convicted of a car theft in new york and had some recent brushes with the law. he had been in some trouble recently when he went out of state. and he was a suspect in a death out of state, too. defarris denied any involvement in mandy s murder. his employer confirmed he was at work on the day mandy disappeared, so he wasn t considered a suspect. but defarris had some information of his own. he saw another local man, charlie smithart, driving his pickup truck on the road where mandy was last seen. he was described as a good guy to the kids. all the copper center kids could come to his shop and he would fix their bicycles and give them candy. certainly interesting to us. 61-year-old smithart was a retired steel worker, had been divorced twice and lived in a makeshift workshop behind his mother s home. coincidentally, smithart had assisted in the search for mandy.
this is an 11-year-old girl who had her life savagely taken from her, brutally killed and her body was left in the woods for animals to find. i think that made it hard on everybody who dealt with this case, myself included. in the weeks following mandy lemaire s murder, investigators had a very promising lead. a witness placed charlie smithart near mandy s home on the day of the abduction. and some young girls in town had even more damaging information to report. in the weeks before mandy s disappearance, charlie smithart, a 60-year-old man, had been seen offering rides to other young girls who bore a striking resemblance to mandy lemaire, such that one of the young girls, when her mother saw the
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and i know know know know now. .that we re, living the life of dreams. dreams. there s no monsters down here, [music fades out] dreams.dreams.dreams. it s just mr. elephant. come on, let s get to bed. woman: what do you mean, homeowners insurance doesn t cover floods? [ heart rate increases ] man: a few inches of water caused all this?
many residents of tazlina found it difficult to believe that a neighbor could commit such a heinous crime. the community was very split up there. it s half-native, half-white community. and mandy was white and charlie was native. and it had the split down the center. the white community had felt charlie was involved and the native community felt he was not involved. charlie smithart s trial began two years after the crime. mandy s parents and her two little brothers sat in the first row every day of the trial. smithart insist he was innocent. mr. smithart, you are going to have to be quiet at this time. gonna throw me in jail? i ve been in jail 20 months for