PA PA - Judy Smith, 50, Philadelphia, 10 April 1997

[J. J. in Phila]

The nearest Amtrak station to Asheville, then as now with the Crescent, would be Spartanburg.

Spartanburg was about five miles more distant from the area where I think JS was found. It is almost equidistant.

 

[smallhourinsomnia]

This case has always been a mystery within a mystery to me. It would seem extremely unlikely that the identification was wrong and equally unlikely that she arrived at the place her body was found any other way than by her own volition. I have to assume it was a plan she concocted to take off while her husband was tied up running the convention. Obviously, a spouse can go on a little “getaway” at any time, for any reason. Why she chose to do while her husband would be involved in the Philadelphia gig is a mystery; it would certainly cause him career problems, but she may not have cared. The only reason I can think of is that she would have scheduled vacation time in advance to attend the convention and only later saw it as an opportunity for a solo adventure. If nothing else, it suggests it was somewhat spontaneous. It also worth noting that she didn’t tell her adult children or any friends or relatives. I’m wondering if her plan was be gone while her husband was tied up by the convention and she expected to be back by the time it was over.

The most credible sighting of her was the shop near Ashland. The local investigator declined to state the sex of the person she was with, but she was reported to have told the shopkeepers all about her husband. It would seem very unlikely that she would have done that if she was with a man. If the report is accurate and it was Judy, it is most probable that she was traveling with another woman. It does certainly raise the possibility of an illicit sexual liaison but it could have been a random person she met. She had gone on at least one trip by herself (to Thailand) so it would see unlikely that she would see fit to conceal from her husband a short trip to North Carolina with a friend.

The upshot of it all is that there is a very good chance that her traveling companion murdered her. If the mystery woman (if she actually existed) was local to Asheville and did not accompany her on the hike, you would expect her to come forward after the body was found and the identity discovered. It was big news in the region.

The couple had been married a short time and it is very possible that they had separate finances and separate credit cards. If a rental car is not returned or if it is found abandoned, the rental company will initiate criminal complaint and it is pretty certain that Law Enforcement investigating her murder would become aware of it. An exception would be if the total loss the rental company incurred could be put on her credit card. In that case, it would be a civil matter between her and the credit card company. If the credit card bill went to their home address, the husband would have seen it but he may have concealed it from Law Enforcement out of fear of being liable. Or, she had a PO Box he was unaware of.

I think there is a chance that she was set up by someone she met up with online. At this point, I doubt we will ever find out.

I've seen a few people talk about credit card activity and the potential that she used credit cards. Am I wrong in thinking that upon her murder, that is one of the things LE would have issued a warrant for and gotten records of? Even if the husband wanted to hide it, they could get it directly from the credit card companies. Am I missing something in regards to that?

 

[kemo]

I've seen a few people talk about credit card activity and the potential that she used credit cards. Am I wrong in thinking that upon her murder, that is one of the things LE would have issued a warrant for and gotten records of? Even if the husband wanted to hide it, they could get it directly from the credit card companies. Am I missing something in regards to that?

I am not aware of how Law Enforcement would know about a credit card unless a family member provided the information or they otherwise had access to her mail. In this particular case, the investigation was complicated by the fact that until the body was found almost a year later. Philadelphia PD had jurisdiction but nothing really pertinent to the investigation was local to Philadelphia. Once the body was found, it became a Nirth Carolina investigation. I have no idea if they were able to obtain much in the way of financial information. They determined pretty quickly that she arrived where her body was found by her own volition and her husband was uninvolved. Their investigation focused on trying to identify who she was with in the Asheville area. They never figured out how she got there from Philadelphia.

I am near certain that she took off on this trip on her own. She either financed it with a credit card or withdrew a large chunk of cash. You can fly or take Amtrak with cash but to rent a car, you generally need a credit card.

 

[J. J. in Phila]

I've seen a few people talk about credit card activity and the potential that she used credit cards. Am I wrong in thinking that upon her murder, that is one of the things LE would have issued a warrant for and gotten records of? Even if the husband wanted to hide it, they could get it directly from the credit card companies. Am I missing something in regards to that?

I can almost guarantee that the Phila police did not look at her credit cards. They thought either the husband murdered her in MA or that she was having a mid-life crisis and left.

 

[smallhourinsomnia]

I am not aware of how Law Enforcement would know about a credit card unless a family member provided the information or they otherwise had access to her mail. In this particular case, the investigation was complicated by the fact that until the body was found almost a year later. Philadelphia PD had jurisdiction but nothing really pertinent to the investigation was local to Philadelphia. Once the body was found, it became a Nirth Carolina investigation. I have no idea if they were able to obtain much in the way of financial information. They determined pretty quickly that she arrived where her body was found by her own volition and her husband was uninvolved. Their investigation focused on trying to identify who she was with in the Asheville area. They never figured out how she got there from Philadelphia.

I am near certain that she took off on this trip on her own. She either financed it with a credit card or withdrew a large chunk of cash. You can fly or take Amtrak with cash but to rent a car, you generally need a credit card.

Could they not garner credit cards open in a person's name simply by running a credit check?

 

[digiskunk]

I recently decided to dive back into this case and I'm still equally baffled as I was before. With so much focus surrounding the mystery of how/why she traveled from Philly to North Carolina, I decided to explore the speculative theory of her being a victim of infamous murderer Gary Hilton, who preyed upon people in National Parks.

The one thing that I find interesting is that one of Hilton's victims was discovered in the same vicinity of Asheville that Judy was found in. This fact is hard to get out of my head. Is it possible that she was one of his earliest victims and he returned to the spot later on knowing it was a reliable hiding spot? There's roughly 10 years between her murder and his first *confirmed* victim, so it'd make sense why he'd believe it to be a good hiding spot.

But, why and how did she end up in Asheville? Of course, this is the ultimate question—especially considering she had friends in New Jersey she was planning to visit. Why would she pass up that opportunity and instead opt to go hiking 600 miles away? She could've just as easily hiked in Pennsylvania, a state rich with hills and, of course, the Appalachian trail. Several witnesses place her in Asheville as well, suggesting she must've traveled there on her own volition—and if that is true, it would explain how she encountered Hilton.

 

[digiskunk]

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.

This is an old reply but you took the words out of my mouth. Thank you for this great contribution!