Old Smithart News Today

Convicted of a car theft in new york and had some recent brushes with the law. >> he had been in some trouble recently when he went out of state. and he was a suspect in a death out of state, too. >> defarris denied any involvement in mandys murder. his employer confirmed he was at work on the day mandy disappeared, so he wasnt considered a suspect. but defarris had some information of his own. he saw another local man, charlie smithart, driving his pickup truck on the road where mandy was last ...

They learned that smitharts mother, lucille, had gone shopping at the copper river grocery store on the day of the mandys disappearance and paid for the items with a check. >> the time and date on the register tape was the same. and the time was 3:17, when lucy said that she was home with her son. and she wasnt home. she was at the grocery store buying groceries at that time. >> 200 miles away in anchorage, criminalists used a gel adhesive tape to gather any trace evidence left behind by the kil...

>> he never put his name down on the search roster at the fire station to say that i am a member of this search team, i will search. but he would show up there and stand around and then he would go off on his own. we found that strange. >> smithart denied defarris claim he was near the site on the day mandy disappeared and said he had an alibi. he said he was watching television with his mother, an alibi his mother confirmed. >> god knows he didnt do it and the person who committed this crime kn...

Sketch in the newspaper that mandy was missing, that she thought she was looking at sketch of her own daughter. >> armed with a search warrant, investigators confiscated smitharts pickup truck for analysis. with a gel adhesive, criminalists lifted microscopic particles from the trucks interior. during the investigation, they noticed something else about smithart. >> i couldnt take my eyes off his shirt, because he had little sparkly things on his shirt. and i finally asked him, "what are those s...

Could find. they also confiscated a pair of smitharts overalls. all of the evidence was shipped to chicago, illinois, to a research microscopist, skip palenik. palenik began looking at the small yellow paint chip found on mandys clothing. using x-ray spectroscopy, he noticed something unique. >> glossy layers with no other layers behind it, in a variety of colors. thats quite unusual. and childrens bicycles, of course, are painted with the single layers of the glossy paint. >> in the samples col...

A very unusual cross-section. they were also very brittle. >> they were brittle because of degradation due to age and exposure. the fibers were triangular in shape, or trilobal. using an infrared spectrometer, palenik discovered the fibers were polypropylene, a synthetic fiber used for carpeting. he then analyzed the fibers gathered from smitharts truck and clothing. >> we find in smitharts environment exactly the same kind of fibers. not only the same cross-sectional shape, but the same pigment...

Metallic spheres found all over mandys skin and clothing. the scanning electron microscope identified the spheres as carbon steel. from his experience, palenik knew precisely what had shaped the metal in this way. >> using a high-speed cutting tool to cut through steel, you will produce these spheres. the metal particle is raised to high enough temperature it actually melts into the spherical form. >> the metal spheres were compared to fragments found on the seat of smitharts truck. >> the parti...