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00:11When you're dealing with a 30-year-old cold case, it seems like there's not a lot of hope.
00:22It's a great photo, Robin.
00:24But look what happened in the Robin Lawrence case.
00:28Something sparked it.
00:29That nobody ever expected.
00:31That just caught everybody off guard.
00:41Her husband, Ollie, had been trying to reach Robin all weekend.
00:46Ollie was out of the country.
00:49Who else was in the house?
00:51Nicole.
00:52Her baby.
00:55Well, Ollie contacted me.
00:57He said, would you mind going over to the house and checking?
00:59And I was like, yeah, sure.
01:02There's no answer at the front door.
01:03So I went around to the back.
01:06So when you go around to the back deck, what do you notice?
01:10That the window screen is cut.
01:15That was the first time I thought, oh, my God, something is wrong here.
01:19I had to climb in through the window.
01:21And Nicole comes, you know, down the hall.
01:24Her eyes were just so big.
01:26And her little face was just, there's no expression on it.
01:30I'm going down the hall.
01:31I'm going down the hall and I can see into the master bedroom.
01:34And I can see on the wall these large splatters and swaths of blood.
01:44I was terrified.
01:46And I went and I called the police.
01:50There was a very, very violent attack on Robin.
01:54She was stabbed 49 times.
01:58It looks like a personal attack.
02:00It looked like Nicole had been kind of roaming around the house.
02:06Clearly she had been in that room with her mom.
02:10It's hard to think about.
02:14It's like a horror movie, but it's not a movie.
02:17This is our family.
02:19This is our lives.
02:20This was Robin's life.
02:22I did think that maybe it was someone she knew.
02:26That always kind of sat with my mind.
02:28Like, who did she know that could have done this?
02:32Here's the photo of the washcloth where the key piece of evidence is a washcloth that they find in the
02:38bathroom.
02:39And it has blood on both sides.
02:41I knew that we had a really strong DNA profile, which obviously stood out.
02:46So detectives just kept waiting to get that phone call from the lab saying that we have a match.
02:53And unfortunately that call never came.
02:56And then just another year would go by and another year would go by.
03:01So you switch tracks and try what we call genetic genealogy.
03:06And that was becoming really big at that time.
03:11That's when we turned to the help of a volunteer.
03:15And she said, genealogy is a hobby of mine.
03:18I dabble in it on the side.
03:20I'd be willing to do this case for free when I have spare time.
03:25I knew it was going to be a needle in the haystack, but I thought it was worth trying.
03:29Six, seven, eight, nine, ten generations away from even these people.
03:34And I think it's August of 2023.
03:36She sends me an email.
03:38She says, I think I found someone of interest.
03:41What happens as you start looking into them?
03:44Well, we find out computer programmer up in New York, married to a defense attorney, two kids in high school,
03:51nice house in the suburbs.
03:53Not so much as a speeding ticket on his background.
03:57I am a serial killer who's only killed once.
04:51So here's the crime scene pictures.
04:52there's a bunch of contact sheets in here. You can tell it starts from the pictures from the
04:56outside of the house and then moves in. Cold case detectives Melissa Wallace and John Long
05:02of the Fairfax County Police Department began reviewing Robin Lawrence's murder case in April
05:08of 2021. That's like your worst nightmare. Here's the bedroom. Obviously her body's here.
05:15They were struck by the sheer violence of the attack on the 37-year-old mother.
05:21It looked brutal. Is that blood on the book? That's the reason why you tell your loved ones
05:27to make sure that your doors are locked at night. He is the boogeyman.
05:36On November 20th, 1994, Robin's friend Lori Lindberg had entered her home to check on her
05:44and saw blood on the bedroom walls and Robin's two-year-old daughter, Nicole,
05:49wandering around. Alarmed, Lori called 911 and then rushed the little girl to the hospital.
05:58Although Nicole did not appear hurt, she had undergone a liver transplant after she was born
06:04and her health was fragile. Because, of course, she's taking immunosuppressive medications. I mean,
06:11this is life-saving medication. She needs to have it. Because you don't know how long she's been in that
06:15house by herself. Right. Lead crime scene detective Mark Garman was one of the first on site.
06:24This is what we determined to be the entry point to the home.
06:29According to Detective Garman, who photographed the evidence, the intruder came through that window
06:36off the back deck, the one Lori had used to get inside. He entered the house the same way.
06:43I had no idea what the scene looked like until I walked around the corner into the master bed.
06:51Tell me the state that Robin was in when you saw her.
06:55Very damaged. A lot of knife wounds. Severe, gaping knife wound in her neck.
07:03Unbelievable number of defensive wounds on her hands. Knife wounds in her back, on her legs.
07:09He says signs of a struggle were obvious in the room.
07:13This is the phone that was on the floor near Mrs. Lawrence. The phone cord was cut.
07:19She was assaulted in the bed and then fought her way out of the bed and continued to fight and
07:26struggle.
07:27Garman says one of the first things that stood out were bloody tissues.
07:32Scattered around the house and near Robin's body. He believes it was Robin's daughter, Nicole,
07:38who left them behind, trying to help her mother.
07:41Even at that age, kids know what blood is and bloods come from wounds and cuts.
07:46And they know that mom puts tissues on them or band-aids. I think she was trying to stop the
07:50blood.
07:51And there was another heart-wrenching discovery. Empty baby bottles had been left around her mother's body.
07:58Having kids, when they got hungry, they brought you your baby bottle.
08:01And that's what I'm thinking. Nicole would have taken it to mom.
08:09While investigators process the scene, officers at the hospital asked Lori to call Robin's parents.
08:18Robin's dad answered. Robin's dad answered. I think I said, Robin is dead.
08:25But what I remember is, um, Jesse, her mom, must have just been in the,
08:32uh, overheard. Because she was just, just wailing, just a sort of primal anguish.
08:41Mm-hmm. That was really horrible.
08:45That's probably the most horrible thing that's ever happened to me, is calling.
08:51Robin's father, Robert Moore Sr., a World War II veteran and now 101 years old,
08:58says he tried to forget that call. But one memory has never left him.
09:04My granddaughter was right next to where she was murdered. I'll never forget that. No.
09:13He had to break the news to his surviving children, including his daughter,
09:18Mary War Coen's, and his son, Robert Moore Jr. After the words, Robin is dead, I, it was like...
09:27Good nightmare.
09:28Yeah. You're just like, your world shattered.
09:32Mary says in those first few days, they didn't have a clear picture of what had happened to their sister.
09:39The details were very sketchy and slow to come. And the police asked, well, do you know anybody who
09:48had a grudge or something against Robin? And of course, the answer is no.
09:55Robin was a gifted artist with a fine arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University. After college,
10:02she was selected to mold the first medal for the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize,
10:09which was awarded to Rosa Parks. That was a big deal. And for my parents, who grew up in Memphis,
10:18Tennessee during Jim Crow, and they could not ride in the front of the bus. They could not go to
10:25the
10:25zoo except on Tuesdays. And that was a big deal. Robin's father, Robert Sr., says his daughter's
10:33accomplishments were his greatest source of pride. She was a powerful lady in this world. Her drawings
10:43are not just paintings, they are powerful. Lori first met Robin in ballet class.
10:52I was like, oh my god, this woman's beautiful. But what was really fun about Robin was she's very
10:58personable, very fun-loving, just very down to earth. Lori and Robin shared an apartment in
11:04Washington, D.C. Around the time Robin was dating her future husband, Ollie, Lori says they were a great
11:11match. Ollie has a very calm and kind demeanor. And you kind of feel very confident around him,
11:20very at ease with him. The couple were married on New Year's Eve, 1989. Three years later,
11:28they welcomed their daughter, Nicole. At the time of her death, Robin was working in advertising.
11:34Ollie, who was away on a business trip in the Bahamas, was an executive at an airline.
11:40I think they had a relatively what I call normal family life. They were working on doing home
11:50improvements, getting the yard fixed up. Now that home with so much promise was an active crime scene.
11:59There were valuables that were in the bedroom, there was cash, there was jewelry, there wasn't anything
12:04stolen. Investigators suspected Robin was killed by someone she knew. They started looking at the
12:12family dynamic. They started looking at the marriage. Was Ollie cooperative? He was.
12:19But as authorities dug further, they learned something. Ollie had been having an affair with a
12:25colleague. Then what does that mean? You think, oh, how convenient. The weekend you go out of town for
12:31three days, your wife is brutally murdered. It just was surreal. It really was like, for me,
12:55walking through a dream state, because you just can't make sense of it. Just three days after what
13:04would have been Robin's 38th birthday, on November 26, 1994, her family and friends gathered for her funeral.
13:14We were still very much just bewildered and lost. Mary says Robin's injuries were so severe,
13:25the family had a closed casket. And that was hard for me because I never got a chance to see
13:31her one last
13:32time. I always wanted to be able to say goodbye and see her.
13:41As Robin's family mourned her death, investigators pieced together a timeline and determined that the
13:49last time anyone had heard from Robin was around 6 p.m. on Friday, November 18th.
13:56We believe Robin was killed around 9.30-ish.
14:00Her body was discovered two days later. Investigators zeroed in on her husband, Ollie,
14:06who they had discovered was having an affair. They followed up on his alibi.
14:12The detectives flew down in the Bahamas, confirmed that he was on the flight he was supposed to be
14:16on. He was at the hotel he was supposed to be at. Detectives also interviewed Ollie's lover,
14:23but found no evidence she was involved. Robin's sister and brother were surprised to learn about
14:29the affair. But they say they never believed Ollie had anything to do with Robin's murder.
14:35I never thought that, though, that he harmed her. And how about you? Did it ever cross your mind?
14:42Maybe he's involved in this somehow. No, I didn't think that. He's not that type of person.
14:49Ollie chose not to talk to 48 Hours about his experience. Investigators didn't have much else
14:56to go on. The killer left no fingerprints. But something had caught crime scene detective Mark
15:02Garman's eye while he was documenting the bathroom. On the towel rod to the sliding cub door,
15:09there's a washcloth. I do notice a small stain on this towel right here, a small brownish stain.
15:18That brown stain turned out to be blood, and authorities extracted DNA from it. But it didn't
15:24match anyone close to the case, including Ollie or the woman he had had a relationship with.
15:30Detectives believed it belonged to Robin's killer and uploaded it to the FBI's national database.
15:38The suspect's DNA is uploaded to CODIS? Yes.
15:41Yes. But CODIS also returned no matches,
15:44and with no new leads, the investigation stalled. How much did the adults tell you?
15:52Nothing. Mary's daughter, Lauren Ovens, was just eight years old when her Aunt Robin was killed.
15:59I remember her being angelic. She says even though her family avoided the topic,
16:07she could feel the void Robin's murder left behind. Out of all of my family members, she was the most
16:14like me.
16:15So everybody always called me Robin. It just knew that they were still thinking of her.
16:21Can you describe what you lost when you lost Robin?
16:27I think I lost an extension of myself.
16:32Because she was the one who just taught me to be comfortable with who I was. So I lost a
16:41piece of me.
16:43Lauren says she stayed close with her cousin Nicole, who rarely spoke about her mother.
16:49I think she didn't know much about her mother. So there wasn't really much to share. And I didn't
16:56want to ever bring it up because I didn't want to make her anxious or make her nervous.
17:03It was better just left unsaid.
17:05The family eventually resigned themselves to the idea that the case may never be solved.
17:11When my mother died, that was kind of like, well, she went to her grave not knowing what happened to
17:18her child. And at that point I said, well, I have to just kind of let it go. I have
17:26to let it go.
17:27Then decades later in 2019, investigators turned to Parabon Nano Labs, a DNA technology company,
17:36hoping genetic genealogy could identify Robin's killer. Ellen Greatak is the director of
17:44bioinformatics at Parabon.
17:46We take DNA from a crime scene. We upload it to GEDmatch and to Family Tree DNA, which are two
17:52databases. And what they give us back is people in our database who share DNA with your unknown person.
18:00Greatak says that while their analysis showed Robin's killer likely had European ancestry,
18:07tracing him through his relatives proved nearly impossible.
18:11So in this case, the database matches were just really distant. They only shared little tiny pieces
18:18of DNA, which means that their shared ancestor with our unknown person was pretty far back in time.
18:26And that means that those people had a lot of descendants today.
18:31Parabon gave us a solvability rate of zero on the case and essentially said you do not have the time
18:37nor the money to get it moving forward. Investigators say they could have walked away.
18:43But Liz, an amateur genealogist and volunteer with the police department who asked that her last name not
18:51be used, offered to take on the case in her spare time for free.
18:56I just felt I wanted to give something back to the community and I believed that I could actually
19:01be helpful in solving some of these cases. Investigators gave Liz everything Parabon had uncovered
19:07about the suspect's ethnicity. It was about half Eastern European, about 25% Irish. Another 25% was
19:15a combination of, I think, English and Italian and Scandinavian. Along with a list of cousins who shared
19:21his DNA. So what I got was approximately 1500 cousins. I was not certain that I could crack it. There
19:28were no
19:28first cousins or second cousins. There was really more fourth to sixth. As Liz worked to trace the suspect
19:34through his family tree, Detective Wallace turned to another DNA tool and asked Parabon to produce a
19:42phenotyping sketch of Robin's killer. DNA phenotyping, it means actually predicting what that person looked like
19:51from their DNA. But would anyone recognize him?
20:10In 2021, nearly 30 years after Robin Lawrence's murder, Parabon NanoLabs was tasked with producing a
20:19composite of the man investigators believe was her killer. So I get a report from our bioinformatic
20:27scientists and it lays out all the predictions from the DNA. Scientists created this facial model
20:34based on the DNA predictions. It starts off with his skin color, which he's predicted to have very fair
20:41or fair skin color. He's most likely going to have a larger chin than average, wider jaw or cheeks than
20:48average. Kind of a narrower nose than average. Tom Shaw, a forensic artist at Parabon, says his job was to
20:56refine the model by applying other details like hair and eye color. I've kind of outlined where his eyes are
21:03because I'm going to be putting new ones in. So here's one kind of that dark blue that are predicted.
21:11I'll do eyebrows. We're looking at kind of like a lighter brownish hair. And so I gave him a little
21:21bit lighter eyebrows to match what his hair color is going to be. I'll go and find a hairstyle, something
21:28generic. Shaw says DNA doesn't reveal a person's age. So the composites are generated as a young adult,
21:35typically around 25 years old. So this is him. Did this look like their mailman? Was this the
21:43neighbor's kid? Was it somebody from work? Detective Melissa Wallace set up a video call
21:48with Robin's husband, Ollie, to see if he recognized the man in the composite. I was really hoping that
21:55when Ollie saw that, that he would go, oh my gosh, that looks exactly like so-and-so. And did
22:00he?
22:00He did not. He said that doesn't spark my memory at all. Looks like nobody I know.
22:06The investigation stalled again. But behind the scenes, volunteer genealogist Liz kept working
22:13with that list of 1,500 cousins distantly related to the suspect. Liz had eventually traced some of
22:22the suspect's ancestors to Canada where they had settled. That's where she found two cousins that were
22:28not related to each other. And so I ended up with two trees that were highly reliable,
22:34and they were the people that were truly cousins to the suspect. Where did their two trees come
22:39together? Liz says if she could figure out where those two trees were linked through a marriage,
22:46the suspect would be a descendant of that couple. And what I found was this woman on this tree married
22:53this man on this tree. That was it. That was the aha moment. That was when I realized that he
23:00is a
23:00descendant of this couple right here. After three and a half years, Liz finally had a lead,
23:07and it pointed her to a man named Steven Smirk.
23:12I felt like this really was him. I didn't know it for certain, but I believed it was.
23:17I contacted the detectives. So she sends me an email. She says, I think I found someone of interest.
23:23What happens as you start looking into him? Well, we find out computer programmer up in New York,
23:29married to a defense attorney, two kids in high school, nice house in the suburbs,
23:35not so much as a speeding ticket on his background. I'm thinking, there's no way this is our guy.
23:40But according to Detective John Long, things got a bit more interesting when they found his yearbook
23:46photo at age 16. It looked very similar to the phenotyping sketch. We're like, well,
23:55you know, maybe this does make sense.
24:03Steven Smirk lived in Niskayuna, a town in upstate New York. So investigators decided to
24:10pay him a visit. Does he know you're coming? No, no.
24:15They were hoping he would cooperate and provide his DNA.
24:19Wallace and Long say he appeared to be home alone. So they knocked on his door.
24:25All we said is we are detectives from Fairfax County, Virginia,
24:29and we're looking into a cold case from the nineties. Do you mind if we come in and talk to
24:34you?
24:35He said, sure. He invited us in and say, hold on a minute. So you say we're from Virginia.
24:42We're investigating this murder. His initial reaction. No reaction.
24:48None. Stone face. There was no surprise. There was no fear. Nothing. They found his demeanor unusual.
24:56When we're asking for DNA, this conversation typically takes a solid 45 minutes. People
25:02generally have a lot of questions like, what do you mean someone in my family has committed a murder
25:07who was killed? There was not a single question from him. We were in and out of his house in
25:12five
25:13minutes with his DNA. Consent form signed, swab collected, packaged up. That was it.
25:21After the visit, detectives checked into their hotel. But then Detective Wallace got an unexpected call.
25:28It's Steve Smart calling me. And he says, I'm at the police department to turn myself in.
25:37And I said, turn yourself in for what? And he said, I'm here to turn myself in for the murder.
25:43A million things started going through my mind.
25:45Smirk told detectives he was having trouble getting into the Niskayuna police department,
25:51which was locked. So then I'm thinking it must be a smaller police station. And I said,
25:56okay, what I need you to do is we're going to hang up. I need you to call 9-1
25:59-1 and tell them that
26:00you're there. Steven Smirk's call was recorded. 9-1-1, the address of your emergency.
26:07I'm actually here to turn myself in for a cold case crime.
26:11And you're here to turn yourself in? Well, they collected DNA. So it's only
26:15What's your last name? Wow. So when do you tell him?
26:21Oh my God, I was freaking out. So I'm all- He freaked me out.
26:24I run down to his room and I'm banging on his door. I'm like, we gotta go to the police
26:30department. He's
26:30turning himself in. Wallace also reached out to local police. And Steven Smirk was taken into custody.
26:38The adrenaline was pumping so hard because the reality hit. And it sounds like he's going to
26:46talk to us about it. Detective Long says they had to refocus fast and figure out how they would
26:51handle Steven Smirk's interrogation. We need to make sure this is a sound interview that could
26:57potentially be used in court down the road. All right, go ahead and have a seat.
27:02When they finally sat down with him, investigators say he didn't need much prompting.
27:09It was 100% intentional. I am a serial killer who's only killed once.
27:31You've come here to turn yourself in for a 1994 murder.
27:35When investigators met with Steven Smirk on September 7th, 2023, they were skeptical.
27:42This doesn't happen every day. So we had to really think through, well, why is he doing this?
27:49Detectives had not yet received the results of the DNA samples Smirk had provided, linking him
27:55definitively. We needed to be very careful to make sure that we weren't getting a false confession.
28:00So then what was your approach going to be?
28:03We started talking about things like, hey, let's make sure that he's going to bring up details
28:07of the case without us telling him first.
28:09Can you remind me of your name again? Can you say that?
28:13I can. Do you remember anything about the person?
28:15She was African-American.
28:16Okay.
28:17That's all I remember.
28:18He started volunteering information, which is great.
28:21So it was just like he wanted to talk about, you know, his weekend or some other family event
28:27that he went to. It was a very calm conversation, nonchalant.
28:33I was not in the right frame of mind.
28:37Steven Smirk told detectives that back in November 1994, he was a 22-year-old soldier stationed
28:44at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia. And on the night of the murder, he had been drinking beer.
28:51I was drunk and under ephedrine.
28:58He says he had been taking ephedrine pills, a stimulant.
29:03Something inside me said that it's hard to explain.
29:08I knew that I was going to kill somebody. I did not know who I was going to kill.
29:12It was like this overbearing thought in my brain that I just had to kill somebody.
29:19Smirk said he drove to Robin's neighborhood because he was familiar with the area.
29:24He visited friends who stayed in a house nearby.
29:28Had you had any contact with her or spoke to her or anything like that?
29:33No. I didn't even, to be honest with you, I don't know, didn't even know who lived there.
29:37I never met this person before or seen her or anything.
29:42Smirk confirmed he entered the house from the back deck and told detectives he was wearing a ski
29:49mask and leather gloves.
29:50I went in and noticed that she had a baby in one of the rooms.
29:54He said he went down the hall to Robin's bedroom.
29:59I startled her. She got out of bed. She was on her knees. She was just begging for her life.
30:08I cut her up pretty good.
30:11I did everything they taught me in the military, hand-to-hand combat.
30:16I'm highly, highly influenced by demons.
30:20He told investigators one of the reasons he enlisted was because he wanted to kill.
30:26But I want to tell you right now that she's the only person that I've killed.
30:31I'm married, I have kids.
30:35I honestly believe that if it wasn't for my wife and my kids, I probably wouldn't be a serial killer.
30:42Detective Wallace knew it was critical to link him to that washcloth found in the bathroom.
30:48So she asked him if he'd been injured that night.
30:52She clawed at my face. I had a little bit of a scar here.
30:56Did you ever go into her bathroom at all?
30:59I don't remember that. If I did go into the bathroom, it would have been to look at what she
31:04did to my face.
31:05That's when I knew that we were in business with putting him in the bathroom and why his DNA was
31:13there.
31:13That was the biggest confirmation.
31:14As the interview wrapped up, Detective Long asked Smerk if he wanted to express any remorse to Robin's family.
31:23How do I say this?
31:26I don't know how you're recording.
31:27I don't feel anything for the family.
31:30I can't say that any other way.
31:32I feel bad that I did it because I knew someday my personal freedom would be affected.
31:43I think what you see is 100% what you get from him.
31:48Arrogance, uh, entitlement. He wanted to do it, so he did it. And that's it.
31:55Detective Wallace believes Steven Smerk confessed because he knew he was caught
32:00and wanted to turn himself in on his own terms.
32:04It wasn't because he was sorry. It wasn't because he was tired of running for 30 years.
32:08He wanted to maintain control.
32:10Former FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole, who reviewed the case for 48 hours, agrees that Smerk wanted to control the
32:19narrative.
32:20He was prepared that he was going to tell his version of the story.
32:26O'Toole says she doesn't buy Smerk's claim that Robin's murder was random.
32:30She classifies it as a mission-oriented homicide.
32:35Went down the hallway.
32:38Bedroom was ahead.
32:40He brought the weapon with him. He had a mask. He had gloves.
32:46It also happens to be on an evening when the victim's husband is in a travel status.
32:53This was purposeful. Went inside somebody's home, took enormous risk. So that suggests to me more of a targeting than
33:01it does randomness.
33:02In her analysis, O'Toole says she was struck by Smerk identifying himself as a serial killer.
33:10I am a serial killer who's only killed once.
33:13He did come across as someone that had admiration for them.
33:17So here's kind of like the big question though.
33:19Do serial killers stop killing? Yes, they do.
33:24According to O'Toole, serial offenders can sometimes channel their compulsion to kill into other crimes like stalking or voyeurism.
33:34I think it's also possible that he engaged in other behaviors much less serious than homicide that satisfied him.
33:44He has no criminal history of any kind. How unusual is that?
33:49Not very unusual, but here's the important thing to keep in mind.
33:53The absence of a rap sheet does not mean that criminal behavior is absent.
33:59It means that they didn't get arrested for it.
34:02Can I take care of you, process?
34:04Okay.
34:04After his confession, Stephen Smerk was arrested and charged with the murder of Robin Lawrence.
34:12Detective Wallace says her first phone call was to Robin's daughter, Nicole.
34:17You could tell the shock, but she didn't break down or crumble.
34:23I could tell that she was like, okay, now my job is to notify the rest of the family.
34:30How is it that he could live his life with his family when he blew up our family 30 years
34:38ago?
34:38Where's the justice in that?
34:43Robin's family prepared for the next step.
34:47We really wanted to do a trial.
34:49We wanted the world to know what he did, and I think we wanted the spectacle of that, a satisfaction.
34:58But would they get that chance?
35:11A week after Stephen Smerk's interview with police,
35:17forensic testing confirmed Stephen Smerk's DNA was a match to the blood on the washcloth found in Robin's bathroom.
35:27It's a one in over seven million chance that it would not have been his DNA.
35:33On April 4th, 2024, Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano's office presented the case
35:41at a preliminary hearing to determine if there was enough evidence to move forward.
35:46Look, I've dealt with murderers before. I can tell you that in my mind, Stephen Smerk stands alone
35:52as somebody who represents a true danger to the community.
35:58Robin's family saw Stephen Smerk for the first time at the hearing.
36:04I was amazed how big he was. He needed two bailiffs around him. The first thing I thought of was,
36:13like, my aunt didn't stand a chance. Prosecutors played Smerk's confession,
36:17and the family heard the details of Robin's murder in Smerk's own words.
36:24There was no emotion. It didn't feel real. It just made me feel angry. Like, how could he have done
36:31that?
36:31The judge found probable cause that Stephen Smerk killed Robin and allowed the case to proceed to
36:38a grand jury. On April 15th, a grand jury indicted him. But six months later, he accepted a plea deal
36:46for first-degree murder. We get guaranteed accountability.
36:49Descano says the agreement ensured Smerk would be held accountable.
36:54We had the challenge of some witnesses passing. Other witnesses, their memories becoming a little
37:00bit cloudy and not as sharp. Robin's family, however, say they were disappointed.
37:06They wanted him to be put on trial. On March 7th, 2025, Stephen Smerk returned to court for sentencing.
37:15As part of the mitigation strategy for a more lenient sentence, his attorney, Don Buderak, told the judge
37:22that in the early 90s, Smerk was a troubled young man struggling with alcohol and substance abuse.
37:30He eventually decided, I'm going to join the military, thinking that that would be
37:34a good choice for him to maybe get his life stabilized. He said he joined the military so he could
37:40kill people.
37:42What did he mean by that? I never asked him what he meant by that. I think it was an
37:48idea
37:49that if I go, maybe I can take my anger out on this. Maybe this will get me back on
37:56the right track.
37:57According to Buderak, Smerk was also crippled with an undiagnosed mental illness.
38:04It wasn't until several years later that he eventually was diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder.
38:08And when you add ephedra and alcohol, he was struggling a lot.
38:12The FDA banned some ephedra products in 2004, and Buderak says that was in part because when
38:20abused with other substances, they could trigger dangerous psychiatric side effects.
38:25Did Steve Smerk tell you that he ever had hallucinations or heard voices or anything
38:31along those lines while taking ephedra?
38:33No, but you have to remember at the time also he had undiagnosed bipolar.
38:36So it's hard to figure out exactly what his mental state was attributable to.
38:42She says by the time investigators came to Smerk's door, nearly 30 years later,
38:48Smerk had sought help for his mental health problems and become sober.
38:54Buderak says her client confessed and waived his right to a trial because he felt genuine remorse.
39:01But over the 30 years, did he think about Robin?
39:05Every day.
39:06Every day.
39:07Every day he'd think about it.
39:08But during his statement to investigators, he doesn't express empathy or remorse.
39:14He always wanted to accept responsibility. Acceptance of responsibility is one form of remorse.
39:22In the end, the judge sentenced Steven Smerk to the maximum sentence allowed under the plea deal.
39:2970 years with the possibility of parole.
39:34I think what he got, as long as he never comes out of prison ever, brings closure for me.
39:43After the sentencing, Ollie Lawrence gave a statement to the press.
39:47The Warren Lawrence family are grateful that justice has finally been done
39:53for the murder of our beloved Robin.
39:57Lauren answered a few questions, with Robin's daughter, Nicole, by her side.
40:02As much as this is a sigh of relief, we still have to live with this. It just doesn't go
40:06away.
40:07She's strong. She stood next to me and she held my hand.
40:13Oh my God, if her mom could see us.
40:16Um, it was great.
40:18How do you want people to remember your aunt?
40:21I want people to remember her as creative, exuberant, very vocal, caring, a beautiful mother.
40:34She just had a light that shined from within.
40:37I feel like she is living through her art because her art emotes.
40:46So, when you do look at her art, what do you see?
40:49I kind of see the spirit of Robin, who she was, how she looked at the world, you know, through
40:58her eyes.
40:59And it was good things, happy things, warm things.
41:20Uh,
41:31uh,
41:32uh,
41:33uh,
41:33uh,
41:35uh,
41:36uh,
41:44Transcription by CastingWords
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