Transcripts For KGO 2020 20240712

Ed was the perfect jekyll and hyde. Gambling a lot of money, seeing hookers. Two worlds were about to collide. It was helterskelter. I need you to be honest. Now is the time for you to tell me. You get one shot at it. Im sorry. I just need a second. Cis sth a real surfer. Dicahis to this. And he loved it. Chris was tall, dark, and handsome. Women were drawn to him. Very allamerican surfer business casual, professional guy. Chris grew up in watsonville, california, which is outside of the beach town santa cruz. It was a place where he got really into things like wakeboarding and surfing. A good place for a guy who was athletic and liked to do stuff outdoors. I dont know many brothers that were as close as we were. We just had a unique bond. Ever since i was really little, he felt like he was there to protect me, to provide for me. Were he and paul always as close as they were towards, you know, in their later years . Always. Always, theyre just the best of friends. We had just a great childhood. You know, my dad was a firefighter. My mom was a preschool teacher. We lived on a private ski lake, so we grew up water skiing and wakeboarding. Chris wasnt a gifted student. He was dyslexic, but devilishly smart. Where he really excelled was in sports, and especially water sports. Chris was almost like an adrenaline junkie. He had more of a drive than anybody else out on the lake. Chris was known for his audacious tricks. He would try things that other people thought were simply too dangerous and it was doing one of those tricks that he blew out his achilles tendon, and that was it for his pro wake boarding career. The water was his source of relief. He loved to surf, loved to be at the beach. He was a lot of fun. I felt like he was always the life of the party. Like, people just gravitated towards him. He was always full of adventure. If you think about chris smith, you got to remember, he loved the ocean, loved action, loved beautiful cars. So he had that sort of quest for adrenaline. He liked that. Thrived on that. Outwardly he was the jock, the surfer, the extreme sports guy. He looked the part. He just sort of fit that stereotype of the beach guy. But his friends say that he always had ambitions, he had plans. He was very passionate about what he did, but he was very interested in being successful and making money. He wanted it all. His dreams involved, you know, having a good amount of cash. And so he was striving for to be able to travel the world, to be very successful in business. Chris smith is doing great. Hes living in Orange County. Hes got an apartment in laguna beach. Orange county attracts very wealthy people. The rich people, famous people, just south of los angeles. A lot of the movie stars, a lot of the famous athletes wind up moving to Orange County, particularly in the area that chris lived in. Beautiful houses, beautiful boats, beautiful cars, all of that. Hes driving a range rover. Hes surfing whenever he wants. Hes encountered great Business Success in the lead generation business. Debt 10,000 offers services to get you out of debt fast. Chris becomes involved in this extremely lucrative part of the advertising and Marketing Industry that sells sales leads from people calling in to 800 numbers. And he teams up with a man named ed shin, another young, promising entrepreneur, and together they form a Company Called the 800xchange. 800xchange got to be very successful. They reached a point where they were making millions of dollars. After years of that freespirited beach guy lifestyle of chasing waves and beautiful women, well, guess what happens. Chris meets perhaps the one. A wonderful woman named erica and she seemed to fill every void when it came to romance. Tell me about his girlfriend, erika. She was sweet. Yeah. I was looking forward to having her as a sisterinlaw. Did it seem like it was serious . Yeah, i could tell that he really liked her. And he had expressed to me that, yeah, i was thinking about getting even more serious, in terms of proposing to her. So i knew he really liked her. She had said then, she just loved him so much, and he had told his father he loved her. Did you think that, you know, he may propose . We did. We thought he was talking about it. Yeah, we were hoping cause they really loved each other a lot. You know, if you looked at chris from the outside, you would see this hunky guy living in beautiful southern california. Who has this incredibly lucrative job, this beautiful ballet dancer with dazzling green eyes as a girlfriend. And you think, he has it all. But there were signs of stress. The company that he had founded with ed shin, it starts to look like it could be in jeopardy. Chris was always talking to his friends about, hey, we should go. We should quit all this. He had visions of these faraway places and that he could live a simpler life there. If you knew chris, you would know about how he believed in conspiracy theories and certain things. He was, like, antigovernment and taxes. Like, we shouldnt pay taxes. That kind of thing. He wanted to make it big so that he could cut out. He was quite dissatisfied in many ways with the modern world. And it looks like 32yearold chris smith finally makes the decision to do just that. Sever all ties and just get off the grid. Chris emails his family telling them that he and ed met and they reached an agreement. Ed had bought him out of his share of the company they founded, 800xchange. Everyone knew that chris was a free spirit and that he wanted adventure. But it was a little bit surprising when suddenly, unannounced, they find out through emails that chris is off the grid. Hes leased a yacht, hes gone on a world traveling adventure. But nobody knew about it until they got these sudden emails. Monday, june 7th, 2010. Im going on a vacation, probably a three week trip to Galapagos Islands and costa rica. Love you, too. It made total sense to you that chris would just up and leave it all . Yeah. I remember him in the kitchen saying, im so over all of it, im just gonna be done. Im gonna go be a bartender on the beach. Amazing sailing for the past two weeks. Theres no internet or phones, just us and the sea. Every surfer has this dream of sailing off into the sunset with a bunch of money and a beautiful woman. In this case, the problem is, it was not erika. Chris sends paul an email, and attached to it is a picture of his traveling companion and she is stunning. Shes a former playboy playmate, Tiffany Taylor. This may seem like chris dream trip but its nothing but a nightmare for erika. So through a message from chris, she learns shes been tossed overboard. You know, most people would be like, a playboy playmate . Come on. But chris was goodlooking enough. Yeah. Wealthy enough that that actually made total sense. Yup. I remember i got one email from erika. And she was, like, really mad. And she said, what the, you know, is going on . You know . Is he bipolar . And i said, well, no. You know, sometimes he just needed to get away. Theres only my friend and me and the crew. I miss you guys too. I see things so much more clearly now because ive unplugged myself of that Crazy Society and fast lane, something i should have done so much sooner. He was saying, you know, im headed to peru. You know, im gonna travel a little bit. And i remember saying, wow, i love you. You know, take pics, have a great time. Ill probably be home around early to midaugust. Want to get up to buenos aires if possible. The seas are choppy, sometimes smooth. At first chris said that this trip would last a couple of weeks. Those weeks turned into months. And suddenly hes on this sort of round the world epic adventure. Hey, guys, i just finally docked in ushuaia, a port in argentina. We have about 20 to 25 more islands to explore. The question as these emails develop are, is he running to something or is he running away from something . Because as time went on, originally it looked like he just needed a break. And then the emails started to look like he might have been running from something. I have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. Because i can still make my own insulin. And trulicity activates my body to release it like its supposed to. Onceweekly trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. Its not insulin. It starts acting from the first dose. And it lowers risk of heart attack, stroke, or death in people with known Heart Disease or multiple risk factors. Trulicity isnt for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. Dont take trulicity if youre allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. 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Chris was emailing, you know, stuff about, you know, not wanting to come back, you know, just painted a picture that he was kind of losing sight of who he was. His messages are not the kinds of things youd really expect. So theyre just theyre wondering, what is going on . This past year and a half was such a nightmare for me. And i even contemplated doing unspeakable things because i was so stressed, angry, scared, and confused. At that point it was just this isnt making any sense. This guy hes lost his mind, you know . Chris family didnt know what to think. Because he seemed so up in some of his emails. And then he talks about even contemplating suicide. We were replying the best way we could to comfort him, to reassure him, do anything we could. Yeah, they were super worried. I dont know if ill ever get over some of the things in my life. But this traveling and living on a sustenance level has really started to change how i see things and what matters to me. Im actually journaling now. And one day ill share some of the things i wrote down about our relationship growing up and the [ bleep ] that happened with our family. This disclosure about problems that chris said he experienced as a kid, this comes out of nowhere for the family. As far as they knew, hed never experienced any emotional trauma. That was strange to me. cause we had a good relationship. There was what he was saying wasnt true. It was just like someone that was just very conflicted. And so thats when it got really alarming to my parents, you know . When they started getting emails like that about my brothers past and childhood. And we started to have suspicions. But didnt want to entertain that train of thought too much because of where it would lead to. I think it was so emotionally it was hard to even think about. Chris has been gone for several months now and his emails reflect a lot of mood changes, erratic behavior, almost. In the beginning, its very happy. Then he reveals that hes very depressed, considering the unthinkable. Then he goes back to feeling very happy and adventurous once again. According to his email, chris has now ditched the playmate. And hes on his own. As time goes on, the family gets increasingly worried and they begin to wonder, are there some clues that weve missed . What would make him turn away from all the things he held so dear . So naturally it makes sense that they want to talk to his old Business Partner, ed shin. What might he know . Ed shin was the son of immigrants. And he grew up in a conservative christian home. And they demanded achievement from him. And thats what he delivered. He was a really good student. He was a good athlete. Pretty much everything he did, he did well. And eventually he goes to uc san diego. On paper, ed shin was more naturally set up for success. Chris struggled in school. He didnt make it through college. Ed was doing all the right things, getting his degree, getting his first jobs. He had sort of the more obvious path to becoming successful in business. Ed shin was an upstanding member of his community. He was a married father of three. He was the member of a christian megachurch and was religious. Dressed very nicely, he just looked the part of the successful business and family man. Ed and his wife were members of our church here in temecula, california. Joseph gray, whos actually run Successful Companies and hes a completely legitimate businessman, and he meets shin in this church group bible study. I thought he had some skills that, ironically, were in the vein of what we were looking for as we were starting a new Company Called lead generation technologies. Listen up, america. Have you been denied credit . Lead generation, if youve ever hear this ad that says, reduce your credit card debt. Get a new mortgage. And they tell you an 800 number at the end of it. You call in. They take down your information. And then they actually sell that off to companies that are in the Mortgage Business or in the credit card business. So its really just a way of grabbing customers and selling them off to the highest bidder. So the more phone calls that are generated by these television ads, the more money your company gets . This is how google makes most of its revenue today. They sell clicks online. Right. Were selling phone calls. So shin is hired by joseph gray. Joseph gray gives him a job. And its a position of trust. What i really needed was somebody to go out there and develop a marketplace for the leads that we would be generating off of our television advertising. And i felt he could be employee number one. We gave him that kind of title. In early 2008edhris e lead generation industry, meet each other, and hit it off. And ed recommended to joseph that this guy chris would be hes a promising up and comer. I think we should bring him on board at lg technologies. On the sales side, chris would have been employee number two. But i would say that at that moment ed and chris were kind of the face of the company. So i was optimistic. The guys seemed to know what they were doing, seemed like they were executing, and we were growing. Now, the key to building a successful lead Generation Company is finding buyers that are willing to pay big money for those leads, those calls that come into the 800 numbers. To find those buyers, there is no better place perhaps on earth than the Convention Circuit in las vegas. And thats where ed goes to try to rustle up these buyers. While chris is back at lg technologies, ed is trying to entice these new clients with parties and booze and women. Along for the ride, in one of these incredibly lavish junkets to las vegas is one of joe grays most trusted employees. Hes an exmarine called michael montgomery. So we landed in vegas. We get picked up by the phantom fury rolls royce that was part of the wynn. They pull us up to the entry of the wynn. The suite was bigger than any room ive ever seen. Three bedrooms. It had a massage room, its own dining room. Just picture this. One of the Nicest Hotels in las vegas. It is a twostory suite with butler service, its own billiard room, and an elevator. Ed would hire what are known as atmosphere models, or arm candy models. And these are beautiful women in las vegas who, for a fee, will come and hang out at your party. So it would just look like to eds associates like, this guy is the coolest guy in town. Because, look, he shows up and suddenly these women flock to him. My early impressions of ed were he seemed very charming. But then there were sides of him that i really started to see that were not so charming. Ed shin had two lives. Hes got his churchgoing, upstanding, Community Member life in Orange County. And then it turns out he had a real love of gambling. And he was the type of player who could win or lose 100,000 in the space of a couple hours. I come down and im walking through the casino floor. And i saw ed sitting right at the blackjack table. I would suspect that he had about 20,000 worth of chips sitting at the table there. Ed shin is gambling so much money in vegas that they comp him that suite. I heard crazy stuff like that. I felt, based on the relationship that we developed, things i had done for him personally, i felt that there would be some measure of loyalty. That ed might be one of the last people that would take advantage of my generosity and kindness. But it all boiled down to one salient point in my mind. Ed was living beyond his means. I think i spent the next week working from my home, trying to figure out whats going on here. Because we knew there was some fraud that had taken place. I think it was at that moment that i realized, oh, boy, weve got a big problem. From prom dresses. To soccer practices. 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Spend it on anything like converse. Plus, take an extra 15 off. Shark vacuums plus, save on your backtoschool purchase. Plus, store drive up. Kohls [beep] [whoosh] give everyone something to look up to. The allnew highlander hybrid. Toyota. Lets go places. Its important californians have health coverage. If youve lost health insurance, covered california can help. You may even get financial help to pay for your health insurance. Just visit coveredca. Com today. I learned weve been bamboozled here. Ed was embezzling the money out of lg tech. At the same time that ed was supposedly being the president of lg technologies, looking out for that companys interests, he had formed a rival company doing more or less the same thing. Ed and chris have launched their own company, 800xchange. Ed shin had embezzled a lot of money from joe and stole clients. In this partnership between chris and ed, chris has just under a 50 stake. And while its a fresh start for ed with this brandnew company, hes still up to the same old tricks. At home, hes this model husband and family man. On the road, hes a high stakes gambler and a womanizer. 800xchange was by far the biggest opportunity that chris had had. They were generating 1,500 phone calls a day. They were making money hand over fist. These were the heady days of making money. And they were killing it. And given what you just said, it sounds like the vast majority of that was profit. About 80 of it was profit. When the business took off, chriss circumstances were transformed. He was putting down roots. It just seemed like that thing hed been reaching for so long was finally there for him. He bought, along with ed, a bunch of gold coins. In 2009, chris smith starts increasing his stockpile of gold, and his favorite form of gold is this. Its called a krugerrand. Its minted by the south african government, and in 2009, an ounce of one of these is worth about 1,000. And its very popular among people like chris smith who dont trust banks or governments. How much gold did chris have . I dont know the full amount. But it was tens of thousands of dollars that he stored in his condo. While ed and chris are trying to get this company off the ground, ed is living the high life the finest suits, the most luxurious car, the most lavish trips to las vegas. How often do you think ed took people to vegas . A couple times a month, once a month. When he was in vegas, he liked to party. He liked to be around beautiful women. He liked to be at the center of the action. He wanted to be instead of that sort of squeaky clean nerd in the golf club, he wanted to be the cool guy at the center of the action in las vegas. In 2009, while chris business the 800xchange is taking off, he invites his younger brother paul to come work with him there. Chris is only two years older than paul. But not only have they always been incredibly close, but paul says that he saw chris as something of a protector and a supporter. When chris asked you to come down to Orange County, what was his pitch . My brother said, you know, we have a successful lead gen company. Its already been up and running for a couple months. Wed like you to come and work for us and be in sales. We flew down to look at rentals, cause we wanted to move down there once paul started working for chris. And ed let us use his car. Took us out to lunch. Like, i held his kids. He was very charming. He was a religious guy and had a family. At this point, ed and chris are living large, spending a lot of money. Its also at this point that joe gray completes his audit and realizes that ed shin has been diverting business, embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars, stealing clients. How much do you think ed embezzled from you . We think its 2. 5 million in total. Thats a lot of money. That is a heartbreaking dollar amount. At what point did you feel like you understood the totality of ed shins personality . I think during that week of that perry mason Forensic Audit exercise i went through i lived it. I lived the betrayal. Ed was the perfect jekyll and hyde. Joseph gray extended a helping hand to ed when he really needed that help. Ed responded by biting the hand that was feeding him. I had a mandate. My mandate was, hold him accountable. Do whatever i had to do to make sure that the District Attorney and Riverside County would hold him accountable. This case wont be that hard to prosecute cause theyve got records. Theyve got documents. Theyve got proof that shin is skimming money from the company and hes using it to pay off big gambling debts, high priced cars, and clothes, and women. In the end, hes charged in october of 2009 with felony embezzlement. Chris smith is realizing day by day that ed shin, his partner, is a crook. He did not care who he hurt or how he hurt people to get what he wanted. With a straight face, he would look you in the eye and be stealing from you. Who does that . Chris, his senses were on high alert. He wrote his attorney. He said, ed is itching for a way to commit fraud against me. We got to keep that from happening. I have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Now, theres skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved. 90 clearer skin at 4 months. After just 2 doses. Skyrizi may increase your risk of infections. And lower your ability to fight them. Before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection. Or symptoms such as fevers,. Sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs. Or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. I feel free to bare my skin. Visit skyrizi. Com. Isnt like yesterday. grrrr. Put down that rake. and pick up that pb and j. daddy . Silence your growl. With kelloggs frosted miniwheats. 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Ed got out immediately, and when paul approached ed, he kind of smoothed it over, like, well, no, its fine. You dont need to worry about it. Its taken care of. Chris was shocked by it too. And i asked chris, you know, if he had anything to do with it. And he said absolutely not. The impact of the lawsuit against ed was really the moment at which the veil was lifted and chris could see that ed was just somebody to watch out for. And this company was making money. I mean, i heard something, maybe a few months later, but to the tune of 1 million a month. The company, yeah, was doing very well. There was a lot of money floating around. Even in the face of this serious embezzlement case, the company, 800xchange, is still making quite a bit of profit. And that means, for ed, continuing his lavish lifestyle, which includes the trips to las vegas. Ed would sometimes bring members of 800xchange with him to las vegas to talk about business and to have some fun. I saw him at the tables. No one ever knew how much money he was spending. My brother didnt have access to the business accounts. I remember sitting on the couch with chris. I said, where are all your financial records . He said, well, ed handles all that. And im like, there should be complete transparency there. Especially given his past behavior. At what point do you really become suspicious of him . March of 2010, things started to change. I could tell my brothers relationship with ed had soured a little bit. Chris started to realize that ed was someone who couldnt be trusted. He had swindled from his previous company. And it seems that chris started to wonder, if he did it before, why wouldnt he do it again . Chris is realizing that hes in business with a conman. Chris is concerned that ed is going to steal chris rightful share of the 800xchange, and so he hires a lawyer, Ernesto Aldover. Chris came to me and he said, my partner is a liar. And im afraid that hes going to take all the money that were making. I need your help to see if we cant secure some of my interests. Ed shin is convicted of felony embezzlement in may of 2010. And then he reaches an agreement on the sentence. To avoid prison time, hell pay restitution of roughly 800,000. And the only way he does not violate his probation and go to state prison is if he comes up with 800,000 that he has to get from 800xchange. The only way he can get that out of 800xchange is if chris smith agrees. Because chris smith is a part owner of the 800xchange, ed needs chris signature to free up the funds that ed is going to need to resolve that settlement deal. Chris didnt want to sign the settlement because he wanted to make sure that the money that belonged to him was secure. There was a deadline for the settlement to be signed. We knew that it was early, the week of june 7th. Ed was under a lot of pressure from a lot of fronts. He owed 800,000 in a settlement to lg. He allegedly had some big gambling debts in las vegas to pay off. Hes becoming cornered financially. So youve got this brewing conflict. And youve got one guy with an attorney trying to do everything right. And then youve got another guy who is completely shady. So its like two worlds about to collide. So chris and ed met on june 4th allegedly to finalize the agreement. Part of the deal was that chris would get access to the accounts and what he expected to see there is millions of dollars just sitting there, thats all the profit that their business had been making over the past year. The only thing we were waiting for that day is that chris had to be given access to the bank account so he could see that the money was still there. This is an email from chris to me dated june 4th, 2010, at 12 34 p. M. Im meeting with ed now to go over statements. He fixed the log in. Everything looks normal. After that, a curious thing happens, which is that smiths attorney gets an email from chris smith with a buyout agreement. So this is a shift. Instead of providing guarantees that chris would have access to all the bank accounts, now chris emails his lawyer telling him that hes selling his share of the company. This is an email from chris at 6 01 p. M. It says, ernesto. Ernesto, i agreed in principle with ed to buy me out. 700,000 of the reserve will be paid in three installments, when ed sends details, i will forward and we can discuss, chris. And then i got this onepage resolution. It says both smith and shin agreed to execute the settlement in exchange for a good faith payment. My first reaction was, well, why is he doing this . This isnt what we had been negotiating for the past two weeks. When Ernesto Aldover received that 6 01 email from chris, it was a complete game changer all of a sudden, its a complete 180 from everything theyd been talking about. The following monday on june 7th, 2010, i receive an email from chris. The documents are still being prepared, but im going on vacation for a few weeks to south america, and that let me know if you need anything. Chris has finalized his settlement with ed and hes taken off. Unbeknownst to paul and his family, whove been up in oregon for the last two weeks, so theyre completely out of the loop. Paul and leah had flown up here to go to my nephews wedding. So tell me about this trip. You flew up here to oregon. To visit family. And chris dropped you off at the airport. He was, you know, sad that we were leaving, and i gave him a hug, flew up to oregon, we were there for a couple weeks. We communicated via text, you know, hed be there to pick me up at the long beach airport. He just never showed up. Hold on one second. Sure. Okay. Okay safe drivers save 40 guys guys check it out. Safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 thats safe drivers save 40 . 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Well, thats kind of odd. Im calling and texting. I cant get through to him. Eventually i get a hold of ed. Ed said, oh, yeah, he doesnt have his phone. We came to a settlement. I bought him out of the company. And he took off with some playboy playmate to the Galapagos Islands. You would think given how close chris and paul were and the fact that paul worked in the same company that paul would have been the first person to know that chris had just sold his share of the business to ed shin. But chris could sometimes just take off and disappear without notice. That felt it hurt. You know, we were so close. To just up and leave and not talk to me about it first didnt sit well. But chris expressed to me that it was such a tremendous amount of stress that hes been put under from ed in this situation. So when i heard that there was a settlement, i was like i was, in a way, happy for him. Did you worry what it meant for you . A little bit. That i was there, you know, without him now. I was a little bit stressed out about it. But i just figured, hey, you know, i have a family here i need to support. I need to be strong, you know . So i just carried on as usual. Not long after he gets back to work after this massive upheaval in the company, paul finds theres a new employee. And hes sitting in chris office. Kenny craft just showed up all of a sudden in june. I had just moved back from hawaii. And i was looking for work at the time. And ended up meeting ed at a party and hit it off pretty well. Probably started working there a couple weeks later. At first, i was like, okay, why is this guy here . What is his role . Why do we need him here . And i was told that he was there just to run errands for ed. You came on to try to do sales. And then he tells you, well he said id rather have you as an assistant. Stay close to me. And ed decided to bring me on as an assistant chauffeur. Sit in an Office Next Door to his and just basically play on the computer until he needed something from me. I feel like this guy hired you. And for most of the time, youre just sitting there. Driving to and from, like, lunches, driving home, get the kids. Did you know about chris at the time . I had a vague understanding of what had happened. After speaking with paul, he said it seems perfectly normal that his brother uprooted and took everything with him, or went on some crazy adventure surfing. Its now two months after chris supposedly sold his share of the 800xchange. And by now, hes been to the Galapagos Islands, around the tip of south america. At some point hes ditched Tiffany Taylor. And it seems like hes got no intention of ever coming home. Tuesday, august 31st, 2010. Im still backpacking through south america and would like to spend more time down here. There are these emails that sounds like the amazing race or something. It was more very sporadic. And usually i wrote a lot more emails, cause im missing him. Im wondering, where are you . I was starting to feel like, i dont know, this is all really fishy here. I just sent him a question. I said, chris, what lake do we live on . And what type of boat do we have . Just trying to confirm what i knew. And it took a while to get the emails back. But he confirmed one of them. He said, yeah, we live on kelly lake. Considering one of that one of those answers is a password to an account, what city were you born in . Then ill tell you about kelly lake. It just kind of solidified for me that he was chris. The answers give debi and steve smith some peace of mind. Theyre reassured, maybe not convinced, but they are feeling better that things are okay and that chris is having a good time. But then several months go by. Wednesday, october 20th, 2010. Hey, mom, im in mumbai, india. Im headed to cyprus and africa after this. I miss you too. But i have so much to see and do. What began as a onemonth trip has now turned into this epic fivemonth journey. No credit cards or bank accounts, bro. Im off the grid forever. I was actually able to use some gold as currency in india. Im telling you, they use it all the time there. I was able to pay for my boat ride to cyprus for a half ounce kruger. What an incredible round the world trip it sounds like. It sounded incredible. But, he was a surfer. Hed be in places like, you know, hawaii or tahiti and costa rica. At this point, chris seems to be going to places that are out of character for him. Not places on the globe that would be part of his itinerary. In the meantime, paul is still working at 800xchange. Hes got a family to feed. And part of the job includes business trips to las vegas. Ed was gambling most of the time while we were at the convention, you know, meeting with clients, representing 800xchange as a company. And there was a big dinner that ed had planned out for the company employees. And ed invited women to attend the dinner. I think some of them were playboy playmates. While we were there talking business i happened to see the same girl that i got an image of in an email of the girl that chris had left with. This is Tiffany Taylor . Tiffany taylor, yeah. Tiffany taylor was one of the atmosphere models hired by ed shin. Paul sees tiffany and his eyes pop out of his skull. I was very excited to see her. cause i hadnt talked to anybody that had been with my brother. And so i sat right next to her. And he says, you know, tiffany, i thought you were sailing around the world with my brother. You went to the galapagos. How was it . You left with my brother right . Where is he now . Hows chris . Whats going on . And she just stared at me like i was crazy. Tmobile and sprint have merged. Now that sprint is a part of tmobile, we have more towers, more engineers, and more coverage than ever before. Get lin of mid for just 25 bucks a line with 5g access included. 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Chris smith is realizing day by day that ed shin is a crook. It seems like chris smith just takes off and starts sailing the world, trying to get things right in his head. But his emails to his family start to get weird. Things are not adding up. The family is losing their minds. Because they havent seen chris. Theres not a gray area between hes surfing in south africa and hes been killed. Its kind of one or the other. Ed, i need you to be honest with me. Okay. I need you to tell me the truth about what happened. If you made a mistake, now is the time. Own it. Im sorry. I just need a second. Hes been leaving wreckage everywhere. At some point, there must be a body to remove. You were living a double life. You know theres something youre not telling me. Picture this scene. Theres a business meeting in las vegas. Ed is there. Paul smith is there. And Tiffany Taylor is at this event. Its Tiffany Taylor, miss november, 1998, playboy playmate tiffany who was supposedly on this sailing trip with chris. You were sure that you recognized her . Yes. It was the same, exact girl. It was the picture that i got. She just looked at me with a blank stare, like i was nuts. Tiffany said, i dont i dont know your brother. I didnt go on any kind of a trip with him. What are you talking about . This is crazy talk. And ed just looks up at me and just goes like this, and just shakes his head. After the the dinner was over, i said, that was the girl that i got a picture of, that chris left with. And he reassured me that that was not the same Tiffany Taylor. It was a different Tiffany Taylor. Well, think about it. Another Tiffany Taylor . It seems impossible. But also, think about las vegas. Theres no shortage of gorgeous women, probably named tiffany, and on top of that, ed is so convincing. The other worrisome thing for paul is that things are taking a rather dark turn when it comes to 800xchange. There was so much money coming in from the clients, and our largest buying partner was not receiving any payments for media. Where was the money going . It was going into eds pockets. It was this feeling of somethings wrong. We have to get out. With chris gone, eds spending a ton of money. Hes isolating himself in his office. Ed kind of seems rudderless. I immediately got an attorney, explained to him what was going on. And he said, put in your resignation via letter. So i did. And just depart quietly. And so within, i think, three days, we packed up the house and we left. I didnt want to be a part of eds world anymore. I knew it was gonna get worse. Hey, dad, just got to johannesburg and tried calling paul internationally. I found a conflict diamond for paul. Going to give it to him for his birthday i missed. Lol. I was like, what are you thinking . Like, you dont need to risk your life to get me a diamond for my birthday. So remember, chris has been on this fivemonth whirlwind dream trip. In oregon, his family has been on an emotional roller coaster. Now, its during the holidays that the family gets together, and now theyre getting really worried. And its at this point that paul tells them about this weird incident at the 800xchange at just about the time that chris disappeared. June 4th was a friday, and thats the day that ed and chris reach this settlement. The following monday, employees of 800xchange get a message from ed saying, hey, dont come in for the whole week. We got to get the office cleaned. I went into the office when i wasnt supposed to that week. I needed to grab some stuff, and it smelled really bad. Like, a rotten stench. Theres fans on. It was very damp. Like, all our carpets were wet. The walls had been painted, and i looked down and i saw a big stain outside of chris office on the floor. Ed tells everybody, chris was super drunk. He vomited and urinated in his office. And thats the source of the smell. He didnt drink at the office. I mean, to puke and pee . Urinate at the office . I mean, its totally not normal, you know . Its he would never do Something Like that. I was like, okay, somethings really foul here. That sounded really suspicious to me. Because its just its not chris. Youre gonna go make a Million Dollar deal, then youre gonna get drunk going to it . It made no sense at all. So i thought, what the hell . Chriss father steve was once a cop. But really, once a cop, always a cop. So he has those instincts that tell him something does not smell right. And he realizes its very possible that ed shin may have something to do with the disappearance of his son. Steve sends an email to chris, but hes thinking in the back of his mind that ed is really seeing this email. And his hope is to bring him out of the shadow. Possibly respond to him so he can get information about his son. I said, if you hurt any one of my sons, im gonna [ bleep ] you up, and this is the start of your nightmare. But then i got a reaction to it. To steve smith. Friday, december 17th, 2010. Dad, im fine. Stop tripping. I just needed to get some [ bleep ] out of my head. Did that sound like chris, dad, are you tripping . Thats chris. So i thought, oh, okay. But i still had feelings that something was wrong after that. December 26th, 2010, to paul smith. Just realized its christmas. Is it snowing in bend . Its summer down here with it being so warm. Im headed back up through the congo. Ill be offline for a couple of weeks. I found a dealer in rwanda that will pay 30 markup on krugs because the mint ones are impossible to find. And so its just after christmas that chris emails abruptly stop. Its radio silence. His mom starts to think he fell in with some criminals when they found out he had this gold. And hes been murdered somewhere abroad. I was searching through all the deaths that were happening in africa and rwanda and everywhere. And, you know, if there was a caucasian male, 30 years or so, just searching everywhere. During the month of december, the family did get a sliver of hope when chris promises paul that hell meet him in costa rica in february. Heres an email i received from chris. Ill make my way north to egypt, cross over to spain, and then head to costa rica. Meet me there in february so we can surf and talk about everything. Chris. In february, paul and chris are supposed to go to costa rica together. And eventually paul calls the hotel that theyre actually supposed to go to, and he learns from the hotel that theres no reservation in the name of his brother. That his brother has made no plans to meet up with him. And that really was probably the nail in the coffin, and the family needed to get some help. Steve smith went to the state department. He very soon hears this is early in 2011 passport control has no record of your son even leaving this country. As far as were concerned, he never left. For the family, this is a stunning revelation. Given all the emails that theyve received, how could this possibly be true . Steve thinks this doesnt make sense because he would need the passport. So now hes got to ask people, well, how would he how would he leave . One of the things he did was to go to ed and ask him what he knew. I was worried for his safety, though, cause i really felt like this guy could probably be really dangerous. When you see that kind of passion and that love for a family member, its very real. And you can only imagine that long drive from oregon. I had actually brought a gun with me. I was wanting to know, was to find my son. Either he knows what happened to chris, or he knows who is responsible for it. Its time to take with best friends all along the sun is out. Its beautiful. 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We are just freaking out that he was killed somewhere, mugged, or beat up. And he went on for about an hours conversation about all kinds of stuff. I have a feeling i can help you find him if you want. The weekend before, we went to vegas together. I know he got a fake passport. There was a guy in vegas, he referred chris to this guy in l. A. He was the one who got him the passport. Okay. Do you believe anything that hes saying to you . No. I think theres something really wrong. Hes lying to me. Either he knows what happened to chris, or he knows hes responsible for it. The significance of the fake passport story from ed is either it explains why the state department has no record of chris ever leaving the country, or it means that ed shin is lying through his teeth, and that is a whole other problem. After a couple months of doing his own investigation steve smith reported him missing, officially, to laguna beach pd. They launch their investigation and in june, 2011, a full year after chris goes missing, ed comes in for questioning at the laguna beach pd. And he begins describing the story about chris being drunk and being a flaky guy. He pissed everywhere. He had broken some bottles of wine. It was a mess. It smelled so i had to send our employees home. They were complaining about the smell. When is the last day you saw chris . The first monday of june, i think. I think it was the 3rd or 4th. We went to las vegas that weekend. Okay. And then i dropped him off at home and that was the last time i saw him. I dont know where he is. Honestly, i think hes on the other side of the world. And i think he doesnt want to be found. Thank you. Three weeks later, detective julia bowman is on the case. I looked at all of that circumstantial evidence. The timeline of when things happened, listened to ed shins explanation of what had happened in the office. And none of it seemed plausible. Detective bowman isnt the only person investigating this case. Enter a gentleman by the name of joe dalu. So joe dalu is a private investigator and it is by complete coincidence that he gets involved. Joe dalu moves into an office just a couple doors down from the abandoned 800xchange. Its 2011 of april. We were in there for probably just a couple of months and we were contacted by the property manager. He knew we were a private investigation firm. And he said that one of their tenants, ed shin, had skipped out on their lease. The amount that was owed was around 40,000, i believe. He advised us at one point that a local Law Enforcement agency was trying to get ahold of ed shin as well because someone filed a missing persons report on his Business Partner chris smith. So that kind of perked us up a little bit too. So i do remember going, would you mind me taking a look at this for you and help find your son . So we started conversing between us. And in a short period of time we became we actually became friends. He eventually sent me the emails and everything that he had, all the things that he did trying to look for his son and the people that he spoke with. And we just started collecting that and taking a look at it. The family even hires a computer expert to analyze the data in chris emails, to try to figure out where they originated. He takes a look at them. And he says, no, i believe these both came from within the united states. It was a very delicate situation. How do you tell somebody that i think something serious happened to your son thats not just a missing person . It turns out that the property manager gives joe dalu the most incredibly important piece of information. Lets rewind to june of 2010. Ed calls up the property manager and says, how do you get blood out of the carpet . They then actually send over a porter to look at the blood on the carpet . The porter goes in there and sees blood. And ed explains to the porter, oh, i cut my hand when i was cutting an apple. Joe starts doing some research. As an investigator he thinks, like, hey, maybe we should go look in the office. We learned that the office was still vacant and we wanted to go take a look. So the property manager allows you in. Correct. Were Walking Around with our flashlight. And thats when we discover some blood, or what we think is blood. It was very surprising that anything could be found at the office, it had been a year since he had left that office. We heard from ed shin himself that he had cleaned the office twice. So i contacted don voght in the Orange County sheriffs department. And he said he thought maybe there was a murder had occurred in there. Id kind of explained to joe thats kind of a stretch at this point. So we went to the office park with the Orange County crime lab. They close the door and they had sprayed luminol all over the inside of chris office, which would present any type of blood that was in the office, and it almost makes it like a fluorescent green color. And it lights up like a christmas tree. So we know this isnt just someone cut their finger. Theres a crime scene here. Who stood up. Who stood strong. Who demanded to be seen. To be heard. To be counted. Learning about her courage and grit. Can inspire you to pass it on. To the women who are next. Find your familys connection to this moment in history. At ancestry. Off family care has a dry touch formula that protects from mosquitoes so you can focus on what means the most. Off sc johnson contactless delivery tarright to your door,very designed for your day. So you can work out, join in, and game on. Just download the target app and try it today. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair®. Weve got the retinol that gives you results in one week. Not just any retinol. Accelerated retinol sa. 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Thats when we realized all this blood in the crime scene does belong to chris smith. We knew at this point that we were going to arrest ed shin for the murder of chris smith. On august 28th, we found out that ed shin had boarded a plane at l. A. X. And he was headed to canada. So i gave the green light. Rip him off the plane. And were gonna hook him at this point. We technically arrested him for violating his probation because ed shin had been arrested in Riverside County for embezzling. Hes not allowed to leave the country. So we arrested him. And brought him back. Of course, the sheriffs had a wealth of information that he didnt know that they knew. We got him talking. We started talking about chris smith. He went missing in june. And they didnt talk to you until no, no, no. He left the country in june. I think he went missing in, like, december. Orange county homicide investigators don voght and ray wert spend hours questioning ed shin. And ed sticks to that same story. That chris sold his shares of the 800xchange and just vanished out into the pacific somewhere. We ultimately decided were gonna confront him with the evidence that we have. There is blood on the walls. There is blood on the doorway. Okay . Its a scientific fact. Im not making it up. We know its chris blood. Okay. And we gave him an opportunity to tell us his story. And eds response to us was, i dont know what youre talking about. I didnt kill chris. What i want to say, i want an attorney. Ed asked for a lawyer. And so the interrogation is immediately ended. And then half an hour later you wanted to talk to us again . Investigators voght and wert are told he actually wants to come back and set the record straight. Ed went on to tell us, i didnt murder chris smith. But him and chris had been involved in this knockdown, dragout fight. Somehow he was able to grab me. And he kind of picked me up and had the momentum to, like, throw me across his desk. I jumped up. And he jumped up on the desk. And we kind of, like, almost like two rams collided on his desk. Thats probably where the blood got on the ceiling. I was able to position myself to where i was charging him into his office again. And literally, thats when i think his head hit the desk. And he was unconscious. I mean, there was blood all over his office, a pool of blood coming from his head. Its during this interrogation that all of these revelations just start spilling out. Ed now says this wasnt murder. Wead a. S seldee. And chris just died. And all of those emails to the family, all of them, were eds imagination. Even those cruel emails breaking up with his girlfriend erika, that was all ed shins doing. Chris had not been sailing the world with an exotic playboy playmate. Chris had not been visiting rwanda and chile and ecuador. These emails had all been written by edward shin using chris email accounts. It was all a charade. Its utterly ruthless. You know, it is fundamentally awful, what hes doing here. Only a true psychopath could do this. And they charged him with first degree murder. Good morning america. Breaking news. A bizarre and extremely cruel murder and coverup. Police say a california man killed his Business Partner, then covered his tracks by creating a virtual life online. Once theyve confirmed that chris smith is actually dead, one of the most brutal, difficult things in Law Enforcement is making that call to the family. And they had to do that. It was awful. Its like youve been gutted. Its just, like, a horrible nightmare. And were living this out. Its just, like, horrible. We drove over to pauls house. And we got there. He was out in the driveway crying. It was a tough day. Just fell to my knees and stuff. The images that come into your mind at that point of someone you love being murdered. It brought in a lot of emotions. And just heartbreak. Its hard to see how much it hurt paul because they were like twins. So there is nothing to help the family that you can give us right now to indicate where chris body might be for closure for the family . I understand. No, i dont have anything. Shin claims he gets in contact with a russian man whom he pays 10,000 to 15,000 to dispose of the body. The next morning, chris body is gone. And ed claims he has no idea where it is. And so monday came around. I got back to the office and he was gone. The reason the office smelled so bad, despite all the ed shin stories about chris throwing up, the real reason it stank is because underneath those carpets is decaying human tissue in the form of chris blood. He wont say where the body is because he would then have to show the cause of death. Which would absolutely prove that it wasnt mutual combat. Detective bowman analyzes all of ed shins cell phone records and these cell phone tower pings. And she finds that on two occasions, june 7th and june 9th, ed drives 170 miles into the desert near this town called boulevard, california, which is this desolate desert area right up against the mexican border. Theres no reason for ed shin to have driven in the middle of the night and sat there for two hours unless hes dumping the body of chris smith. After we got those cell phone pings, they had helicopters and atvs and dogs. They had 80 people looking for him. And the problem is, so much time had gone by. Theres no body. No body. Theres no murder weapon. No murder weapon. Its very challenging to try somebody for murder without the body, right . Because the body will tell you everything. You see the smith family out there, right . Yes. Last chance, mr. Shin. Show us where the body is. Did you know the source of odor in your home. Could be all your soft surfaces . Odors get trapped in your homes fabrics and resurface over time. Febreze fabric refresher eliminates odors. 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Earn box tops for your school with nestle pure life, available across these fun packs. Available across lily everyone in the house is online and i cant get enough bandwidth to video chat with my book club. Try 1 gig internet with at t fiber. You get more bandwidth and hbo max included. So, everyone stays entertained. So i can just watch the show instead of reading the book . You know, if you turn on your subtitles. Thats almost reading. Get 1 gig internet with at t fiber for 49. 99a month for a year. No annualcontract. And now get hbo max included. Limited availability in select areas. Call 1. 877. Only. Att weve always made quality furnishings for the many people. And when we sell many of them, we make them more affordable. To us, that just makes sense. Ikea. Make the dream yours. This court is now in session. Please be seated. This trial took a long time to get under way. Yeah. Youre just in this suspended reality of not having closure and answers. You just get stuck. I had a lot of rage. It just felt like a storm. So if you had to boil this case down into the simplest terms, how would you characterize it . Ruthless, diabolical greed to the extreme. I mean, thats really what this boils down to. This is now seven years later that hes going to trial, so for the smith family, this has just been painful waiting. And now finally, in 2018, ed shin is finally standing trial. Hes charged with first degree murder with special circumstances. Special circumstance being it was for financial gain. If convicted under california law, you get a mandatory sentence of life without parole. Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence is gonna show that in trying to legally protect his own financial interests, chris smith became an obstacle for ed shin. Ed shin was in a corner. Chris smith had him in a corner. The way he could solve his problems, financially, businesswise, everything else, is murder chris smith, make him disappear, and take all of his money. The evidence is gonna show, ladies and gentlemen, that Chris Smiths Office on june 4th in the evening hours. It was helterskelter in there. Theres blood on the ceiling and blood on the carpet. Theres blood on the walls. Theres blood on the furniture. The evidence is gonna show that that man there beat or stabbed chris smith brutally to death in that office. Matt murphys going to argue this was a premeditated murder, and the key piece of evidence is the timing of one email sent by ed shin, pretending to be chris smith, to chris attorney on the night of the alleged murder. At 6 01 that night, did you receive an email concerning what appeared to be a change in heart or change in direction from mr. Smith concerning the future of these companies . Yes. So thats our window where we know the murder had to had to take place. That email, its perfectly written. Its not done in a panic. It makes sense. It has the right tone. And its attached to an exhibit with a fake signature on it. So theres virtually no way ed shin showed up in that Office Without that email and that attachment ready to roll and that means hes already decided hes gonna kill him. According to ed shin, chris smith was responsible for everything. He lunged at me again. I think at that point, i felt like i had to fight back. I dont know if i threw him or if i shoved him, but somehow i pushed him into this area. And thats when he fell and he hit the desk really hard. Its always risky for a defendant to take the witness stand because the entire case then comes down to, do the jurors believe ed shin . Every single word, every facial expression, every motion becomes critical. So how is it, mr. Shin . You didnt have a bruise or you didnt bleed somewhere . Can you explain that for us . I cannot. Okay. There you are, hes on the floor of the office. Hes just sustained a significant physical injury, and you can dial 911, and they can come save him, so if you didnt want him to die, why didnt you dial 911, mr. Shin . Because i was in shock. You didnt dial 911 because you knew that if he died, you got his money, isnt that true . No. This is murder thats repeated itself throughout history. You got one guy who wants something from another guy. And the way to get it, if he wont agree, is kill him and take it. Then there was this moment during crossexamination in which ed shin looked like he was about to cry. He was kind of shedding a tear. Are you tearing up a little bit right now . Im okay, sir. Was he feeling sorry for himself . Whatever it was, matt murphy saw that and went in for the kill. Okay. Were you tearing up when you wrote that email to debi smith saying their son was committing suicide, or suggesting that he was going to do that . Were you tearing up when you did that . Yes. Okay. You were actually at the computer tearing up as you were going to break a mothers heart by essentially blaming her for the death of her son . That was making you feel sad . It was one of the many emotions i felt, yes. That was 100 con. That was manipulator par excellence trying to work my jury. Hes trying to make the jury feel sorry for him after all the destruction that hes caused. Theres no getting emotional when youre a ruthless killer like that. In front of the jury, ed shin does not budge from his claim that this was all selfdefense. As for the body, well, ed shin has an answer for that as well. He claims he hired a russian to dispose of the body. Ive always believed he drove him out to the desert. And he dumped him. Youre familiar with the phrase, the truth will set you free . Yes. So here weve got a skull, somewhere out there in the world, right now, that if your story is true, its gonna match what you say. Theres gonna be a single impact wound, back of the skull . From the corner of a desk, right . Yes. Ed shin says chris fell down in the middle of this fight and hit his head. And he died from that, that means hes gonna have a Skull Fracture that indicates a single blunt force trauma, and hes gonna be able to prove what he said. So why doesnt ed shin set himself free by by telling us where the body is . Because its complete nonsense. Its not true. That skull has multiple blunt force trauma, and thats why ed didnt give it up. The jury gets the case on december 7th, 2018. And it takes them less than an hour to reach a verdict. Please read the verdict. We the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant edward younhoon shin guilty of the crime of felony. My feeling when the verdict was read is total relief that hes gonna be somewhere where he cant hurt anybody else again. The verdict came down the same day that we interviewed joe gray and so we were there with him as he broke the news to his wife patty. They got him for firstdegree murder. Thats should be sentencing should be life in prison. Oh, thank god. Oh. He wont be hurting anyone else, babe. Thank god. Were actually inside the theo lacy facility, and were about to interview ed shin, 16 hours after sentencing. Are you afraid that this mysterious russian that youve spoken about is gonna come after you . Or are you just keeping this piece of information as a bargaining chip . Lets hear it for kansas city monarch legend jim robinson. Crowd cheering celebrate your history together. The allnew highlander. Toyota. Lets go places. This wget 10 kohls cash for every 50 spent. The allnew highlander. Earn it on everything like fitbit. Spend it on anything like converse. Plus, take an extra 15 off. Shark vacuums plus, save on your backtoschool purchase. Plus, store drive up. Kohls our 12 step process provides 100 pure quality water. Earn box tops for your school with nestle pure life, available across these fun packs. So heres to the strong, who trust in our performance and comfortable, longlasting protection. Because your strength is supported by ours. Depend. The only thing stronger than us, is you. Beca scratch that,th baby, im grateful. Got to say its really been a while but now i got back that smile. Smile. Check everything off the list with lower prices and hundreds of deals. Get ready for school at target. Fenow theres more to wlove with xfinity x1, . The ultimate entertainment experience. Like live sports. Theyre back with the best way to watch. And more streaming apps all in one place. More classics. More premiers. Plus, more to easily find using just your voice. Hello, more. Where have you been all my life . Xfinity. The future of awesome. Nine years after he murdered chris smith, and about eight months after a jury took less than an hour to find him guilty of first degree murder with special circumstances, ed shin is back in court with the same judge, about to learn his fate. After we get the verdict, you have a sentencing. And each family has an opportunity to either address the court or to have an advocate address the court. Shins mom, mrs. Shin, her state was very emotional. And she tried to take all the blame. Your honor, my name is jennifer shin, mother of edward shin. Please know how sorry i am to both the smith family and to this court. This is my fault. After college, edward wants to be a pastor so he could lead childrens ministry. I know he wouldnt be here today if i didnt ask him to change his decision. Please mercy my son. Thank you, your honor. You know, and i felt sorry for his mom, who is court every day. But she knows what, you know, what his background is. Ed not only ruined our family, but he ruined his own family, and his mom and dads family. Its just a lot of loss. Even in a wrongful conviction, i will ask this court to show me no mercy. I must bear the responsibility of doing so many awful things and if it means a life of physical suffering, so be it. God put me on this earth to serve him and gave me every opportunity and talent to tend to his sheep, instead i chose the path of the wolf. The court will sentence the defendant then to life without possibility of parole. Hes been leaving wreckage everywhere hes gone. Hes like a boat going through the water and instead of a wake of water, its a wake of destroyed or ruined lives everywhere he goes. Were actually inside the theo lacy facility and were about to interview ed shin, 16 hours after the sentencing. The primary question everybody wants to know, where is chris body . How are you doing . A small part of me is relieved because theres some closure now. In court yesterday, you described going down the path of the wolf. When did you begin to choose the path of the wolf . Well, you know, my first job out of college was as a stockbroker. So im being conditioned, especially as a young professional, that its all about the money. You know, gordon gecko from wall street. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. But there was a difference between greed and crime. Absolutely. And you crossed that line between greed and theft. Because youre making so much money and then the moneys fast, quick. Thats addicting. It seemed that you were living a double life. You were this father at home in california. But in vegas you were gambling a lot of money, seeing hookers, doing other things. Safe to say that thats true . Yeah. Basically the money you were supposed to use to pay back joe gray, you were sending to the casino . Yes, i did that on a few occasions. June 4th, 2010, chris smith wants access to the books. Why did you kill him . We got in a fight. There are fights, and then theres killing someone. Yeah, i wasnt trying to kill him. Why did you finish him off . Finish him off . I didnt finish him off. You could have called 911. I was in total panic. What are you supposed to do at that point . You could have said, hey, the guy rushed me. He attacked me. I had no choice but to defend myself. He fell. I was already in a criminal case, you know, had that not been active, i probably would have called 911. But no ones ever gonna believe me. These cops arent gonna believe me. So you have this dead body on the floor. What do you do with it . Me personally, i didnt do anything. And so who was the person . Im not, i cant talk about that right now. Ed, i mean, youre facing the rest of your life in prison. I am. In fact you are gonna spend the rest of your life in prison it seems if theres i am. No appeal. And im here against, you know, the advice of my attorneys. And now youre holding the location of his body over his parents. Im not holding it because i dont know it. But you know the person who can get it. Is a friendly neighbor. 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So when i heard they added ultra oxi to the cleaning power of tide, it was just what we needed. Dad . I didnt do it. 1 stain and odor fighter, 1 trusted. Its got to be tide. And wont drink out of anything else. He might like it too. When killing roaches you dont have to choose between safe or effective. Raid ant and roach with essential oils is safe for use around kids and pets. Sc johnson. Youve admitted to the worst of this, right . Youve admitted to stealing. Youve admitted to killing chris smith. Right. Youve admitted to writing the emails. Right. You hacked into his life. And you broke up with his girlfriend. And you told his parents that he was traveling across the world. And then that he was suicidal. Yeah, that was kind of, like, perhaps, you know, that was the exit strategy. But i couldnt go through with it. You know . cause you had to find a way to kill off chris, at least the email version of him. That was a potential exit strategy, yes. But i couldnt go through with it. You know, there was still that little, last shred of, i guess, morality or whatever you want that prevented me from doing it. I mean, in some ways it seems like you killed him twice. In some ways, yeah. In the sentencing yesterday you said, i hope that someday ill be given the opportunity to help locate chris body. That gives the indication that you know something that youre not telling. That you know where it is. No. Now youre holding the location of his body im not holding it over his parents. cause i dont know it. But you know the person who can get it. Thats just not thats there is no way i can get to that at this point. Its and theres no way that im gonna do it. Im sorry. You know, i wish i could tell you more. But theres something bigger that i just cant talk about. Maybe its a bargaining chip for the future. Although one would think you would have used it already. There is no there no, its not. You know, you have to think about it. If someones willing to give up his life to protect a secret, theres a reason, right . Okay. He knows exactly what happened to chris because he killed him. And he knows exactly where the body is because he took the body out there and buried him. So ed shin is a liar. Of course hes not gonna cough up where the body is. But well find it eventually. We will find it eventually. Tell me about the paddleout. That was for all of his friends. And they needed to remember him. A paddleout, its a part of surfing culture. After chris died about 25 of his good friends and paul did whats called a paddleout. And its like a Funeral Service almost. Its a memorial for that surfers have for other surfers. And they brought their boards. And they made the wreath. The sea was flat except for the dolphins and birds out there. And all they went out, and did the paddleout. It was beautiful. Chris, how you doing . At his memorial service, i found a song by jars of clay that we played. And it talks about, it doesnt matter where my body lays. Dont matter where i lay because all my tears will be washed away and so it was just such a kind of prophetic song to whats turned out, cause we dont have anything, no body. But we know where he is. Yeah. And well see him again. We can feel his spirit still. Were confident that were going to see him again someday. We have that hope. So, we cling to that hope. Its an odd feeling. Because if youve had a child, and the child has grown inside of you, it feels like part of you is somewhere out in the desert. And it feels strange. Theres a part of you, you know, that is us, atlyin the desert. An army family who is always at the ready. So when they got a little surprise. Two . They didnt panic. They got a bigger car for their soontobebigger family. After shopping around for insurance, they called usaa who helped find the right coverage for them and even some muchneeded savings. That was the easy part. 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