Judy Smith homicide

On September 7, 1997, hunters in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest found human bones, clothing, and some other items scattered in the woods near a campground. The remains, most of which were around a shallow grave, were identified as belonging to a woman between the ages of 40 and 55 with a seriously arthritic knee. Due to holes and cuts on her bra, and similar cutting marks on the bones, investigators ruled that the unidentified decedent had been stabbed to death.

Dental records and the arthritic knee soon led the body to be identified as that of Judy Smith (born Judith Eldredge; December 15, 1946, in Hyannis, Massachusetts), a 50-year-old nurse from Newton, Massachusetts, who had last been positively seen alive by her husband Jeffrey at a hotel in Philadelphia almost five months earlier. When she had not shown up after a day purportedly spent sightseeing in the city, he had reported her missing. Until the bones were found, the search for her had been concentrated in the Philadelphia area, where several sightings had been reported, although some of them may have been of a homeless woman who strongly resembled Smith.

The investigation into the killing has been complicated by the unresolved question of how Smith got to North Carolina from Philadelphia, away, in the first place. The Philadelphia police, the FBI, and the Buncombe County sheriff's office continue to investigate; the case has been the subject of a segment on Unsolved Mysteries.

Background Judy Bradford (her name from her second marriage), a home care nurse in the Boston area, met Jeffrey Smith, a lawyer, when she cared for Smith's father for a week following the latter's throat surgery in the mid-1980s. Jeffrey later recalled Judy's devotion to his father's care, and how she used a window curtain rod in the absence of a proper holder for his father's IV bag. Jeffrey, a divorcé with a grown daughter, began dating Judy, who also had two adult children from a previous marriage, and in September 1996, the two wed.

While Jeffrey understood and cooperated when they asked to interview his stepdaughter without him present, since she told the police he "[didn't] cheat on his taxes", he was distressed that they expressed doubt that Judy had ever been in Philadelphia to begin with. If, they asked, Judy was the experienced traveler who had once gone to Thailand on her own to visit the family of a grateful patient, why had she forgotten her driver's license? Jeffrey later explained in response to the Philadelphia City Paper that the rule had only been in effect for 18 months and Judy had only flown once during that time, so it was entirely possible that she made an honest mistake.

Possible sightings In the days after Judy disappeared, Philadelphia newspapers and television ran stories about the case. Jeffrey and friends and family put up flyers with her picture seeking information. These led to reports of sightings, some of which Jeffrey found credible. Most were in the city, but later reports came from outside the city.

Another report mentioned a woman at the junction of Broad and Locust Streets around 3 p.m. on the day Judy was last seen, describing the woman as "disoriented".

Theories Investigators with the Buncombe County sheriff's office have ruled out Jeffrey Smith, who died in 2005,