As always, thank you for hanging out and remembering Shari Smith and Debra Helmick with me today.
In the summer of 1985, 17-year-old Shari Smith was abducted from her mailbox in Lexington County, South Carolina. Over the next days, the killer cruelly taunted her family with phone calls—only to lead them to her body with chilling instructions. Then, on June 14, 9-year-old Debra Helmick vanished from her front yard, only to meet the same deadly fate. Both girls were kidnapped and murdered by Larry Gene Bell, whose actions unleashed panic across the state.
He confessed to targeting “young, blonde girls” and even forced Shari to write a mock "Last Will & Testament" before killing her—then brazenly called her family to reveal where Investigators from the FBI, including famed profiler John Douglas, helped connect the pieces with a groundbreaking criminal profile.
Bell was convicted and sentenced to death for both murders; he was executed in 1996.
