Murder With My Husband - 206. The FBI Killer - Susan Daniels Smith

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

In this episode, Payton and Garrett dive into the case of Susan Smith. Initially drawn into cooperation with the FBI as an informant, Susan soon discovers that her involvement might ultimately risk her life. MERCH: https://mwmhshop.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/intothedarkpod/ Discount codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 All socials: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: The NY Times - https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/13/us/ex-fbi-agent-admits-slaying-and-gets-16-years.html The NY Post - https://nypost.com/2021/05/10/the-true-crime-behind-emilia-clarkes-above-suspicion/ TheCinemaholic.com - https://thecinemaholic.com/susan-smith-murder-how-did-she-die-who-killed-her/ “The FBI Killer” by Aphrodite Jones The Tampa Bay Times - https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1991/06/09/slaying-by-fbi-agent-still-in-spotlight/ ScreenRant.com - https://screenrant.com/above-suspicion-susan-smith-pregnant-true-story/ TheMountainEagle.com - https://www.themountaineagle.com/articles/true-story-of-fbi-agent-who-killed-lover-in-1989-now-showing-on-netflix/ Grunge.com - https://www.grunge.com/602209/mark-putnam-the-first-fbi-agent-convicted-of-murder/ TheLineUp.com - https://the-line-up.com/above-suspicion ByLiner.com - https://byliner.com/where-is-mark-putnam-today-susan-smiths-killer/ Wikipedia.com - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Susan_Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Morland. And I'm Garrett Morland. And he's the husband. I'm the husband. Hope everybody is doing good.

Just a reminder, if you're watching on Apple, please hit a follow button. And if you're watching on Spotify, there should be a follow button or a subscribe button as well. Helps us out a lot. And yeah. Also, I think we have officially finished our merch sales and I hope you all loved it so much. This is definitely one of my favorite designs we've done

and I got a lot of good feedback. So I hope you guys all like it. All orders should be sent out by now. So yeah, thank you guys so much. Okay, before we get to Garrett's 10 seconds, I wanted to remind you that this Thursday, well, every Thursday, but also this Thursday, we will be streaming on Twitch at 5.30.

Now, if you don't know what Twitch is, or you think it's just something that people play video games on, it is a streaming platform, it is used for video games, but it's also used for chatting and hanging out and lots of other things. So Garrett and I get on there. We show you true crime footage, interrogation videos, police body cam, you see the video, you see us.

We talk with the chat. We have entire conversations about it. If you've never been on Twitch, I would highly suggest that it is such a fun night. So again, every Thursday, 5.30 p.m. And then just kind of hopping into my 10 seconds here. We went to the Olivia Rodrigo concert last week. When does this come out?

Yeah, last week. It was a good time. I surprised Peyton last second. So we were in Arizona hanging out, warm weather. Other than that, just kind of making videos for you guys and go and check it out. All right. Our sources for this episode are the FBI killer by Aphrodite Jones New York Times the New York Post the cinnamon Holic comm the Tampa Bay Times comm screen rant comm the Mountain Eagle comm grunge comm the lineup comm by liner comm and

Wikipedia so I want you to close your eyes and imagine yourself in this Scenario pay you not the time to laugh keep going close your eyes and imagine yourself in this scenario. Payton, not the time to laugh, keep going. Garrett's closing his eyes and he's really imagining it. You're in your 20s living in a small town in the middle of nowhere, America. It wasn't literal. You said close your eyes and I was trying to get everyone involved. Oh, okay.

Everyone close your eyes unless you're driving. You're in your 20s living in a small town in the middle of nowhere America. You don't have much money and every day is pretty much the same routine. You take care of your partner. You raise the kids. You cook. You clean the usual grind when suddenly you're approached by someone new in town. They say they're an agent for the FBI and they need your help as an informant. Even better, they'll offer you $5,000 for your time

and effort. Is the job dangerous? Sure, you're ratting out big-time criminals to the FBI, but is it worth it? All for a little cash and kind of a little bit of excitement in your dull life? Okay, you can open your eyes now. Well, in the 1980s, a bored housewife named Susan Daniels Smith certainly thought so. Only she didn't get to walk away from the job scot-free as one would hope. Instead, she got herself in a little too deep once starting this new venture, to the point that it eventually cost her her life. And not for the reasons you might suspect.

So for today's case, we're headed to a tiny town in Kentucky called Freeburn, a place so remote that in 2020, the population was still only 296 people. But in the 1960s, this was where a little girl named Susan Daniels and her family called home. Susan was the fifth of nine kids. Her father, like most patriarchs in the area, made his living working the coal mines in the area, an industry that wasn't exactly thriving at the time,

but still helped pay the bills. At least until a terrible injury forced him out of work, leaving the family to survive off of welfare checks alone. This made Susan and her siblings upbringing a little more complicated than her parents would have hoped. With two kids to a bed, a little black and white TV with only three stations, and the only source of heat coming from a small coal stove,

life in the Daniels household was a little tense. Right, it's not like we are in 2024 where you can find a job online and you don't have to worry about that as much. But despite having to go to school and hand me down clothes and worn shoes, Susan was very popular. She loved to read and learn. She had plenty of friends. She managed to stay pretty well adjusted. And in 1977, when she she turned 15 she found that knight in shining armor that would sweep her off her feet, rescue her from her cramped

meager existence or so she thought. His name was Kenneth Smith and in reality he was hardly the prince charming Susan had been dreaming of. Seven years her senior, Susan was enamored with Kenneth. He had his own trailer, a motorcycle, he wore cowboy boots and smoked cigarettes. And to really solidify his bad boy image, the 22 year old Kenneth was also known as the local drug dealer around town. All right, Kenneth, the way to really set

your expectations high. Well, I mean, this is around town. All right, Kenneth, the way to really set your expectations high. Well, I mean, this is small town. Yes. You've got the cowboy boots, he smokes cigarettes, and she's 15, and he's 22 and he has his own trailer. That's a big difference.

So, she's enamored. And it wasn't long before Kenneth had convinced Susan to drop out of high school and help him run his business, dealing everything from PCP to cocaine, acid and marijuana. Right away, Susan became addicted to the thrill of getting high and making money while doing it.

For the first time in her life, she had cash for new clothes, jewelry, makeup, you name it. And then in February 1981, when Susan was now 20 years old, she and Kenneth finally eloped. Susan didn't tell her family, it was just them and the pastor. But Susan knew her family wouldn't approve of the marriage

and she was head over heels for Kenneth. Nothing was gonna stand in the way of her being with him forever. A bond that was further solidified in March of 1982 when the couple welcomed their first child into the world, a little girl named Miranda. But it wasn't all puppy dogs and roses for the couple from then on out. Shortly after giving birth, things got more challenging for Susan and Kenneth. Now with the kid, the couple was no longer in the business of dealing drugs. Kenneth had gotten a job working construction,

but after falling from the roof of a building, he was in bad shape, unable to continue his duties. Oh, that's kind of, I don't want to say impressive, but that they just stopped dealing. Yeah. And now are working because they're a kid. But then it's like these patterns repeat, right? Because our dad got injured on the job and now our husband's injured on the job.

So obviously Kenneth turned to pain pills to help him cope, particularly after learning he didn't qualify for disability benefits. Instead, the Smiths found themselves on welfare, which meant Susan had returned to the same domestic situation she'd tried to escape as a teenager. Fed up with Kenneth's refusal to find new work, the 23-year-old Susan petitioned for divorce in 1984, and their marriage was officially dissolved a year later in March 1985. But by that point, Susan and Kenneth had rekindled their flame. She was now pregnant with their second child. And while the two stayed divorced on paper, they continued living together under the same roof, raising their two young kids together. But it's around this time that someone new moved to Pike County, Kentucky, and it wouldn't be long before they caught Susan's eye and upended her

life entirely. Now his name was Mark Steven Putnam. He was a 27 year old clean cut New England boy who'd been raised Catholic by blue collar parents. He was an athlete and a bookworm. Mark had graduated from the University of Tampa with a degree in criminology and a dream of joining the FBI. Shout out to all our blue coll workers, by the way. I can say criminologists. Nah. Nah. One, he pursued immediately after college, landing himself a desk job at an FBI office in New Haven, Connecticut in the summer of 1982.

From there, Mark watched and observed other agents quietly looking for ways to climb the ranks. Finally, in 1986, he took the exams for the FBI Academy and passed with flying colors, which was supposedly a rare transition, a pretty big leap to go from desk jockey to full-fledged agent. So this was a huge deal for Mark.

By that point, he had married a woman named Kathleen Ponticelli and settled down, adding a little girl to their family. But now, the Puttnums would have to relocate closer to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, which Kathy didn't mind. She was happy to stay home and raise the kids while Mark continued to climb the ladder at work. So over the next 16 weeks, Mark busted his behind, going through rigorous training exercises, exams, formal interviews, polygraphs, and drug tests to ensure he was FBI material. By October 6th, 1986, Mark had successfully graduated

and was handed his gold badge. Six months later, he was given his first assignment. In February of 1987, he was told he'd been selected to run the tiny two-person office in a small town in Kentucky called Pikeville. That doesn't sound like a job that kind of sounds like they were punishing him. Mall Cop.

Yeah. There, he'd be investigating everything from public corruption to drug trafficking to a string of robberies that were happening around the area. So now that kind of catches you up with Mark's life and then Susan and Kenneth's life. So now Pikeville, which was a 45 minute drive from Susan's hometown of Freeburn. So Pikeville might have been a little bit bigger than Freeburn was a heck of a lot different than what Mark was obviously used to up north.

For starters, there was a huge income gap between the people that lived in the town, primarily because of the declining coal industry. You had about a hundred people who were all the higher ups of the coal mines, who were living in mansions around town. And then there were about 11,000 different mobile homes set up around the area that housed the working class.

Okay, so it was a bigger area. Yeah, it was a big area. With a disparity this large, it was no surprise that the county had fallen victim to rampant crime, particularly an unusually high number of bank robberies, which brings me back to Mark's first major assignment. After Kentucky and West Virginia State Police struggled to find the culprits, Mark with the FBI was brought on to take a closer look at the case. One he was certain involved the same group of repeat offenders.

All of the robberies were performed in a similar fashion using the same weapons, stolen vehicles, and ski masks. And it didn't take long for Mark to lock in on one major suspect, a newly released ex-convict who just served time for armed robbery named Carl Cat Eyes Lockhart. Now, Cat Eyes had just finished his 18 year sentence. Cat Eyes.

And while he was still on probation, it hadn't stopped him from going about his old ways. As it turns out, Cat Eyes wasn't hiding from the law. He was staying with some old friends not far from Pikeville, Susan and Kenneth Smith. Remember, Susan and Kenneth used to be in the drug and Cat Eyes got put away 18 years ago, but now he's staying with them. In fact, Susan liked having Cat Eyes and his girlfriend, Sherry, around. They were always helping out around the house and offered to pay them rent.

Plus, Kenneth was nicer. He was less emotionally abusive towards Susan whenever they were around. They knew Cat Eyes was back to his old habits, hearing that he'd recently stolen 18 grand from a bank in Kentucky. But that didn't cause any issue for Kenneth and Susan who had assorted history of their own. What they didn't realize was that this also made them a target for FBI surveillance.

I mean, if the guy who they think is doing the robberies is living in your house, the FBI is gonna be sitting in their little car in their black suits outside watching you. Also, he's robbing from banks, not like he's robbing 7-Eleven's around Kentucky, which is bad, but banks way worse. Well, you're just gonna get you slushies. Exactly.

Suddenly Mark Putnam and his partner Burt Hatfield found themselves sitting in vans outside the Smiths home. So now we have our two parties and they have now met together outside the home. Or climbing them out and above their house to watch their comings and we have our two parties and they have now met together outside the home or Climbing them out and above their house to watch their comings and goings with a set of binoculars Still they found nothing they could work off of and that's when Burt came up with a plan Why not see if Mark could recruit Kenneth or Susan the owners of the home as an informant? At first Kenneth did seem like the better choice. He'd been arrested before. He had a criminal record that could stand to be expunged. There was

something for Kenneth to gain by ratting out on his friend. So in the summer of 1987, Mark set up a meeting with Kenneth to see if he could get him to cooperate. But when Kenneth handed over a list of demands, including a weekly salary from the FBI, Mark quickly abandoned the plan. Instead, he figured he might have an easier time getting Kenneth's ex-wife, Susan, to play along. Remember, they're actually divorced on paper, but they're living together. So a few weeks later, Mark called Susan to meet him in a hospital parking lot just a few minutes outside of Freeburn. Kenneth accompanied her that day, but watched from outside the car as Susan climbed in,

shut the door and introduced herself to Mark. Now immediately upon locking eyes with Susan, Mark, our FBI agent was caught a little off guard. This was not the kind of woman that he pictured to be using as an informant. Susan was attractive, she was put together, she was magnetic. Kenneth watched as the two seemed to be flirting,

laughing and chatting for far too long in the car. Oh no, Mark. But inside that car, Susan also expressed her concerns about the informant job. She'd heard of other people who were working for the feds around Free burn and they never got paid. But even if she did collect the money she was promised, she knew it would be a matter of life or death

if cat eyes caught her. She wondered aloud to Mark if the risk was worth the reward. But Mark was convincing and Susan realized if the job meant spending more time with this handsome FBI agent, then maybe it could be a good idea after all. I feel like for me, if I was in that situation, it would have to be a lot of money.

Yeah. Like enough money to wear, I don't know, you know what I'm saying? I do think at this point though, Susan's just a little unhappy with her life. It's like, yeah, whatever. Where she has now ended back up. So after a few more minutes of conversation,

Susan finally emerged from the vehicle and told Kenneth they'd reached an understanding and she was now the one on the FBI's payroll. All right. Over the next several months, Susan and Mark would meet two or three times a week to exchange intel. Susan shared details like cat eyes had gotten a new shotgun that she believed

he would use for his next robbery or that she'd spotted ski masks in with his laundry. She even feigned interest in cat eyes endeavors, getting him to chat for hours about how he pulled these robberies off. All details she then shared with Mark the next time they met. But before long, it wasn't just information that Mark and Susan were exchanging at these meetups. They were also swapping DNA. As their relationship grew, Susan and Mark snuck off to remote locations where they'd

talk about their personal lives before and after ripping each other's clothes off. Wait, isn't Mark married too? Yes. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. And kids. Oh, yikes. So while it's not entirely clear when their partnership turned romantic,

sex became a regular occurrence during their meetings, which was obviously a huge no-no in the FBI. Having sex with your informant was a reason for dismissal, but Mark didn't seem to think he'd ever get caught. And while mixing business with pleasure, Mark got the information he needed to move in on Cat Eyes by September 1987. On the 10th, Cat Eyes and an unknown accomplice arrived

at the first national bank of Pikeville in Belcher, Kentucky. They walked out those doors with over $12,000 in cash, but Cat Eyes had no idea that Mark and his FBI team had gotten to the bank the day before and instructed the bank teller to place a red dye pack in with the cash. All thanks of course to the intel of Susan. But a week later, CatEyes stupidly went to another bank

and tried to exchange some of that dyed cash for other bills and that's when he was caught by police and they had all the evidence they needed because they had set it up. So by January 1988, cat eyes was in court facing charges for that, as well as several other robberies. Man, if you're robbing a bank, like I'm going for millions. I know.

Not like 10, 20, 30. Do these make half millions there though? Maybe, I guess. I don't know. I'm sure they used to keep a lot. I know they have safes and stuff. I'm sure it's way different, although. And the star witness for the prosecution at his trial was of

course, Susan Daniels Smith. On the 28th of that month, cat eyes was sentenced to 57 years in federal prison. But afterwards Susan was more concerned than ever. Now that cat eyes knew she was the one who ratted him out. Wait, how would he know? Because she testified against him at trial. Oh, I thought she could just do it anonymously. No.

Like she could rat on him and set everything up and then not have to go to trial. Nope. Yikes. There was a good chance the news had obviously spread to his accomplices. Like she might be messing with the wrong people. Suddenly Susan was inquiring about witness protection programs to both an attorney and Mark Putnam. Only Mark convinced her to stick around. Her work wasn't over yet. He could use her for other stings around the area. Now, obviously, that wasn't the only reason Mark

kept Susan around. Whenever his wife would travel north to see her family, which was pretty often, Mark invited Susan over to his home for a little rendezvous. There were times when Mark told Susan he planned to leave Kathy and be with her full time. And while Susan believed his lies falling head over heels for Mark over the next year, the truth was Mark knew how valuable and informant like Susan was. She was helping him make major bus around town, which he saw as a way to continue to climb the ranks of the FBI, maybe even score a transfer to somewhere more coveted. And as long as he had his sights set on that goal, he wasn't going to let Susan out of his grip. So he was telling her whatever he thought

she needed to hear. But Susan didn't see it that way. She told a few friends about the affair, including her sister Shelby, who was starting to worry that Susan maybe might be getting into this a little too deep. Well, also, Mark's kind of planer. Oh, yeah. I, yeah, he's maybe has feelings for her, but in the reality, he just wants to move up in the ranks and he's planer. Yeah.

Shelby repeatedly asked Susan if she was worried about one of these criminals eventually coming back to get her. After all, she was putting powerful people behind bars and then testifying against them in court. How long could she really hide behind the protection of the FBI for, especially in a smaller area? Susan though, she felt confident. She felt safe even in Mark's care at one point saying, I could go back to dealing drugs if I wanted to and Mark told me if I got caught he'd get me out of it

Plus it didn't hurt that Susan was making more money than she'd ever made before with about five thousand dollars a sting Susan was racking up plenty of cash to redecorate the house cook her family elaborate meals at Christmas She even purchased mark an expensive track suit. For the record, he got her nothing. For Christmas. I don't know, if the FBI ever comes to me to be an informant, like, you gotta be off for me like a million dollars a sting.

No, I'm out of here. I am not getting involved. I'll do it for a million dollars a sting. I will be the biggest rat and I will eat all the cheese. But over time, Susan's behavior became a bit much for Mark. And like, obviously we saw this coming. She began calling his house and speaking with his wife, Kathy, for hours on end.

And I'm not sure who Susan told Kathy she was, maybe a coworker of Mark's, but I do know that Kathy, fairly lonely in the Pikeville area, was beginning to become happy with her new friend, Susan, talking about everything from their kids to their health issues. So she's kind of like blackmailing Mark in a way. Like I've now created this relationship with your wife

and I could tell her any point what we're doing. At one point, Susan allegedly even confessed to Kathy that she might be madly in love with Mark, her husband, but Kathy didn't take the comments seriously. She thought she was just joking, except things didn't stop there. Susan cut her hair short to have it look exactly like Kathy's. And come February, 1989, just a few weeks

after Susan's 27th birthday. She renamed herself to Kathy? No, she learned something that would change the entire dynamic between her and Mark. She was pregnant with his child. Kathy was pregnant. No, I mean, Susan was pregnant. Yes. Holy crap.

Okay. So terrified of what Kenneth would do if he found out the baby wasn't his, Susan packed her things and moved in with her sister Shelby while she sorted the entire ordeal out. Yeah. With a confirmation of her pregnancy from a doctor, Susan finally decided in mid-March that it was time to deliver Mark the news.

And let's just say Mark was less than thrilled. Where is Susan's ex-husband in all this? She's still living with him, so he doesn't know that she's having this affair. So when she's pregnant, he just assumes that it's his baby? She hasn't told him she's pregnant yet. Got it. So she tells Mark, she's like,

A, I'm pregnant with your baby. And he denies that the child is his. Conveniently for him, he said, he was actually in the process of being transferred out of Pike County as they speak. So she comes and she's like, I'm pregnant. And he's like, and I'm leaving. I am getting transferred.

But it wasn't because Mark had gotten a fancy promotion like he'd wanted. He and his family were moving because they claimed they were getting death threats called to their house. Whether or not these threats were true is unclear. Many think this was just Mark and Kathy's way of getting the heck out of Pike County

since she was miserable there and he had gotten himself in too deep with his informant. Regardless, by the spring of 1989, the Putnam family was packing their bags for Mark's new post. It was in Miami, Florida. And guess who suddenly became cagey, dodging Susan's calls after the move?

Mark, of course, which devastated Susan, as you can imagine. She's pregnant with his child. She became reclusive, depressed, and tensions between her and Kenneth were running higher than ever. In fact, after he discovered she was pregnant in May 1989, Susan pressed charges against him

for terroristic threatening. Without Mark in town to protect her, Susan felt like a sitting duck. Plus, she's now pissed at Mark, particularly because when she did get a hold of him, he was still denying that he was the father of their child. I was gonna say Mark's baby's literally inside her stomach. And she's just, and he will, he left.

He's like, ah, good luck, bye. Yeah, left her in the hands of Kenneth, who's now pissed at her for being pregnant with someone else's child And he refused to do anything to support her or the new baby, but he eventually made Susan a deal He had to come north to Pike county in june to tie up a couple loose ends They could get together and talk while he was there. See what they could work out Then just a few days before mark's, one of Susan's fears became a reality.

Cat Eye's ex-girlfriend, Sherry Justice, came to Susan's sister's house, and she smashed Susan's car windows, and when Susan approached her, Sherry supposedly attacked her. Now remember, Sherry and Cat Eye were living with Susan and Kenneth. So not only did she betray Cat Eye, she betrayed Sherry, who was living with her and kind of a part of her family.

Sherry ripped Susan's blouse and cut her leg with a broken piece of glass. And afterwards, Susan insisted she needed witness protection more than ever, something she planned to speak to Mark about when he finally arrived back in town on June 5th, 1989. On the evening of Thursday, June 8th, Susan had spent the night at Mark's hotel room, seemingly working things out with her

old lover. Her sister Shelby spoke to her twice that day, and Susan said she'd find a way back to Shelby's house either tonight or tomorrow. But the following day, Susan still hadn't gotten home to Shelby's. Don't tell me that Mark, the freaking FBI agent, just killed her. You mean killed his ex-lover who's pregnant with his baby? Yes. And then she doesn't show up the following day. And by June 11th, with no word from Susan, Shelby called Kenneth to see if she'd somehow

just ended back up at Kenneth's house, even though that wasn't where she was living. She was living with her sister. But Kenneth claimed he hadn't seen or heard from her in a while. Finally on June 16th, Shelby called the local police to say, Hey, I think my sister, Susan Daniel Smith, the informant for the FBI is missing. Naturally, one of the first people the police look into is Cat Eyes and Sherry. She had just attacked her. Neither of which offer any solid leads to police. Remember, Cat Eyes is behind bars and while Sherry did allegedly attack Susan just a few days before

her disappearance, police don't pursue her heavily as a suspect and I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps she had an alibi or as Kenneth later told police, Susan may have made the attack up to garner sympathy from Mark when he arrived because Sherry denied this entire altercation altogether. Either way, it wasn't long before police refocused their attention on Kenneth. Not only did he have a history of physically abusing Susan, she'd recently pressed those charges against him back in May when he threatened violence against her after finding out she was pregnant. Yeah, but it's not Kenneth.

No, naturally police are going to question anyone who's seen Susan in the hours and days before she disappeared as well, which in this case includes Mark Putnam. Remember she told her sister, that's where she was. And he supports the theory that Kenneth might've had something to do with Susan's disappearance when they bring him in in his interview Mark said he'd heard that Susan's informant work had caused a lot of problems between her and Kenneth at home

He also said that Kenneth called his house multiple times to threaten him as well after suspecting the two were having an affair Mark also confessed that right before he left for Florida, Susan did tell him she was several months pregnant, only she didn't say who the father was. Regardless, this was dangerous territory for Mark, who is now basically admitting to police that he had an affair with his informants. And who's also now, I mean, a suspect.

Now, when people go to track down Kenneth for further questioning, they claim he's nowhere to be found. And they tell Shelby, this is what's holding up their investigation. Until they can question Kenneth and rule him out as a suspect, there's not much else they can do. He's their main person of interest, which sucks. Because as you're telling me the case, it's obvious that Mark's involved, but police are, he's an FBI agent.

He's an FBI agent. And I'm sure, I mean, they don't have the whole case. I'm sorry, like you're presenting it to me right now, right? So different context clues and so forth, but it's obviously Mark. So Shelby is like, okay, Kenneth is your main person of interest and you can't find him. But this sounds a little ridiculous because Kenneth wasn't hiding from them. He was easily traceable. He was still living in the free burn area. In fact, while they were searching for Kenneth, he was under house arrest wearing an ankle monitor for a drunk driving charge.

If he ventured more than 150 feet outside of his home, the bracelet would have alerted the police for him. I mean, easy alibi. So at this point, Shelby's wondering, what's going on here? Like they're saying the reason they're not really investigating my sister's disappearance is because they can't find Kenneth, but Kenneth is on house arrest at home So how come police can't find him and to go along with that? Why aren't they really? Investigating Mark Putnam. They haven't asked him to take a polygraph. They aren't posting Susan's picture on television

Instead Shelby keeps getting told that the state police are working with the FBI and any media coverage could muddle their investigation. And that's when Shelby begins to wonder, maybe there's a reason they aren't looking very hard for her and maybe it's because Susan was actually placed under witness protection. What? Holy, that's not what I was thinking at all. So.

No way. Okay, I don't even know. I'm not gonna say anything thinking at all. So no way. Okay. I don't even know. I'm not going to say anything. We're just going to keep going. Okay. Keep going. Keep going. That's not as mind blowing.

It's logical. It's logical for her to be like, okay, they're not looking into Mark. I mean, he's an FBI agent. So maybe that makes sense. If she was really placed in her witness protection program. Oh, okay. She was asking. She was asking for it.

So it's logical. Her sister is like, well, maybe, maybe they just, maybe she's in witness protection. So when nothing had progressed in the investigation by mid-November, this was the family's prevailing theory. Mainly because there were a number of free-burn people who claimed they had seen Susan alive and well outside the free-burn area.

Then around Thanksgiving of that year, a friend of Susan's named Josie Thorpe gets the strangest phone call. It was a woman who had called her house claiming to be Susan, asking about Kenneth and her kids. Now, allegedly the woman also told Josie that she hadn't contacted Shelby because she'd been wearing her jewelry when she left town

and she didn't want her to be upset. Also, why wouldn't the kids go with her? That's a little sus. But here's the real kicker. The woman told Josie she'd left a garbage bag of clothes at Shelby's house, which Josie could have because they'd fit her the best. And there was a bottle of bright orange nail polish

that she'd left there that Josie might like as well. So this is very specific, right? Like if this isn't Susan on the phone, There was a bottle of bright orange nail polish that she left there that Josie might like as well. So this is very specific, right? Like if this isn't Susan on the phone, why is she telling her friend, oh, go to my sister's house. You can take some of my stuff. Like I haven't talked to Susan or I haven't talked to Shelby. Well when Shelby hears this, she thinks, oh my gosh, like my sister is alive because she

knows these details. She used to tease the heck out of her for wearing that hideous orange nail polish. So who other than Susan would know it's at the house. Josie said these calls happened about four or five times over the next several weeks and that the voice did sound like Susan's. The woman also referenced a porcelain swan she'd once given Josie, which further convinced her it was her old friend. But the woman never stayed on the phone very long and always hung up when asked where she was. So eventually Josie and Shelby called the police together

and told them about the calls. They're like, hey, we know that she's a missing person, but we think that she's calling the house. Like we would just like to make sure it's her. And that's when they came up with a plan. Install a recorder to Josie's phone to tape the conversations and see if they can track the call. But right after they put the plan in motion,

the calls from Susan stop entirely. Josie never hears from her again. Okay. So Christmas passed that year with no word from Susan, which again made Shelby question whether or not her sister really was alive. Even if she was hiding out somewhere, she felt certain Susan would send them some sign that she was okay. By February, the police had finally wrangled Kenneth into their offices for a polygraph where the results came back inconclusive. Still, officials felt

like he was telling them the truth that he was in no way involved with his ex-wife's disappearance. But soon, their attention had turned to a new suspect. Someone no one originally had wanted to consider it first. Mark, Markety Mark. But the more time passed, the more suspicions they had for Mark Putnam. And that's because Mark had not only kept a secret affair with an informant from the FBI, but he had been extremely dodgy about taking a polygraph himself. When Kentucky State Police called him repeatedly that February to return to town for an exam, he was evasive and refused to cooperate. But the real kicker came in May 1990. When the state police looked

into the car, Mark had rented during his trip down to Pikeville that last June when he last saw Susan. They learned that he'd returned the car early to a Hertz because the windshield had gotten cracked when, quote, a truck dropped coal along the highway. Only they're not buying this story. So on May 16th, several agents from the FBI and detectives from the Kentucky State Police fly down to Miami

to confront Mark in his office there. And come the 18th, he's finally cornered into taking a long overdue polygraph test. And surprise, Mark fails miserably. Which, yes, of course, that, I mean, he's probably lying, but it doesn't mean anything. And I think, you know, the obvious reason here, if you're wondering like I was like, okay, if they were eventually going to suspect Mark, why did it take so long?

Like, why were they sitting here running circles around Kenneth? And the obvious answer is they didn't want to question one of their own. Like, why would you want to think that it's one of your own who's done this, but at this point, they really have no choice. So then on May 22nd, Mark hires a lawyer. This is after failing the polygraph. He hires a lawyer and then resigns from the FBI. Oh man.

Despite there being no body and not one shred of concrete evidence against Mark, the guilt had been eating away at him so badly that he could no longer keep the truth a secret. On June 4th, 1990, almost a year to the date that he last saw Susan Smith, he told the FBI he had a confession to make. He had killed Susan and left her in a ravine just nine miles outside of Pikeville. Wow, I did not see him confessing. That surprises me. I thought there's no body.

He probably could have gotten away with it because he's, wasn't the FBI. Wow. So FBI and Kentucky State Police followed Mark's directions to the exact site where he supposedly left Susan's body. And after several hours of searching the overgrown brush, two men found a human skull just a few feet away from the rest of a decomposed skeleton.

A gold necklace found alongside the remains was confirmed to be the jewelry Shelby had lent Susan. It appeared Mark Putnam was to blame after all. She wasn't in witness protection. And when asked to recall the final night of Susan's life, here's what Mark said. On the evening of June 8th, Susan arrived back at his hotel room at around 10.30 p.m.

after which they continued discussing the matter of her pregnancy. According to Mark, Susan raised her voice and he was worried about others overhearing. So he asked her to go for a ride so they could have more privacy. Mark said it was during that drive that Susan threatened to expose him

if he didn't agree to help her out with the child, saying she'd tell his wife everything, the FBI, she would tell basically anyone who would listen. She was willing to risk his family and his career to get the support she believed she deserved. Eventually, he parked the car at Peter Mountain Creek close to Susan's home where the argument escalated. He claimed that Susan then slapped him,

which sent him in a rage. Mark reached over to the passenger side of the car and began strangling Susan, even climbing on top of her to increase his grip. It was during this struggle that Susan fought with every ounce she had, at one point, kicking the windshield and causing that dent that forced Mark to return the vehicle prematurely.

She is pregnant with his baby. This is horrible. But after several minutes, Susan stopped breathing and Mark thought she was just unconscious. Again, this is according to him. That's what every killer says that strangles somebody. In reality, she had stopped breathing for good. And in a panic, he says he tried to do mouth to mouth. And when that didn't work, he placed her body in the trunk of the rental car, went back to the hotel, and at around 6.30 a.m., he went to meet with a colleague before a full day of work.

For the entire day, Susan's body remained in the trunk until that evening. When Mark was finally finished with his duties, he drove around Pike County, searching for a desolate place to leave her behind, eventually coming to that ravine not far from her home. It was a gruesome end. At the hands of the one person, Susan Smith had trusted the most. The man she believed would protect her from all the bad guys in the world, when in reality, he was the most lethal one of all. On June 20th, 1990, Susan Daniel Smith was finally laid to

rest on a hillside beside her grandfather's house in West Virginia. Following the confession Mark's lawyer worked out a generous plea deal for an ex FBI agent. He would face 16 years behind bars. What? 16 years. In the state of Kentucky, Mark would not be facing charges for fetal homicide as there were no laws against it at the time. Okay. And as far as I'm aware, the police never figured out who that woman was

that made those calls to Josie Thorpe's house that Thanksgiving in 1988. It was probably someone Mark just hired. Or didn't happen. I mean, you just never know. Yeah, that's true. Mark was released on good behavior in 2000. He served 10 years of his 16 year sentence.

He was only 41 years old. Kills someone gets out in 10 years and he's all alive. He still had. Kills two people, sorry. His entire life ahead of him. But his career in law enforcement was dead as a doornail. From now until he dies, Mark will carry two shameful legacies with him. Not only is he a cold-blooded killer who murdered his lover and his baby, he's the first ever FBI agent to be charged

and convicted of murder. What a loser, man. And that is the story of Susan Daniel Smith, whose literal killer is out living life. That's crazy that he's out. Horrible that she died. That's tragic. I can't believe he's out, 10 years? All because she wanted a little child support.

Also, it was, I don't believe his story. I don't either. I mean, he was premeditated. He came back into town to kill her. Yeah, he just didn't want to deal with her anymore. Yeah, that's ridiculous. She was rightfully so chasing him down saying, hey, I have your baby in my tummy. Like we need to figure something out.

Like what do you want to do about this? And he was just like, I want to get rid of you. Like I'm tired of this. That's ridiculous. It's so awful. All right you guys, that is our case and we will see you next time with another episode. I love it.

I hate it. Goodbye. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.