Page 2 - That Smith Case News Today

Violence events, maybe, some of the stressors. all that should play very well to the prosecutor, who knows they have a tough time proving maybe even second degree because nobody knows what happened but him to the body. and there may well be an opportunity to show, look, lets lower it to something where hes definitely going to spend a fair amount of time in prison, but that he has a chance at life afterwafrds, and thats less than second degree. thats going to be the focus, i think, of the defense...

That. one is divorce, which comes on the 27th, the three days before she thinks she was killed and on the morning they think she may have been killed questions about inheritance. one of these questions was how long does dna last. and the answer was 1,000 years or 6.8 million years, depending on conditions. so, i think he went into this saying, ive got to scramble to make this go away. >> bob, youve been covering crime in the northeast for almost 30 years. have you ever seen a collection of evide...

Evidence yet of that if you think about it. this could be a domestic violence fight that had a horrific consequence, the death of her, and then the cover up is what makes it look so bad. no matter what he did in the cover up, it simply does not change the level of crime, the initial crime, the murder. this may turn out to be the only thing the state can prove is some time of negligent homicide in the middle of a fight not oven the level of second degree. if i was the defense counsel, im focused ...

-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good evening. welcome to a special edition of "360: what happened to ana," everything we learned after a harrowing day in court about what prosecutors believe what happened to the missing mother of three young children, who has been missing since the new year. what was done to her by her husband, brian, and the research he did on disposing body. some of the analysis from forensic science and scientists on criminal cases, and what a trial may look like. fir...

Turn to how the defense may undermine their case. mark romero, who successfully defended george zimmerman. both part of the warner brothers discovery family. back with us is john miller. are there holes in the case the defense could use in their advantage to your opinion, the fact that we dont yet know what the motive was. theres a number of arguments, i assume, the defense will be making about, perhaps, what may have happened. >> well, certainly. you know, we only have 10, 15, 20 pages of whats...

For us was finding a google search that says, how do you fake a mental illness? he had done that ahead of time, so that went to premeditation and planning. thats different from this case where all of the search, as grim, as grizzly as they are, seem to be after the fact. >> there was that police report filed back in 2014, where she had told police that he had threatened to kill her. >> so, that was actually filed before they were married, and they went on to continue that relationship, by the wa...

Tonight on your show even have noted, most of those go to how do you get rid of a body, what do i have to do, et cetera, et cetera? they do not go to motive or intent or planning. and thats where if you wanted to prove a first degree murder case or a second degree murder case, you have to prove some kind of premeditation and intent to kill. we dont know what the cause of death was. we could say homicide and the d.a. believes there was probably evidence of a homicide. but we dont know what that i...

Yeah. so disturbing. >> i mean, the challenges here are that, you know, youve got, that smith case where he killed both his first wife and second wife and kept moving around the country. that was one fbi agent, bob, who would not let go of that case. thats why it is going to trial again this being. if you look at the gail cats case. the renowned doctor who lived on the upper east side. when she disappears, he doesnt report her missing. you see some similar themes coming up. another investigator,...

When you put all this together and look at the google searches. its extraordinary. but without the body, its a challenge. but they certainly can get a conviction for, if not first degree, then second degree murder, even without a body. >> john, thats one of the things when he did the google search about -- i want to get the actual wording about -- can you be charged without a body. that was a google search at 1:10 p.m. right after hacksaw, best tool to dismember. the answer is -- i googled that ...