Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Did I hear you're shopping for a car? Because I've been at it for ages. Such a time suck, right? Not really. I bought it on Carvana. Super convenient. Oh, then comes all the financing, research. Am I right? Well, you can, but I got pre-qualified for a Carvana auto loan in like two minutes. Yeah, but then all the number crunching and terms, right? Nope. I saw real numbers as I shopped, found my dream car, and got it in a couple of days. Wait, like you already have it?
Yep. Go to Carvana.com to finance your car the convenient way. I'm Kristen Sevey. This is Murder, She Told. This episode discusses violence in the LGBTQ community and the defense of gay panic. Please listen with care.
Billy Smith was five years old when the blizzard of '52 hit Maine. Otherwise known as the February 1952 nor'easter, the storm pummeled the lower half of the state and most of New England. He watched as the Wall of White crept up the window panes of their house, where he was in rural central Maine. Houses were snowed in, and roads were blocked for days. Billy was 12 miles from Bangor, the nearest city.
Though he was safe with his family and warmed by the wood stove, he could sense tension in the air. His big sister, 8-year-old Gloria, was sick, and she needed to go to the doctor, but the snow made the roads impassable. His parents called for help, but even the ambulance got stuck in a snowdrift. Plow operators, who had been working nearly non-stop since the storm, worked for eight hours straight to reach his home.
He saw his parents carry his big sister, who was quite sick, out the front door into a waiting-warmed vehicle. She was driven to the hospital where she was diagnosed with pneumonia and an ear infection. She was sick for a long time. And that June, on Friday the 24th, she died in a hospital at the age of eight. Billy didn't understand, but he soon learned that he would never see his sister again. Billy, short for William, was the baby of the family.
He was the youngest of six, one of two boys. Gloria was the closest to him in age. Billy attended Hamden Academy, a K-12 school that served the larger Hamden area. In the early 1970s, after William had left, Stephen King would teach high school English there.
In 1963, Billy was a small, chubby-cheeked, bespectacled freshman. He sang in the choir, camped and hiked with the outing club, volunteered at a school library, and belonged to the commercial club, a group of kids who wanted to succeed in the business world. He graduated in 1966. By then, he was a little taller, but still had a short, stocky build.
He wore horned-rimmed glasses accented by dark, bushy eyebrows. Typical for the time, he wore a suit and a tie in his yearbook picture. His thick, wavy, dark hair was cut short and neatly combed and oiled with just a little dab of Brylcreem, a popular pomade. After graduation, he joined the National Guard. A young woman named Margaret noticed him, and after a short courtship, marriage was in the air.
William proposed to her by giving her a big box. She opened it and found another small one inside, and a smaller one yet still, until finally discovering a velvet jewelry box at the center of a Russian nesting doll gift. Inside that was a Tootsie Roll. Margaret thought that it was just a prank and completely missed that on the Tootsie Roll was a diamond engagement ring. He pointed it out, and she said yes.
The Bangor Daily News announced their impending nuptials in April of 1968. A headshot of the bride-to-be placed over a brief article. We spoke to Margaret, now 75, for this episode, and she shared with us her memories. Billy was 21. Margaret was 17. He was working as a video film editor at WABI, cutting up the roles of negatives and, among other things, placing commercials at the proper moments.
She was getting ready to graduate high school, but they didn't want to wait for her to turn 18 to tie the knot. So they decided to elope in Canada. One day, they took a road trip, armed with a forged birth certificate, and convinced Canadian officials that Margaret was actually 18. They got the paperwork in order, and the next week returned to seal the deal. And that was it. They were married. Billy then purchased a single-family home in Hamden.
They moved in together, but no sooner than they moved in did Billy end up having to go to New York for some work with the National Guard. When he was gone, a misunderstanding got blown out of proportion, and after he returned, encouraged by his mother, he decided to call off their very brief marriage. By September of that same year, the Banker Daily News announced their divorce.
We don't know when, but at some point around his late 20s, he left his job at WABI, left his hometown, and left Maine altogether, becoming a new man. By 1983, Billy, a 36-year-old man who now went by Les, which was short for Lester, his middle name, had moved to a small town in Massachusetts south of Boston. He was far from home, but close to his paternal aunt and still surrounded by nature.
Although people from Massachusetts knew him as Les at this point in his life, I'll use William, his legal name, for consistency through the rest of the episode. William's sister said that he frequently returned home on the weekends from Massachusetts to spend time at home. She still lives in Maine and was gracious enough to spend some time with us and share her memories on her porch.
On one such weekend in early summer, Friday, June 24, 1983, William returned to Maine to visit Mount Appetite, a municipal park in Auburn, which is right across the river from Lewiston. This park was en route to his mother's home in Hamden, and it's likely he planned to visit her over this trip as well. The park's gemstones and mineral deposits were a draw for William, who was the vice president of the Southeastern Massachusetts Mineral Club.
There are mineral clubs all over the United States. And other than sharing their love of rocks and minerals, one of their primary activities is to go on digs together. Members pool their knowledge about good spots in the region to go looking for neat rocks, often old industrial mining sites, and they'll carpool together to remote locations. So-called rock hounds may consider a haul from a field trip successful if they found some rare or particularly beautiful specimens.
We heard from William's sister that he was into jewelry making, transforming the raw materials he collected from his club trips into polished and colorful earrings and necklaces. We also spoke to an acquaintance of William's from the Southeastern Massachusetts Mineral Club, who remembered a field trip with him just a month prior, in May of 1983.
William offered to drive, so it was William, David, and Ed in his little hatchback car, a late model AMC Pacer wagon. It was two-tone, beige on the top and dark brown with faux wood grain on the bottom. This style was known as a woody wagon, the widest car on the road.
David was 6'4" and crammed into the back of the two-door hatchback, but he was glad for it. In his words, "The car was hideous. I didn't even want to be seen in it." He recalled that for the entire four-hour drive from Boston Metro to Herkimer, New York, William was constantly honking his horn. There was a National Guard event near Boston, and there were countless military vehicles heading the opposite way on the highway.
William would honk and wave to every single one of them. For David, what was at first charming became tiring. David, though, had no idea until we spoke with him that William had previously served in the National Guard, which likely accounted for his passion. David recalled that William wore bandanas a lot. Though it was, to David, an unusual accessory, it was practical for digging and sifting through rock piles.
William wore some type of brace on one of his legs, and it seemed to be a long-term thing. David thought that he might be on disability. His gait was affected. We only have two photos of William. One, his high school senior portrait, and two, a photo from this time in his life, thanks to David. It captures a moment from one of his rock expeditions. There's a sheer and crumbling wall of rock behind him.
About 10 feet above him, a man is digging on the exposed face while being supported by another man. And it looks a bit precarious. The three men in the photo and the boy in the foreground are all wearing the same outfit: T-shirts, flared blue jeans, and boots. William is wearing a snug white cotton T-shirt that reveals a prominent bicep and the fact that he'd put on a few pounds in the 20 years since high school.
He stands about 5'6". He still wears prescription glasses, but not the horn-rimmed ones of his youth. David remembered that he was a pipe smoker. He would pack it with his sweeter, licorice-smelling tobacco and puff for hours. On that trip to Herkimer, New York, they got a room at a local motel with two beds. There was some chatter during the car ride about who would get their own bed and who would have to share. There was a consensus that they would settle it with a coin flip.
But when they got to the room, the matter was settled organically. They were going through their nightly routines when William emerged from the bathroom with nothing on but some risque underwear. A white jockstrap, the other two men, who were instantly uncomfortable, quickly offered William his own bed.
David didn't recall William being openly gay, but through his voice and his mannerisms and anecdotes like this, he thought that it might be clear to people in his personal life that he was. David also didn't recall any details about the trip. It was likely a routine field trip, one with small victories and minor defeats as they scoured rock piles for prizes. What David did remember was that this was the last time that he ever saw William.
A month later, on Friday in the early summer, June 24th, William drove his AMC Pacer from Massachusetts up to Maine. He was making his way down an old country road, through marshland dotted with cattails, when he turned into the park entrance and made his way into the gravel parking lot. He donned his pack and made his way to the trails of Mount Appetite. It was the last Friday in June, on the same day of the month that his sister died 31 years earlier.
Maine was once again experiencing record weather, this time extreme heat. The day prior to his arrival, it had been 86 degrees, a surprisingly hot day for early summer in Maine. The day of his trip, it was 80 during the day, cooling slightly at night. The warm nights made sleeping outside in the shadow of the trees appealing.
William walked past the National Guard rifle range and entered the park. The air cooled in the shade of the woods. Green enveloped him and offered protection from the sun. William was prepared for the battle with the park's only known predators, the army of mosquitoes that swarmed his exposed flesh.
Mount Appetite was formerly the site of several mines and quarries. It was a feldspar mine a century ago and was favored for its gemstones, glittering mica, black and green tourmaline, sparkling crystals of smoky quartz, blood-colored garnet, and the brilliant purple appetite that the park was named for.
The city of Auburn purchased the land in the 70s for public use, and to this day, 325 acres of new-growth forest and a world-famous geological site is open year-round. Although some tourists complain about the lack of signage, it's a well-loved local park. The mines and quarries have long closed, but you can still find a variety of gemstones if you know where to look. That is what William was looking forward to.
The ground inside the park was hard and rocky. The old mines carved out smooth, glassy ponds which were overlooked by granite ledges with sheer faces. When William arrived at the old Micah Mines around 3 p.m., there were several teenagers picking through the rubble in search of treasure. One of them was 16-year-old Jeff Smith. Though they shared the last name, they weren't related.
He was an inexperienced camper who had borrowed a tent from his friend, Fernand, who had driven him from Lewiston and dropped him off at the park. His friend also lent him a hatchet, a small handheld axe designed for chopping pieces of wood for a campfire and other carving and cutting needs. He kept it in a leather holster. Jeff had come alone. Three other boys who had come together later said that they saw Jeff and William talking to one another.
William might have been keen to talk rocks, which he was fairly knowledgeable about. Jeff was wearing an Army fatigue jacket. William had been in the National Guard. They were both going camping, and William may have noticed the younger man seemed less prepared. Jeff lived in a city apartment building with his mother, in contrast to William's youth spent outdoors. As far as we know, the two did not know each other before meeting at the park.
New sources reported, quote, the two had been camping separately. According to Jeff's account of the day, he and William collected rocks for several hours. What is uncontested is that he and William spent some daylight hours together in the afternoon at Mount Appetite in apparent harmony. Jeff's story from this point, however, would vary over time.
The old mines were a popular spot and well-trafficked, but as the day went on, the number of visitors in the park dwindled until only one car was left in the lot. Eventually, the other kids left, and it was Jeff and William alone. That evening, before sunset, Jeff would attack William with the hatchet. William was badly hurt, covered in wounds from a dull blade, and losing blood but still alive.
He felt himself being dragged along the ground. He was aware of a weight on him as Jeff covered him with old boards and sheet metal. The sticks and rocks of the forest floor poked and prodded his nearly naked body. Over the course of several hours, in excruciating pain, William attempted to move. If he could get to the main trail, maybe somebody would find him before it's too late.
Despite the warm air, William grew colder until he gradually lost consciousness. William probably knew that he was going to die here and that he would never leave Mount Appetite.
My summers are always super busy, and with a lot of travel comes dry skin. Especially going up into the mountains of Colorado for the True Crime Podcast Festival. One thing I am grateful to bring with me on my trip is my OneSkin. All of their products are created by skin longevity scientists and backed with lab and clinical studies. I'm not just talking about surface benefits either.
Their OS1 peptide is proven to reverse skin's biological age by reducing the number of senescent cells up to 50%. For a limited time, you get an exclusive 15% off your first OneSkin purchase using SheTold when you check out at OneSkin.co. Aside from all of the amazing skin benefits, one of my favorite things is that the shell is reusable.
So when you go to replace your product, you just buy the refill and click it right into the shell. OneSkin is more than just skincare. It's about skin longevity targeting the root causes of aging to help you look and feel your best at every age. Get started today with 15% off using code SHETOLD at OneSkin.co. That's 15% off at OneSkin.co with code SHETOLD. It's time to expect more from your skincare routine. Invest in the health of your skin with OneSkin.
Two days after William's death, a woman named Linda was hiking with her husband and children. The weather had cooled to a seasonal 76 degrees. They were enjoying the beautiful Sunday afternoon when Linda suddenly stopped. For a split second, she was horrified to see an animal carcass torn apart on the ground. But she soon realized that the mangled thing she saw was a human being. His pale skin was slashed and bloodied. He was completely still.
She told the children to stay away from the area. The whole family quickly went back the way they came, this time in shocked silence. Police followed Linda's directions and found the body in the southeast area of the park, between the National Guard training area and the mica mines. He was described by reporters and the police as, quote, essentially unclothed.
They were reluctant to share information at first, and the man was unidentified until they searched the car in the parking lot that contained his vehicle registration and driver's license. The car itself was impounded and searched for evidence. The autopsy concluded that William had died of blunt force trauma and multiple lacerations to the head and body. He did not die of his wounds instantly, but he bled to death over a period of hours.
They guessed the body had either been dragged by the killer or William had dragged himself in an attempt to find help. The coroner described the wounds as likely caused by an axe or a hatchet. He also said it was not exceedingly sharp, but it was heavy. In other words, he had not only been cut, but bludgeoned with the weapon. A canvas bag that belonged to William was found in a nearby outhouse.
The contents of the bag and Williams' car were described as, quote, homosexual paraphernalia. This included unspecified magazines and intimate clothing and leather items. Sex between men was only legal in Maine since 1976, and gay men and women were still regarded with suspicion. Reporters asked police if the murder had a, quote, homosexual connection.
Luckily for police, it was obvious who the killer was, and they arrested him in his home in Lewiston on the afternoon of Monday, June 27th, the day after William's body was discovered, three days since the murder. Police took into evidence some of Jeff's belongings. These included horror and sci-fi magazines, comic books, blood-stained clothing, newspaper clippings, and a diary, the contents of which have never been made public.
But most noteworthy was the swastika. Newspapers didn't clarify what form it took, whether a doodle or a sewn-on patch or a flag, but an unusual item to find in a teenage boy's room. That, in conjunction with books like 666, Anatomy of a Murder, and Playboy magazines probably left investigators with some impressions about the teen. Jeff had a reputation for troublemaking.
He had previously threatened someone with a BB gun and told them it was a .22-caliber firearm. At some point, he attended the Goodwill Hinckley School, a day treatment center focused on children with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges.
Not only had Jeff been seen with William at the park, he had told three different people that he had hit William with a hatchet. Police spoke with two employees of Layton's Market, a combo gas station grocery store, who recalled that Jeff had come in on Saturday with an army fatigue jacket on and spent, quote, an unusual amount of time in the bathroom and left quite a mess. There was water all over.
The store was located just outside of the park at the intersection of Garfield Road and Minot Avenue, and it was on the way back to town. It would be a natural place to stop. It's unclear if Jeff was on foot or in a car. At first, newspapers redacted his name, referring to him only as a 16-year-old Lewiston youth. At his initial hearing, at which he entered no plea, he was appointed an attorney by the judge, someone who, quote, had represented him previously.
After a brief hold at the county jail, he was sent to the main youth center in South Portland as the criminal justice system lumbered onward. William's funeral in Hamden was attended by his family, most of whom still lived nearby and some friends from Massachusetts. At 1 p.m. on Thursday, June 30, about a week after William's death, a funeral service was held at West Hamden Baptist Church. William was later interred at Locust Grove Cemetery in Hamden near its town center.
William's mother was in shock and disbelief. Once again, she had to bury her child. Her two youngest had gone before her, and on exactly the same day, 31 years apart.
Jeff Smith was 16 years and 6 months old at the time he killed William. Because it was a year and a half before his 18th birthday, the court had to decide whether or not he would be treated as a juvenile. The difference between an adult punishment and a juvenile punishment was enormous. If Jeff were tried as a juvenile, the maximum penalty he would face was a sentence at the Maine Youth Center in South Portland until his 21st birthday, about four and a half years.
If Jeff were tried as an adult, he could face a life sentence. Even the minimum for murder was 25 years. A lot was riding on this decision. At a hearing on Thursday, July 14th, a few weeks after the killing, the judge granted a request by the prosecution to have Jeff evaluated by staff at the Maine Youth Center. This decision would ride on the outcome of the evaluation.
The prosecutor requested three months of testing and observation, but it ended up being about seven months, enough time for many mental health professionals to interact with Jeff. On February 16, 1984, Jeff returned to District Court in Lewiston.
This hearing served a couple of purposes. One was to establish that there was probable cause that a crime had occurred, that there was enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial. The second was to present evidence on whether Jeff should be tried as an adult or juvenile. The prosecutor for the Attorney General's Office, Matthew Dyer, argued that Jeff should be treated as an adult.
Representatives from the Maine Youth Center testified that Jeff was uncooperative, calculating, and defiant. The director of the security treatment unit said that Jeff resisted authority and was a loner. A psychiatrist diagnosed Jeff with antisocial personality disorder. He said that Jeff had a superior intellect, a bad attitude, and no motivation to change it. He described his prognosis as poor.
Jeff's attorney, Ronald Lebel, said that shortly after Jeff's arrival to the youth center, staff wrote him off, categorizing him as untreatable. He called a doctor from Lewiston to testify, David Margulies. Dr. Margulies said that Jeff was in a period of transition and warned that his pathological tendencies would worsen if he was incarcerated in an adult prison.
He said that Jeff needed a protective environment where he could do some therapeutic work. His attorney concluded by saying, perhaps the youth center gave up on Jeff too early. I'd ask the court not to do so as well. The judge, after immediately ruling that there was probable cause for a trial, asked for written psychological evaluations to be submitted to him so that he could carefully decide Jeff's fate. Five days later, he made his decision.
On February 21, 1984, Judge Damon Scales ruled that Jeff would be treated as an adult. That decision was based on reports submitted by eight different psychiatrists.
Other than the content of those reports, the judge said he based his decision on Jeff's poor juvenile record and the many conflicting versions of the story Jeff had told about the Nida Williams murder. He concluded that Jeff would not be deterred from further criminal activity if he faced only juvenile consequences, and that the gravity of his offense necessitated that he be treated as an adult.
Jeff was 17 years old and two months at the time of this hearing, and immediately following it, the judge ordered that he be moved from the main youth center to Androscoggin County Jail, alongside all of the other adults that were serving short sentences or awaiting trial. He was likely one of the youngest men held in that jail.
His attorney appealed the decision, arguing that irreparable harm would come to Jeff from his incarceration in an adult correctional facility. He said that the county jail was overcrowded. It was designed to just hold 30 inmates, and at the time of Jeff's transfer, there were already 39 in the facility. A superior court judge allowed Jeff to stay at the main youth center pending his appeal.
That appeal was heard in Superior Court in June and decided on September 7th, and it upheld the judge's decision. And on September 8th, Jeff found himself returned to Androscoggin County Jail. That was the end of the line for him. Jeff would be tried as an adult.
But the murder trial that everyone expected was never to happen. In October of 1984, the grand jury returned an indictment against Jeff. In December, a number of pretrial motions were filed. And by January, most of the pretrial matters were settled. Things were marching towards trial. But on Friday, February 1st, the day before the trial was to begin, a decision in the 11th hour was made.
Jeff had made a deal with the prosecutor. He would plead guilty to a lesser crime of manslaughter, and there would be no trial. It's not uncommon for such an outcome to occur, but the question remained, was justice served? The rationale presented in court for the decision was revealing.
The prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Goodwin, told the court, "...if Jeff Smith had told the truth from the beginning, there's a very good chance he would have been charged with manslaughter, not murder."
More directly, Goodwin said, "Murder doesn't appear to be an appropriate charge in the case," which all but admitted that the state had mischarged Jeff. But what was this truth that Thomas Goodwin was referring to? Prosecutor Goodwin continued, "Fundamentally, it's uncontested that Jeff was the one that caused William's death, but the act appears to have been committed in the heat of an emotional situation."
Jeff's mother had testified at a pretrial hearing that Jeff had told her, quote, "He wouldn't get off me. He tried to kiss me. He tried to grab my crotch and wouldn't leave me alone. So I hit him." Jeff's attorney said, "Homicide can be justifiable if it is self-defense. Jeff was a victim of rape, even if he didn't resist physically. He was subjected to emotional and psychological coercion and intimidation."
He later said, "If William had not coerced the defendant into a homosexual encounter, he would still be alive." Prosecutor Goodwin, on the day of the plea hearing, said that, quote, "Jeff told acquaintances that he used the axe to fend off the man's sexual advances, that he had hit the person several times to keep him away." Prosecutor Goodwin offered his own reconstruction of what happened that Friday night in the woods of Mount Appetite.
Sometime after the encounter, Jeff Smith, ashamed of what had happened, attempted to threaten William so that he would not return to the quarry. A struggle ensued. Jeff took an axe he was carrying for camping purposes and struck the older man, killing him.
The prosecutor filed with the court a revised charging document, this one for manslaughter, which read, quote, On or about June 27, 1983, Jeff S. Smith, while under the influence of extreme anger or extreme fear brought about by an adequate provocation, intentionally or knowingly caused the death of William Smith.
So what was it? Was he fending off a sexual advance? Was he engaged in a mutual combat? Was it self-defense? Or was he caught in the throes of gay panic? The, quote, homosexual, a gay man as he was referred to in the 1980s, was widely considered to be deviant and abnormal, a corrupting influence.
Just being around one would put you at risk of contracting his disease. If a homosexual were so bold as to make sexual advances toward a normal straight man, a violent response wouldn't be a risk. It would be expected. And it would be excused. Inclinations such as his were shrouded in euphemism, abnormal, aberrant, and unnatural.
Historically, gay sex itself was criminalized. Even when it was legalized state by state, it still carried a heavy social stigma. As Western society transitioned from religious to scientific explanations in the 20th century, morality itself became scientized. Psychological authorities considered same-sex attraction a disease or mental disorder.
Homosexuality was a listed disorder in certain psychological manuals. The origin of the term "gay panic" has its roots in science. Some psychologists theorized that the fear of one's own homosexuality could result in gay panic.
According to this theory, an individual could become so fearful of their own homosexual feelings that the presence of another gay man could render them, quote, temporarily insane. The term homosexual panic disorder appeared in a 1952 manual, but in the few cases where it had actually been diagnosed, patients had symptoms that were inwardly focused, with noted passivity, not aggression.
This concept, though, provided a plausible medical explanation to what was a well-known cultural story, the story of the predatory homosexual. In the 1960s, the gay panic defense emerged in court as a supporting argument, building the scaffolding for legitimate criminal defenses like provocation, self-defense, and temporary insanity.
Heterosexual, or straight men charged with murder, would argue that they had violent psychotic reactions, causing them to lose control over their mental faculties, rendering them temporarily insane. And this enjoyed some success. But gay panic really found its home in provocation defenses.
Over time, the psychological diagnosis, which implied that the defendant had a mental disorder which was exemplified by a fear that they themselves were gay, was abandoned. But the legal strategy stuck, and the story evolved. There are certain scenarios which are widely held in courtrooms across America to be so provoking that they partially excuse the act of murder. The quintessential example is catching a partner in the act of cheating.
Another one is killing someone after having been engaged in mutual combat. Another is having a serious crime committed against a close relative. These scenarios, if they immediately precede the murder, can serve to reduce a defendant's charge from murder to manslaughter, violence that is perpetrated in the, quote, heat of the moment. The gay panic argument, as applied to provocation, went something like this.
A homosexual came on to me and I, a reasonably normal heterosexual man, while under the influence of an extreme mental or emotional disturbance, killed him. These are some examples from actual court cases. While watching an X-rated movie at a victim's house, the victim put his hand on the killer's knee and asked, what do you want to do?
While in the car, the victim put his hand on the killer's knee, was rebuffed, and then put his hand on the killer's thigh and asked him to spend the night with him. At a party, the victim asked the killer, quote, something about gay people, held his hand for 15 seconds, and later grabbed his butt while the killer was walking through a doorway.
In all these cases, the victim was a victim of homicide. These were all acts that were argued to be, quote, adequate provocation to prove the lesser crime of manslaughter occurred. Here's one more such case. The killer accepted a ride to a friend's house from the victim. They were complete strangers. While in the car, the victim asked the killer his thoughts on gay men. The killer said that he had gay friends and had no issue with them.
Later, when both men were out of the vehicle, the victim grabbed the killer's arm in a way that the killer viewed as a sexual advance. At that point, the killer, quote, allegedly went into a state of unconsciousness and attacked the victim, ultimately stabbing him 17 times and then drove away in the victim's vehicle. The name of that case is People v. Chavez.
The killer argued that the stabbing was committed in the heat of passion, and the jury found him guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. As a fun thought experiment, imagine if women killed men every time they were subject to an unwanted advance or sexual proposition. Homosexual panic disorder could easily apply to women, but has never been applied to women in the courtroom to excuse violence.
In an excellent paper that outlines the history of the gay panic defense, author Cynthia Lee points out, quote, "...women in this society are supposed to accept a certain amount of unwanted male attention." The idea that the victim's homosexuality provoked violence is the story that enabled Jeff to plead to manslaughter and not face a murder trial. Jeff's lawyer suggested that the homicide might even be justified as self-defense.
If the jury found that to be true, there would be no consequences. Self-defense is an absolute defense to murder. Jeff supposedly needed to ward off a sexual attack. In these circumstances, homicide is justified, and the defendant deserves no punishment. Prosecutor Goodwin was unprepared to go that far, but he appeared to be persuaded by the provocation defense.
When a prosecutor offers a plea, he has a keen idea of how a trial might proceed. He imagines a trial with a gay panic defense. He imagines that the jury may find Jeff lashed out in the heat of passion. He imagines that the successful conviction of murder is uncertain. And it is this uncertainty, conscious or subconscious, that persuaded Prosecutor Goodwin to offer Jeff a plea deal.
Hey.
Sending money direct to her bank account is super fast and Aunt Tina gets more time to be the bingo queen. Western Union, send money in-store directly to their bank accounts in the Philippines. Services offered by Western Union Financial Services, Inc., NMLS number 906983 or Western Union International Services, LLC, NMLS number 906985. Licensed as money transmitters by the New York State Department of Financial Services. See terms for details. Jeff appeared at the courthouse on February 21st, 1985, a Thursday, for the judge to pronounce his sentence.
He was 18 years old. He was short with scruffy sideburns. His answers, when prompted by the judge, were succinct and subdued. Leading up to this hearing, there was a careful investigation conducted by the court into Jeff's past to give the judge context for what type of punishment should be imposed. Though the public didn't get the benefit of a trial, the experienced prosecutor and defense attorney told the judge how such a trial might go.
Prosecutor Goodwin urged the court to make the sentence a substantial one and asked the judge to pay close attention to the many psychological evaluations of Jeff when making his decision.
He said, quote, they speak of a hostile, aggressive individual. He added that Jeff had made no statement of remorse and had an angry and violent nature. Prosecutor Goodwin, though, did not make a specific sentencing recommendation, leaving it up to the judge entirely. The defense contended that William had coerced Jeff into a, quote, homosexual encounter.
Jeff's lawyer, Ronald Lebel, called the case a tragedy for both the victim and the accused, as well as their families. Before sentencing, the judge asked Jeff whether he wanted to say anything. Jeff shook his head to decline. The judge asked Jeff how he pled to the charge of manslaughter, and he said, guilty. Judge Robert Clifford sentenced him to 14 years in prison.
Though he could have sentenced Jeff up to 20 years, he noted several mitigating factors, including Jeff's young age, his lack of a serious criminal record, and, quote, the nature of the sexual advances to which he was subjected. Jeff showed no emotion during the hearing. William's mother, who was 68 at the time of the hearing, was aghast. Though she declined to make a statement during the hearing, she wrote an emotional letter to the judge.
She, joined by a family friend, sharply criticized Jeff's version of events, calling it a pipe dream. She accused the court of meticulously protecting the rights of the defendant while being, quote, contemptuous of the rights of the victim. She said that the story was based solely on the unsupported word of Jeff Smith and was contradicted by the evidence.
If you've ever been to a sentencing hearing, there's an awkwardness to it. After each statement to the court is read, there is no applause, no rebuttal, there's no response at all. The words simply vanish into the well of the courtroom, silently captured by the court stenographer for the written record. The judge often makes eye contact with the speaker and will sometimes offer words of encouragement, to be brave or speak from the heart, to speak up.
But after everyone has taken their turn, and everyone's attention turns to the judge, there is but a brief condemnation of the crime and a pronouncement of the sentence. Though William's mother did not speak the words herself, she heard them, read aloud on her behalf from her seat behind the prosecutor. The words were a manifestation of her anger, her outrage, and her loss.
But the silence that filled the room, broken only by the shuffling of papers and the footsteps of the next speaker, was dreadful and unsettling. The defendant, her son's killer, made no reply. Did he even hear what she said? Or was he lost in his own thoughts, imagining his own loss of freedom, his future behind bars? It was important for her to express herself. It was the right thing to do. But what did it mean?
Only a few months prior to this hearing, there had been another sentencing hearing in central Maine. In October of 1984, Tom Goodwin, the same prosecutor in Williams' case, made a deal with three teenagers who had thrown a young gay man over a bridge in downtown Bangor to his death. That 23-year-old gay man was Charlie Howard. His killers were between the ages of 15 and 17 at the time of his death.
The court, unlike in William's case, decided to treat these three youths as juveniles. They pled guilty to the juvenile crime of manslaughter and were sentenced to the main youth center, to be released at the discretion of the center, but no later than the 21st birthday of the eldest. In other words, a maximum of four years. Charlie's death became symbolic of the injustice facing the gay community.
His death tore back the curtain of polite heterosexual society and revealed an ugliness. The Bangor Daily News published countless hate-filled editorials that all but laid Charlie's death at his own feet. The condemnation of the homosexual was a rallying cry made by many reverends and political leaders. Charlie died from a deliberate act, one that perhaps didn't intend to cause death, but ended in death nonetheless.
And just like in William's case, the killers took a plea deal for a lesser charge, manslaughter. And just like in William's case, the prosecutor in charge was Tom Goodwin. In fact, the only reason that we even know about William's case is because of a fleeting mention in the coverage of Charlie's.
Judge Clifford gave Jeff a 14-year sentence, a substantial sentence for the crime of manslaughter, a light sentence for the crime of murder. His pretrial confinement counted towards his time, time spent at the Maine Youth Center and the Androscoggin County Jail. He also could get out earlier with good behavior, which he did. After 10 years served, Jeff was freed. Within three months of his release, Jeff re-offended.
In the rubble of a Lewiston building destroyed by fire, he sexually assaulted a four-year-old boy. He took Polaroid photos of the assault. Once again, he was arrested the next day. And once again, he had a scapegoating story instead of accepting responsibility.
After assaulting the boy, Jeff claimed he had acted without thinking, under the influence of a psychedelic drug. This time, instead of the provocation of a homosexual attack, he blamed LSD. He described being unable to distinguish memories of assaulting the child from psychedelic hallucinations. He claimed to be horrified at what he'd done under the influence, and that he took the drug because he struggled to adjust to life after prison.
This time, his story was less sympathetic. Justice Robert Clifford, the same judge who sentenced Jeff for killing William, sent him back to prison, this time for 12 years, with another 14 years of probation to follow. The judge said, since Mr. Smith had a substantial amount of time hanging over his head, he will have ample incentive to walk the straight and narrow.
The theory seemed sound, but Jeff defied reason. He was released around 2006 and placed on his long probation. He violated probation within a year, in 2007, for which he served 50 days in county lockup. Along with some other probation violations, we do not have the details of these charges. In 2010, he had another probation violation, this time for criminal trespassing in Augusta, for which he served another 30 days.
In 2011, he had yet another violation which landed him in jail for over two years. And in 2013, he was in court again and sentenced to 23 months. That's where the trail of his criminal offenses seems to end. To our knowledge, his probation ended in 2020. At some point during his probation period, Jeff lived with his mother in Connecticut, but he has since returned to Maine.
58-year-old Jeffrey Scott Smith of Portland, Maine, is a registered sex offender, but he is a free man. Sex offender registry profiles only include a brief, uncontextualized listing of sex crimes. Jeff's other criminal charges, such as manslaughter, are not listed on his public profile at all. If Jeff had killed William today, he might find it difficult to use a gay panic defense to reduce his sentence.
Media reports might describe William with sensitivity. Maybe they'd even mention his occupation and a quote or two about his life and who he was as a person.
In 2013, the American Bar Association began advocating state legislators to ban gay panic criminal defenses. And in 2019, Maine did just that, with the governor signing into law LD-1632, an act regarding criminal procedure with respect to allowable defenses. As of this recording, 20 states have enacted similar bans, and legislative action is pending in several others.
There are cases as recent as 2015 that successfully employed a gay panic defense, reducing charges against James Miller from murder to manslaughter in Texas, a state which has not banned the practice. The evidence that Jeff committed the crime of murder is overwhelming. Jeff hit William with a hatchet eight times, resulting in skull fractures and deep cuts.
The autopsy showed that there were injuries on William's back and on the back of his head, suggesting that he was attacked from behind or even trying to flee. Jeff stole William's watch. Even if the gay panic defense were believed, what would induce him to steal? It's hard to fit robbery into a story of temporary insanity, self-defense, or provocation.
Criminologist Steve Thompson wrote, "...the number of cases where gay murders have been accompanied by robbery suggests that criminal opportunism is a frequent motive of these killings." Jeff knew what he did was wrong. He hid William's body under boards and sheet metal, concealing his crime, showing a consciousness of guilt.
A professor at St. Edward's University cataloged gay panic cases and found some patterns. Usually, the victim was robbed, and often the killer was much younger than the victim. Which brings up an important point. Jeff was a 16-year-old minor. William was a 36-year-old man. He was more than twice his age. This story isn't without its thorns.
That William was willing to act on his attraction to a teenage boy raises questions about William's own judgment. William isn't the perfect victim. Though I'm unsure how these laws were written in 1983, this appears to be statutory rape. Jeff spoke to a psychiatrist at the Maine Youth Center and said that he had had consensual sex with William, as consensual as sex between a minor and an adult can be.
In Jeff's own words, he was ashamed of what had happened and wanted to frighten William into not coming back. So he told the psychiatrist, I followed him. And then there's Jeff's character. Jeff was sent to the Maine Youth Center where he was evaluated by staff and many different psychologists. They described him as having antisocial personality disorder.
The hallmark symptoms include exploiting, manipulating, or violating the rights of others, a lack of concern, remorse, or regret about others' distress, being unable to control their anger, and repeatedly breaking the law. Jeff had a long history of juvenile criminal offenses. Then, when he was finally released from prison, he almost immediately reoffended, and has continued to reoffend throughout his life.
William had no criminal offenses on his 36-year-old record. He was not a criminal. The possibility that Jeff had violently raped William was never even considered at all. William walked with a bit of a limp and had a brace on one of his legs. To Jeff, his physical disability could have made him a target. Neither was the possibility that Jeff's violent rage was sparked by sexual rejection.
State Police Detective Richard Pickett said that he overheard Jeff making an emotional confession to his mother in a conference room at the police department. Quote, He blurted out to his mother, I don't know why I did it. Jeff told his mother that the killing had been, Quote, Like a dream. Just like a dream. I believe the dream may have gone something like this. William and Jeff met by chance at Mount Appetite.
William there to collect rocks, a part of his long weekend trip back to Hamden. Jeff there to do some camping that summer for the first time in his life. They were both by themselves. William was working a section of the abandoned quarry, sifting through piles with his pickaxe. Jeff may have come over, curious about what he was up to. William was happy to share his hobby, explaining to the teenage boy what he was looking for.
They worked together for a few hours in the hot sun and decided to cool off, walking in the shade afforded by the network of forested trails. William, at this point, maybe had already gotten the impression that Jeff was gay and vice versa. As they moved into the privacy of the forest and the trails, the conversation turned more sexual.
After the sun went down and the campsite was arranged, Jeff became more withdrawn. He was repulsed by his own sexuality, and William was in repose, wearing little clothing, a symbol of what he hated. He hated him as much as he hated himself. He took the axe from his belt and held it up menacingly, telling him to get lost, to never come back.
William, confused, went to comfort the teenager, not fearing that he was in actual danger. As soon as his hand touched the boy's arm, he realized he had misjudged the situation. Jeff lashed out, raining a bevy of blows on his head, neck, and shoulders with a hatchet.
William tried to get away, and when Jeff had calmed down and realized what he'd done, he dragged William's body to a natural depression in the forest and covered him with debris nearby. He discarded William's bag in a nearby outhouse and then stole his watch. He was going to get away with this, he told himself. He left the park on foot, cleaning up at the convenience store on his way out.
But then he couldn't control himself. He had to tell others of his gay-bashing conquest, telling them that a homosexual had gotten what he deserved. Well, Jeff, it worked. That story had enough narrative power to persuade the main attorney general's office to lower the charges from murder to manslaughter.
It's not surprising that his defense attorney would conjure such an argument, but it is embarrassing that the prosecution essentially parroted it. Did a murder occur? Absolutely. Did Jeff get what he deserved? Absolutely not.
I believe it was Jeff who targeted William, who, perhaps because of his own self-loathing, decided to murder him knowing that he would be the only survivor, the only person to craft the narrative of what really happened that June evening in 1983.
Thank you so much for listening. And thank you to those of you who took time out of your day to leave a kind review. A detailed list of sources and photos from this episode can be found at MurderSheTold.com. You can follow Murder She Told on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Thank you so much to Margaret, Betty, and David for sharing their memories and photos with us. Thank you to Anne Young for her writing, Kimberly Clark for her research support, and Byron Willis for his additional research and writing. Thank you to Anne Young for her writing,
If you have a case suggestion or you just want to say hi, you can always email me at hello at MurderSheTold.com. I'm Kristen Seavey. Thank you for listening. Is your vehicle stopping like it should? Does it squeal or grind when you brake? Don't miss out on summer brake deals at O'Reilly Auto Parts.