Emma Raine

If you do a search on Emma Raine you will hear the phrase “Black Widow.” We all know what that means, at least in a criminal sense. The only real issue here is that at least as of June of 2018 Emma has only been convicted in the murder of one of her technically four husbands. She was convicted in 2016 for the contract murder of her second husband, Ernest Smith who was killed at his home in 2006. However, authorities suspect her in the strange death of her first husband, Leroy Evans who, at the time of his death in 1994 was paralyzed after a car accident and and died from “choking” after his feeding tube was “mysteriously removed.” She is also suspected as being involved in the death of her third husband, James Raine, who like her second was shot dead in his home. But, to be fair Emma has never been charged in the deaths of James Raine or Leroy Evans. And yes, I did mention she had four husbands... her last, John Golston is still alive and well and has argued against her conviction for murder.

On October 21, 2011 James Raine was at his home in Poplarville Mississippi when he was shot multiple times in the head. His wife, Emma was out of town and had called James' mother asking her to check on James as she could not reach him. Soon after James' murder his adoptive brother, Alfred Everette confided to his family that he had reason to believe that Emma was behind the murder. It was then that Alfred told them that he, himself had murdered Emma's second husband, Ernest Smith in New Orleans in 2006 at the behest of James and Emma. The family encouraged him to talk to the police and turn himself in but after several months he had not done so and the family went to the New Orleans police themselves. This obviously jump started their cold investigation into Ernest's murder.

Investigators would say that through their continued investigation and information eventually given to them by Alfred Everette they were able to piece things together and charge Emma with the murder. Investigators also apparently began looking into the deaths of James Raine and Leroy Evans, thus the nickname the media managed to give her.

Of course investigators could not go solely on the word of Alfred Everette to build their case. Sure, he was confessing to the murder of another human being, but his brother had also been killed and they had to be certain he was not just looking to seek revenge against Emma. Life insurance benefits and how Emma chose to report those benefits, or not report them as the case may be also played a big role in being able to get her on a criminal level. Investigators learned that in November of 2005 apparently with Ernests' knowledge Emma had increased his life insurance from $100,000 to $800,000 including a $10,000 benefit to his daughter. Keep in mind that this was New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina had just hit and destroyed the city in August of that year. In fact all of the water was barely even out of New Orleans before Emma was raising that insurance. I mean there had just been a catastrophe and lives were lost, it was probably not uncommon that people raised their life insurance.

In February of 2006 the policy was changed to add James Raine, who Emma was already having an affair, as a 50/50 beneficiary. Ernest Smith, who was a minister in the area, was murdered just outside his home on April 15, 2006. It appears as if the insurance company may have been giving her some problems in paying out the claim. I cannot say whether that had to do with the company themselves, issues still swirling with Hurricane Katrina or simply the fact that Ernest had been murdered and the obvious number one suspect had to be Emma. But three months after Ernest had been murdered Emma hired an attorney to represent her with the claims against the company. In March of 2007 Emma's daughter from her first marriage posed as Ernest Smith's daughter and signed paperwork giving all proceeds to Emma. Of course at the time it was not known that this was not Ernest Smith's daughter. After it was discovered Emma's daughter would plead guilty to forgery.

It appears that in 2009 Emma was finally given half of the now $834, 988.74 from the life insurance. I cannot say why she only received half or exactly how that was determined. But, it seems that Emma and James had already married, or at the very least had never broken up. The money was used to help pay off relative's debts, buy land and build a house in Poplarville Mississippi. They obviously went through the money very quickly because by 2010 they were filing bankruptcy.

In the meantime during all of this not only was Emma not accurately reporting her own income to the IRS she was filing taxes for other people and claiming credits that they were not entitled to. And, she may have gotten away with it if James Raine had not been murdered. It was his murder, whether she was involved or not, that pushed Alfred Everette to confess to killing Ernest Smith and later giving details the police. It was because of that the police dug as much as they could and at this point likely believed she was not just responsible for one murdered husband, but three and they were willing to get her on a forgery or tax evasion charge if that was what it took to get her behind bars.

Although it seems that Emma soon left Mississippi after James' murder and moved to Missouri it appears she obviously still owned the house the two had shared. A year after James' murder the home burnt to the ground. Investigators ruled the fire as an arson and while I did not see anything that outright accused Emma of being involved you have to believe that investigators likely thought so. Once in Missouri Emma met John Golston. While it is not clear how or when they met John would say they had not known each other very long when they married in December of 2012. He did say that he knew she had been widowed three times.

Investigators made their way to Emma's Missouri home in 2013 and arrested her. According to John Golston they initially told her that she was arrested for fraud but that she was transferred to New Orleans where she faced murder charges. She was in fact indicted on fraud charges but not until October of 2014. And, she was initially charged with first degree murder in the death of Ernest Smith.

In the meantime Alfred Everette had given his story to investigators and he went on trial in December of 2014. According to Everette he had been promised $10,000 of the life insurance proceeds by both Emma and his brother, James Raine. I never found a confirmation that he ever received the monies, but then again I never saw an allegation that he did not. At the time while Emma and Ernest lived in New Orleans, Everette lived in Mississippi and claims he drove to New Orleans, committed the murder and then went back home. He claimed that on his way back to Mississippi he threw the 9 mm handgun he had used into a lake. At Everette's trial there was evidence presented about Leroy Evans' death although I am unsure the relevance it had other than to express that Emma had been the instigator and that she was suspected in the death of a husband prior to Ernest. I am sure the death of James Raine was discussed considering it was his murder that had prompted Everette's confession in the first place to family members. Everette was convicted in the 2^nd degree murder of Ernest Smith and was given a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole

In August of 2016 Emma Raine went on trial. Although she had initially been charged with first degree murder it seems prosecutors had changed that to second degree by the time the trial began. The judge in her trial did not allow evidence surrounding Leroy Evans' murder to be presented, and in fairness this seemed to be rightly so. While there is speculation that she was involved in his death there has obviously not been enough evidence to charge her and while society does not always abide by the rule, the justice system is supposed to remember that people are innocent until proven guilty. Now, we do often see other crimes presented at a trial when there have been only charges filed but even those cases are iffy to present. To be fair aside from the evidence of insurance fraud that apparently the defense openly admitted to, I found little evidence presented that she was involved aside from Alfred Everette's statements. Emma's defense argued that it was Everette and James Raine acting alone that had orchestrated Ernests' murder. The jury did not seem to buy it and on August 12, 2016 they found Emma guilty in the 2^nd degree murder of Ernest Smith. It has been said that prosecutors worked with James Raine's family so as to schedule Emma's sentencing to occur on October 21^st of that year, making it the five year anniversary of James Raine's murder. It was then that she was given the same sentence Alfred Everette had received, a mandatory life without parole sentence.

The following month Emma would plead guilty to failing to report her taxable income for the years 2010 and 2011, and for filing false tax returns for clients in the years 2008-2010. The government had calculated that they had lost $94,000 in her failure to report income and another $150,000 for the false tax returns. I am unsure what sort of sentence or restitution she was ordered from that case.

The state of Louisiana does not have their own website when it comes to the Department of Corrections and use the website Vinelink that really gives you little to no information other than that the inmate is incarcerated. I found nothing as of this time that either case has been appealed and released to the public but I suspect it will be at some point, especially in Emma's case.