very thorough. jolly told the jury how little that investigation had uncovered. there are no theories. there is no gunshot residue test, no dna test. there s absolutely no evidence that leads mr. smoot to the county on that evening. the defense sought to prove that the evidence the state did have wasn t actually incriminating. like the missing gun that shawn owned. yes, it was the same caliber as the murder weapon. but there are however many million of people this this country who own guns and this was a common wep son. the defense also argued that the ballistics report linking it to the bullet at the home had no science behind it. there is no scientific evidence of that or any standards that show that. there is not currently a standard that shows that every
firearm makes unique marks. as for the volatile relationship described in the order of protection, the defense pointed out that smoot never admitted to any of the allegations and he was never charged, much less convicted of any assault on brook. the order doesn t mean he ever did anything. it doesn t mean that mr. smoot admitted that he did anything. and the order of protection didn t prevent them from seeing each other, which they clearly did. miss morris told the judge that she wanted to have social contact with mr. smoot. jolly organized if brook was so afraid smoot, why would she want to keep seeing him? after all, phone records show she was the one who called him that day. she continued to treat shawn as a friend, as someone she would do activities with. did you worry that could be confusing to the jury? absolutely. i think that s the underlying
you, that okay, they can go arrest him now? we know who did it. absolutely. that didn t happen. uh-huh. i kept thinking, surely any day now, any day now. investigators had their suspicions as well. they were trying to build a case against smoot. he was the last to see her al e alive. he had an allegedly violent relationship. he had lied to investigators. but so far, they have found no physical evidence tying him to the crime. you were able to search his apartment. we were. did you find anything? we found an empty box that once contained a firearm with some ammunition. no gun? no gun. the box was for a .32 caliber pistol. the same as the murder weapon. and the ammo? that was the same style of ammunition that was found at the murder scene. but without the actual gun itself, the circumstantial case wasn t strong enough to charge
smoot with murder. the crime lab released its ballistic report showing that marks on shell casings from the crime scene matched marks on a bullet found in smoot s home. his missing handgun appeared to be the murder weapon. that s a huge connection. it is pretty much the connection. in june of 2012, eight months after brook was killed, shawn smoot was indicted on charges of first degree murder. did you immediately identify with her just being this young woman who was clearly so vulnerable. absolutely. the prosecutors saw the case as a relationship turned deadly. we re still talking about domestic violence, we re still talking about orders of protection. and all of the things that go wrong in this situation. you had no witnesses, you had no dna from your suspect. you have no murder weapon. that s a lot of things you didn t have. we didn t feel like we could
unhooking his computer. i asked him if he was okay. and he said no. i asked him if there was anything i could do and he said turn back time. amy had already heard about the murder and that investigators had been to smoot s house. she told the jury what the defendant said next. at that point i asked him if he was directly or indirectly involved and he said both. did you take that as a total admission of guilt? absolutely. absolutely. it had taken nearly five years after brook s murder to get her alleged killer before a jury. it took the jury less than four hours to reach its verdict. we the jury find the defendant, shawn nelson smoot, guilty of premeditated first degree murder of brook nicole morris. what s the emotions you re feeling when you hear that word snoo. of course, we can t show emotion in court. what s going on in the