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Conviction in 1999 murder upheld Friday, Sep 22, 2006 By Robin Mero The Morning News BENTONVILLE -Benton County's longest and most expensive murder case, according to local prosecutors, was put to rest Thursday when the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the 2005 conviction of Albert Kieth Smith for kidnapping and murder. Smith, 58, a mailman from Fort Smith, is serving a life sentence the murder of David Howard, 57, manager of a Bella Vista marina, over a relationship between Howard and Smith's ex-wife. Evidence at Smith's trial showed that when his 28-year marriage to Linda Smith became rocky, he installed a keyboard interceptor on his wife's computer and followed her Internet relationships throughout their separation and divorce. Thirty-seven days after Howard met Linda Smith via the Internet, he was found dead beside an Oklahoma highway wearing only underwear and a T-shirt - with two .22-caliber bullets in the back of his head. Howard was murdered Sept. 15, 1999, when he left his Arkansas home after telling a friend he was to meet a "recruiter" near his home. Because his body was found in McIntosh County, Okla., the issue of jurisdiction became a concern, defense counsel Joel Price argued on appeal. Price also argued there was insufficient evidence, and that Circuit Judge Tom Keith improperly instructed the jury regarding the hundreds of e-mail messages presented at trial, which were not admitted for their truth but to illustrate Smith's state of mind. Oklahoma officials never pursued charges against Smith, although he became a suspect early on. Prosecutor Robin Green said Benton County officials felt they had a good-faith basis for trying the case in Arkansas, and the high court agreed. "The exact location of the murder we'll never know, only Albert Kieth Smith and his victim know for sure," Green said Thursday. "It gave me great pleasure to be able to call Melissa Ullom, David Howard's daughter, and tell her the conviction was upheld by the Arkansas Supreme Court today. She cried when I told her," Green said. "We've all been waiting for this answer." Green used cell-phone records, e-mail and previously deleted data from three people's computer hard drives - Smith's, Linda Smith's and Howard's - to convince a jury that Smith had impersonated a recruiter and lured Howard into a fictitious business proposition. Green presented evidence of Smith taking excessive days off from work, renting cars and devising an alias to correspond with his ex-wife's friends. Days before the murder, Smith bought a .22-caliber rifle with scope, ammunition, dark clothing, binoculars, nylon rope, a 9-inch stainless steel knife - and paid extra for overnight shipping of eight books showing how to make a gun silencer ordered via the Internet. Smith traveled to Jacksonville, Fla. to hunt Robert Glendinning, prosecutors said. Glendinning was another man with whom Linda Smith was exchanging e-mail. On the way, police in Greenville, Miss., stopped his van. Smith never found Glendinning's residence. |
