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In 1997 clarence smitty smith was put on trial for rico violations in federal court. and bridget, smitty's estranged wife, had returned to testify against him. >> the outlaws told me that wives can't testify against husbands. and to me that was the way to save my life. because until they told me to marry him, i was waiting for one of them to kill me. >> when bridget learned she might be asked to corroborate smitty's alibi of bar hopping with yankee the night of the murders, she panicked. >> i decided to run and run as far as i could. i had heard before i left that the girl survived and she was...

Smitty clearly had a beard. >> not a skinny build by any stretch of the imagination, so it just didn't match up. >> announcer: for corroboration, tenbrook also submitted smitty's alibi, turning to smitty's wife bridgett who had been working in a topless bar. >> smitty's alibi was that he was essentially bar hopping with yankee and some of his other friends, and i listed bridgett as a defense witness because she was with him on the night of the murders. >> but before she was slated to testify and just days after their marriage, bridgett disappeared. >> i was concerned because she was listed as ...

Trials, including carl holley and penny reed. >> and i said in court that they've got all of these witnesses who were the informants or the snitches. they were bought and paid-for informants. they had been given $250,000 in cash. they had been forgiven seven death sentences, 12 life sentences and 200,000 years in prison. if i went around and gave a witness $10, i would be indicted for bribing witnesses. >> narrator: smitty was tried in federal court in tampa in 1997 alongside three other outlaws. prosecutors argued that while smitty had gone for over a decade without being charged with a crime...

>> a bomb is a cowardly way of killing someone. i think for a good ten years there wasn't a day that went by that i didn't glance under the car and look for something. >> narrator: smitty was sent to death row at the notorious angola prison. >> why, they took me over to the death row side. i look in, i see this white guy laying on a bed naked and his legs propped up against the wall and he was writing on the wall in [ bleep ]. i says, oh, man, where in the hell am i at. >> narrator: smitty would spend almost four years on death row before he even had a chance to mount an appeal. attorney tom l...

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 ...