Judy Smith
Judy Smith was born December 15, 1946 in Hyannis Massachusetts. Judy was 50 years old at the time our story takes place in 1997 when she worked as a home health nurse in a suburb outside of Boston. Judy was a Newlywed, being married for the 3rd time. Her 1st husband had run away to Sweden to avoid being drafted. Her second husband and her had had two kids, but in the end things hadn’t worked out. She dated Jeff Smith for 10 years before finally settling down and actually marrying him.
Jeff was heading to Philadelphia to attend a conference, and they decided that she would come along and do some sightseeing while he was at his conference, and then they could spend the evenings together. On April 9, 1997 they were heading to the airport, when they got there Judy realized she had forgotten her ID, so they decided he would get on the flight and she would go home and get on a later flight and they would meet up at the hotel.
Now, my first time reading this story, I assumed this is where things would take a turn, but it isn’t… Judy gets on a later flight after going and getting her ID. The two do meet up together at the hotel and they wake up together the morning of April 10th 1997. Judy plans to go sightseeing, and Jeff plans to go to the conference and they make plans to meet up before the evenings cocktail party. They plan to meet up at about 5pm in order to get ready.
Jeff returns to his hotel room about 5:30 and is surprised to find that Judy isn’t in the room. Judy was typically on time, but he figured maybe there was a delay or something happened while sightseeing so he didn’t worry too much at first. However 6:30 came around and he still hadn’t heard from her and he began to panic! He reported her missing to the police and he went along checking all of the places she had planned on seeing that day. He would even go on to hire a private investigator to look for his long time lover and new bride, though no traces of her were found.
No word came for five months… Hundreds of miles away in North Carolina hikers came across remains a partially buried skeleton that forensics would find to be Judy Smith. Judy had been stabbed to death. Next to here were a blue backpack and sunglasses the are believed to be the killers. Judy was dressed appropriately for hiking, as though she had been prepared to take on the trail the day she died. It isn’t likely that the motive was robbery as her wedding ring, and 167 dollars in cas were found on her remains. People in the city closest to where the trail was claimed to have seen Judy around, spoken to her as she came in and out of the stores. She had seemed alert, and like she knew who and where she was, she even mentioned that her husband was at a conference.
Jeff is not a suspect in this case, and he passed away in 2005 never understanding what had happened to Judy.
Judy’s daughter thinks she developed amnesia and wandered off… though that doesn’t really match up with the things that the store attendant had said.
It is highly suspected that she went to North Carolina on her own, though why she went then instead of the night before is something I seriously don’t understand! If she planned on going somewhere else, why go to Philadelphia after forgetting the ID?
Gary Michael Hilton, known for killing in National Forests.
Was she meeting someone? Just trying to get away? Confused? So many questions and mysteries!
Sources: https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Judith_Smith, https://unsolved.com/gallery/judy-smith/, https://unsolved.com/gallery/judy-smith/, https://www.grunge.com/730353/the-mysterious-death-of-judy-smith-explained/