Kidnapper Forces Victim to Write Last Will and Testament Before Killing Her

7 min readNov 20, 2020

In 1985, the kidnapping and sadistic murder of Sharon Faye Smith led to the largest manhunt in the history of South Carolina. While the killer was ultimately convicted and executed, the real story lies in the victim’s remarkable strength and courage.

Sharon “Shari” Smith

Seventeen-year-old Shari was known for her vivacious and kind personality. Voted “Wittiest” by her high school’s senior class, her collection of stuffed koala bears was a subtle reminder of her child-like wonder.

Born on June 25, 1967, to Robert and Hilda Smith, Shari was the second of three children. Shari and her older sister, Dawn, were particularly close. The beautiful sisters had a blissful childhood riding horses, participating in their church youth group, and singing in their church choir.

The beautiful Smith sisters sang at church, nursing homes, and even jails; Source.

“She was kind of the cement that held our family together,” her father said on an episode of Forensic Files. “She was always the happy one.”

On May 31, 1985, Shari had plenty of reasons to be happy. She was just two days away from her high school graduation, where she was scheduled to sing the National Anthem. Soon thereafter, she would be leaving for her senior class cruise.

The Kidnapping

After returning from a graduation pool party, Shari stopped at the end of her driveway to check the mail. Her father recalled watching Shari from his home office. As the mailbox was some 700 feet away from the house, her father assumed she would come to the house momentarily.

When five to ten minutes passed and still no sign of Shari, he quickly rushed to the mailbox only to find the door to Shari’s car open with the motor running and her purse on the front seat.

Shari had vanished.

Shari had a bright future ahead of her; Source.

The Hunt for Shari’s Kidnapper

Shari’s parents immediately reached out to Lexington County’s Sheriff’s Office to report their daughter’s abduction. As the Smiths were an affluent and influential family, the assumption was that money was the motive for the kidnapping, and officers advised Shari’s family to wait for a ransom call.

Two days later, the Smiths did receive a call. But money was not what the kidnapper was after. On the other end of the phone, a man assured Shari’s mother that Shari was alive and well and informed her that they would receive a letter in the morning.

Law enforcement painstakingly combed through the county’s mail until they found an envelope addressed to Shari’s family that contained a 2-page letter. The letter’s contents would both devastate the Smiths and serve as a critical piece of evidence.

Shari’s Last Will and Testament

At the top of the letter, Shari had written “Last Will & Testament.” The top left bore the date “6/1/1985,” and on the top right was written “3:58 AM” and the words “I LOVE ya’ll!” Shari’s loopy cursive handwriting was that of a teenage girl, but the letter’s profound message evoked a maturity far beyond her years.

Below is an excerpt:

I love you Mommy, Daddy, Robert, Dawn, & Richard, and everyone else and all other friends and relatives. I’ll be with my father now, so please, please don’t worry! Just remember my witty personality & great special times we all shared together. Please don’t even let this ruin your lives, just keep living one day at a time for Jesus. Some good will come out of this. My thoughts will always be with you & in you!

Shari’s tremendous love for her family rings loud and clear throughout the letter. During this unimaginably terrifying ordeal, her priority was to comfort her family, and she urged them to be there for one another and not to allow this tragedy to make them “hard or upset.”

The Smiths were the quintessential All-American family; Source.

The most heartbreaking part of the letter came in two words that Shari wrote in the middle of the page — “casket closed.” These words sent chills down my spine. What did this monster tell Shari about her impending death that would lead her to warn her parents that she would need a closed casket?

Shari’s Abductor Taunts Her Family

With no leads and no way to trace the initial call, Shari’s family had no choice but to wait for Shari’s kidnapper to reach out again.

The kidnapper called several times, each time disguising his voice and alternating between obscene comments and delusional “revelations” from God.

Five days after receiving the letter, the kidnapper called and said that at 4:58 AM on June 1st, Shari, and he “became one soul.” Shari’s mother begged him not to kill her baby girl, but the caller simply hung up the phone.

Shari’s mother, Hilda, with her three children; Source.

The next day, the kidnapper called with detailed directions to an abandoned building where Shari’s body was found in the backyard. Her autopsy revealed that she had been dead for several days. Detectives believe she died at 4:58 AM on June 1st, shortly after she wrote her last letter.

Shari’s kidnapper was now also a murderer, and he wasn’t done torturing the Smith family. In a further act of pure evil, he made a collect call to Shari’s parents on the night of Shari’s funeral to tell them in gruesome detail exactly how he raped and murdered Shari. Duct tape residue on her face suggested that her cause of death was suffocation.

A few weeks later, Shari’s murderer called yet again. But he no longer wanted to talk about Shari. Instead, he shared where to find the body of another of his victims, a 9-year-old girl named Debra May Helmick.

Shari and Debra May; Source.

Now there were two innocent people dead — one of them a child — and the authorities were no closer to finding the killer.

Shari’s Letter Cracks the Case

In examining the letter, forensic analysts were able to determine that the letter’s pages came from a legal pad. More importantly, they could isolate indentations from the previous pages that were torn off the pad and identify a partial phone number.

The phone number eventually led the FBI to 50-year old Ellis Sheppard, who lived 15 miles away from Shari. Several of the kidnapper’s calls had been made from his house, and a search of the house yielded forensic evidence that suggested the killer had been there.

Ellis and his wife had been on vacation at the time of Shari’s murder, but he instantly recognized the voice recording of the kidnapper’s phone call as that of Larry Gene Bell. Larry did electrical work for Ellis and had been housesitting for him while he was on vacation. FBI soon found out that Larry had a history of deviant sexual behavior, including making obscene phone calls and the attempted kidnapping of a young woman

Larry’s Trial and Execution

Larry was arrested on June 27, 1985, and went to trial in January 1986. He shamelessly tried to fake mental illness with random outbursts and claims that he was Jesus Christ. The jury was not fooled as they took only 47 minutes to find him guilty of kidnapping and 1st-degree murder. He was tried separately for Debra May’s kidnapping and murder, and that jury returned the same guilty verdict.

In 1996, Larry was executed by the state of South Carolina by an electric chair.

Conclusion

I cannot imagine the living nightmare that the Smith family endured, which is why I’m overwhelmed by Shari’s parents’ and siblings’ incredible response to this unspeakable tragedy.

What could have reasonably torn a different family apart seemed to bond Shari’s family closer together. The family established a scholarship in Shari’s name, and both Shari’s mother and sister wrote heartfelt books in honor of her memory (you can find them here and here).

Shari’s sister, Dawn, is a successful singer, author, and motivational speaker; Source.

But Shari’s father summed it up best when he expressed that Shari’s last will and testament provided more closure than any verdict or execution could. “She knew where she was going,” he said. And armed with her unshakable faith, Shari faced her death with grace and dignity.