But in February 1987, Mark was given his first assignment, and instead of being in the bigger main office, he was reassigned to a two-man office in Pikeville, Kentucky, per "The FBI Killer. A black person would have been given life to death sentence in the 1980s /90s. There was motive to kill given that she was claiming to expose their relationship and pregnancy placing his career and family on the line. In exchange, he was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of first-degree manslaughter. The new episode of "The Perfect Suspect," which airs at 9 p.m. Thursday on Investigation Discovery, focuses on the 1989 death of FBI informant Susan Daniels Smith in Pike County. 10 - The Murder of Susan Daniels Smith - Beyond Contempt True Crime 1994 . Since her sisters death, Ward has been taking sedatives and seeing an analyst once a month. Regardless of where they met, the two continued their affair. He still did quite a bit of time considering Compared to many cops for instance..who never serve time at all for murder! Grow up. (Susan's mother was a McCoy; her father's family descended from the Hatfields.) If he was black with good behavior, they would do the same thing also. He told me that the day that it happened- and he didnt know this at the time, but afterwards he knew- the day it happened Mark Putnam actually came to Post 9 with the woman in the trunk of his car dead, Harris said. [5], Despite being sentenced to 16 years in prison, Putnam served only 10 years due to good behavior, and was described as a "model inmate". Besides the nonstop phone calls, Susan cut her hair short to look like Kathys. She was a poor drug-addicted mother of two, and he was an educated, decorated FBI agent. Growing up, Putnam was described as an overachiever, and when it came to sports, he was "highly competitive" and would stop at nothing to win the game. Its sad that you rob a bank Cat Eyes and you get nearly 60 years thanks to Susan Daniels Smith, But you murder a PREGNANT informant and you only do 10 years? By the way, if you can get your hands on the movie Betrayed By Love, youre in for a tearjerker. And Susan Daniels Smith didnt hold out on the details with her sister. In 1987, an ambitious rookie FBI agent came to Pikeville, Kentucky for his first posting out of the academy. With his plea deal, Putnam was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment for murder. After leaving it there for a day while he drove around, Putnam left the body by an old coal mining road the following evening. By all accounts, Susan Smith fell head over heels for the FBI agent. Mark Putnams guilty plea on June 12, 1990, was unlike any an American courtroom had seen before. The move was based on the suggestion of Bert Hatfield the part-time cop who initially suggested Kenneth as an informant. According to what Susan told friends, they met in motels for sex. This is how the unlikely coupling of Mark and Susan started. The truth is, it could not be determined. Ward, whose clamorings about her sisters disappearance first brought the case to light, still insists that there was more than an unwanted pregnancy behind the killing--and she believes that the autopsy, halted two years ago at the request of the family, might prove that. In the premiere episode titled, No Escape, detectives find the body of a naked woman and learn that the woman may be the missing informant who disappeared a year earlier. 1989 murder of Susan Daniels smith by FBI agent Mark Putnam This story was one of the very first true crime stories that I followed and is in part the reason I am obsessed with true crime in general. Smith, a mother of two from Freeburn, had been working with the FBI as an informant with an agent named Mark Putnam. In his later confession, Putnam claimed they only had quickies in his car. Every time something like this occurs, the color card is played. Jolene thats an interesting point. Susan Daniels Smith (1961-1989) - Find a Grave Memorial But the sister of Susan Daniels Smith--the woman Putnam strangled, the woman whose body he hid for 12 months while her family agonized over her disappearance--is not. https://twitter.com/LyndaKelly/status/708741300259037184. One day, Smith went looking for Putnam at the courthouse and flashed her breasts at the security guards, seemingly to make him jealous. Although the marriage produced two children, its hardly surprising that there were problems. Putnam underwent a polygraph exam, which he failed. things that my sister told me.. Plus I believe his conscience was eating at him. Putnam put Smiths body in the trunk of the car, where it stayed for an entire day, until he dumped it into a roadside ravine the following night. They were not concerned about Justice being served; they only wanted the Black man to be found not guilty. Dirt poor, divorced, the mother of two young children, Susan Daniels Smith, 27, prayed for a handsome Prince Charming who would take her away from the squalor of her rural Kentucky community to live in romance and luxury. Kathy's mother Carol claimed that what happened to Susan was simply "a crime of passion." We've received your submission. Smith was a local dealer in methamphetamine, PCP, and cocaine, hardly a model citizen. ", By the time Mark and Kathy moved to Pikeville, she was pregnant with their second child. Im not white and I have to roll my eyes to that foolish question! Susan Daniels Smith Murder, The Genre. She dropped out of school in 7th grade because of financial problems within her family. On the one hand, she seemed to have the idea that it was like a regular job, and Mark was her boss, Kathy says in Sharkeys book. In his confession, Mark said that he pulled off on the side of the road to continue the discussion. But according to "Fatal Deceptions" by Joe Sharkey, Smith claimed that their affair lasted two years and wasn't limited to simply getting busy in the back seat. Shelby Ward was so incensed that she tried to conceal and carry a .38-caliber handgun into the courtroom, though it's unclear if she in fact planned on murdering Putnam since she said sheforgot that she had the gun. Your email address will not be published. We dont want to make a secret about it, but we prefer not to bring it out, he said. This was also apparently the first time that an FBI agent was actually convicted of murder. I remember Diane Downs, 1980s, the mother of three children who shot them because her new boyfriend wouldnt get serious with her because he didnt want to be involved with someone with kids. A year later, apparently racked by guilt, he offered to lead authorities to her body. I agree with you. Watching the movie it does seem like manslaughter, and if that was correct then 16 years is an appropriate sentence. [7], Mark Steven Putnam (born July 4, 1959) is a criminologist and former FBI agent (1987-1990). An affair that eventually ended when Putnam strangled Smith. Susans collaboration with Putnam was successful. They jumped up whooping and dancing around as if everyone of them had won the lottery. Two years before Mark was released from prison, his wife Kathy Putnam died suddenly from organ failure at the age of 38. How nice for him. There is a wikipedia entry named "Murder of Susan Smith" about her case. Being an informant was a fairly common phenomenon in the area during this time although the pay was low and the risk was high. I read a number of comments that he got off light and probably so. He has told his story but she is not here to tell hers so we will never truly know what happened on the day of her death but one thing is certain, 10yrs was too short a time compared to the sentence being served to people of color for the same crime. Stop that racism stuff. And after $18,000 in cash was stolen from a bank in Kentucky, Mark set his sights on the suspect, Carl Edwards "Cats Eyes" Lockhart, The New York Post writes. I think it was her fingernail, but Im not sure. FBI Special Killer Agent | Mark Putnam / Susan Daniels Smith Case Analysis Dr. Todd Grande 1.27M subscribers 149K views 11 months ago This video answers the question: Can I analyze the case. Good read, Irving! May 10, 2021 7:20pm. Wild Bill Hickok: Fortune Leaves Him in the Lurch, https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/white-people-s-war-on-western-civ/, Helene Knabe: Pioneering Doctor and Murder Victim, George Joseph Smith: Bridegroom Makes for Unusual Serial Killer, Annie Le: Insider Murder Ends a Promising Life, Frank Howard: Strange and Sensational Murder for Hire, Tony Baekeland: Odd Son, Troubled Mother, and Murder, Eric Witte: Mother Manipulates Boy to Commit Startling Murder, Lethal Lovers: Sensational Case of Love and Murder. In 1990, the investigation into Smith's death became an FBI matter, as Putnam was under suspicion for her disappearance. Putnam, who already had been transferred to Miami, dumped the body off a coal mine road in the eastern Kentucky hills and returned to his wife and two children. Then therere women who murder pregnant women to cut their babies out of them and claim them as their own in order to keep their boyfriends and husbands. In the initial investigation of Susan Smith's disappearance, police focused on Kenneth Smith and his acquaintances. Sadly, after he came back to town and agreed to meet with Susan Smith, he strangled her and threw her nude body down a ravine. While they were driving on an isolated country road on June 8, she told him she was pregnant. At the time, Susan was addicted to recreational pills, and with two children under 7 years old to take care of, she definitely needed the extra cash that Putnam was offering, Carol Anne Davis writes in "Masking Evil.". Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. Initially, Mark Putnam was assigned to the Louisville office in Kentucky, and Kathy Putnam had already started looking for houses in the area. But what was the relationship between Smith and Putnam, and how did it get to a point where he felt compelled to choke her to death? The New York Post reports that Putnam instead stated that after getting a paternity test, he and his wife would adopt the child. He flew into West Virginia when he had business in Lexington, Jones said. She was strangled by her handler and lover, FBI agent Mark Putnam. According to The NewYork Post, Putnam was so wracked with guilt that he felt compelled to confess. And it should. I feel like Kathy and Susan were both victimized by Putnam, I saw an interview of him at the end of the movie and found it unsettling and down right creepy how he smiled when talking about Susan. But according to Sharkey, while Putnam was away, Susan began fabricating a more involved two-year relationship between them and shouting about it from the rooftops. Have you got friend together to paint or repair a him? A few months earlier, a robber had stolen $18,000 in cash from a bank in nearby Meta, Kentucky, and it was up to the local agents to identify and catch the thief. Yes, that is interesting. 8 to 30 years for a Class B felony. Two points to touch on. Putnam was given a polygraph test, which is also known as a lie detector test. I dont care what color he is. And in 1980, Lockhart achieved his own dream after stealing $300,000 from a bank in Grundy, Virginia. The case also appears on Season 1 Episode 1 of the Investigation Discovery series Betrayed. He did not know how to control himself and he paid the price. Nevertheless, the two married sometime in the late 1970s. Erin is right. On June 8, 1989, Susan Daniels Smith was killed in the Pikeville area. The pair would meet two to three times every week, and Smith quickly told Putnam she believed Lockhart was planning another heist because she discovered a duffel bag with two sawed-off shotguns and ski masks in their home, Sharkey writes. It happens all the time. He was 22 at the time, she was 15. Susan Daniels Smith lived a life of poverty, violence and misery. Why?, She said she did not think Putnam wanted to kill Smith, but rather that he was pushed to it. [8][9], The case was the subject of The FBI Killer (1992), a book by American investigator Aphrodite Jones. Some people have suggested that he confessed to the slaying to hide something worse from authorities, but his younger brother, Tim Putnam, said he believes that Mark just could not bear the guilt. In addition to the old 1994 movie about the case, there is also another movie that is in the works. And afterward, Kathy Putnam gave birth to the pair's first child, Danielle. . Putnam, 30, of Sunrise, Fla., entered a guilty plea to one count of felony manslaughter in Ms. Smiths death. Susan Daniels Smith lived a life of poverty, violence and misery. Smith, a mother of two from Freeburn, had been working with the FBI as an informant with an agent named Mark Putnam. Its part of our culture now. Ive thought about it and I feel sort of bad collecting money off it, but I went through a lot of hell for it, she said. Release Date. And then she met Mark Putnam and became obsessed. Not one scintilla or shred of evidence to bring a charge or convict this man." After Kenneth's parole officer informed Putnam he was "totally unreliable," Putnam approached Susan to be an informant. Once an informant was approved, FBI agents were allotted $5,000 "to be distributed at the agent's discretion." Murder of Susan Daniels Smith at the hands of FBI agent Mark Putnam This story was one of the very first true crime stories that I followed and is in part the reason I am obsessed with true crime in general. Meanwhile, "The FBI Encyclopedia" writes that Mark continued establishing himself as a productive agent for the Bureau. Im sorry but theres something terribly wrong with that picture. But thats only part of the story. In truth, its about class and poor men of any race get the worst defense lawyer and therefore the worst sentences and treatment. Continuing their street shit inside. The familys been through a lot this past year.. filmed in and around Lexington and Harlan in 2016, More than 900 pounds of marijuana seized by customs agents in Kentucky, CDC advises those at high risk for COVID mask up in these 3 KY counties. But Kenneth proved unreliable, so Putnam picked Susan to be an informant instead. She will get pregnant, and she will ruin you.. On June 13, 1990, Mark Putnam pled guilty to choking Susan Smith to death and told investigators where they could find her body almost exactly one year after her murder. I thought he was some white dude trying to scare me with a pistol. They had wanted him to stand trial for murder.
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