Hell hath no fury …
Denita Smith was a beautiful, popular and talented graduate
student at North Carolina Central University, an HBCU in Durham NC.
On the morning of January 4, 2007, she was found at the foot of some stairs leading up to her off-campus apartment. She had been shot in the head.
The victim
Police on the scene found a witness who saw a woman who
looked like Shannon and who had fled the scene in a burgundy Ford
Explorer.
They next talked to Denita's fiancée, Jermeir Stroud, a cop
in Greensboro, about an hour away. Though he had an alibi, he did mention that
a girl he had been cheating with Denita on, Shannon Crawley, did just happen to
own a burgundy Ford Explorer.
Shannon, a 911 dispatcher, had hooked up with Stroud at the
Greensboro PD. When he got her pregnant, she got an abortion, and the two broke
up. Or did they?
Crawley tried to pin the crime on Stroud. She called him
abusive and jealous; claimed he raped her after the murder; fashioned fake
phone conversations and – when finally pinned down – came up with some crazy
story about Jermeir forcing her to drive to Durham, where he shot Denita, then
hid in the back of the Explorer while she drove away. In addition, Shannon was
caught lying about a .38 she bought, a doctor’s appointment she supposedly had
on the morning of the murder, and never having been to Durham before.
At trial, she was found guilty of first-degree murder and
given a sentence of life. Two-timing Jermeir got off
scot-free.
The story has been featured on Snapped, Hear No
Evil & Dateline.
No comments:
Post a Comment