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Deacon of Death: Sam Smithers, the Serial Killer Next Door
Deacon of Death: Sam Smithers, the Serial Killer Next Door
Deacon of Death: Sam Smithers, the Serial Killer Next Door
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Deacon of Death: Sam Smithers, the Serial Killer Next Door

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Baptist deacon, family man, pillar of his Florida community . . . and serial killer of prostitutes: chilling true crime from the author of Lobster Boy.
 
By day, Sam Smithers was the deacon of his Baptist church in Plant City, Florida, a respected neighbor to many, and a devoted husband and father. But after the sun set, he became something else: a violent attacker—and killer—of prostitutes.
 
Smithers’s twisted double life came to light when a local woman who had hired him to take care of her property found him in her garage, cleaning an ax—and then discovered a puddle of blood. Through exclusive interviews with Smithers’s wife, who described her spouse as nothing but a doting husband and father, author Fred Rosen learned why this man of God, raised in an intensely religious Tennessee home, was the last person anyone would suspect of committing these savage crimes. Rosen reveals the details behind the deaths of Christy Cowan and Denise Roach after Smithers picked them up in Tampa—and the fate of a man who seemed holier than thou, but was actually guilty as sin.
 
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 1, 2015
ISBN9781504022651
Deacon of Death: Sam Smithers, the Serial Killer Next Door
Author

Fred Rosen

Fred Rosen's book The Historical Atlas of American Crime, published by Facts On File, won the 2005 Library Journal Best Reference Source Award. Mr. Rosen is the author of many true crime books, including Lobster Boy, Did They Really Do It?, There But For the Grace of God, and When Satan Wore A Cross.

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    Deacon of Death - Fred Rosen

    Prologue

    November 1, 1993

    I drove right by the body and didn’t know it was there.

    Before I’d left the Stiles’s trailer, Tyrill, mindful of the rash of vehicular robberies and murders in Florida, had advised, Watch yourself. If someone bumps you, you keep going.

    So I was watching myself—mindful of any suspicious-looking cars on the road that might bump me—and concentrating on keeping alive. And that is why I happened to miss seeing the girl who had been dumped by the side of the road.

    I wasn’t the only one who kept on going, whether out of fear or just a mistaken assumption that the crumpled remains of what had once been a human being was instead a discarded sack of clothes. It took awhile for someone to stop and investigate, because unusual things were the norm in Gibsonton, Florida.

    Gibsonton was carny town USA, the place where the men and women who played carnivals and circuses during the summer came to winter, not just the normal ones who worked the Philly cheese steak concessions, the ball tosses, and the rides, but the freaks that made the carnival a unique art form.

    Gibsonton could pass for freak-town USA. The post office had mailboxes at knee level for midgets and dwarfs. That kid walking on his flippers down the street was Grady Stiles III, whose father was the most famous freak of all, Lobster Boy. Unfortunately, for Lobster Boy his wife had arranged his murder and he was now six feet under. But his old buddy Midget Man, who married his wife, was still around. I’d just interviewed him in the trailer he shared with Grady III, Grady’s sister Cathy, and Tyrill, Cathy’s husband.

    Maybe that night the Fat Man, the Bearded Lady, and the World’s Only Living Half Lady passed by the girl on the side of the road and, like me, didn’t see her, or maybe they just kept going. It wasn’t until 10:40 P.M. that the headlights of the car driven by Michelle Akers picked out the girl’s body by the side of the road. Akers stopped and looked down at the girl, who appeared to be dead. Quickly, she looked around. There were no other persons or vehicles near the body. She sped toward her house and called the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

    By that time, I was back in my hotel, hard at work on the book Lobster Boy. As for the cops, their work had just begun.

    PART ONE

    The Husband

    One

    When Detective Larry Lingo got to the scene, he saw a car in the road flashing its high beams on and off. He pulled his 1985 Ford LTD alongside it.

    It’s over there, said Michelle Akers, pointing.

    Lingo pulled off to the shoulder and before he’d even parked, he popped the trunk. With a grace that belied his tall, heavily muscled frame, Larry Lingo eased himself out of the car. His white hair and mustache made him look a little older than his fifty-two years.

    Reaching into the trunk, he came out with a carton of plastic gloves. He put one set on, then reached back in and came up with a flashlight. Slowly, with the beam extended out before him, he approached the body.

    Under the pale yellow light, her skin was a dead white except for the blood, dark brown, dried and crusted on her face. She lay on her back, her head pointing east, her arms stiff and up in the air as if in prayer. She wore a blue jacket, pink shirt, and white shorts with a black belt, blue socks, and white shoes.

    Lingo worked the crime scene like his boss Corporal Pops Baker had taught him. He had forensics photograph and document the scene. He looked for foot or tire prints near the body—found none—and did a cursory examination of the victim.

    She was maybe midtwenties to thirty, and it looked like she’d been beaten up. Noting a lack of evidence of struggle at the scene, Lingo surmised that she had been killed someplace else and dumped there. He looked around.

    There was a lake 200 yards distant; its water calm, dead silent. There were trailers nearby, where some of the carnies lived. Nothing but brush where she had been dumped. It was a lonely place to end a life.

    Soon, the girl was bagged and taken downtown to the morgue.

    November 2, 1993

    At 9:45 A.M., Lingo, wearing his normal work clothes—a JC Penney sport jacket, shirt, and tie, as opposed to the more formal suits he wore on court days—arrived to watch the autopsy. At the morgue, Dr. Robert Pfalzgraf had the body stripped and each item of clothing placed in plastic bags for further analysis. If they got lucky, maybe a few microscopic strands of the killer’s hair had found its way onto the clothing, which they could later match up. Or maybe something else of value would show up.

    Once naked, the body was photographed from all angles. A rape kit was prepared, standard procedure in female body dump cases, with swabs from the woman’s vagina, pubic hair combings, and fingernail scrapings sent to the police lab for analysis.

    Pfalzgraf’s physical examination disclosed that the victim, while having been beaten around the head, which accounted for the dried blood on her face, had noticeable ligature marks around her neck, about a half inch in width. In layman’s parlance, she had been strangled to death.

    Using the classic autopsy Y incision, Pfalzgraf explored the body cavity and found no abnormalities of the victim’s organs. With nothing else to the contrary, Pfalzgraf concluded someone, probably a man, had been strong enough to wrap something around her throat, possibly a belt, and. squeeze hard enough to break her windpipe, depriving her brain of oxygen and causing her death.

    Lingo had a police technician take her prints for identification. The prints were run through various law enforcement databases. They came up with nothing.

    It was the kind of case every cop hates: no name to the victim and no suspects. Twelve hours after discovery of the body, the case had made the news. When Lingo got back to his office, Pops Baker told him that Susan Colwell had called. She’d seen the report on television and feared the victim was Roslin Kruse, her niece.

    Immediately Lingo obtained a copy of Kruse’s driver’s license from the Florida DMV. Looking at Kruse’s picture on her driver’s license, Lingo thought it was the same person, but couldn’t be sure. Meanwhile, Pops Baker called Colwell back.

    Tillie Campbell, who’s another aunt, she’ll be calling you to help with the identification, said Colwell. But Baker didn’t wait and called Tillie Campbell. She came down to homicide headquarters immediately. Lingo and Baker interviewed her briefly, then removed a Polaroid of Kruse that a police photographer had taken after her death.

    Is that your niece, Roslin Kruse?

    Campbell looked at it briefly.

    Yes, that’s Roslin, she said stonily.

    But she needed to make sure. They all drove down to the morgue, where Campbell viewed Roslin’s body and made a positive ID.

    It turned out that the twenty-three-year-old Kruse lived off Hillsborough Avenue, in an area of Tampa loaded with hookers. Canvassing the area, Lingo came up with hookers who knew the girl. One in particular, Vivian Dumars, who claimed to have been off the street for a year, had been her friend.

    I first saw Lynn a year ago in the parking lot over there, said Dumars, pointing across the street at the Kash and Karry convenience store parking lot located on Fiftieth Street. Lynn would pick up dates in the parking lot, leave to do a trick, and come back to the lot afterward.

    Did she use drugs? Lingo inquired.

    Crack. She was on crack, and she worked four to five days straight to pay for the stuff. But, Lynn was not street-smart. And was always [getting] beat money by her dates and in the holes where she would buy her drugs, and by the other girls.

    Do you know where she was from?

    The Brandon area.

    That was down by the water.

    Where’d she take her dates?

    Down by the Eastbay Raceway. Real secluded down there.

    What about Gibsonton?

    Oh, yeah. She went down there a lot when the ‘heat’ [police] were in the area.

    What was she like? Lingo asked. Did she argue?

    Dumars shook her head.

    Lynn was very quiet and wouldn’t rip anyone off.

    But someone got mad enough to kill her, Lingo thought.

    Lynn would do a trick, come back and get drugs off some black guys on Forty-eighth Street, then go pick up another john.

    What wouldn’t she do? Was there any type of guy she would refuse? Lingo asked.

    That was important. Maybe she refused a guy who got angry. Or maybe a john asked her to do something, she said no, and he killed her.

    Lynn would go with any man as long as he had money.

    How about sex? Was there any type she would refuse to do?

    That could narrow it down, too, if she refused a guy who wanted oral sex, for example.

    Dumars shook her head.

    No. As long as the guy had the cash.

    Ever complain of a john mistreating her?

    No.

    When was the last time you saw her?

    Monday.

    That would have been November 1, the day she disappeared and turned up dead.

    It was after dark, at Starvin Marvin’s over at Fiftieth Street and Columbus.

    Dumars paused, looked down, and looked up again.

    See, when I heard about a body being found on Tuesday morning, I started to call, but I … couldn’t.

    She was worried it might be Roslin. Unfortunately, it was. A theory of the crime began to form in Lingo’s mind.

    Lingo surmised that Kruse might have been picked up in the Kash and Karry parking lot. Knowing that there were some undercover cops from vice working the streets—every hooker on the avenue would have been wary of them—she would have gone with the john to have sex in Gibsonton. Then, after a money dispute, the john killed her and dumped her.

    It could also have been more matter-of-fact, with the killing taking place in a john’s apartment. Under cover of darkness, the killer could have transported the body out to Gibsonton.

    Hell, she could have been going down on a guy in a parking lot around the corner. He didn’t like the way she gave head, strangled her, took her out to Gibsonton, and dumped her.

    No way to know for sure till they caught the guy.

    November 3, 1993

    The first break in the case came the next day when the undercover cop called.

    Sam DelGaudio had seen the news reports of Kruse’s homicide and thought the description of the victim sounded familiar. After checking with his partner Frank Delamater, DelGaudio realized they knew her.

    It seemed that on the day of the murder, in the early afternoon, Detectives DelGaudio and Delamater, of the vice squad, were conducting an undercover investigation of downtown Tampa’s prostitution. They saw a white hooker pick up a john and then go with him to his apartment. They followed.

    They set up surveillance at the john’s apartment for ten minutes. Lacking probable cause, they opted not to knock and see what was going on behind closed doors. The cops split, leaving the two inside to their own devices.

    A few hours later, the girl was dead.

    What was the apartment number? Lingo asked.

    Number 18.

    Lingo drove out to the apartment house. He contacted the manager of the complex and found out that the residents of number 18 were Pat and Linda Ryan.

    Under the blazing hot Tampa sun, Lingo walked up the stairs to the apartment and out onto the catwalk. He reached under his coat and felt briefly for the reassuring butt of his revolver, eased it up and down in the holster a few times to make sure there were no snags if he needed it, then took his hand out and knocked at the door.

    Pat Ryan was five feet ten and stocky.

    Flashing the tin, Lingo told Ryan why he was there. Pat Ryan let him in and told the following story:

    On Monday, November 1, he left his house at about 8 A.M. He took his wife to work and then dropped his kids at their school. He got back to his house around 8:30, and at 11 A.M., he met his wife for lunch. After that, he went home again and stayed there until he picked her up at four o’clock in the afternoon.

    Lingo knew he was lying. The two under-covers had seen him come into his house with Kruse early Monday afternoon.

    Why don’t we continue talking downtown, Lingo said. There are a few inconsistencies in your story we need to clarify.

    The average citizen doesn’t know it, but when a cop invites you downtown for questioning, it really is an invitation. Unless a cop has a warrant for your arrest, you can tell him to go to hell. But Ryan readily agreed.

    When they got there, Lingo placed him in a green interrogation room. Ryan, was smiling and cooperative.

    Okay, look, you were followed to your house on Monday by two undercover cops, Lingo advised.

    Ryan’s face drained of color.

    They saw you with the girl, so tell us what you know. Now, before things get worse.

    Immediately Ryan cracked.

    Okay, I did pick up a hooker on Fiftieth Street.

    Where on Fiftieth?

    South of Martin Luther King Boulevard.

    That confirmed the two vice detectives’ observations. So far, the suspect—and that’s exactly what Ryan now was, a suspect in a homicide—was telling the truth.

    I pick hookers up about two times a month.

    Your wife know?

    He shook his head.

    Go on.

    Well, I picked up this woman—

    Roslin Kruse.

    … at about one o’clock on Monday. I took her directly to my apartment. She kept demanding that I take her out to Hillsborough Avenue to buy her some crack.

    What did you tell her?

    I told her no, that I wanted to go home first, and then I’d take her back to Hillsborough.

    What happened then?

    When we got to my apartment, we went inside. She gave me head and I paid her twenty-five bucks. Then I took her back out to my car and rode back with her to Hillsborough Avenue, where I pulled off to the right and stopped. She got out and I made a U-turn and went back to my apartment.

    What time was that, when you dropped her off?

    About three o’clock.

    See her after that?

    No. Never saw her again.

    As for the rest of the night, he claimed he was home with his wife.

    Though his story was suspicious, Lingo had to let him go. The cop went back out to Hillsborough to see if any of the hookers knew the dead woman.

    I last saw Roslin on Saturday, said Luann Potash, another hooker friend of Kruse’s that Lingo managed to locate. She stayed with me from time to time. See, Lynn was very timid and was easily intimidated by the other ladies working the street.

    What about before she died? Where was she staying?

    Potash told him that at one time, she’d had a roommate named Christy Cowan.

    Cowan was a thin white girl who also worked the avenue and had a crack problem. But they had been roommates awhile back. Now, Lynn had a guy she was staying with. She directed Lingo to the residence, just a few blocks away.

    Lynn was staying over there, she said, pointing at a house. With a guy named Sammy.

    Potash got out and walked back to her post, while Lingo went over to check out the residence. It was just a dilapidated cottage. The name on the door was Samuel Thompkins.

    Lingo looked at his watch. It was 5:45 P.M. He knocked on the door. It was answered immediately by an average-looking guy dressed as a mechanic. Lingo flashed the tin and explained he was there to ask some questions about Roslin Kruse. Thompkins’s face took on a grim expression.

    I was wondering when you’d show up, he said, and ushered the detective into his home. The flat looked like the kind of place where a man lived alone—worn furniture, a few papers scattered around.

    According to Thompkins, in late October, Roslin Kruse had just been released from drug rehabilitation and had no place to go. Samuel Thompkins had been hanging around a downtown gas station when Roslin came in to buy a pack of cigarettes. They struck up a conversation. Roslin told him of her plight.

    Where you going to stay? he asked.

    Dunno, she replied.

    Why don’t you stay with me? It wasn’t a sex thing, he would later claim; he just felt sorry for her, that’s all.

    Roslin came to live with Thompkins. In return for meals, she cleaned up after him. Adamant that he was not a john, the only money he claimed he gave her was $20 so she could have a prescription from the rehab center filled.

    Then one day, it was October twenty-ninth, I remember, Thompkins continued, I came home for lunch at noon, which I sometimes do. Roslin wasn’t there anymore. All her clothing was stacked on a chair next to the front door. I didn’t know where she was.

    He went back to work and

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