Larry Gene Bell: The Murders of Shari Smith and Debra Helmick

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It was May 31, 1985, and schools across the United States were finishing up for the summer. Seventeen-year-old Shari Smith, of Lexington, South Carolina, had just completed her final year at Lexington High School. The following days were going to be busy, but Shari was excited. Her graduation ceremony, where she would be singing the national anthem, was taking place on June 2. Then she and a group of friends would set off on a cruise to celebrate the end of their high school years and the beginning of a new chapter.

The Smith Family

Sharon “Shari” Faye Smith was born on June 25, 1967, to Hilda and Robert “Bob” Smith in Columbia, South Carolina. Shari was the middle child; she had an older sister, Dawn, and a younger brother, Robert Jr. The Smiths were a tight-knit, loving family. They were highly regarded and influential in Lexington, where they were active in their church and the community. Shari had bouncy blonde curls, a rosy complexion and bright blue eyes. She was bright, outgoing and radiated positivity. Friends and family could always count on her to lift them up if they were ever feeling down.

Shari (standing) and Dawn Smith (sitting) (source: Dawn Jordan Smith - here)

The Smith Family (source: Dawn Jordan Smith - here)

There One Second, Gone The Next

The sun shone brightly that final day in May. Shari had spent the afternoon at a pool party with her friends. At 3:38pm, she arrived back at her home on Platt Springs Road in Lexington. A driveway, about 200 meters long, led up from the main road to the Smith home. At the end of the driveway was the Smith’s mailbox.

Shari’s father, Bob, glanced out the window of his office and saw Shari turning onto the driveway in her car. Expecting that she would come through the front door at any minute, he went back to what he was doing. About 5 or 10 minutes later, however, he realized that he had not heard Shari come in. Looking out the window again, he saw her car, sitting at the end of the driveway next to the mailbox.

Odd, Bob thought to himself. What was taking her so long? He got the distinct feeling in his gut that something wasn’t right.

Shari’s empty car sitting at the end of the driveway leading to the Smith home (source: Youtube)

Bob hopped in his car and sped down the driveway. Once he arrived at the mailbox, it was clear to Bob that he was right to be concerned. There was Shari’s car, but no Shari. The engine was still running and the door was wide open. On the passenger’s seat sat Shari’s purse. There were bare footprints leading from the driver’s side door to the mailbox, but none coming back. Several pieces of mail lay on the ground next to the mailbox.

The Investigation Begins

From the beginning, it was clear that Shari would not have left of her own accord - she was content and happy in life, loved her family and was excited for summer ahead. Furthermore, she was diabetic, and would not have gone anywhere without her medication.

On examining the scene, it appeared to investigators that Shari had gone from her car to the mailbox, was snatched by someone, and dropped the mail.

Right away, investigators from the Lexington County Sheriff’s Dept. organized a manhunt. At the time, it was the largest to take place in South Carolina history. Despite this, it did not turn up any clues as to Shari’s whereabouts.

The First Phone Call

The Smith family were sick with worry and publicly pleading with Shari’s captor to let her go. Otherwise, all they could do was wait. The feelings of helplessness and lack of control were unbearable.

"For the first time in my life as the father and protector of my household, I was not in charge of my home," Bob would later recall.

Two days after Shari disappeared, on the evening of June 2, the Smiths got a phone call from an unknown man who had distorted his voice. He asked to speak to Shari’s mother, Hilda. Shari is with me, he told her. The man described the black and yellow swimsuit Shari had on under her clothes to prove to Hilda that the call was not some kind of prank. He told her that Shari was doing well and that they were watching TV together. While he did not demand any money in exchange for Shari’s return, he did tell Hilda that they would be receiving a letter the following day.

Detectives traced the call to a payphone 20 miles from the Smith home in Columbia, but time was not on their side. By the time they were able to pinpoint a more precise location and travel there, whoever had made the call was long gone.

“Last Will And Testament”

Detectives arrived at the Lexington post office the following morning and began sorting through the mail. Sure enough, they found a letter addressed to the Smiths.

The letter, which was two pages in length and written on paper from a yellow legal pad, was in Shari’s handwriting. Across the top she had written, “Last Will and Testament”.

Several times throughout the letter, Shari emphasized to her family how much she loved them. She wrote that they should never let this ruin their lives. The most frightening was her request that she have a closed casket at her funeral.

The envelope containing Shari’s letter (source: Youtube)

Shari’s “Last Will and Testament” Letter (source: Youtube)

Having accompanied detectives to the post office, Bob was the first to read the letter. He was devastated, but refused to abandon hope that his daughter might still come home. What he dreaded the most was telling Hilda what the letter said.

The letter was sent to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Crime Lab. Here it would be examined by a forensic document examiner for any clues, for example, fibers, fingerprints or handprints, or any discrepancies in the spelling or handwriting.

“We’re waiting. God chose us.”

Another call came through to the Smiths that afternoon. The same distorted voice was on the other end. The man asked Hilda if they had received the mail, to which she replied that they had. He then asked if Hilda believed him. She replied that she was not sure, because she had not heard from Shari, and did not know whether she was really okay. The man replied that she would know in two or three days.

That evening, the Smiths received yet another call. This one was particularly ominous. The man said to Hilda:

"Shari is now part of me. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, our souls are now one."

Shari’s captor, whoever he was, appeared to be very much enjoying taunting the Smiths, which indicated to me that he was a person who had never felt particularly in control of his life or what was going on around him. Having the Smiths at his mercy instilled in him a sort of power he had not felt before. He probably viewed his life as not working out the way he hoped it would - perhaps he was unhappy in his job or not where he wanted to be financially. It’s almost certain that he did not have much luck with women - he had likely suffered a series of rejections over time.

The Smiths received another call the next day, Jun. 4. This time, Shari’s sister Dawn spoke to Shari’s captor. He told her that at 3:10am on Sat, Jun. 1, Shari wrote the letter. Then at 4:58am, he said that they “became one soul”. When Dawn asked what he meant by that, he told her not to ask questions. He asked that Sheriff James Metts of the Lexington County Sheriff’s Dept. stop searching for Shari. In the background, Hilda pleaded with him not to kill her daughter.

“Shari loves and misses y’all,” he said. “Get good rest tonight. Good night.”

On Jun. 5 at around noon, he called the Smiths again. He told Hilda to listen carefully, and then proceeded to give detailed directions to a specific location. He ended the call saying, “We’re waiting. God chose us.”

A Nightmare Come True

Detectives followed the directions he provided. Hilda begged to go along, but they convinced her it would not be a good idea. What they found confirmed everybody’s worst fears. Shari’s body was exactly where the man said it would be - behind an old Masonic Lodge in Saluda County, 18 miles west of the Smith home. The autopsy showed that Shari had been dead for about four days. In fact, the medical examiner estimated that she had been killed about 12 hours after being kidnapped.

Shari’s body was found behind this building in Saluda County (source: Youtube)

They were unable to determine her cause of death, but a residue of duct tape on Shari’s face suggested she had died of suffocation. Pieces of her hair had been cut off because the tape had gotten stuck in it. This indicated to detectives that whoever killed Shari knew what he was doing, as any clues he left on the body might lead them to him - for example, his fingerprints may have ended up on the duct tape. Due to the extended period of time Shari’s body spent in the elements, no forensic evidence was recovered. They could not definitively prove whether or not Shari had been sexually assaulted.

When the man said on the phone that he and Shari had “become one soul” on Jun. 1 at 4:58am, detectives assumed that this was the time he killed her.

Profiling Shari’s Captor

FBI Agents John Douglas and Ron Walker of the Behavioral Science Unit came up with a detailed profile of Shari’s killer. They categorized him as an “organized killer” - he was sophisticated in his methods and had been planning this murder for a while. It was possible that he had committed sex crimes/crimes of a similar nature before.

According to their profile, he would be young (in his mid to late twenties, or early thirties), white, homely and overweight. He had likely been married, but was now divorced or separated. He was of above-average intelligence, with a knowledge of electronics, given that he had altered his voice for the phone calls.

He was not impulsive or one to take chances - from listening to recordings of the phone calls, the FBI agents and detectives working the case were convinced that he was reading from a script he had written. The giveaway was that he sometimes stumbled and would go back to the beginning of a sentence and start over, saying the exact same phrase again.

Careful examination of the evidence led Douglas and Walker to the conclusion that this was not a one off for Shari’s killer and in all likelihood, he would kill again if not captured. He was drunk on the feelings of power and control that manipulating Shari’s family gave him. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he yearned for these feelings to continue.

More Sadistic Phone Calls

Even after Shari’s body was found, her killer was not done rubbing salt in the Smith family’s wounds. He particularly enjoyed speaking to Dawn on the phone. On June 6, he called the Smith home again. Dawn answered, and he told her that he was planning to turn himself in the next day, but was contemplating killing himself instead.

He then asked for her forgiveness. Sometimes he would mix up Dawn and Shari; he accidentally said that everything had gotten out of hand and “all he wanted was to make love to Dawn”. When Dawn questioned this, he corrected himself, saying he meant Shari.

Obviously aware of the date of Shari’s funeral (although I couldn’t find the exact date), he chose that evening to make his next call to the Smiths. Once again, he spoke to Dawn, and chose this time to be particularly cruel. He described to Dawn the details of Shari’s death, including the various disgusting ways he sexually assaulted her.

He explained to Dawn that he let Shari make her own decisions regarding her death, as if that somehow justified his heinous actions. For example, he “let her choose what time” she would die. He also gave her the choice of dying by shooting, a drug overdose or suffocation. She chose the last option, he told Dawn. He wrapped duct tape around her head and she died, right there in front of him.

“God was ready to accept her as an angel,” he said.

The phone calls ceased after that.

The Killer Strikes Again

Two weeks after Shari was kidnapped from outside her home, her killer struck again; just as the FBI were sure he would.

This time, he snatched nine-year-old Debra May Helmick from her front yard in nearby Richland County, 24 miles from the Smith home. It was broad daylight. Like Shari, Debra was pretty, blonde and blue-eyed. She had been playing outside with her younger siblings, and her father was inside the house. Just like Shari, Debra was there one second, and gone the next.

The headline in the June 15 1985 edition of The State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper, alerting the public of the kidnapping of Debra May Helmick (source: Facebook)

It had been eight days since his last phone call to the Smiths.

Detectives needed him to get in contact again, so FBI Agents Douglas and Walker came up with a plan. Whoever killed Shari and kidnapped Debra loved attention. As I mentioned previously, he was likely of above-average intelligence. No doubt he believed that he was smarter than the detectives on the case.

The agents thought they may be able to lure him out of hiding with a memorial service for Shari at the cemetery, with Dawn playing a central role (given that he was obviously very fond of her). He would be paying close attention to the media, carefully consuming every story related to Shari and Debra, all the while patting himself on the back for having evaded capture. If the local media made a big enough story out of the memorial service, there was a good chance that he would attend, stand in the back and silently gloat.

The media coverage of the memorial was just what the agents hoped for. Members of the community came from far and wide to support the Smiths. At the instructions of Agent Douglas, Dawn brought a small stuffed koala bear, Shari’s favorite animal, to lay at her sister’s grave along with the bouquets of flowers. If Shari’s killer did attend the service, he would see Dawn with the bear. With any luck, he might return after the service finished and take the bear as a souvenir. Detectives stood out of sight, taking down the license plates of all the vehicles that attended the service. Once it was finished, they hid, lying in wait for their suspect to appear and take the bear. But he never did.

“God Wants You To Join Shari Faye”

Just after midnight on June 23, the Smiths got another call. While Shari’s killer had not been brought out in the open by the memorial service, it clearly awoke something in him. No doubt he wanted to go to the service, but did not feel it was safe. Instead, he satisfied his need for attention by calling the Smiths again. Dawn answered the phone. Of course, she never wanted to speak to him, but keeping him on the line was vital in tracking down who killed her sister.

As he had a number of times before, he brought God into the conversation. He found playing God to be particularly satisfying. Perhaps citing God in his phone calls made him less guilty, but I think it’s more likely that he knew the Smiths were dedicated Christians, and he derived pleasure from bringing God into his taunts.

A further indication that he was beginning to feel untouchable was the fact that he no longer distorted his voice for his phone calls to the Smiths.

The first thing he said to Dawn was particularly alarming:

“God wants you to join Shari Faye,” he said to Dawn. It was “only a matter of time” and “she could not be protected forever”, he warned.

Then he changed the subject to what he really wanted to talk to Dawn about. He asked her if she had heard of Debra May Helmick. At first, she did not recall. Then she remembered a young girl had been abducted in Richland County.

“Listen carefully,” he said. Then he rattled off a series of directions, just as he had two weeks ago on the phone to Hilda when he gave directions to Shari’s body. He ended the call by saying:

“Debra May is waiting. God forgive us all.”

It was like déjà vu for the detectives. They followed the directions he had given them. Knowing what they would find when they reached the destination filled them with dread. Sure enough, just off a dirt road, amongst thick brush, lay the body of Debra May Helmick.

**Smart, But Not That Smart**

Shari and Debra’s killer was enjoying having the detectives and the Smith family at his mercy. As was covered in the FBI profile of him, he was of above average intelligence. He knew not to leave any evidence on the bodies that could be traced back to him.

His fun was about to come to an end, however, thanks to the piece of evidence he had practically placed directly in the hands of the detectives: Shari’s “Last Will and Testament” letter.

Given that the letter was written on paper from a legal pad (it was not just loose paper), there was a good chance that things the killer had written on previous sheets from the pad could have left indentations on the sheets Shari wrote her letter on. Forensic document examiner Mickey Dawson used an electrostatic detection apparatus on the letter to detect any of these sorts of indentations. What he found was pretty incredible; the machine detected a a list of names and telephone numbers. It appeared that it was a “call in case of emergency” sort of list.

One phone numbers was nearly complete, only missing the final digit. It began with 205, which showed it was an Alabama number. The next three digits, 837, was the exchange for Huntsville, AL. Detectives had nine out of ten digits they needed, and there were only nine possibilities for what the tenth digit could be. They tested the phone number with the nine different options for the tenth digit until someone picked up.

It was a young man who answered the phone. Detectives asked if he had any connections to South Carolina. He told them that yes, his parents lived there. The young man’s father was Ellis Sheppard, who lived just 15 miles from the Smith home.

Ellis Sheppard had no clue how he could be of help to detectives, but he agreed to speak to them. He told them that he had been on vacation with his wife when Shari Smith had disappeared.

Then, they played Sheppard a recording of one of the killer’s later phone calls to the Smiths, in which the voice was not distorted. Immediately, Sheppard was able to identify the voice.

“That’s Larry Gene Bell!” Sheppard exclaimed.

Larry Gene Bell had been house sitting while they were away on vacation, Sheppard explained. On examination of Sheppard’s phone records from when they were away, detectives discovered that some of the calls to the Smiths after Shari was kidnapped were made from the Sheppard’s home.

Sheppard explained that he had left the list of phone numbers for Bell for while they were away. The list included the number of his son, who lived in Alabama .

Larry Gene Bell

Little information is available on Larry Gene Bell’s childhood. He was born in Ralph, Alabama on Oct. 30, 1949 and was one of five children. The Bell family never settled in one place for long, moving between Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi. Bell graduated high school in Mississippi and went to trade school to become an electrician. When his training was finished, he moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where he got married and had one son.

In 1970, Bell joined the Marines, but was enrolled for less than a year; he would be discharged after accidentally shooting himself in the knee while cleaning a gun. After his stint in the Marines, he worked for a brief period at the Department of Corrections in Columbia. In 1972, he moved his family to Rock Hill, South Carolina. In 1976, he and his wife divorced. I’m assuming she got full custody of their son.

Profiled To A Tee

When Bell picked up Ellis Sheppard and his wife from the airport after their vacation, he was not himself. He seemed nervous and on-edge. He had not shaved and he had lost weight. All he wanted to talk about was the missing Smith girl.

Bell was a textbook example of a killer beginning to “lose his cool”. The behaviors he was exhibiting are precisely what FBI behavioral analysts look for when trying to track down a killer.

Sheriff Metts would later discuss the application of behavioral analysis in this case. Research in the field was in its early stages at the time, he explained, but John Douglas, as well as other agents from the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, worked on the case with him. Their profile of Shari and Debra’s killer was spot on.

The only part they were slightly off on was his age. Bell was slightly older than the agents thought he would be (he was 35, they guessed he would be in his mid to late twenties or early thirties). They were, however, correct regarding the following: Bell was white and slightly overweight (although he had lost weight since kidnapping and murdering Shari). He was divorced. He was intelligent, and had good knowledge of electronics.

Bell’s past also included sexually motivated crimes; he had been caught harassing women over the phone before, making threats of a sexual nature. He had also attempted to kidnap a female student from the University of South Carolina but failed.

Bell’s Arrest and Sentencing

On June 27 1985, 28 days after kidnapping and murdering Shari Smith, Bell was arrested. Police found further evidence in the Sheppard home which incriminated Bell - six long blonde hairs that were almost definitely Shari’s. I don’t believe they were forensically tested, but they were said to be “microscopically similar” to her hair. They did not belong to Mrs. Sheppard or anybody the Sheppards knew.

Bell denied having anything to do with the kidnapping and deaths of Shari Smith and Debra Helmick. But rather than just outright denying it, he claimed it was the “bad” Larry Gene Bell who was guilty of the murders.

Bell at the Berkeley County courthouse on Feb. 11, 1986 for the jury selection for his upcoming trial (Source: The State)

In February 1986, Bell went to trial for the murder of Shari Smith. He made a scene during his 6-hour long testimony, yelling and making bizarre comments like the following: "Mona Lisa is a man, and silence is golden, my friend."

It was obvious he was attempting to manipulate the jury into believing he was insane. Nobody bought it.

The jury deliberated for just 47 minutes. They returned verdicts of guilty on both charges of kidnapping and first degree murder in the case of Shari Smith. Bell was sentenced to death.

He was tried separately, in 1987, for the kidnapping and murder of Debra Helmick. The jury in that trial came back with the same verdict: guilty on both counts.

It was not only Shari and Debra’s families and friends who were shaken by the heinous acts of Larry Gene Bell. The entire state of South Carolina was on edge from the time Shari was kidnapped to the day Bell was arrested.

Worried parents were wary of letting their children play outside without adult supervision. Teen girls were fear-stricken, and for good reason. They began traveling in groups, no matter how short the distance. To walk alone for even the shortest time was not worth the risk.

Even after Bell was arrested, the fear never completely lifted. The scars he inflicted on the communities Shari and Debra left behind, though faded, still remain to this day.

Bell Is Executed

Bell was given a choice between being executed by lethal injection or by the electric chair. He ultimately chose the chair.

There were no reports of Bell being a violent prisoner. But I doubt that his loud and frequent declarations that he was the son of God made him any friends while in prison. As I mentioned previously, Bell had a God complex, something that he would project until his final day on Earth.

On Oct. 4, 1996, after ten years on death row, 46-year-old Bell died silently in South Carolina's electric chair. He had no parting words as he left this world behind.

Unsolved Disappearances

Bell remains a suspect in the cases of two women, 26-year-old Sandee Elaine Cornett and 21-year-old Denise Newsom Porch. Both women disappeared from Charlotte, North Carolina. Sandee was engaged to a coworker of Bell’s, and apparently Bell had attended a party at her apartment before. She was last seen in Nov. 1984.

Denise managed the Yorktown Apartments (where she also lived) on Tyvola Road in Charlotte. The last time anybody saw her was when she was showing a man around the Yorktown Apartments on July 31, 1975. She had left her husband a note letting him know what she was doing. Despite an extensive search, Denise was never seen again. She was declared legally dead in 1982.

Bell became a suspect in Denise’s disappearance after he was convicted of the murders of Shari Smith and Debra Helmick. As it turned out, Bell had been living just 300 yards from the Yorktown Apartments when Denise disappeared in 1975.

Aftermath

Unfortunately, I could find very little information on Debra May Helmick. She was only 9 years old when Larry Gene Bell so cruelly ripped her away from her friends and family. I have no doubt that those who loved her miss her every day.

Dawn Smith, determined not to let grief take over her life, decided she would enter the 1986 Miss South Carolina pageant, as Shari had always encouraged her to do. She would be crowned the winner, singing "Je Veux Vivre" from Roméo et Juliette as her talent. Dawn would go on to be 2nd runner-up in the 1987 Miss America competition.

Dawn is now a Christian singer/songwriter and motivational speaker. Her book, Grace So Amazing: A True Story of God's Grace in the Midst of Life-Shattering Tragedy, is a tribute to Shari and a testament to the pivotal role her faith played in guiding her after Shari’s murder.

“[Shari’s murder] had the potential of ruining my family’s life. It did. It could have, but by the grace of God we chose not to allow it to. It’s only by the grace of God that helps us—any of us—to be able to say this will not define me. This will not destroy me. This is going to make me a stronger person and still be used for good.” - Dawn Smith

Bob Smith later praised the fortitude and strength his daughter displayed when she wrote the letter to her family, all the while knowing how close she was to death:

“That letter has been more closure to me than any kind of closure that the courts could do for me. Just the fact that she knew where she was going and she had that kind of faith.”