← Park Predators
Park Predators
The Sightseer
00:43:12
A couple’s trip to a pharmaceutical conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania turns into a husband’s nightmare when his wife vanishes without a trace. Then, months later, a perplexing discovery hundreds of miles away in a national forest presents law enforcement with one of the most confounding cases they’ve ever seen.
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Hi park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia d', Ambra, and the case I'm going to share with you today takes place in vastly different geographical areas of the United States. It starts in the city of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but culminates more than 600 miles away in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest. Pisgah, in my opinion as an NC native, is a hiker and outdoor recreationalist paradise. If you like mountains, it's got them. Waterfalls and rivers, it's got those too. Tons of acreage to roam. Check. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the national forest is more than 500,000 acres in size, and it was actually one of the first tracts of land bought under legislation that was pivotal in the formation of the National Forest service in the U.S. the first school of forestry in the country was established there, too. But as is the case with so many beautiful natural areas I talk about on this show, Pisgah National Forest also has a darker side. Case in point, it became the end road for one of the most bizarre missing persons investigations I've ever researched. And if my instincts are right, you'll likely leave today's episode thinking the exact same thing. This is Park Predators. Sam. Shortly after 5pm on Thursday, April 10, 1997, a man named Jeff Smith walked into his hotel room at the DoubleTree in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, expecting to see his wife Judy waiting for him. But she wasn't there. He'd been busy all day attending a pharmaceutical conference, which he was a panel moderator for. And though I'm not sure exactly what his initial reaction was, when he realized his wife wasn't in their room, he I have to imagine he was surprised. Same as I would be if I came back from a work function and didn't see my spouse where I assumed they'd be. According to coverage by the Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer, the Smiths had made plans with some good friends of theirs who were in town from New Jersey to meet up for drinks later that night. But after waiting for Judy until about 6:30 or so, Jeff began to grow worried that something wasn't right. He realized he probably needed to report his wife missing to law enforcement. But. But before he went that route, it seems he wanted to do a bit of digging on his own. So he jumped into a cab and cruised the city searching for Judy, looking specifically in streets he thought she might be on. You see, Jeff knew that his wife had made plans earlier that day to sightsee Philadelphia via a tour bus, and it just so happened that those attractions followed a certain route. So while in his taxi, Jeff navigated the streets the bus would have taken and tried to trace all the spots he believed his wife would have toured. He told Unsolved Mysteries that while doing this, he was torn between this nagging fear that something really bad had happened to his wife, but also holding out hope that by doing his own search, he would just find her and everything would be okay. However, the more time passed, the more confused and perplexed Jeff became. He called a few hospitals in the city to see if maybe Judy was at one of those facilities. But no one reported seeing her come in. So that night, after getting nowhere on his own, Jeff finally called the Philadelphia Police Department and reported Judy missing. But he claimed the officer who took his request initially brushed him off and told him that it was too soon to file a report for his missing wife. Instead, the officer suggested he wait a little while or come back the following morning when the department would be able to take an official report. So that's basically what ended up happening. On Friday morning, April 11, Philly PD finally got on the ball and took the report. But it seems that only came after some firm nudging from a state representative and the city's mayor, who coincidentally had both been speakers at the same conference Jeff was participating in. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer's coverage on this case, those men used their influence and sway over the police department's deputy commissioner to whip the central detective division into shape and get them to open a full blown missing persons investigation. And in addition to Jeff and police personnel searching for Judy on that Friday, the Smiths, friends from New Jersey, who they were supposed to get drinks with the night she vanished, also helped out. Judy's two adult children, who lived in Massachusetts, also came to Philly to participate in the search. Investigators did all the usual canvassing. They visited morgues, churches, transportation stations, markets, and shelters for homeless people. But Judy wasn't at any of those places. This particular trip had been her first time in the city. But by all accounts, she'd had a solid plan for what she wanted to do on Thursday and where she wanted to go while she and Jeff were apart. When they'd last spoken, Judy told him that she'd wanted to go view the Liberty Bell at Independence hall, which for those of you who aren't familiar with American history, the Liberty Bell is an actual physical bell that formerly hung in Pennsylvania's State house during the 1700s and 1800s. It would be rung to summon lawmakers or notify citizens of important news. It's an iconic symbol in US History. And Independence hall, by the way, is a national historic park operated by the National Park Service. Now, when Judy said goodbye to Jeff, she was dressed in jeans, a dark coat and white sneakers. She was also carrying a red backpack that she took with her pretty much everywhere in lieu of a pocketbook. And according to the reporting I found in this case, she usually kept the same personal items in that backpack when she went out. For example, she'd usually pack a Diet Coke, some peanut butter, crackers, papers, a few books, credit cards, her id, cash, and supplies like tape, bandaging, and a pair of scissors. She worked as a home health nurse, so it seems those supplies were things she just kept in case of an emergency or she needed to implement her medical training. Anyway, the Smiths long term plan, after meeting up with friends for drinks on Thursday night, was to stay in Philly until Jeff's conference ended on Friday and then stick around as tourists on Saturday and Sunday afternoon before flying home Sunday night, Judy had to be back where they lived in Newton, Massachusetts, for a nursing shift on Monday morning. Now, despite so many folks scouring the city for her that weekend, few clues surfaced, and there was seemingly no evidence that pointed towards her being abducted or having been the victim of foul play. So it seems law enforcement didn't have a ton to work with from the get go. But that started to change as more time passed. As Judy's case got more and more media attention and her missing persons flyer circulated throughout Philly and the surrounding areas, Police received a handful of calls about reported sightings of her on Thursday, April 10. Police didn't consider these sightings outright suspicious, but they were certainly interesting. For example, according to coverage by the Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer, someone came forward and said they saw her at a Greyhound bus station in Philly, which was only a few blocks away from the Chinatown district, which encapsulated a lot of different Asian ethnicities. Apparently, Judy was a fan of Thai food, so investigators in Judy's family assumed she'd probably gone to that part of the city for a meal and then walked to ask someone for directions at the Greyhound bus station or maybe even use that facility's restroom. From what I gathered, it didn't seem like anyone at that time suspected she'd gotten on a bus and left town. Why that wasn't a natural assumption, I have no idea. Maybe police didn't find records at the bus terminal confirming she'd been on a bus. Who knows? Like I said, it's unclear why no one thought she got on a bus, but that's just what it was. Anyway, that wasn't the only alleged sighting of her. On April 10, she'd reportedly been seen in front of the Doubletree Hotel as well, which wasn't necessarily surprising since that's where she and Jeff had been staying. But there were other suspected sightings of her on an elevated train platform and in a subway concourse, which, according to police, were both in locations that aligned with her sightseeing plans and movements for Thursday. According to reporting by the Philadelphia Enquirer and a blog I found about this case titled Lost and Found, there was also a reported sighting of a woman matching her description who'd been seen around the city appearing disoriented. But those sightings were chalked up to likely being a homeless woman who resembled Judy. Apparently, this woman's likeness was so similar to hers that when Judy's adult son saw the homeless woman, he even did a double take because he Thought the woman could be his mother. Another sighting that further fueled the family's hopes Judy was just somewhere in the city was from a homeless man who swore that he slept on a park bench next to a woman who looked just like her shortly after April 10th. Now, Jeff and Judy's kids spoke with this guy again five days after she disappeared, and they tried to get more info. But he claimed Judy had just left the area he was in, and when the family searched for her, they came up empty handed. So the questions of where exactly Judy went and who she could have bumped into in the hours after her husband last saw her were questions that law enforcement couldn't get firm answers on. What I can tell you is that it seems she made it onto the tour bus after parting ways with Jeff Because a doubletree worker told police that Judy had asked them for directions on where to get to the bus. And a driver for the bus company said he remembered picking her up on the afternoon of the 10th and then dropping her back off near her Hotel around 3pm but here's where things get kind of strange. A few days into the investigation, another reported sighting of her surfaced that felt, I guess you could say, more substantial or plausible than the rest. A woman who'd gone to a department store in Deptford, New Jersey, which was some 13 miles southeast of Philly, said she'd spotted a woman matching Judy's description in the women's dress section. And for a minute, this lead looked promising, because Jeff and Judy had actually made plans to visit with some friends in New Jersey after they wrapped up their time in Philly. And there was a New Jersey transit bus route that ran every hour to and from Philly and made pickups near the Double Tree hotel. So it wasn't that much of a stretch to suspect that maybe Judy had boarded that bus either by accident or on purpose and made her way to New Jersey alone. On top of that, authorities in New Jersey ended up learning that a woman's wallet, which reportedly belonged to a Judith Smith, had been found in their jurisdiction. However, it later turned out that wallet belonged to another Judy Smith who'd been a victim of a purse theft, and it was unrelated to our Judy's case. Still, the theory that the 50 year old could have gone to New Jersey early without her husband seemed plausible, because, you see, as investigators continued to probe into the case, they began learning a lot more about Jeff and Judy's relationship and some unusual circumstances that had emerged at the very beginning of their getaway to Philadelphia. From the start of Jeff and Judy's trip, there had been unforeseen circumstances which required them to pivot slightly. For example, when they'd arrived at Boston Logan International airport on Wednesday, April 9, ahead of their 3:30pm flight to Philly, Judy realized she'd forgotten to bring her driver's license and without a valid form of id, the airline wouldn't let her board. According to what Jeff later told Unsolved Mysteries, she told him to just go on without her and she'd run home, get her license, and then hop on a later flight and eventually meet him at their hotel. Now, Jeff didn't really love that plan, but he came around since he had obligations awaiting him at the conference and he really couldn't miss those. According to the available coverage on this case, the later flight Judy ended up booking departed around 7:30pm and landed about 9pm while Jeff had waited for her to arrive, he spent the rest of Thursday afternoon and evening getting settled in their hotel room. He also attended an event at the pharmaceutical conference and had dinner. By 10 o' clock that night, Judy had arrived and joined him at their hotel room and according to Jeff, she showed up with flowers and apologized to him for forgetting her ID and making them travel separately. After that, they ordered a pizza from room service, chatted for about an hour, and then went to bed. Around 9am the following morning, which would have been Thursday, April 10, they talked in their hotel room about the hotel's continental breakfast and then parted ways. He went to his conference and she left for her day of sightseeing. And it seems that each of them doing their own thing while the other was busy was routine for a trip like this. That article I've been mentioning by the Philadelphia Inquirer explained that Jeff and Judy had been to the same pharmaceutical conference a few times before, but just in different cities. So it would seem that they were used to being apart while Jeff would do whatever he had to do for work and Judy explored the city they were in. And perhaps some R and R was exactly what they needed. Because you see, according to what one of Judy's good friends told Unsolved Mysteries, things in their relationship had not been the best. At the time of her disappearance, 50 year old Judy and 52 year old Jeff had been married for five months when she disappeared. Like I mentioned earlier, she worked as a home health nurse, but he'd established a career as a lawyer at a firm in Boston. When I first read that detail, I initially was like, wait, why was Jeff a lawyer attending and moderating a panel at a pharmaceutical conference? Well, according to reporting by the Philadelphia Enquirer, his legal specialty was healthcare law, which appears to be why he was asked to moderate a panel at that specific event. Anyway, according to one friend who spoke with Unsolved Mysteries leading up to April 10, 1997, the couple's marriage had been a bit up and down. This friend described their relationship as tenuous and said Judy had been wanting to spend more time apart from Jeff. So much so, her friend suspected that Judy forgetting her driver's license at the airport in Boston had been on purpose and was likely her way of deliberately trying to put distance between herself and Jeff. And for context, Judy had been married and divorced two times before meeting Jeff. She'd come into their marriage with an adult son and daughter who she'd mostly raised on her own. Jeff was also a divorcee with an adult daughter. After he and Judy met, they dated for about a decade before tying the knot in early November 1996. According to Michael Sokolove's reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Jeff had a much more affluent upbringing than Judy. He'd had a private education growing up, graduated from Harvard Law School, and his father was a well known criminal defense lawyer in New England. Conversely, Judy had grown up in the Cape Cod area and was the daughter of restaurant owners. As an adult, she'd struggled financially and eventually became estranged from her siblings. Before her and Jeff had gotten married, Jeff had asked her to sign a prenuptial agreement, which she wasn't on board with. But then, according to one of her friends who spoke with the Philadelphia Inquirer, she did end up signing the document, albeit begrudgingly. Overall, the impression the couple's friends had of their relationship was that Judy loved Jeff and he loved her. But being married was hard for Judy because she'd been so fiercely independent as a single mom for so many years. There were reportedly aspects of their life together, most notably the demands and erratic hours of Jeff's law practice, that Judy wasn't that interested in. And it became clear, at least to the people around them, that the pair had different preferences on how to live, how to spend their time, and what their roles were at home. Judy's daughter Amy told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the circumstances of her mom's disappearance were difficult to make sense of, but she didn't think Jeff had anything to do with it. She later told Unsolved Mysteries a thought that crossed her mind that she believed might explain some of the mystery was that maybe her mom had suffered some type of amnesia or had forgotten who she was. Amy expressed that such a scenario wasn't necessarily very comforting to think about, but it was at least one possible explanation. But there were folks who knew Judy well who didn't buy into that theory. Unsolved Mysteries reported that a few of her close friends suspected the 50 year old had pre planned and orchestrated her own disappearance. According to coverage by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Judy did keep some money from her nursing job separate from her finances with Jeff. One of her friends said that she knew Judy put aside funds in a stash at home. But how much money and for what purpose no one knew. It was later revealed that Judy was in perfectly good health when she vanished. And Jeff told the Philadelphia Enquirer that she'd had a checkup just two weeks before her trip to the conference and her doctor had told her there were no issues. So that doesn't seem to support a theory that she'd got disoriented or experienced some medical incident which caused her to forget who she was or where she was. Regarding the suggestion that Judy left on purpose, Jeff told Unsolved Mysteries that he didn't think that his wife was unhappy in their marriage. He admitted that they'd have disagreements from time to time, but overall he believed things were fine. Judy's daughter Amy said that she believed her mom really did love Jeff and she didn't think she'd just up and leave him without warning. Amy surmised that it had to be something else going on, like she had already said amnesia, or maybe someone who'd crossed Judy's path that caused her to disappear. But that suggestion, which implied Judy had fallen prey to a bad actor or been forcibly abducted, also didn't seem to make sense. You see, Judy was described as a responsible person who had a lot of experience traveling. Her friends described her as outspoken, forceful and assertive almost to a fault. They didn't see a scenario in which if she'd been abducted, she would have gone quietly. They said she would have fought tooth and nail to escape or draw attention to herself. Beneath her strong willed personality, though, Judy was also very loving and caring towards others. Her job as a nurse required her to tend to patients who were bedridden or unable to leave their homes. In fact, according to some of the coverage I read, she and Jeff met when she was tasked with caring for his ailing father. And it seems through that process, they got to know one another and eventually hit it off anyway. More than a week after the pharmaceutical conference ended, Jeff, along with Judy's children, had to make what I imagine Was a really tough call. They left Philadelphia and returned to their respective homes in Massachusetts. According to that episode of Unsolved mysteries I've referenced a few times, Jeff tried to do as much as he could on his own to keep attention on his wife's case. He printed, mailed, and faxed some 9,000 of Judy's missing persons posters to cities as far south as Florida and as far north as Maine. He paid three different private investigators, Including a fairly famous one from Philly, to look into the case. And he significantly cut his hours at his law practice to focus on finding his wife. Now, even though Jeff was promised that from the beginning, law enforcement had put Judy's case information into the national crime information center database, also known by the acronym ncic, that wasn't the case. It had actually taken a little over a month before that was done, which seemed like a huge oversight in Jeff's opinion, Because ncic was the hub by which other law enforcement agencies in the country could cross reference case information. Jeff told the press that Philadelphia police's failure to upload Judy's information into ncic right away meant that several weeks had gone by without other agencies knowing to be on the lookout for her. His big concern was if his wife had been found somewhere in a state of confusion outside of Philly in the first month or so of the investigation, no one would have made the connection because she wasn't listed. At the three month mark, the case remained at a standstill, and Jeff, understandably, was growing increasingly frustrated with the police's investigation. He wanted the FBI to get involved, But Philly PD declined to ask the feds for assistance because, according to them, there was no evidence that a crime had occurred. By that point, authorities had ruled out a lot of tips and reported sightings of Judy, but one detective told the associated press that the department still wanted to re interview witnesses from the Smiths hotel as well as Independence hall. They wanted to figure out if they could learn anything new. At the time Judy vanished, she didn't have her passport with her, so investigators didn't think she'd traveled outside of the country. Jeff told the Associated press that he and Judy's kids remained hopeful someone would come forward with information that would provide more pieces to the puzzle. He expressed, quote, the only thing that makes logical sense Is that she suffered some kind of trauma and became disoriented. My hope is to publicize this nationally so that someone who may have seen her can help us find her. Her daughter and her son and I are very worried about her, and we Just want to be reunited with her, end quote. The more time passed, though, some people involved in the case, including law enforcement, resigned themselves to the theory that Judy had simply decided to walk away from her life and start a new one. There was just one problem with that theory. Her friends and her kids told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Judy would never just cut off communication with them. It also wasn't in Judy's nature to keep her thoughts or feelings to herself. They told the newspaper that if she'd been unhappy in her marriage to the point where she wanted to start over, she would have just come out and said that they believe she would have asked Jeff for a divorce and that would have been the end of it. She wouldn't have vanished without explanation or run off without telling her kids. Regarding this point, Judy's son remarked to the Philadelphia Inquirer, quote, for her to do this to me and my sister, it would be so unlike her. It would be like a different person. I can see her wanting to do it. Just take off, sure. But she would say, I'm leaving. Goodbye. End quote. According to the coverage I read, it appears that at least some members of law enforcement doubted whether Judy had ever come to Philly at all, with the implication being they suspected something had happened to her before she got on her rebooked 7:30pm flight from Boston to Philadelphia. Reportedly, no one who'd been on that aircraft remembered seeing her, and no one at the Doubletree other than Jeff could confirm she checked in. However, Jeff strongly rejected the suggestion that something had happened to his wife in Massachusetts. He told the Philadelphia Inquirer, quote, I'm not going to play that game. I know she was there. It's never been a concern to me. Are the police schmuck enough not to have checked the register? She signed her name at the desk, end quote. Unfortunately, though, the Doubletree didn't have a record of Judy signing in because it wasn't the hotel's policy to require someone sign in so long as they presented a valid form of id. However, evidence that did support Judy did in fact make it to Philly was the airline ticket she'd purchased for the later flight. Authorities were able to confirm that ticket had been used, which at least proved she'd boarded the plane and flown on April 9th. The Philadelphia Enquirer also interviewed a desk clerk at the Doubletree who confirmed she'd given Judy a room key the night of the 9th. However, that clerk's memory of Judy wasn't nearly as strong as her recollection of Jeff. You See, the clerk told the magazine that because Jeff was such a large man, he stood out more in her memory than Judy did. Jeff was described in the source material as obese, and because of that, he had mobility issues. So any suggestion that implied he'd physically done something to Judy to make her disappear was difficult for folks, including some investigators, to imagine. Even Judy's son told the Philadelphia Inquirer, it seemed unthinkable that Jeff was responsible for his mother's disappearance. He expressed to the publication, quote, I want the police to ask questions, any questions they can think of. That means they're still investigating, and I don't want them to stop. But they're wrong if they think Jeff did anything to my mother. He wouldn't. Not in a million years. End quote. Jeff told producers for Unsolved Mysteries that he loved Judy a lot, and his mother, Frances Smith, echoed a similar admiration for Judy. Frances, who paid for the couple's wedding less than six months earlier, told the Philadelphia Inquirer, quote, quote, the wedding was beautiful. Everyone was so happy. Afterwards, she said to me, now we have a family. I'm crazy about her. Everyone is. And I'll do anything to find her. I promised Jeff I would, you know? End quote. According to an article by Julie Ball for the Asheville Citizen Times and a blog about this case titled Lost and Found, when investigators eventually asked Jeff to take a polygraph, he declined, but not because he was intentionally being uncooperative, but because he wanted something in return. Like I mentioned earlier, Jeff's big ask for a long time was for the FBI to assist in the case. So when Philly detectives asked him to take a polygraph, he told them he would do so, but only if the FBI administered it. And when he passed, detectives would promise to formally ask the feds to help in the investigation. Philly PD didn't want to do that, though. And so they interpreted Jeff trying to broker this deal to get the FBI involved as essentially him refusing to take a polygraph, which, in my opinion, given that context, doesn't screen that Jeff was acting suspicious or had anything to hide. He was just doing what I imagine any experienced lawyer would do. He was negotiating to achieve the outcome he wanted and wasn't going to waste leverage that he felt he had. But let's just say, for the sake of argument, even if Jeff was lying, it seemed impossible that he could have personally harmed his wife because he had a rock solid alibi for the time frame Judy disappeared. He was at the pharmaceutical conference with literally handfuls of witnesses who could vouch for his whereabouts. But for some reason, the longer the case dragged on, it appears investigators remained stuck on this Judy was never in the city theory. It appeared as if they strongly suspected Jeff's whole version of events was fabricated. For example, investigators claim that when they searched the Smiths hotel room after Judy was reported missing, it didn't appear as if a woman had been staying there, which, like, I don't even know what to make of that statement because according to a female detective who spoke with the Philadelphia Inquirer, officers did locate a bag of pink curlers on the sink in the bathroom, as well as some women's clothing hanging in the closet and in the chest of drawers. However, law enforcement didn't find any cosmetics in the room like makeup or hairbrushes, which, to that one female detective, seemed odd. But then after she spoke with Judi's kids, she learned Judi just wasn't the kind of person who would pack that kind of stuff for a trip. Still, though, the lead detective for the police department's special investigations unit remained skeptical about Judi ever physically being in Philadelph. He told the Philadelphia Inquirer, quote, there are so many strange coincidences, you don't know what to think. She didn't get on the plane with him. They meet in the lobby, they go to breakfast separately, and she doesn't have much female stuff in the hotel room, end quote. One detail that was puzzling, though, was the clothing Judy was believed to have traveled in on April 9. When she reportedly left Boston and landed in Philadelphia, Authorities had been unable to locate the outfit she'd been wearing that day. Her son and daughter told investigators it was possible their mom had just reworn what she'd worn on the 9th. But it struck investigators as unusual because they'd found additional clothing in the hotel room. They wondered why Judy hadn't worn a fresh outfit for her day out sightseeing and instead opted to wear the same clothing she'd had on while traveling. But in September, nearly five months to the day after Judy vanished, the case took a hard turn when a disturbing discovery hundreds of miles away in North Carolina and an unexpected call from a local doctor there made law enforcement reassess their suspicions about Jeff and what was really going on.
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According to the available source material in this case, on September 7th, a father and son who were hiking in a section of the Pisgah National Forest near the city of Asheville, North Carolina, came across several bones that had been scattered across a 100 yard or so stretch of woods. The hikers also found a blanket, what appeared to be a rib cage, a blue and black backpack and a T shirt lying in a hole where the roots of a downed tree had once been. Essentially a shallow grave from the looks of it, it appeared as if animals had unearthed the bones, and that's why they were strewn across such a large span of the woods. Alarmed by the discovery, the duo reported what they'd found to the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office, and after that the skeletonized remains were transported to a medical examiner's office for further analysis. A lieutenant with the Sheriff's office told Unsolved Mysteries that when the pathologist examined the bones, they determined they belonged to a woman who was in her late 40s or early 50s and who'd likely had issues with her left knee while alive. They also concluded the unknown woman had been a victim of foul play because there were puncture wounds and cuts on a bra that had been found with her remains which indicated she'd likely been stabbed to death. There was also evidence found at the scene which suggested she may have been dragged to her shallow grave. But the biggest clue that indicated her death hadn't been natural was was that she and some of her belongings had been buried intentionally, and authorities knew that wasn't something she'd likely done to herself. However, for the next 3ish weeks or so, officials in Buncombe county didn't know who their Jane Doe was. But thanks to a local doctor who'd read news coverage about the skeleton's discovery and who'd also seen a missing Persons flyer for Judy Smith that her family had distributed. The pieces began to come together rather quickly. In late September, the doctor got in touch with the medical examiner in Asheville, who then got on the phone with the authorities. Judy's dental records were subsequently requested and compared to the skull of the victim from the wooded area. And not long after that, officials confirmed the dead woman was in fact, her. What no one could figure out, though, was how she'd gotten so far from where she disappeared and most importantly, who who'd murdered her. To try and get some answers, detectives canvassed restaurants and hotels near where she'd been found to see if anyone locally remembered interacting with her. And lucky for investigators, several witnesses had remembered seeing a woman resembling her in Asheville. And those sightings occurred on April 12th and 13th, which would have been right after she vanished from Philadelphia. According to an article by Julie Ball, there were sightings of Judy at a motel in the Biltmore Village area and at a doctor's office where she reportedly tried apply for a job. A store clerk in the area also remembered seeing her and said that she'd been pleasant to speak with. At the time of this interaction. The clerk said Judy seemed like everything was all right. The store clerk specifically recalled Judy telling her that she was from Boston and that her husband was a lawyer. She explained that the two of them had been together at a convention in Pennsylvania before she decided to travel to North Carolina. Other people who claimed to have seen Judy said that she'd been alone and driving some type of car. What's odd, though, is that when authorities checked the guest registries at the motels in the region, they didn't see Judi's name listed as having stayed at any of those establishments, which suggested she'd possibly been using a different name or alias. What's really interesting to me, though, is that the pathologist who examined Judy's remains estimated she'd likely been dead since April, which meant she'd ended up in North Carolina very quickly after going missing from Pennsylvania. To learn more, investigators dove into Judy's past work history, which revealed she might have formerly cared for a patient who had ties to North Carolina. And at least once before she disappeared, she'd traveled to the state with Jeff. But other than those visits, it didn't appear she had a documented connection to North Carolina at the time she vanished. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, though, that Jeff had a fondness for the state and had even applied to two teaching positions at colleges that there. But it seemed like kind of a stretch. At least to authorities that that was what had caused Judy to go there. According to coverage by the Philadelphia Daily News, investigators suspected she may have voluntarily made her way to North Carolina to go camping. But why? That was the big question. Some reasons police assumed Judy had traveled intentionally were one, it wouldn't have been out of character for her to be comfortable camping or in the outdoors. For example, she'd taken a solo trip to Thailand, and when her kids were young adults, she'd joined them on a backpacking trip in Italy, France and Spain. And two, when her skeletonized remains were found, she'd been wearing a T shirt, long underwear, jeans and hiking boots, all typical clothing you'd dress yourself in if you were planning to spend time outside. Authorities also found a sweater or jacket buried not far from her body. And like I mentioned earlier, there was that blue and black backpack that was found not far from her remains, as well as a number of other items that again seemed to indicate Judy had been camping. For example, authorities had found a paperback medical murder mystery novel and some sources even reporting that there was a flashlight around as well. Now, depending on which pieces of source material you read, Judy's ID was nowhere to be found. But there was at least $80 in cash in either the pants she was wearing or in her shirt. And there was also between $70 and $90 in cash in her winter code, which again appeared to have been buried. I read some conflicting news coverage about whether Judy's silver wedding band and a pear shaped diamond engagement ring were with her when she was found. Some sources say the jewelry was at the scene, while others say the rings weren't there. But if the jewelry was gone, that suggests robbery was a possible motive in her death. If the valuables weren't taken, then that indicated the killer or killers probably weren't motivated by robbery. However, according to what a lieutenant with the sheriff's office later told Unsolved Mysteries in a follow up article on the one year anniversary of Judy's disappearance, Robbery was eventually ruled out as a motive because investigators returned to the crime scene and did eventually find her jewelry. It was worth around $5,000, which when you also consider the fact that cold hard cash was found with her body, it's pretty clear whoever killed her didn't rob her. Regarding the strangeness of the whole situation, A man who lived across the street from where Judy was found told reporter Julie Ball, quote, so many things don't add up. She had money on her, so it wasn't a robbery. What did happen to her? End quote. That same resident told The Philadelphia Daily News that the area where Judy was found wouldn't have been the type of place someone would just stumble across. He said Judy, or perhaps someone who was with her would have had to have known where it was for her to end up there. One of Judy's friends told Unsolved Mysteries that just given her nature, Judy might have befriended someone while on her own whom she thought she could trust. And it was that aspect of her personality that her friend suspected could have made her vulnerable to someone with more sinister intentions. In terms of what Judy's kids were thinking about. All this her daughter told Unsolved Mysteries that in her opinion, nothing made sense. When the news of Judy's death made it to other loved ones, her husband Jeff was, as you'd imagine, devastated. A woman who was a family friend who'd stepped in to speak on his behalf told the Asheville Citizen Times, quote, I think Jeffrey's been living in two emotions, fear and hope or sadness and hope and hope just got taken away, end quote. Once the investigation shifted from a missing persons case to a murder case, a U.S. forest Service officer and several detectives from Buncombe county traveled to Massachusetts to speak with Judy's loved ones and attempt to learn more about her life. They also wanted Jeff and the kids to look at some of the items that had been found with her remains to determine if they were hers or not. Investigators also went to Philadelphia in the Doubletree Hotel to try and retrace Judy's last known movements. While detectives were in Massachusetts, they interviewed Jeff for about five hours, and at the end of that conversation, he agreed to take a polygraph. But the deal was FBI agents in the Boston area would have to be the ones to administer it. What the results of Jeff's polygraph were aren't clear from the available source material, but what I can tell you is that it seems Jeff was eventually ruled out as a suspect in his wife's murder. In April 1998, on the one year anniversary of Judy's disappearance, he told reporter Julie Ball, quote, we had planned the rest of our lives together. I just put every effort and resource I had into searching for her. I believed I was going to find her, but I believed I was going to find her alive. He later continued, I don't expect to ever find out who may have hurt her in Philadelphia, but I hope to find out who devastated our lives in North Carolina. End quote. Now, at that time, the state medical examiner's office in North Carolina had been unable to issue an official cause of death for Judy. They'd sent items collected from the crime scene to the FBI's lab for further analysis. But the results were still pending, and the central questions law enforcement had always been unable to answer still loomed large. Why and how did Judy get so far from where she'd been reported missing? Jeff's theory, as he explained it to the Asheville Citizen Times, was that he suspected someone had assaulted Judy in Philadelphia, perhaps while attempting to rob her. Then, because of an injury sustained in that incident, she'd become disoriented or forgotten who she was. Then, for unknown reasons, she ended up in North Carolina. In May 1998, authorities announced a $7,000 reward for information, and it was bumped up again to nearly $20,000, thanks mostly to Jeff. But to this day, that money has gone unclaimed. And really, after the early 2000s, news coverage about this case significantly died down. Eventually, Judy's remains were cremated and her ashes were returned to her family in Massachusetts. In 2005, her husband, Jeff passed away, never knowing what really happened to his wife or learning the identity of who took her life. Something I kept seeing repeated again and again in the coverage about this case, was that the theories on what could have happened to Judy have run the gamut. Was it abduction? Was it a wife attempting to escape her life and just ran into a bad person? No one knows. Interestingly, though, a lieutenant with the sheriff's office told Unsolved Mysteries that he's convinced the blue and black backpack that was found with Judy's remains did not belong to her. He told the program that it might have been the killers reason being inside of it. Authorities discovered an expensive pair of Bolle brand sunglasses that usually sold for a little more than $100. And people who knew Judy said she would never have spent such a large amount of money on something like sunglasses. So it makes one wonder, who did the book, bag and glasses belong to? Why were they in the backpack that was buried alongside so much of Judy's other stuff? What does it all mean? And my answer to those questions is the same. I don't know, and I'm not sure we'll ever know. I didn't see anywhere in the source material that authorities were ever able to definitively conclude what Judy's cause of death was. They know it was homicide, and the coroner did note the tears in her clothing as indications of a possible stabbing. But on paper, they don't know what actually killed her. Now, prior to marrying Jeff and becoming Judy Smith, Judy also went by the surnames Eldridge and Bradford. So there's a part of me that wonders if maybe anyone who might have come across her after she disappeared heard her going by those surnames. And if they did, that might be why, if she was alive for any significant amount of time before her remains were found, no one called the police because they wouldn't have put two and two together that she was the missing Judy Smith that law enforcement in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania were looking for. If Judy was alive shortly after she disappeared and was using one of her former surnames or another name in the summer of 1997, why would she have done that? Could that tie into whatever circumstances led to her murder? It's hard to know. But if you have any information that you think might be useful or helpful to investigators about the murder of Judy Smith, contact the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office or Philadelphia Police Department. Links to those resources are listed in the show notes and blog post for this episode. Park Predators is an Audio Chuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website parkpredators.com and you can also follow parkpredators on Instagram arcpredators. I think Chuck would approve
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