the camera was her way of expressing herself. denita was beginning to turn all that talent into a successful trade. working as a photo journalist on the student newspaper at north carolina central university in durham. she would see things that probably the average person wouldn t see. but there was something denita didn t see coming. a blind spot in her seemingly perfect life. something she never anticipated. never imagined. but maybe no one could. it was january 4th, 2007. a crisp carolina morning. denita had a busy day ahead as classes were about to resume after christmas break. denita loved school. and she was planning to go back and get her doctorate. and get married. and have a family. and somewhere along the line,
allowed themselves to be led in that direction. and if they had any suspicions that another police officer was involved, they decided not to follow that up. you were in law enforcement. you cover up crimes by other officers? no, i never did. and what you re suggesting is that durham cops, who didn t even know jermeir, looked away from a murder committed by a guy who worked for another department in another city? they re risking prison time for this guy they don t even know? cops will protect other cops regardless of what department they re in. there are always that few, not many. reporter: to the contrary, assistant district attorney david saacks, who was assigned to prosecute, says he was extra careful in building his case against shannon precisely because jermeir was a police officer. i needed to make sure that everything was done by the book and we vetted everything as well as we could, and delved into everything as deep as we could because he was a cop.
the camera was her friend. the camera was her way of expressing herself. reporter: denita was beginning to turn all that talent into a successful trade; working as photojournalist on the student newspaper at north carolina central university in durham. she would see things that probably the average person wouldn t see. reporter: but there was something denita didn t see coming. a blind spot in her seemingly perfect life. something she never anticipated. never imagined. but maybe no one could. it was january 4, 2007. a crisp carolina morning. denita had a busy day ahead as classes were about to resume after christmas break. denita loved school.ea and she was planning to go back and get her doctorate. and get married and have a family. and somewhere along the line, work in this business?
he was very nice. we got along. we had a lot in common. reporter: were you in love with jermeir? no. reporter: shannon insists she had no idea that her boyfriend jermeir was also seeing denita smith. i never knew that he had a girlfriend. had i known, i never would have given him my phone number. it wouldn t have ever escalated to anything else. reporter: she admits it did escalate. it started off fairly normal. but he would call nonstop. he would show up unannounced. he would want to know where i was, who i was with. he would leave messages, 30 or 40 phone calls. reporter: why d you keep seeing a guy like that? i guess initially i didn t really take it that seriously. i didn t really think that he was dangerous. he would mask it as concern. reporter: eventually shannon
this young photographer saw.n and her sense of exactly when to snap the shutter to capture the world in front of her. it s an impressive portfolio belonging to a young woman named denita smith. she began looking through a lens in childhood and never stopped as her mother sharon remembers. she s always loved the camera. the camera was her friend. the camera was her way of expressing herself. reporter: denita was beginning to turn all that talent into a successful trade; working as photojournalist on nt the student newspaper at north s carolina central university in durham. c she would see things that probably the average person wouldn t see. reporter: but there was something denita didn t see coming. a blind spot in her seemingly perfect life.