Murder and Salutations - By Elizabeth Bright Page 0,130

the city to pray for him to be found innocent. “The nincompoops filled the courthouse wailing that the killer was an exemplary fellow in church,” Walter said. “It had an effect on the trial. It wasn’t good.”

Smith, thirty-five years old, slim and blond, was a poetic, submissive young man who had been easily seduced by Hamilton, who “used men like you use a handkerchief,” prosecutors said. He trailed Hamilton around like a lovesick sophomore, following her to the Copper Kettle just to look at her work as a waitress, and deluging her with love letters filled with jealousy of Scott. Smith believed if Scott Dunn “was out of the way everything would be bliss and happiness” with the woman he loved, according to the state.

Smith had been deeply involved in the murder for some forty-eight hours, prosecutors said. He cut away sections of blood-soaked carpet from the bedroom to hide evidence, helped wrap Scott’s body in rolled-up carpet with duct tape, helped dispose of the body and clean up the crime scene. Fibers from the bloody carpet were found on a roll of duct tape in Smith’s apartment.

According to Walter, Hamilton set Smith up to take the fall in an old-fashioned murderer’s scam.

After the killing, while Leisha was toying with the cops, playing the role of a wronged but helpful young woman, she moved in with Tim Smith to finish setting up the dupe.

Smith, believing his romantic dreams had come true, had instead lived a nightmare, subjected to walking in on his girlfriend having sex with other men, and being beaten by her for questioning it. Acting ever eager to help find Scott’s killer, Hamilton told police she was afraid of her new boyfriend. She showed them Tim Smith’s love letters, addressed to “Dear Green Eyes” and signed, “Superman” or “The Flash,” letters that called Scott a “snake” and an “asshole” and demanded she choose between them. “If only Scott wasn’t around,” Smith wrote, “we could be happy together.” Hamilton confirmed to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that her boyfriend was a “suspect” in Scott’s disappearance. He had been “fiercely jealous of her relationship with Scott.” The police soon considered Smith a primary suspect.

Moving in on her prey was exciting for Hamilton. “This need for stimulation is quite insatiable for a psychopath, the ego gratification to prove they’re smarter than anyone,” Walter explained to Dunn. “The ‘Gotcha!’ ”

Walter had rattled Smith in a private interview, squeezing him to reveal what had happened to Scott’s body.

Smith had refused to say. He said he “couldn’t turn on the others . . . it wouldn’t be Christian.”

“Is it Christian to commit murder?” Walter demanded. “Is it Christian to cover it up?”

Tim Smith didn’t reply.

Walter watched the trial at the Lubbock County courthouse with Jim and Barbara Dunn, and the three of them exulted as Smith was convicted of the first-degree murder of Scott Dunn. After six years, justice was finally being served. Walter felt vindicated. Though he had once again been prevented from testifying as a profiler, Rusty Ladd, the prosecuting attorney, praised him for helping the state zero in on Smith as Hamilton’s chief accomplice. Leisha would never have gone to jail, Tim Smith never would have been convicted, if it wasn’t for Walter, the prosecutor said.

Smith was sentenced the next day. He faced ninety-nine years or life in prison for his involvement in Dunn’s prolonged torture, murder, dismemberment, and disposal. Hamilton had received twenty years. Walter had hated to tell Dunn, but the truth was that Hamilton could be out in less than a decade for good behavior.

Now the jury deliberated for about an hour. Timothy James Smith received no jail time at all for first-degree murder.

He was sentenced to ten years’ probation and a $10,000 fine.

Dunn was stunned. He couldn’t conceive how “Tim Smith, convicted of murdering Scott, was free to walk the streets of Lubbock” and did not have to reveal the location of Scott’s body.

Because Smith had no prior criminal record, the jury had the option of probation.

Walter was outraged.

“It would appear that the jury attempted to do God’s work of forgiveness at the sentencing,” he later wrote. “In these matters, it would seem the jury should leave God’s work to God, and do the work of the State of Texas. Unfortunately, the jury allowed Timothy James Smith to benefit unfettered from the murder for which all life has been cheapened.”

Walter was concerned about Jim Dunn.

Within days of the trial, the aggrieved father threw himself on Smith’s mercy, now that