stroud. he insisted he was in greensboro that morning, nowhere near charlotte. when you go to jermeir and say shannon says she was raped by you, what s his answer? he says, no, that s preposterous. you can check my phone, you can check my work logs, you can see where i was. i ll do whatever you need me to do. reporter: but shannon told police all the evidence they needed just might be sitting in jermeir s garbage can, which was where she suggested he stashed the knife. and sure enough, jermeir s going out to put his garbage in his can and sees the knife in there. he immediately calls his police department and that s when they find the neighbors who said, yeah, they saw the night before some other car come up and heard a thump and somebody saw somebody throwing something in his can and leave. it wasn t shannon. no identification was made about that. reporter: just a dark figure in a hoodie. that s correct. reporter: was the knife planted? there s no proof either way, but i
same complex. durham 911, where is your emergency? i think this girl just fell down the stairs.ge she s at the bottom of the t stairs, head busted up and blood everywhere. okay, is she responding to you at all?er she s not even moving. do you want me to get her id out of her pocket? if you can. her name is denita monique smith.ca okay. denita! she ain t moving, man. reporter: denita seemed to have perhaps lost her balance and fallen down the stairs. police and paramedics rushed to the complex. the college was quickly notified, as was denita s family.eg miss smith, denita fell. she s unconscious, but they re trying to revive her. he said, are you coming to durham? and i m still trying to wrap my head around, you fell, unconscious, revive.un i said, yes, i m coming. reporter: sharon and her two other children lived in te charlotte, almost a three-hour drive from durham. on my way there i did call jermeir.
little bit of confusion. what do you mean? like when i said, did you speak with her, and he didn t really give me a yes or a no. he just sound a little rushed like, edythe, you know, just sit tight., stay calm. i m sure, you know, we ll get to her. reporter: also rushing to get to denita was her mother, sharon smith, who was driving to durham from charlotte. you re thinking this is an accident. mmm-hmm. but she s going to be okay? mmm-hmm. i thought she was at the hospital. reporter: durham police arrived and taped off the scene. we found denita at the bottom of the steps, and we were basically there was a pretty large police presence at the time. reporter: detective shawn pate wasn t sure exactly what he was dealing with, but it was beginning to look a lot more serious than just an accident on the stairs. however, we weren t able to determine what the injuries were. we saw there was blood coming from her head, she had her
how d jermeir look? like a blank expression. he was calm.a and he was like you know, it s going to be okay. he was like, calm down. i was like, my heart is breaking right now. i m like, and it s breaking for you, too. because i m like, this is your future wife. i m like, who saw this coming? reporter: but edythe didn t know the worst of it. her close friend denita hadn t died in a tragic accident. police discovered denita had been murdered, shot at almost point blank range. it s clearly intentional. reporter: and shot in the back of the head. dead center.te reporter: this was an execution.ce exactly.n. reporter: meanwhile denita s mother sharon had arrived from charlotte, still unaware of what had happened. where s my baby? and is she all right? s reporter: now police had to break the horrible news about her oldest daughter. and so that s when they
it just did not sound like him at all. why are you whispering? you know why. because somebody s listening. no. betting on it. reporter: if he s calling to intimidate her, what s the point in disguising his voice? correct. it was just no way in my mind that that was jermeir. because when i heard these tapes i knew i had the right person. reporter: the crawley family was infuriated. they were certain the calls cleared their daughter and revealed jermeir as denita s killer. they also insist jermeir was lurking in the charlotte neighborhood where shannon was staying. what we went through in charlotte with him stalking her because he was, to me, he was stalking me as well. honestly, i believe that he was his intention was to kill both of them. i do. i think they both rejected him and he was going to kill both of