Charles "Red" Smith

Once again I have come across a case in which I simply could not find a lot of information. However, the information I did find was quite interesting. The last case that I discussed this issue it was a very cut and dry case. There was a perpetrator, there were victims and there was a conclusion even if I was unable to fill in the blanks in the middle. This case is much different.

Of course there is a victim. But it is unclear just who the perpetrators in this case were. Every prosecutor has a theory on how a crime was committed based on the their idea of who the perpetrator(s) is. Even when that theory falls apart it is difficult to change that theory, especially when that theory involves more than one person. So to tell this story will be a little difficult.

What I can tell you is that on the night of December 10, 1982 in Fort Wayne Indiana, twenty year old Carmen Zink lost her life. She had been shot in the head. Carmen was with another woman, someone I was unable to name, leaving a local restaurant when allegedly two masked men attempted to rob them in the parking lot. During the struggle one of the men shot Carmen.

On January 5^th three men were arrested. They were Phillip Lee, Briddie Johnson and Charles “Red” Smith. I cannot tell you what lead authorities to these men or how things came about that Phillip Lee would apparently be the first to confess. According to the story Lee would tell, he was the getaway driver for Smith and Johnson, who was his brother in law. He claimed that while Johnson and Smith attempted to rob the women, it was Smith who actually shot Carmen.

For his testimony against Smith prosecutors agreed to drop all charges against Lee. However, it was said that no one knew about this until much later. Johnson's charges were later said to have been reduced to simple armed robbery although the Indiana Department of Corrections listed his charge as robbery causing serious bodily injury. Charles Smith went on trial in September of 1983. He was charged with capital murder and the prosecution was asking for the death penalty.

I found a report that stated that prior to the trial “physical evidence from the scene of the crime, including Zink's bloody clothes, had been either lost or destroyed by the prosecution.” It was also claimed that the only evidence against Smith was the word of Lee, who again, apparently no one knew he had been all but granted immunity. For his part Smith had claimed that he was at a pool hall on the night of the murder. At his trial it was said that the defense not only failed to adequately cross examine Lee with obvious holes in his story but they also failed to bring witnesses to confirm Smith's alibi. Apparently just before the trial was preparing to begin the defense had listed the owner of the pool hall as a witness but it was said that they spelled his name wrong in the pretrial notice and the judge would not let the man testify.

On September 21, 1983 Charles Smith was convicted in the murder of Carmen Zink and was sentenced to death. Not long later Briddie Johnson went to trial. He too was convicted, only of robbery, and he was given a forty year sentence due to the fact that he was considered to be a habitual offender. Both Smith and Johnson appealed their cases. Smith's appeal was denied in 1985 and Johnson's followed in 1986.

You have often heard me speak about how appeal papers are my “go to.” They lay out the story of the crime, or at least the theory of the prosecution since appeals really only happen when there has been a conviction. Now, before anyone says anything I know that prosecutors can appeal things but those are cases where a judge has made a decision, generally in an appeal. For instance, if an appeals court overturns a conviction based on something they felt the prosecution did or did not do they have the right to appeal that judgment but you do not see them when there has been an acquittal despite how much a prosecutor may disagree. In both Smith and Johnson's appeals the prosecution theory, based on Phillip Lee's story that they were involved and what happened is told.

I only saw one appeal for each but at least in Smith's case there was more than one, I just did not find it. On March 22, 1986 a stay of execution for Smith was granted when his new lawyers argued that the original lawyers were incompetent and he deserved a fair trial. While I have my go to to appeal papers, lawyers tend to use “ineffective counsel” as theirs and few are successful. In fact, I have seen appeals in which a judge has basically said they are tired of seeing this used. The problem is that sometimes it really is true and sometimes due to the overuse of this motion it can be passed over easily. This was not a case in which the judges ignored the motion thankfully. It was argued that Smith's defense not only did not call any witnesses to verify his alibi but they had failed to adequately cross examine Phillip Lee on the stand. It was said that Lee's story was full of inconsistencies and the defense failed to point them out. On December 13, 1989 the Indiana Supreme Court overturned Smith's conviction based on ineffective counsel and ordered a new trial.

Charles Smith went back on trial in 1991. This time the defense not only presented alibi witnesses but also witnesses who testified Lee had admitted to framing Smith. Considering that there was no other evidence against Smith it seems to be no surprise that on May 9, 1991 he was acquitted on all charges and released. To be fair, considering that the name is a fairly common name I cannot tell you if he has stayed out of trouble since that time.

What I can tell you is that Johnson was given a forty year sentence and was released in October of 2003. It does not appear that Smith's second verdict, which cleared him affected Johnson's case in any way. If you look at Johnson's 1986 appeal, prior to Smith's acquittal, it still tells the story that involved Smith. I can also tell you that it appears that Phillip Lee continues to have legal issues. I must be fair in saying that I cannot state with absolute certainty that the Phillip Lee that I found was the same one from this crime but it seems highly unlikely that another Phillip Lee would have so many issues, all out of Allen County, where the murder of Carmen Zink occurred. In October of 1988 he received a three year sentence for theft and receiving stolen property. It is not completely clear when he was released but in April of 1989 he received an eight year sentence for robbery. It appears that he was released from this sentence in January of 1994. Then in December of 1996 he was sentenced to eighty years for the charge of dealing in cocaine. He is currently in an Indiana state prison with a projected release date of February 2036.

In the end Carmen Zink's family did not receive not only justice, but the truth. If the statement I found is true that evidence, including her bloody clothing was lost by the prosecution prior to Charles Smith's trial and that the only evidence they had against him was the word of Phillip Lee then the prosecutors themselves were negligent. It is appalling to me not just that they lost evidence that could have brought her family justice but that they were willing to file charges against someone based solely on the word of someone else, who also claimed to be at the scene. That is not to even mention the fact that they then gave Lee a deal in which he faced no charges in this case for his testimony against Smith. The question becomes, were any of the three men involved? It seemed to appear that one woman survived the robbery but there was no mention that she was able to identify anyone. As I stated early on I could not find any information about how investigators were led to these three men as being involved in first place. We do know that after they were arrested Phillip Lee started talking. If the second jury got it right in their acquittal of Smith does that mean Johnson's jury also got it wrong? That is a possibility but it does not seem that that theory was ever pursued. There is also the possibility that Johnson and Lee were both involved themselves. With Lee's criminal history it is also plausible that he created the story to get away from some other charges he may have been facing. Was more than one deal made with him? The answer to these questions will likely never be answered and surely will never be solved at a legal level.