Lemuel Smith
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Lemuel Warren Smith (born 23 July 1941) is an American serial killer responsible for the murders of five women and one man. He was the first prison inmate in American history to kill an on-duty female prison guard. He is considered one of the most dangerous living inmates in the New York State prison system and is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
Biography edit
Smith was born in Amsterdam, New York, in 1941. He claimed that he had tried to kill a nine-year-old girl through smothering when he was 11, but no evidence of this was found. On 21 January 1958 a woman named Dorothy Waterstreet was beaten to death during a robbery near Smith's home. Smith was suspected and arrested on suspicion of murder but the case against him was jeopardized when the District Attorney attempted to pressure him into confessing and Smith was released.
Still under pressure from the police, Smith moved to Baltimore that year. In Baltimore, he abducted a 25-year-old woman and attempted to beat her to death but was interrupted by a witness and arrested. Smith was sentenced to 20 years in prison for assault in April 1959. He was paroled after 10 years and moved back to Amsterdam, where he abducted and raped two women before they were able to escape. Smith pleaded guilty to attempted rape and served four years in prison.
On 24 November 1976, just one month after Smith's release, Robert Hedderman and his secretary Margaret Byron were brutally murdered in the back room of Hedderman's shop. Human excrement was found all over the scene. Hair and blood evidence at the scene made Smith a suspect, but he was not arrested. On 23 December, Joan Richburg was raped, mutilated and murdered outside a mall in Colonie. More hair evidence found at the scene implicated Smith, but he was still allowed to remain free pending investigation.
On 10 January 1977 a large African-American man attempted to lure a 22-year-old woman out of a gift shop in Albany. When her 60-year-old grandmother intervened, the man shoved her to the ground and stamped on her hand, breaking her wrist, before running away. Years later the grandmother recognised a picture of Smith in the newspaper as the attacker.
On 22 July 1977, Maralie Wilson was found dead in downtown Schenectady. She had been severely mutilated and strangled to death. Smith was known to frequent the area and witnesses identified him as a man they had seen accosting Wilson. However Smith still remained at large until 19 August, when he abducted 18-year-old Marianne Maggio and raped her before being pulled over by police and arrested while driving towards Albany. A bite mark on Maralie Wilson's body was matched to Smith's dental records and a sniffer dog given the faeces-stained clothing from the Hedderman store murders tracked the scent from the clothes to Smith in an identity parade. This was repeated twice, both times with Smith moved to a different spot, and each time Smith was identified.
Smith soon confessed to all five murders, as well as the murder of Dorothy Waterstreet in 1958. He also claimed to suffer from multiple personality disorder and that he was controlled by the ghost of his brother John, delusions allegedly brought on as a result of abuse he suffered at the hands of his parents. However, two psychiatrists testified that he was legally sane and he was charged with rape, kidnapping and murder. He was convicted on all counts and sentenced to 20 years in prison for rape, 25 years for kidnapping and 50 years for the Hedderman store murders (indictments for the other murders were dismissed because there was no chance of him getting out of prison).
While Smith was imprisoned in Green Haven Correctional Facility, guard Donna Payant went missing on 15 May 1981. After an extensive search of the prison grounds Payant's body was found in a dumpster wrapped in plastic. She had been mutilated and strangled. A bite mark examiner was called to examine the body; coincidentally, he was the same examiner who had examined Maralie Wilson's corpse and recognised a bite mark on Payant's body from that case. Smith was charged with murder and retained the services of high-profile lawyers William Kunstler and C. Vernon Mason. The defence attempted to impugn the credibility of prosecution witnesses but were unsuccessful and Smith was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1984 due to New York State abolishing the death penalty. Smith is currently imprisoned at the Five Points Correctional Facility, where he is kept in solitary confinement for all but one hour a day due to the threat he poses.