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out of the two people, which would had the best training and the ability of doing explosive work? holley said that smitty had that experience from his time in the military. narrator: karl holley described how he carried out the hit with smitty. holley and smith went to jacksonville and met with another biker who provided the c-4. he brought out a three-foot stick of the explosive, they cut off a foot of it and they started a continuous drive to new orleans to conduct the hit. they went back to collins house that night. smith said, drop me off and pick me up in a few minutes, i ll take care of it. narrator: holley said smitty then shimmied under collins truck and wired explosives to the brake lights. they went to a motel and waited. around 7:30 that sunday morning when robert lee collins was backing out of his driveway in his pickup truck, he tapped the brakes. ....
Ft. lauderdale police. yep, told you we was going to get you, and then they extradited me over to new orleans. narrator: the fbi believed smitty was behind the murder-for-hire killing of a federal witness named robert collins in 1981. robert collins had evidence against what was regarded then as one of the more powerful organized crime families in the united states that allegedly was buying and distributing drugs throughout the gulf coast. narrator: the 38-year-old collins had turned state s witness after being caught with cocaine, but collins was murdered before he could testify. dea agent bill dodge was collins handler. we were all concerned with his safety. we told him the possibility of danger. we offered him the witness protection, and he didn t want to go into that at all. he was the type of individual that just basically said, i ll take my chances, i m not worried ....
narrator: the force of the explosion ripped apart the truck and robert collins. both legs were blown off essentially. most of his left hand, and then on the right hand two or three fingers. he lived for six hours or so but essentially died of the blunt force trauma and bleeding to death. holley and smith learned on the news that the explosion had happened and so they drove back immediately to florida, got paid and went their way. narrator: prosecutors decided not to charge smitty with the federal crime of killing a witness. instead, he was tried in louisiana state court for capital murder. the state of louisiana had capital punishment as a potential sentence. the federal government did not have that at the time. there was ever a case for the death penalty, it was certainly this particular case. ....
Of federal witness robert collins. they used to have tours when i was on the row. it was the old-style bars. make everybody walk on the far side of the wall so you feel like you re the animal in a zoo. don t feed the animals in the zoo. narrator: for four years, smitty waited to be assigned an attorney. then in 1989, harley-riding tom lorenzi volunteered to take his case. the first time i met smitty, he said, i m going to give you my file. it was remarkable. they were the most well-prepared files you would see at any of the most prestigious law firms ever. i d been working on that case ever since i have been in louisiana. i had collected a lot of stuff that i had mailed in to me from these different trials. it was almost a couple thousand pages i collected. he had such a mind for the ....