I was just thinking about this case yesterday and googled Judy Smith to see if there's anything new on the case. Her murder is still unsolved.
I still can't figure out why she ended up in Asheville and I'm still skeptical about the sightings of her there. I've been to the area of Asheville many times where she was reported seen and it's so touristy I can't imagine how or why anyone would remember her being in stores months later. But supposing they did remember her, in one account I found online she told a sales clerk she was shopping for her daughter, then the sales clerk said she appeared to be trying to get a young woman in the store to leave with her. This makes me wonder if she was delusional and thought the young woman was her daughter.
Some have speculated that she left her driver's license home on purpose because she didn't want to go on the trip with her husband. She was said to be a seasoned traveler and this has caused some to think "forgetting" her license was deliberate. But what if it wasn't? What if something was already going wrong with her?
I don't know whether she and her husband argued after she made it to the hotel on a later flight. I think bringing flowers to him indicates she expected him to be upset, unless they were in the habit of buying flowers for each other as a way of apologizing. Flowers seem like an odd choice of apology gift to bring a man, but then I don't know her husband and perhaps he loved flowers. If not, her odd choice of gift may also be evidence of some type of disordered thinking.
It could be they had words and she did decide to take off. Or it could be she became confused while out sightseeing. Maybe the idea of taking off to Asheville without telling anyone made perfect sense to her based on whatever was going on in her mind.
Someone in a confused or manic state of mind would be an easy victim for the wrong kind of person. Although she was said to be an intelligent woman, she was also said to have been willing to help people in need, so if she wasn't operating with her full mental faculties for some reason she may have been taken in by someone with bad intentions.
I'm wondering if her killer took the red backpack she was never without. A different backpack and some sunglasses were found with her remains, but one account I read states that these are believed to belong to her killer. I think another theory is possible: that these items belonged to another victim. It seems senseless for the killer to leave his own personal items at the scene.
It would appear that she willingly went hiking, either with someone else or alone, since she had evidently purchased clothing suitable for hiking. Since those who believe they saw her in Asheville saw her alone, I'm thinking maybe her killer was someone she met in the woods. There are some strange characters who hang out in the woods. Some are just homeless, some have mental issues, some are incapable of living in normal society, and some are up to illegal and/or violent activities.
If the dental records of the deceased person hadn't matched Judy, and if the deceased person hadn't been wearing Judy's wedding ring, I would suspect a misidentification has been made. It's just so odd she ended up where she did that I still wish I DNA comparison had been done.
