Joe Smith was sentenced to death by the State of Arizona for two murders
According to court documents Joe Smith would abduct 18-year-old Sandy Spencer as she was walking home. The young woman would be sexually assaulted and murdered. A month later Joe Smith would abduct 14-year-old Neva Lee who would be sexually assaulted and murdered
Joe Smith would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Joe Smith has been on Arizona death row since 1976
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JOE C. SMITH 036085
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Joe Smith Case
On January 1, 1976, officials of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department found the nude body of Sandy Spencer in the desert outside Phoenix. One month later in a different desert location, police discovered the nude body of Neva Lee. Both teenage hitchhikers had been suffocated by having dirt forced into their mouths, which were taped shut. The assailant stabbed both women multiple times, punctured them with needles, and bound their wrists with rope.
Smith, who was on probation from a rape conviction, became the prime suspect. Police put him under surveillance. When that failed to produce probable cause for an arrest, police had a female officer pose as a hitchhiker to lure Smith into committing false imprisonment or battery. He eventually picked up the officer, took her to his father’s machine shop, and grabbed her by both arms. After a prearranged signal, police entered and arrested him for false imprisonment.
During Smith’s imprisonment, police questioned him about the Lee and Spencer murders. At first, he denied his involvement. But months later, at his own initiation, Smith gave investigators a bizarre account of the Lee slaying. He told police that he was present at the crime because a friend, John Jameson, forced him at gunpoint to drive the victim to the desert. Once there, Jameson ordered Lee to have sexual intercourse with Smith in order to frame Smith for her rape. Smith said Jameson then decided to kill Lee. His account conflicted with some physical evidence found at the scene. Smith later contended that he told police no such story.
Smith went on trial for the Lee murder first. Throughout the trial, he maintained his innocence, contending that other people committed the crime and that investigators conspired to frame him. Jameson testified at the trial. He denied being present at the murder, but said that a man known as “Squirrel” bragged about killing two women and showed Jameson pictures of the dead women. The jury returned a general verdict finding Smith guilty of murder.
Smith then went on trial for the Spencer slaying. The following day, he pleaded guilty to the crime shortly after Di Anne Jameson—Smith’s girlfriend, John Jameson’s ex-wife, and a key prosecution witness—told the court that she had been improperly contacted by a defense investigator and by Smith’s mother. During the plea colloquy, the prosecutor expressed doubts about Smith’s emotional stability to enter a voluntary plea. Nonetheless, the trial court accepted the plea. Three weeks later, Smith unsuccessfully sought to withdraw the plea, explaining that he had only pleaded guilty out of concern that his parents and Ms. Jameson would be arrested.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1736238.html