The Murder of Cindy Baillee

 

This case is interesting in many ways to me. First it is the case of a woman who would eventually be executed. In fact, in 2001 when Lois Nadean Smith was executed by the state of Oklahoma she was the third woman executed by that state that year. At that time, and maybe still, her execution was notable, not just for the execution itself, or the fact that she was a woman, but also because after being the third woman that year Oklahoma got a “record” for executing the most women in a single year in any state since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. I also find it interesting because prior to this crime she had no criminal record, although I will admit that it seems she was not the most pleasant person. Maybe she had done some other things we do not know about.

Lois Nadean Smith earned the nickname “Mean Nadean” when she was in high school. I found nothing specific that she did to earn this name or anything specific about her personality at all prior to the murder of Cindy Baillee. What I can say is that at one point she was married to a man named Jim Smith and they had at least one child, James Gregory Smith, known as Greg (both in real life and as I continue in this blog). By 1982 Jim and Lois were divorced and their son was eighteen.

At some point Greg Smith was dating Cindy Baillee. The details of their relationship are not known but by July 4, 1982 they are no longer together and Greg is dating a girl named Teresa Baker. Many reports say that Cindy was twenty-one at this point but she had not yet had her that year so technically she was just twenty. In the early morning hours of that 4^th of July Lois, Greg and his new girlfriend Teresa went to a motel in Tahlequah Oklahoma and picked up Cindy. Let me just say that it took a LOT of digging to find Teresa's name. Almost everything said Lois, Greg and “another woman” went to the motel. It was not until I finally came across an appeal from Lois that I even found her name.

It is not clear what the “group” said to Cindy to get her in the car they had driven or if they forced her inside. It is also not clear as to who was driving the vehicle, but it clearly was not Lois. Most reports say that Lois confronted Cindy about a rumor that she had tried to have Greg killed. But, I would be amiss if I did not point out that there were a few reports that said it was not about having Greg killed but about something Cindy knew about Greg that could get him in legal trouble. It was alleged that she had threatened to tell the authorities what these things were. I was unable to find anything that said what those legal issues may have been. At any rate, regardless of which alleged “rumor” was going around, Lois had confronted Cindy who denied the rumor. Lois proceeded to choke Cindy and then, apparently finding a knife in Cindy's purse, Lois stabbed Cindy in the throat. A medical examiner would later say that the stab to the throat was bad enough that it contributed to her later death.

While all of this was going on in the car, the vehicle was headed to Gans Oklahoma where Greg's dad, and Lois' ex-husband, Jim Smith lived. Little was said about how, or why they went to Jim's home or even his reaction or actions pertaining to it. Jim had apparently remarried and both he and his wife were home when the group came to the house. It was later said that Jim's wife soon left the home. According to witnesses Cindy was forced to sit in a recliner while Lois taunted her with a gun for some time. Then, Lois just started firing and emptied the gun. Cindy had been hit several times at this point and fell to the floor, out of the chair. At this point Greg was in the room and while he re-loaded the gun witnesses say that not only did Lois laugh and joke about the situation, she did so while jumping on Cindy's neck. When the gun was re-loaded Lois proceeded to empty the six shot pistol one more time. This time she shot Cindy four times in the chest and twice in the head. Just how many times Cindy was shot seems to be in dispute a bit. Many things stated she was shot nine times, one article stated six. However in one of the appeals that I found it was said that the coroner reported at trial that she had been shot five times in the chest, twice in the head and once in the back. The coroner stated that at least five of the gunshot wounds were fatal and this is also where it was stated that the knife wound was “also potentially fatal.”

As most of you know I will try to dig and dig to find answer to something and when I cannot find the answer to something I let you know. Sometimes I will dig further and further for something that I think is important to the story and I feel as if generally I can figure it out. But, that was not the case here. I tried to determine just how authorities were made aware of Cindy's murder and how it led them to those involved. The only thing that I can determine is that Lois hired a lawyer the day of the murder and it was indicated she was already under arrest at that time. I can tell you that Cindy's son, Greg was also arrested and they would be the only ones that would face trials in the case. Whether others, including Teresa Baker or Jim Smith were ever arrested is unclear but it appears even if they were either no charges were filed or they were dropped.

This is where things get a little “hairy” so to speak. As I mentioned earlier Lois retained an attorney the day of the murders. Her son Greg petitioned the courts for an attorney. The court appointed the same attorney that was representing Lois to represent Greg. On the surface this alone seems to be a blaring conflict of interest and while I have already let you know that Lois was obviously convicted, in a separate trial Greg was also convicted. Appeals from both of them delve deeply into this issue pertaining to the subject that they had the same attorney. It appears that the attorney was very up front with both of them from the very beginning. In fact, he gave them the opportunity from the start to dismiss him from one of their cases. It was said that at least Lois insisted that she wanted him to continue to represent her and that she had no issue with him also representing her son. It was also said that Lois and Greg both told their story to the attorney and they were both told that if they ever changed that story he could no longer represent them both.

The original story, while never seems to say how they came about going to the motel where Cindy was located, at least that I could find, was that Lois had basically done all of the injuries to Cindy. They would both insisted that while at Jim's home Greg was in another room with Teresa when Lois first opened fire on Cindy. They also both admitted that Greg had reloaded the gun for Lois who then opened fire again. It seems that it remained this way right up until time for Lois' trial that began December 6, 1982.

At that point Lois seemed to change her story and instead of taking responsibility for shooting Cindy she now began saying that it was Teresa who had done the shooting. While her story had changed and her attorney had warned her of this in the beginning I can only gather that he continued for two reasons. One, it was very near the time for the trial and two, Lois' new story did not have Greg involved anymore than her original story. It was not as if she was now claiming that Greg had done the shooting. Lois went on the stand in her trial and told this new story. Her new claim was that Teresa was jealous of Cindy. Teresa on the other hand testified at the trial and apparently told a story similar to what Lois and Greg's original story had been in which she and Greg were in another room when the shooting began. Her defense actually used her new theory (Teresa being the shooter) as the basis of their case.

Aside from Teresa's testimony there was also evidence based on Lois' clothing that experts claimed was blood splatter that showed she had been the person to fire the gun. It is unclear whether Greg or even his father, Jim, testified against Lois. Whether other evidence was presented is unknown. In my blogs I generally like to tell you at least how long a trial took, when there was a conviction and how long it took a jury to come to their decision. All I could find when it came to this case was that the trial began on December 6^th and Lois was sentenced on December 29, 1982 to death. This is because almost all of the appeals I found in the case simply laid out the story of the case and then revolved around the issues of possible conflict of interest involving her lawyer.

As I stated earlier, this possible conflict of interest did jump out at me in the beginning and while I was disappointed in the appeals and what they did not contain, I was happy at how they explained and addressed this issue, one that really came down to the law. The first appeal I came across for Lois was in 1986. I did find another filed and decided in 2000. Both of these appeals upheld the conviction and the sentence. They also both dismissed the issue of conflict of interest, which was also entwined with the standby issue of ineffective counsel.

In the 1986 appeal the court pointed out that at no point was there an objection made throughout the trial pertaining to the fact that the attorney represented both Greg and Lois. This is important when it comes to the law, especially appeals. Appeals are not just asking for and expecting a “do over.” In order to have an appeal granted there must have been something done wrong within the trial. If there had been an objection made in the trial about the conflict of interest then the judge would have had to rule on that. If the judge would have overruled that objection that would be a solid basis for an appeal. Now, some could say there was no way the attorney would have made that objection and in many cases I may have agreed to that assessment. However, two things stand out here. For one, Lois always had the right to object herself and while many may say that she may not have known that, ignorance of the law is not a defense. Secondly, as I stated earlier, the attorney apparently laid things out very nicely to both Greg and Lois from the beginning. I would suspect that the attorney would have also told them if at any time they were unhappy with his representation that they could ask him to be reassigned. Of course I cannot say this for certain. What I can say is that the courts ruled that without an objection within the trial they had no standing to discuss the conflict of interest.

While I did not find the following argument in an appeal but in an article I am left to wonder if this was some sort of “last ditch effort” to prevent Lois' execution. For the most part it was said throughout that Lois had insisted that her son, who keep in mind at the time was only eighteen years old, and by all accounts had been raised by her as a single mother, was not involved in the actual murder of Cindy beyond reloading the gun for her. Lois' first appeal brought up that Teresa Baker and Jim Smith were accomplices in the murder but the court ruled that the court had found no evidence at least against Jim Smith that he had any involvement in the planning of, or the act of the crime. They would say “at best” he was an accessory after the fact. I saw no mention to the allegation against Teresa. But, in my opinion, it was after this failure that the new claim was that she “encouraged her lawyer to pursue a strategy that emphasized her son's role as the manipulator and instigator.” I believe this was done to push the idea of the conflict of interest with the attorney to make a claim that since he was also representing Greg that he was unwilling to pursue a defense that put his other client in the hot seat. Her next appeal would argue this and claim that the lawyer had purposely excluded evidence that would have put more blame on Greg. This argument too failed. Part of the reasoning for this is that evidence had been presented that Lois had “ordered others” to dispose of some of the evidence and it was she who had “arranged” an alibi story for them. This showed that it was Lois, not Greg, who had been in charge and calling the shots.

Another issue that was brought up in one of Lois' appeal was the fact that it was alleged that at the time of the murder she was under the influence of drugs and alcohol. It appears that her attorney wanted to present this evidence, if for no other reason than a mitigating factor and possibly prevent her from receiving the death penalty. The problem with this is that at her trial she refused to acknowledge that this was an issue and the courts would not accept that argument later in an appeal. By all accounts the appeals court seemingly believed that her attorney did the best job he could have done with the evidence he had and with what his client was willing to accept, or not accept. In the end Lois obviously lost all of her appeals and was executed by the state of Oklahoma at the age of sixty-one on December 4, 2001.

So this brings us to Greg. He went to trial in June of 1983, nearly six months after his mother had been given the death penalty. There really is little to be known about his trial since so much of this case surrounds his mother. The media is good at creating drama and there are few things more dramatic than a woman murdering her son's ex-girlfriend, especially in the manner in which Cindy was murdered, and sentenced to death. On June 21, 1983 Greg was convicted and he was ultimately given two life sentences. He filed an appeal in 1988 but it too was almost exclusively about the conflict of interest pertaining to the attorney. In fact, Greg's appeal did not even go through the events of the crime as most do and referred to Lois' appeal to see those. Like the court had ruled in Lois' case, they too ruled in Greg's that there had been no objection made throughout the trial as to this and they could not or would not agree that a conflict existed.

Greg's story does not end with his conviction in this case. He was actually released in January of 2009 on parole but Greg could not stay out of trouble. He was soon back behind bars on possession of marijuana charges after receiving a two year sentence and was released again in April of 2011. He apparently began dating a woman and according to her and her family he had been abusive. Throughout the year of 2014 Greg was charged, or arrested for several things. First there was a “driving while impaired” in May. The following month he was charged with violating an open container law. In August there was a claim of assault and battery, possession of a controlled substance, possession of paraphernalia and driving while intoxicated. Piecing things together it appears that Greg and the woman he was dating may have left Oklahoma at that point and ended up in Colorado. I say this because the woman would later tell authorities that she tried to get away from Greg in Colorado but he had “tracked” her down in Bozeman Montana sometime in October of 2014.

In December of 2014 authorities received a call from the woman claiming that she had been held against her will in a motel in Bozeman motel for two months. Police arrived and Greg was taken into custody. By this point there was a warrant for his arrest out of Oklahoma for violating parole. I could find nothing The only other thing I found pertaining to the events in Montana was a change.org petition that was created by the victim's daughter. According to the petition the woman had recently been notified that authorities “may not” be able to charge Greg with kidnapping. What I can tell you is that Greg is currently an inmate with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. And, while their website is not as informational as some others it indicates that he was violated and is currently continuing to serve the remainder of his life sentence. Whether that means the rest of his life or not, I cannot say. The website only says that the case is active indicating that is the charge for which he is currently serving. They only show release dates after they have occurred and do not have any information as to whether he has a parole date or even an end date. Some states will say 00/00/0000 as an end date which obviously indicates they are not eligible for parole at any time.