Ultimately, Jeffrey hired two private detectives to find his wife. They were also supposed to send leaflets with the image of the missing person to hospitals all over the country.
The breakthrough in the case came on September 7, 1997. On that day, a father and son hunting deer on a hillside in North Carolina's Pisgah National Park found what appeared to be human bones. It was near the Stoney Fork along Chestnut Creek, 15 km from the nearest town, Asheville. The bones were scattered over an area of 91 meters in diameter, possibly by animals.
In the center was a shallow grave with most of the skeleton left in it. The body was partially buried and clothed. Personal belongings were also found in the area. As a curiosity, it can be mentioned that the investigator in charge stopped his convalescence after recent spine surgery to search the area for evidence. As a result of these actions, he damaged the sciatic nerve and had to undergo another operation.
The state medical examiner determined that they were the bones of a white woman between the ages of 40 and 55. It was also found that the woman used dental services many times and suffered from severe arthritis in her left knee. Stab marks were found on her ribs. Among the clothes from the scene was a bra, which also had cuts and punctures. The investigation showed that the woman was fatally stabbed and her death was officially declared a homicide.
The remains did not remain unidentified for long. An emergency room physician in Franklin, North Carolina (105 km west of Asheville), saw an article in the paper about a body discovery. It was then that he remembered one of the leaflets that the missing woman's husband had sent to hospitals. The doctor in question linked the two cases and faxed a copy of the Philadelphia Police article. The detective then asked Jeffrey for his wife's dental records. The Asheville medical examiner received those documents that matched the dental work on a discovered murdered woman. In late September, it was officially confirmed that these were the remains of Judy Smith.
Identification of the body concluded the investigation into the disappearance of Jeffrey's wife. Instead, an investigation into her murder was initiated, and it was conducted by detectives from the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office. To identify the killer, it was necessary to establish how the woman got to North Carolina in general. The place where the body was found was almost 1,000 km from Philadelphia.
It was assumed that Judy was most likely alive and that she made her own way to the Asheville area. The woman was wearing jeans, thermal underwear, and sports shoes, clothes suitable for hiking in the surrounding mountains this time of the year. At the same time, it was a completely different outfit from the one Judy wore the last time she was seen in Philadelphia by Jeffrey and other witnesses.
No wallet or documents were found in the pockets. A blue and black vinyl backpack were found next to the body. Inside were winter clothes and $80 cash. $87 was discovered in a shirt pocket buried nearby. That was $ 167 in total. Let me remind you that, according to Jeffrey, Judy was carrying $200 when she disappeared. The presence of money and gold jewelry led investigators to conclude that the robbery was not a motive for the murder.
However, neither the distinctive red backpack nor the clothes Smith took with her to Philadelphia were found. The family of the killed woman also admitted that the expensive sunglasses found near the body did not belong to her. So the woman had to buy them after she disappeared. Another possibility is that they belonged to the killer.
Judy's family wondered why she had gone to the Asheville area. According to her relatives, she had no family or friends there, and she never mentioned any plans to visit this rather remote part of the USA. It should also be added that Smith has only been to North Carolina twice. She once went there for a week to visit Jeffrey, who was at a weight loss clinic in Raleigh-Durham. At other times, she accompanied the patient south when he was visiting his family. But it was not even certain whether she lived in North Carolina or neighboring Virginia or Tennessee.
Several people in the Asheville area reported seeing Judy or a woman matching her description in April. A saleswoman at a local store admitted: “She seemed very alert to me. She was very nice. I didn't see anything in here to indicate there was something wrong with her. " The woman she spoke to said her husband was a Boston attorney attending a conference in Philadelphia. She, on the other hand, decided to go to the Asheville area. These words clearly indicate that it was Smith.
An employee of the Biltmore Estate also remembered a woman who looked confusingly like Judy. She pulled up to a campsite near where her body was found in a gray sedan filled with boxes and bags. Smith then asked if he could spend the night there in his car. She drove away when she heard the refusal. A deli owner in the neighborhood told the Philadelphia City Paper that Judy had driven a gray sedan to her store and bought sandwiches and a toy truck for $30.
At this point, let's go back to the amount of $200 the woman allegedly had with her. Based on the money found on the corpse, Judy only spent $33, of which at least $30 in the Asheville area. But how did she get there with $3 at her disposal? Where did the gray sedan come from? And the strangest thing - what was her toy car for?
Investigators in the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office banned Jeffrey Smith from being a suspect. The man was morbidly obese and physically unable to reach the place where his wife's body had been found. He was also confirmed to be present at the conference on the day of Judah's disappearance. Jeffrey died in 2005 and he didn't live to see the truth.
Constance himself, the detective investigating the case, believes that Judy was not abducted and came voluntarily to the Asheville area. Investigators also ruled out that Judy would be killed elsewhere, and her body dumped where it was discovered. It was impossible to get there by car. Due to the terrain and the considerable distance that the murderer would have to travel on foot, dragging the body with him, it seems practically impossible.
It is assumed that Smith may have planned that he would be gone for a while, maybe even forever. Although Jeffrey and Judy's children claimed that there were no serious disputes between the spouses, one of the murdered's friends did not think so. "At the time, Jeff and Judy's marriage was very precarious," Carolyn Dickey said on Unsolved Mysteries in 2001. "I believe something happened that prompted her to spend time away from Jeff," the woman added.
There was also a hypothesis that Judy might have met a local serial killer on her way. Less than a year earlier, Gary Michael Hilton raped and murdered one of his victims and then left her body tied to a tree near where Smith's body was discovered. However, Hilton was later arrested and convicted of the crime and several other killings on hiking trails in state forests in southern Appalachia in 2000. It has never been linked to the murder of Judy.
How did Judy get to Asheville with such finances? I suspect she may have hitchhiked there. It is possible that among the people she was traveling with was her later killer.
North Carolina authorities and Jeffrey have offered a joint cash prize of $17,000 for all information leading to a solution to the case. Unfortunately, this extraordinary puzzle has not been solved to this day.
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