Lemuel Smith
Encyclopedia
Lemuel Warren Smith is a convicted serial killer
and rapist from Upstate New York
who was the first convict ever to kill an on-duty female corrections officer.
in a very religious African-American household. During later insanity claims, Smith stated that when he was 11 years old, he nearly smothered a nine-year-old girl to death. This claim was not substantiated, however.
On January 21, 1958, Dorothy Waterstreet was robbed and beaten to death near Smith's neighborhood in Amsterdam, New York. Evidence pointed towards the 16-year-old Smith, but the case fell apart when the district attorney
was too hasty in trying to extract a confession
, and Smith was not arrested.
.
After nearly 10 years in custody, Smith was parole
d in May 1968 and he moved back to the Capital District
. On May 20, 1969, he kidnapped
and sexually assaulted
a woman who managed to escape. Later that same day, he kidnapped and raped a 46-year-old friend of his mother's. When the woman convinced Smith to let her go, he was arrested again and eventually sentenced to 4-15 years in a New York
prison.
made him a free man on October 5, 1976. On November 24, 1976, the day before Thanksgiving, Robert Hedderman, 48, and Hedderman's secretary, Margaret Byron, 59, were found brutally murdered in the back of Hedderman's religious store in Albany
. Human feces was found on evidence nearby, which later proved valuable. Lemuel Smith was free and employed nearby and hair and blood evidence made him a main suspect.
On December 23, 1976, while Albany police were investigating the double-murder, Joan Richburg, 24, was raped, murdered and mutilated in her car at Colonie Center mall in Colonie
. The pattern of brutality and more hair evidence made Smith the prime suspect in that murder as well, but he remained free pending investigation.
Barely two weeks later, on January 10, 1977, a large black man tried to lure a 22-year-old woman out of a gift shop in Albany. When she resisted, he took her 60-year-old grandmother hostage and threatened to kill her. When help arrived, he threw the woman down, knocking her unconscious and deliberately stepped on her hand, breaking it. Years later the grandmother saw a picture of Smith in the newspaper and identified him as having been her attacker.
With the three murder investigations stalled, on July 22, 1977, Maralie Wilson, 30, was found strangled and mutilated near train tracks in downtown Schenectady, New York. The horrendous post-mortem mutilation was worse than some veteran investigators had ever seen in the region. Smith was known to frequent the area and witnesses recalled Wilson being accosted by a large black man. Schenectady police made Smith the prime suspect in her murder.
On August 19, 1977, Marianne Maggio, 18, who worked in the same area as Maralie Wilson, was kidnapped and raped by Lemuel Smith. When he forced her to drive towards Albany afterwards, police stopped the car and arrested Smith without incident.
Around the same time, in late October 1977, Smith was transported by police to Bleecker Stadium
in Albany. He and four other men were randomly placed behind five screens at one end of the stadium. At the other end of the stadium, a police dog was given the scent of the feces-stained clothing from the Hedderman store murders eleven months prior. The dog crossed the entire stadium directly to Lemuel Smith. Out of sight of the dog, the five men were randomly rearranged and the experiment was repeated with the same result. It was successful a third time as well.
On March 5, 1978, with the bite mark match, Smith confessed to five murders in an attempt to convince prosecutors of his insanity, including the murder of Dorothy Waterstreet nearly twenty years earlier. The confession was given under the condition it be kept secret, however police were permitted to follow leads provided by the detailed confession.
. He attested to being controlled by the spirit of his deceased brother, John Jr., who had died from encephalitis
as an infant before Lemuel was born. One counselor described that other personalities besides John Jr. might exist inside Smith. They also determined that he had suffered multiple head injuries as a child and teenager, and that he had suffered further mental abuse as a result of overzealous religious convictions, especially from his father.
Originally, Smith's lawyers and doctors feared he might not be fit to stand trial. When it was determined to go ahead with the initial rape and kidnapping trials, two doctors testified to his delusions, but stopped short of saying he was criminally insane. Smith was found guilty of rape in Saratoga County
and, on March 9, 1978, he was sentenced to ten-to-twenty years in prison. On July 21, 1978, a four-day bench trial
in Schenectady ended with Smith being found guilty of kidnapping, and he was sentenced to another twenty-five years-to life. Soon after, Lemuel Smith unsuccessfully attempted suicide
.
In Albany, Smith was indicted for the Hedderman store double-murder. He was found guilty on February 2, 1979 and sentenced to another fifty years-to life.
When the bite mark evidence was presented in the Maralie Wilson murder case, Smith was indicted for her murder. He was also indicted for the murder of Joan Richburg after confessing. Since there was already no chance of him ever leaving prison, the indictments were dismissed.
. On May 15, 1981, Greenhaven Corrections Officer Donna Payant
was on duty when she received a phone call and told her co-worker she needed to take care of a problem. Her fellow officer returned to work at the end of the shift to pick Donna up, when she never came out, hundreds of corrections officers combed the entire prison grounds throughout the night and into the following morning. Trash dumpsters were emptied into a garbage truck, which two senior Correction Officers escorted to a dumpsite twenty miles away. When the garbage was spread out, officers finally found Payant's mutilated body.
It was the first time in the United States
that a female corrections officer had ever been killed inside a prison. More than five thousand officers attended Payant's funeral and New York governor Hugh Carey
officially vowed "a swift response".
The same examiner that observed bite marks on Maralie Wilson was coincidentally called to examine bite marks on Payant's body. He quickly recognized the bite marks and Lemuel Smith was charged with Payant's murder on June 6, 1981. A conviction for the charge carried a mandatory death sentence.
and C. Vernon Mason
(Mason was later a main player in the alleged Tawana Brawley
hoax). The team alleged everything from promiscuity
by Payant to guards dealing drugs inside and outside the prison, none of which proved to be true. They were unable to evade the bite mark evidence, however, and even their own expert witness agreed that the bite marks on Payant matched those on Maralie Wilson's body.
Due to mounting notoriety in the press, Smith was transferred to a different facility during the investigation phase. The capital murder trial finally began on January 20, 1983, more than eighteen months after Smith's arrest. The defense impugned testimony of inmates and other corrections officers and proposed conspiracy theories but, with no answer to the bite mark evidence, Smith was found guilty on April 21, 1983.
Considered the only deterrent for prisoners already serving life sentences, a New York law at the time mandated that Smith automatically be sentenced to death. He was sentenced on June 10, 1983. On July 2, 1984, however, an appeal
by Smith called that law's constitutionality into question and was successful in commuting
his death sentence to another term of life.
As punishment for the Payant murder, and due to the threat he posed even while in prison, Lemuel Smith spent the next twenty years of his life in near-isolation, the longest such span in the nation at the time.
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
and rapist from Upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
who was the first convict ever to kill an on-duty female corrections officer.
Trouble from the beginning
Lemuel Smith was born in Amsterdam, New YorkAmsterdam (city), New York
Amsterdam is a city located in Montgomery County, New York, USA. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 18,620. The name is derived from the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands....
in a very religious African-American household. During later insanity claims, Smith stated that when he was 11 years old, he nearly smothered a nine-year-old girl to death. This claim was not substantiated, however.
On January 21, 1958, Dorothy Waterstreet was robbed and beaten to death near Smith's neighborhood in Amsterdam, New York. Evidence pointed towards the 16-year-old Smith, but the case fell apart when the district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
was too hasty in trying to extract a confession
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
, and Smith was not arrested.
Prison time
During the following summer, while under continuing pressure from Amsterdam police, Smith relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, where he kidnapped a 25-year-old woman and beat her nearly to death. This time, a witness interrupted the crime and Smith left a living victim. He was quickly arrested, and on April 12, 1959, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for assaultAssault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
.
After nearly 10 years in custody, Smith was parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
d in May 1968 and he moved back to the Capital District
Capital District
New York's Capital District, also known as the Capital Region, is a region in upstate New York that generally refers to the four counties surrounding Albany, the capital of the state: Albany County, Schenectady County, Rensselaer County, and Saratoga County...
. On May 20, 1969, he kidnapped
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
and sexually assaulted
Sexual assault
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person, or any sexual act committed without consent. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may involve any combination of two or more men, women and children....
a woman who managed to escape. Later that same day, he kidnapped and raped a 46-year-old friend of his mother's. When the woman convinced Smith to let her go, he was arrested again and eventually sentenced to 4-15 years in a New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
prison.
Freedom and serial murder
Smith spent 17 out of 18 years in prison when a law passed by the New York LegislatureNew York Legislature
The New York State Legislature is the term often used to refer to the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York. The New York Constitution does not designate an official term for the two houses together...
made him a free man on October 5, 1976. On November 24, 1976, the day before Thanksgiving, Robert Hedderman, 48, and Hedderman's secretary, Margaret Byron, 59, were found brutally murdered in the back of Hedderman's religious store in Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
. Human feces was found on evidence nearby, which later proved valuable. Lemuel Smith was free and employed nearby and hair and blood evidence made him a main suspect.
On December 23, 1976, while Albany police were investigating the double-murder, Joan Richburg, 24, was raped, murdered and mutilated in her car at Colonie Center mall in Colonie
Colonie (town), New York
Colonie is a town in Albany County, New York, United States. It is the most populous suburb of Albany, New York, and is the third largest town in area in Albany County, occupying about 11% of the county. Several hamlets exist within the town. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population...
. The pattern of brutality and more hair evidence made Smith the prime suspect in that murder as well, but he remained free pending investigation.
Barely two weeks later, on January 10, 1977, a large black man tried to lure a 22-year-old woman out of a gift shop in Albany. When she resisted, he took her 60-year-old grandmother hostage and threatened to kill her. When help arrived, he threw the woman down, knocking her unconscious and deliberately stepped on her hand, breaking it. Years later the grandmother saw a picture of Smith in the newspaper and identified him as having been her attacker.
With the three murder investigations stalled, on July 22, 1977, Maralie Wilson, 30, was found strangled and mutilated near train tracks in downtown Schenectady, New York. The horrendous post-mortem mutilation was worse than some veteran investigators had ever seen in the region. Smith was known to frequent the area and witnesses recalled Wilson being accosted by a large black man. Schenectady police made Smith the prime suspect in her murder.
On August 19, 1977, Marianne Maggio, 18, who worked in the same area as Maralie Wilson, was kidnapped and raped by Lemuel Smith. When he forced her to drive towards Albany afterwards, police stopped the car and arrested Smith without incident.
Ingenious experiment and confessions
A short time after Smith's last days as a free man, New York State Police Lt. Don Pinto looked at photographs of Maralie Wilson noticed that a mark on her nose might be a bite mark. Wilson's body was exhumed and the bite mark was positively matched to an imprint of Lemuel Smith's bite pattern.Around the same time, in late October 1977, Smith was transported by police to Bleecker Stadium
Bleecker Stadium
Bleecker Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Albany, New York. The stadium was once a reservoir for the Albany public water system. Today it has a baseball diamond, football/soccer field, and a softball field used by area high schools, colleges, and youth and adult leagues...
in Albany. He and four other men were randomly placed behind five screens at one end of the stadium. At the other end of the stadium, a police dog was given the scent of the feces-stained clothing from the Hedderman store murders eleven months prior. The dog crossed the entire stadium directly to Lemuel Smith. Out of sight of the dog, the five men were randomly rearranged and the experiment was repeated with the same result. It was successful a third time as well.
On March 5, 1978, with the bite mark match, Smith confessed to five murders in an attempt to convince prosecutors of his insanity, including the murder of Dorothy Waterstreet nearly twenty years earlier. The confession was given under the condition it be kept secret, however police were permitted to follow leads provided by the detailed confession.
Insanity defense
Along with his confessions, Smith revealed disturbing secrets about life-long mental problems, including a claim that he suffered from multiple personality disorderDissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
. He attested to being controlled by the spirit of his deceased brother, John Jr., who had died from encephalitis
Encephalitis
Encephalitis is an acute inflammation of the brain. Encephalitis with meningitis is known as meningoencephalitis. Symptoms include headache, fever, confusion, drowsiness, and fatigue...
as an infant before Lemuel was born. One counselor described that other personalities besides John Jr. might exist inside Smith. They also determined that he had suffered multiple head injuries as a child and teenager, and that he had suffered further mental abuse as a result of overzealous religious convictions, especially from his father.
Originally, Smith's lawyers and doctors feared he might not be fit to stand trial. When it was determined to go ahead with the initial rape and kidnapping trials, two doctors testified to his delusions, but stopped short of saying he was criminally insane. Smith was found guilty of rape in Saratoga County
Saratoga County, New York
Saratoga County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 219,607. It is part of the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county seat is Ballston Spa...
and, on March 9, 1978, he was sentenced to ten-to-twenty years in prison. On July 21, 1978, a four-day bench trial
Bench trial
A bench trial is a trial held before a judge sitting without a jury. The term is chiefly used in common law jurisdictions to describe exceptions from jury trial, as most other legal systems do not use juries to any great extent....
in Schenectady ended with Smith being found guilty of kidnapping, and he was sentenced to another twenty-five years-to life. Soon after, Lemuel Smith unsuccessfully attempted suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.
In Albany, Smith was indicted for the Hedderman store double-murder. He was found guilty on February 2, 1979 and sentenced to another fifty years-to life.
When the bite mark evidence was presented in the Maralie Wilson murder case, Smith was indicted for her murder. He was also indicted for the murder of Joan Richburg after confessing. Since there was already no chance of him ever leaving prison, the indictments were dismissed.
Prison murder
In 1981, Lemuel Smith was in the maximum-security Green Haven Correctional FacilityGreen Haven Correctional Facility
Green Haven Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison in New York, United States. The prison is located in the Town of Beekman in Dutchess County. The New York State Department of Correctional Services lists the address as Route 216, Stormville, NY 12582...
. On May 15, 1981, Greenhaven Corrections Officer Donna Payant
Donna Payant
Donna Payant née Collins was a New York state corrections officer who was murdered while on duty at Green Haven Correctional Facility....
was on duty when she received a phone call and told her co-worker she needed to take care of a problem. Her fellow officer returned to work at the end of the shift to pick Donna up, when she never came out, hundreds of corrections officers combed the entire prison grounds throughout the night and into the following morning. Trash dumpsters were emptied into a garbage truck, which two senior Correction Officers escorted to a dumpsite twenty miles away. When the garbage was spread out, officers finally found Payant's mutilated body.
It was the first time in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
that a female corrections officer had ever been killed inside a prison. More than five thousand officers attended Payant's funeral and New York governor Hugh Carey
Hugh Carey
Hugh Leo Carey was an American attorney, the 51st Governor of New York from 1975 to 1982, and a seven-term United States Representative .- Early life :...
officially vowed "a swift response".
The same examiner that observed bite marks on Maralie Wilson was coincidentally called to examine bite marks on Payant's body. He quickly recognized the bite marks and Lemuel Smith was charged with Payant's murder on June 6, 1981. A conviction for the charge carried a mandatory death sentence.
Big guns on defense - to no avail
The high-profile nature of Donna Payant's murder brought high-profile lawyers William KunstlerWilliam Kunstler
William Moses Kunstler was an American self-described "radical lawyer" and civil rights activist, known for his controversial clients...
and C. Vernon Mason
C. Vernon Mason
C. Vernon Mason is an African-American lawyer from Tucker, Arkansas. Best known for his involvement in several high profile New York City cases in the 1980s, including the Bernhard Goetz, Howard Beach, and Tawana Brawley incidents, Mason has not practiced law since his 1995 disbarment. He then...
(Mason was later a main player in the alleged Tawana Brawley
Tawana Brawley
Tawana Brawley is an African-American woman from Wappinger, New York. In 1987, at the age of 15, she received national media attention in the United States for accusing six white men, some of whom were police officers, of having raped her...
hoax). The team alleged everything from promiscuity
Promiscuity
In humans, promiscuity refers to less discriminating casual sex with many sexual partners. The term carries a moral or religious judgement and is viewed in the context of the mainstream social ideal for sexual activity to take place within exclusive committed relationships...
by Payant to guards dealing drugs inside and outside the prison, none of which proved to be true. They were unable to evade the bite mark evidence, however, and even their own expert witness agreed that the bite marks on Payant matched those on Maralie Wilson's body.
Due to mounting notoriety in the press, Smith was transferred to a different facility during the investigation phase. The capital murder trial finally began on January 20, 1983, more than eighteen months after Smith's arrest. The defense impugned testimony of inmates and other corrections officers and proposed conspiracy theories but, with no answer to the bite mark evidence, Smith was found guilty on April 21, 1983.
Considered the only deterrent for prisoners already serving life sentences, a New York law at the time mandated that Smith automatically be sentenced to death. He was sentenced on June 10, 1983. On July 2, 1984, however, an appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
by Smith called that law's constitutionality into question and was successful in commuting
Commutation of sentence
Commutation of sentence involves the reduction of legal penalties, especially in terms of imprisonment. Unlike a pardon, a commutation does not nullify the conviction and is often conditional. Clemency is a similar term, meaning the lessening of the penalty of the crime without forgiving the crime...
his death sentence to another term of life.
As punishment for the Payant murder, and due to the threat he posed even while in prison, Lemuel Smith spent the next twenty years of his life in near-isolation, the longest such span in the nation at the time.
External links
- Lemuel Smith - Crimelibrary.com