shannon s family was encouraged. i didn t feel that the d.a. proved his case. there were some damaging things, yes, but there was no preponderance of evidence, and i thought that she was going to be acquitted. reporter: for shannon crawley it all came down to this decision. would it be a life of freedom or life in prison? denita s mother braced herself as she stared at the woman accused of killing her daughter. i really think all the way to the end that shannon thought she was going to walk away. we the jury return the unanimous verdict as follows, guilty of first-degree murder. she didn t think she would hear what she heard, guilty. reporter: how d she look when that verdict came in? like all the life just drained out of her, like she d seen a ghost. reporter: across the aisle shannon s family was also stunned, and then furious.
now back to dateline. welcome back. he said she did it, and she was telling investigators he did it. shannon crawley had been charged with murdering denita smith. that s when she shared a new version of events, claiming jermeir stroud was the real killer. authorities were intrigued but skeptical. so, shannon captured a series of recordings that she was sure proved her innocence. what would investigators make of this tale of the tape? here s josh mankiewicz. 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
yield to the urge to tell her what she most wants to hear, whether it s true or not. is that what jermeir stroud did? and did he unknowingly bring shannon crawley and denita smith together that dreadful day in 2007 when denita was murdered? now three years later two families filed into the durham county courthouse. one family hoping for a conviction, the other an acquittal. john mccann covered the trial for the durham herald-sun. the tone was definitely, you know, somber. shannon s family here. you got denita s people on the other side. tense is a good word for it. reporter: especially tense for denita s mother, sharon, who for the first time made eye contact with the woman accused
pregnant. but says she and jermeir ended the romance before she had the abortion. but now, her story is slightly different from what she first told detectives. we talked about it. there were some complications, which is why i decided to terminate. the story is that he said to you, i don t want to have a baby with you. and the with you part hit you very hard. no. that conversation never happened? no. one of the things that popped in my head based on my recent interactions with shannon was that maybe she had done something. shannon and jermeir s differing stories are most in conflict when it comes to the day denita smith was murdered. shannon insists he forced her, at gunpoint, to take him to denita s apartment. he told me that i was going with him. that if i didn t, his exact words to me were, either you die for your kids or the kids die for you.
and now my daughter, who is the perfect victim for someone like jermeir stroud, has now been convicted of a murder that he committed. of course, miss smith s family is still in pain, too, i m sure. and we prayed for them constantly. they ve lost a child, but so have we. reporter: nearly five years after that verdict, shannon herself as a lot more to say about jermeir stroud and about what happened the day denita died. coming up, her very first interview. i don t know jermeir but the voice on the tapes does not sound to me like him. that s all i can tell you, it s him. and believe it or not, denita s mother has an apology for shannon. being the god-fearing woman that i am, i know that was wrong, and i never should ve said it. said it.