he said she did it. she was saying he did it. shannon had been charged with murdering smith and that s when she shared a new version of events claiming he was the real killer. authorities were intrigued but skeptical. shannon captured a series of recordings that she was sure proved her innocence. what would investigators make of this tale of the tape? it is rare for women to murder. more often they convince their men to do it for them, a kind of homicidal honey-do list. that was exactly what investigators were debating in june 2007. it had been six months since denita smith s murder. and sitting on the desk of assistant d.a. david saacks was a series of phone recordings
danita s family to mourn their loss. once again, here is josh reporter: they called it a home-going service, the final farewell to 25-year-old denita smith, who had departed this world under the worst of circumstances. just a week earlier denita s mother, sharon, was starting to plan her daughter s wedding. now she was attending denita s funeral. no parent wants to see their child laying in in a casket. and denita s life was it was snatched from under her, stolen. reporter: it seemed the whole town turned out on that january day in 2007. denita s close friend, edythe kearns, spoke at the funeral. the home going was an emotional day. it was definitely some sadness. but we were trying to, you know, be happy and think about her spirit and life legacy and the way that she would want all of us to go on. but at that time, i think it was just too much and it was
overwhelming. reporter: denita s fiancé, jermeir stroud, was there as well. jermeir was sad and he was crying. and he appeared clearly, he was devastated. and i think reality was starting to sink in and that it hit him that the love of his life was no longer with us. reporter: it was of little comfort to denita s family and friends that the woman accused of killing her was sitting in the durham county jail. shannon crawley had been arrested the day before and charged with first-degree murder. now her family was mourning, too. it s devastating, the fear that you have at that point for your child. and no one can convince me that my child did that. i know her. reporter: shannon s dad, himself a former deputy sheriff, was convinced his daughter was a victim of a shoddy investigation by the durham police, perhaps deliberately so. i m not saying that they framed her. i m saying that they simply
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.
reporter: the caller was the apartment s maintenance supervisor who d been working near denita s unit. when he heard the shot, he d looked up in that direction and he told me he saw a female that was about 5 10 , hair in a ponytail, and had some kind of emblems on her clothing. the young lady that stays over here, she heard it too and she s like upset and shaking and stuff like that. she was covering her face and she went and got into her truck and started driving away. reporter: this woman looked frightened or he said like she was distraught. she had her hands over her face and moving quickly. reporter: like they re horrified by what they ve seen. correct. reporter: so more witness than perpetrator maybe. that s exactly what he thought. reporter: then, according to the maintenance man, the woman got into a burgundy-colored ford explorer which he then followed in his truck. he pulls up beside her, so they re kind of looking directly at each other, eyeball to