# 3 Chilling Cases You Need To Know Now | True Crime | 175

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 2 Feb 2026, 25 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO7055278965.mp3

A phone ringing in the night, a handwritten goodbye sent from captivity, a quiet suburban yard hiding unimaginable violence, and a teenage girl lured by what seemed like an ordinary babysitting job. This episode traces three haunting true crime stories that shocked America, the sadistic abduction and slayings of Shari Faye Smith and Debra May Helmick, the decades-long mystery and privilege-soaked controversy surrounding the murder of Martha Moxley, and the frozen New Hampshire grave of Pamela Jean Mason. This is a dark, immersive journey into crimes that still echo long after the final verdicts, or the lack of them. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, disturbing cases, true crime analysis, hidden clues, infamous crimes, real crime stories

## Transcript

[0:00] The phone rang in the Smith household on the evening of June
[0:03] 1st, 1985, and a nightmare that had already begun grew
[0:08] infinitely worse. On the other end of the line was
[0:12] the man who had kidnapped 17 year old Sherri Smith from her
[0:15] own driveway just hours earlier. He would call again and again
[0:20] over the following days, taunting the family with cryptic
[0:23] messages and sadistic games while their daughter remained in
[0:26] his clutches. The kidnapping of Sherri Smith
[0:30] would be followed by the abduction and slaying of nine
[0:32] year old Deborah Helmick just weeks later.
[0:36] These cases would terrorize South Carolina and lead
[0:39] investigators to one of the most depraved individuals the state
[0:43] had ever seen. Sherri Smith was the picture of
[0:47] small town American promise. At 17, she was a senior at
[0:52] Lexington High School, just two days away from walking across
[0:55] the stage at graduation. She was deeply religious, active
[1:00] in her church youth group, and beloved by her tight knit
[1:03] family. Her parents, Robert and Hilda
[1:06] Smith, had raised Sherry and her siblings in a home anchored by
[1:10] faith and routine. Every morning began with a short
[1:15] devotional and prayer before the children headed off to school.
[1:19] Sherry had her whole life mapped out with plans for college and a
[1:23] future bright with possibility. She had no idea that May 31st,
[1:29] 1985 would be her last full day of freedom.
[1:34] That Friday afternoon, Sherri drove home from school around
[1:38] 3:30 PM and stopped at the mailbox at the end of her
[1:41] family's long driveway. It was a routine she had
[1:45] performed countless times, but on this day, someone was
[1:48] watching. A man in a vehicle pulled up
[1:51] beside her as she retrieved the mail.
[1:54] Within moments, Sherri Smith had vanished.
[1:57] Her car was found still running at the end of the driveway, the
[2:01] driver's door hanging open and the mail scattered on the
[2:03] ground. The scene suggested a sudden,
[2:06] violent abduction in broad daylight, and her family
[2:09] immediately knew something was terribly wrong.
[2:14] The Smith family contacted police and a massive search
[2:17] began immediately. The next evening, the
[2:20] investigation took a disturbing turn.
[2:23] The telephone rang at the Smith home and a male voice informed
[2:27] Hilda Smith that he had her daughter.
[2:30] Over the following days, the caller phoned repeatedly,
[2:34] sometimes multiple times in a single night.
[2:37] He spoke in a calm, almost friendly tone that made his
[2:41] words all the more chilling. He told the family that Sherri
[2:45] was fine and that she wanted them to know she loved them.
[2:49] He played mind games, asking religious questions and speaking
[2:53] in riddles. The calls were traced to various
[2:55] payphones around Columbia, but the caller always hung up before
[2:59] cops could arrive. On June 3rd, 1985, the Smith
[3:05] family received a letter that would haunt them forever.
[3:09] Written in Sherry's own handwriting, it was titled Last
[3:13] Will and Testament. In the letter, Sherry expressed
[3:18] her love for her family and her faith in God.
[3:21] She asked that her possessions be distributed among her loved
[3:24] ones and urged them not to grieve because she would be in a
[3:28] better place. The letter made clear that
[3:31] Sherry knew she was going to die and had accepted her fate with
[3:36] remarkable grace. She had written it while being
[3:39] held captive and her kidnapper then mailed it as a form of
[3:43] psychological torture. The following day, this depraved
[3:47] freak called one final time. He told the family where they
[3:51] could find Sherry's body, giving directions to a remote location
[3:55] in Saluda County. Search teams rushed to the area
[3:59] and discovered the young woman in a shallow grave.
[4:02] The medical examiner determined that Sherry had been indecently
[4:06] assaulted and suffocated. She had been dead for
[4:09] approximately 2 days. The bright future that awaited
[4:13] her, the graduation ceremony she would never attend, the life she
[4:17] would never live had all been stolen by a disturbed monster.
[4:23] But then things got even worse, and while the community was
[4:26] reeling, the nightmare expanded. On June 14th, 1985, just ten
[4:33] days after Sherry's body was found, 9 year old Deborah
[4:37] Helmick was playing outside her family's trailer in Richland
[4:40] County when she vanished. The little girl had been riding
[4:45] her bicycle near the road when a man lured her into his vehicle.
[4:49] Her disappearance immediately raised fears that the same
[4:52] predator had struck again. Those fears were confirmed when
[4:56] Deborah's body was discovered the following day in Lexington
[4:59] County. Like Sherry, she had been
[5:03] subjected to the same sort of sick acts before ultimately
[5:06] being slain. Investigators now knew they were
[5:11] dealing with a serial predator, and the breakthrough came
[5:14] through meticulous police work. Detectives had been analyzing
[5:18] the phone calls to the Smith family, searching for any
[5:21] pattern. One call had been traced to a
[5:24] pay phone near an apartment complex, and witnesses reported
[5:28] seeing a suspicious man. Further investigation revealed
[5:32] connections to a phone number in Huntsville, AL.
[5:36] That number was linked to a woman who had once dated a man
[5:39] named Larry Jean Bell. Larry Jean Bell was a 35 year
[5:45] old electrician with a troubled past.
[5:48] He had a history of what I'll euphemistically call
[5:51] inappropriate behavior toward women and had previously been
[5:55] accused of kidnapping a woman in 1975, though he was acquitted.
[6:01] When investigators looked into Bell, they discovered he matched
[6:05] witness descriptions and had no alibi for the times of the
[6:09] abductions. Hair and fiber samples recovered
[6:12] from the crime scenes were consistent with materials from
[6:15] Bell's home and vehicle. On June 27th, 1985, less than a
[6:21] month after Sherry's abduction, Larry Jean Bell was arrested and
[6:25] charged. The first trial for the various
[6:30] crimes against Sherry became a sensation in South Carolina.
[6:35] Prosecutors presented forensic evidence, phone records, and
[6:39] testimony from witnesses who had seen Bell near the abduction
[6:42] sites. The most damning evidence came
[6:45] from the letters and phone calls themselves, which demonstrated
[6:49] the killer's sick need to torment his victims families.
[6:54] Bell maintained his innocence but mounted no real defense, and
[6:58] unsurprisingly, the jury wasn't persuaded.
[7:02] In February 1986, he was convicted of Sherri's slaying
[7:06] and sentenced to the chair. A separate trial for Deborah
[7:10] Helmick resulted in another conviction and another date with
[7:15] the executioner. For the next decade, Bell sat on
[7:20] death row while his attorneys filed appeals.
[7:23] He showed little remorse and at times exhibited bizarre
[7:26] behavior, including claiming to be Jesus Christ.
[7:30] On October 4th, 1996, Larry Bell was fried in the electric chair
[7:35] at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.
[7:39] Before his death, he offered no apology and no explanation for
[7:44] the evil he had inflicted. This sick puppy went to his
[7:47] grave without giving the families the closure they
[7:50] deserved. On the crisp autumn morning of
[7:57] October 31st, 1975, a mother's worst nightmare unfolded in one
[8:03] of America's wealthiest enclaves.
[8:06] Dorothy Moxley discovered her 15 year old daughter Martha
[8:10] battered beneath a pine tree in the backyard of their Belle
[8:13] Haven home in Greenwich, CT. The vibrant teenager had been
[8:17] bludgeoned to death with a Golf Club, her skull caved in by
[8:21] blows so ferocious that the iron shaft had shattered.
[8:26] What should have been a carefree night of Halloween pranks had
[8:29] ended in unthinkable violence. The slaying would haunt this
[8:33] privileged community for decades, exposing the dark
[8:37] underbelly of wealth and the lengths to which powerful
[8:39] families might go to protect their own.
[8:44] Martha Moxley was everything a parent could hope for in a
[8:46] daughter. Born in San Francisco on August
[8:49] 16th, 1960, she had moved with her family to the exclusive
[8:54] gated community of Belle Haven just a year before her death.
[8:59] Her father, David, was a partner at a prestigious accounting
[9:02] firm, and the Moxleys had settled into the kind of life
[9:05] most families only dream about. Martha was athletic, popular and
[9:11] bursting with the optimism of youth.
[9:14] She kept a diary where she chronicled the ordinary
[9:16] adventures of teenage life, including her flirtations with
[9:20] the boys next door. Those boys happened to be the
[9:24] Skakels, nephews of Ethel Kennedy and cousins to one of
[9:28] America's most famous political dynasties.
[9:32] Martha had caught the attention of both Tommy, 17, and Michael,
[9:36] 15, and she seemed to enjoy the attention from these wealthy
[9:40] neighbors. The night of October 30th, 1975
[9:46] was Mischief Night, the traditional evening before
[9:49] Halloween when teenagers across New England engaged in mostly
[9:53] harmless pranks. Martha joined a group of friends
[9:57] who wandered through Belle Haven, ringing doorbells and
[10:00] causing minor mischief. At some point during the
[10:04] evening, she ended up at the Skakel residence, a sprawling
[10:09] home where seven children lived with their widowed father,
[10:12] Rushton. The Skakel household was
[10:15] notoriously chaotic, with minimal adult supervision since
[10:19] the tragic death of the children's mother to cancer two
[10:23] years earlier that night. As on many nights, these boys
[10:28] were largely left to their own devices, with little in the way
[10:31] of any meaningful supervision. Martha was last seen alive
[10:37] around 9:30 PM, talking with Tommy Skakel in the driveway of
[10:41] the Skakel home. When she failed to return by
[10:44] curfew, her mother assumed she had stayed at a friend's house,
[10:48] which wasn't an unusual event. The following afternoon, Dorothy
[10:53] went looking for her daughter and made the gruesome discovery.
[10:58] Martha lay face down under a tree, her jeans and underwear
[11:01] pulled down around her ankles. A Golf Club, later identified as
[11:06] a Tony Pena 6 iron from a set belonging to the Skakel family,
[11:11] had been the weapon. The violence of the attack was
[11:14] staggering. Investigators determined she had
[11:17] been struck so hard that the club head flew off.
[11:22] Disturbingly, the perp had then stabbed her repeatedly with the
[11:25] broken shaft, with the medical examiner counting multiple
[11:29] wounds to her head and body. To investigators, this suggested
[11:33] someone with some sort of connection to Martha, someone
[11:37] who felt some sort of rage toward her, perhaps fueled by
[11:41] rejection from the beginning, suspicion fell on the Skakel
[11:47] family. Tommy Skakel admitted to being
[11:50] the last person seen with Martha, claiming they had
[11:53] engaged in some innocent physical contact before she left
[11:57] to walk home. His story shifted over time,
[12:01] raising red flags with investigators.
[12:04] However, despite the clear connection between the weapon
[12:07] and the household, no arrests were made.
[12:11] The family hired numerous prominent attorneys and private
[12:14] investigators, and a wall of silence descended over Belle
[12:17] Haven. Rumors swirled for years that
[12:21] the Kennedy connection had somehow shielded the Scakels
[12:24] from justice. Greenwich police seem paralyzed
[12:27] by the wealth and influence of the family, and the case went
[12:31] cold for over 2 decades. Martha's mother, Dorothy,
[12:36] refused to give up hope. She became a tireless advocate
[12:40] for solving her daughter's case. She appeared on television shows
[12:45] and gave as many interviews to journalists as was humanly
[12:48] possible for one woman. Then came a breakthrough that
[12:52] would shift the focus from Tommy to his younger brother, Michael.
[12:56] Witnesses from the Elan School, a controversial reform facility
[13:00] in Maine where Michael Skakel had been sent as a troubled
[13:03] teenager, began coming forward. Former classmates testified that
[13:09] Michael had made disturbing admissions during group therapy
[13:12] sessions. One witness recalled Michael
[13:16] confessing that he had been in a tree on the Moxley property that
[13:19] night, engaging in a disturbing act while watching Martha's
[13:23] bedroom window. Another former Elon resident
[13:26] testified that Michael had directly admitted to the slaying
[13:30] during an emotional breakdown. The testimony painted a picture
[13:34] of a young man consumed by obsession and capable of
[13:37] explosive violence. However, these chilling
[13:41] allegations were never corroborated, and some have
[13:44] suggested that these were disturbed individuals with an
[13:46] axe to grind. In January 2000, a full 25 years
[13:53] after Martha's death, Michael Skakel was finally arrested and
[13:56] charged. The trial in 2002 became a
[14:00] worldwide media sensation, drawing comparisons to other
[14:04] cases where wealth and privilege had seemingly placed defendants
[14:07] above the law. Prosecutors presented a
[14:11] circumstantial case built on the Elon School witnesses and
[14:14] forensic evidence linking the weapon to the Skakel home.
[14:18] The defense attacked the credibility of the witnesses and
[14:22] suggested that Tommy, not Michael, was the real culprit.
[14:26] They also pointed to a family tutor named Kenneth Littleton
[14:30] who had arrived at the house that very day and had his own
[14:34] troubled history. Despite being in the area at the
[14:37] time, he was never meaningfully investigated by the police, or
[14:42] so the prosecution claimed. On June 7th, 2002, the jury
[14:49] delivered its verdict. Michael Skakel was found guilty.
[14:53] He showed little emotion as the decision was read, while Dorothy
[14:57] Moxley wept with relief in the gallery.
[14:59] For nearly three decades, she had waited for someone to be
[15:03] held accountable for her daughter's brutal death.
[15:07] The judge sentenced him to 20 years to life in prison, and it
[15:10] seemed that justice had finally been served.
[15:13] For Martha, however, the legal saga was far from over.
[15:19] Attorneys appealed relentlessly, arguing that his original trial
[15:23] lawyer had provided ineffective counsel.
[15:26] They claimed that he failed to adequately investigate
[15:29] alternative suspects. In 2013, a judge agreed and
[15:34] ordered a new trial. Also, as an aside, I find this
[15:39] to be a pretty troubling argument when you have access to
[15:42] virtually infinite funds and the best lawyers around.
[15:47] The Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated the conviction in
[15:50] 2016, but then reversed course dramatically in 2018.
[15:56] In a split decision, they ruled that Skakel deserved a new trial
[15:59] because his attorney had indeed failed him.
[16:03] After serving 11 years behind bars, Skakel was released in
[16:09] 2020. Prosecutors announced they would
[16:12] not retry the case, citing the difficulty of presenting
[16:15] witnesses and evidence. After 45 years, Michael Skakel,
[16:19] now in his 60s, walked free. He has since spoken publicly for
[16:24] the first time, maintaining his innocence and expressing
[16:28] bitterness over the years he lost.
[16:31] He filed A lawsuit against Greenwich in the lead
[16:33] investigator, alleging malicious prosecution for the Moxley
[16:39] family. The outcome represents a painful
[16:41] denial of closure. Martha's case officially remains
[16:45] unsolved, though Dorothy Moxley went to her grave in 2023
[16:50] believing Michael Skakel ended her daughter.
[16:53] Disturbingly, the slaying of Martha Moxley stands as a stark
[16:57] reminder that wealth and power can delay justice, perhaps
[17:01] indefinitely. But it also stands for the
[17:04] principle that perhaps someone else was involved, but that
[17:08] perhaps the original investigators were paralyzed
[17:11] with fear. Perhaps the investigators simply
[17:14] didn't want to properly investigate due to the fear of
[17:17] career repercussions if they had initially found solid evidence
[17:20] that someone Kennedy connected did it.
[17:26] Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here with a reminder to click that
[17:30] share button and send this video to your friends and family that
[17:33] enjoy true crime content. Also check out the YouTube
[17:37] membership or the Patreon to take your support to the next
[17:40] level. On a bitter January evening in
[17:46] 1964, a 14 year old girl climbed into a stranger's car after
[17:52] answering what seemed like an innocent newspaper
[17:54] advertisement. Pamela Mason had no way of
[17:57] knowing that the man behind the wheel would become her killer,
[18:01] or that her tragic death would eventually reshape American
[18:04] constitutional law. 13 days after she vanished from the
[18:09] streets of Manchester, NH, her frozen body was discovered in a
[18:13] snow bank bearing the marks of a brutal attack.
[18:18] The slaying of this young girl would haunt her community for
[18:21] years, spawning an investigation that reached all the way to the
[18:24] United States Supreme Court. Pamela Mason was a typical
[18:30] teenager growing up in the working class neighborhoods of
[18:33] Manchester, NH's largest city. Born in 1949, she was just 14
[18:39] years old in early 1964, a girl on the cusp of high school with
[18:44] her whole life stretching before her.
[18:47] Like many young people of her era, Pamela was eager to earn
[18:51] spending money, and babysitting was the most common way for
[18:54] girls her age to do so. Manchester in the 1960s was a
[18:59] milltown slowly transitioning from its industrial past, a
[19:04] place where neighbors knew each other and parents felt
[19:07] reasonably safe letting their children roam.
[19:10] Disturbingly, that sense of security would prove tragically
[19:14] misplaced. On January 13th, 1964, Pamela
[19:21] spotted an advertisement in a local newspaper.
[19:24] Someone was looking for a babysitter, and the job seemed
[19:27] perfect for a responsible teenager hoping to earn a few
[19:30] dollars. What Pamela couldn't have known
[19:34] was that the advertisement was a trap placed by a predator
[19:38] trolling for victims. That evening, a man arrived to
[19:42] pick her up, presumably to drive her to the babysitting job.
[19:47] Pamela got into his car and was never seen alive again.
[19:51] When she failed to return home, her frantic parents contacted
[19:55] the police, but the search for the missing girl would stretch
[19:58] on for nearly two weeks with no leads and no answers.
[20:05] The break in the case came on January 26th, 1964, when a grim
[20:10] discovery shattered any remaining hope.
[20:13] Pamela's body was found partially buried in a snow bank
[20:16] in Manchester. Tragically, she had been stabbed
[20:20] 8 times and shot in the head. Detectives began canvassing the
[20:24] area and questioning anyone who might have information.
[20:28] Their investigation eventually LED them to a 39 year old man
[20:32] named Edward Coolidge, a married father who lived in the
[20:35] Manchester area. On January 28th, 1964, police
[20:41] officers visited Coolidge at his home to question him about the
[20:44] slaying. During their visit, Coolidge
[20:47] showed them three of his rifles, seemingly cooperating with the
[20:51] investigation. What happened next would become
[20:54] the subject of legal debate for years to come.
[20:59] The following day, police returned to speak with
[21:02] Coolidge's wife while her husband was at work.
[21:05] In a decision that would prove fateful, Misses Coolidge
[21:08] voluntarily handed over four of her husband's guns to the
[21:11] officers. She also passed along the
[21:14] clothing he had worn around the time of Pamela's disappearance.
[21:18] Meanwhile, investigators had obtained what they believed was
[21:21] a valid search warrant for Coolidge's 1951 Pontiac.
[21:26] They towed the vehicle from the driveway and subjected it to
[21:29] exhaustive forensic examination. Vacuum sweepings from inside the
[21:35] Pontiac revealed microscopic particles that matched fibers
[21:39] from Pamela's clothing, placing her inside the car.
[21:43] Ballistics experts determined that the bullet recovered from
[21:47] Pamela's skull had been fired from one of the guns his wife
[21:50] had turned over. Powder burns and other physical
[21:54] evidence further linked Edward Coolidge to the slaying.
[21:57] In 1965, Edward Coolidge stood trial for the slaying of Pamela
[22:02] Mason. The jury found him guilty, and
[22:05] the judge sentenced him to life in prison.
[22:08] For Pamela's grieving family, it seemed that justice had been
[22:12] achieved. However, Coolidge's attorneys
[22:16] launched an appeal, arguing that the evidence had been obtained
[22:19] through unconstitutional means. The search warrant for the
[22:23] Pontiac had been issued by the state attorney general, who was
[22:27] also serving as the chief prosecutor, according to them.
[22:31] This was a clear conflict of interest, they argued, as the
[22:34] 4th Amendment requires search warrants to be issued by a
[22:37] neutral and detached judge. The case wound its way through
[22:41] the courts, with the New Hampshire Supreme Court
[22:44] upholding the conviction in 1969.
[22:47] Coolidge's lawyers then petitioned the highest court in
[22:50] the land. In June 1971, the United States
[22:56] Supreme Court issued its ruling in Coolidge versus New
[22:58] Hampshire, a decision that would become a landmark and 4th
[23:02] Amendment jurisprudence. The court agreed that the search
[23:05] warrant was constitutionally defective because the attorney
[23:09] general couldn't be considered neutral when he was leading the
[23:12] prosecution. Justice Potter Stewart declared
[23:16] that the warrant was invalid and that evidence from the car
[23:19] search should have been suppressed.
[23:21] However, the court also ruled that the guns and clothing
[23:24] Misses Coolidge had voluntarily provided were admissible since
[23:28] she had given them freely without coercion.
[23:31] The case was sent back to New Hampshire, and the Supreme
[23:34] Court's decision didn't set Edward Coolidge free.
[23:38] Prosecutors still possess the firearms his wife had willingly
[23:41] handed over, along with the ballistic evidence linking those
[23:44] weapons to Pamela's death. A new trial was ordered, and
[23:50] once again the state presented its case.
[23:53] The jury in the retrial reached the same conclusion, finding
[23:57] Coolidge guilty. He was again sentenced to life
[24:00] in prison. In my view, what remains most
[24:04] haunting about this case is its simplicity.
[24:07] A teenager answered an ad for a babysitting job, trusting that
[24:11] the adult world operated in good faith.
[24:14] That trust cost Pamela her life. Edward Coolidge had used the
[24:19] innocence of his community against it, crafting a trap that
[24:23] any eager young person might have fallen into.
[24:27] Pamela Mason was just a normal 14 year old when she climbed
[24:30] into a stranger's car on a cold January night, eager to make
[24:34] some spending money. She deserved so much more than a
[24:38] frozen grave and a New Hampshire snow bank.
[24:42] The only solace is that Coolidge spent the rest of his miserable
[24:45] life behind bars and wasn't able to get off on a procedural
[24:49] technicality.

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