minutes to return the verdict of guilty of kidnapping and first-degree murder. larry gene bell was sentenced to death by electrocution. that was the only punishment for him, and probably this is horrible to say too good of a punishment for him. he was tried separately for the kidnapping and murder of debra helmick. that jury returned the same verdict. ten years after his trial, larry gene bell became the last man to die in south carolina s electric chair. without that letter and without the ability to bring up things on that page that you couldn t see with the naked eye, it would have been even longer before we d have gotten larry gene bell. bob smith remains a chaplain for the sheriff s department. his wife, hilda, recently authored a book the rose of
know how to tell you this, but shari s car is at the end of the driveway running and she s not in it. and i remember thinking, oh, my god. not my shari. panic stricken, the couple called the lexington county sheriff s office. near the mailbox on the ground was some mail, which indicated she had gotten out of the car to pick up the mail and was probably adducted at that point. lexington county sheriff jim metz immediately organized the largest manhunt in south carolina history. we didn t know if shari knew her abductor or not. we certainly had no reason to expect the she had run away. whoever it is that has our daughter shari, we want her back.
we miss her. we love her. all her parents could do was wait. the smith family was a very influential family in the community. and there was no reason that we could determine why she would be kidnapped, other than maybe for ransom purposes. so we anticipated that the individual or individuals responsible would make contact with the family. the sheriff s suspicions proved right. two days after shari had been abducted, the smiths received a phone call. a man with a strangely distorted voice demanded to speak to mrs. smith. to prove the call was not a hoax, he described the black and yellow bathing suit shari was wearing beneath her shorts and