 "Photo: Corliss Pauling / Echo staff photographer")
 "Photo: Corliss Pauling/Echo staff photographer")
 "Photo: Echo file photo")
Before Shannon Elizabeth Crawley was sentenced to life in prison, Denita Smith’s mother had a few words for the former Guilford County 911 operator.
“I may forgive you, but right now, I don’t,” Sharon Smith said. “I hope you burn in hell. You are vile and you don’t deserve to be a mother.”
Crawley, 29, was convicted on Feb. 22 for the 2007 killing of Smith, 25, an N.C. Central University graduate student. Smith was shot in the head as she left her Campus Crossings apartment on Jan 4.
Smith and Crawley were both dating Jemeir Stroud, a Greensboro police officer and NCCU alumnus who was engaged to Smith at the time of the killing.
Crawley claimed Stroud, who she said killed Smith, forced her to accompany him to Campus Crossings previous to and on the day of the shooting.
But Michael Hedgefield, a maintenance worker at the apartment complex who first identified Crawley’s burgundy Ford Explorer, said he only saw and spoke with a black woman near where Smith was killed on the day of the shooting.
Prosecutors presented forensic evidence that placed Crawley at the scene and showed that Smith was killed with a gun that Crawley purchased.
They also questioned Crawley’s ability to tell the truth, from a past unsubstantiated rape allegation against Stroud, to a claim that she never visited Durham but said she was with Stroud the day of the shooting.
Crawley’s cell phone records placed her within a mile of Smith’s apartment the day before her death.
Crawley claimed Stroud threatened the lives of her and her children if she didn’t go to Durham with him.
“When you are in the cycle of abuse, you can't see the obvious solutions in front of you,” said Scott Holmes, Crawley’s attorney.
Prosecutors did not fully determine whether Crawley or Stroud committed the murder, Holmes said. His closing arguments focused on the testimony of Durham Police homicide investigator Shawn Pate, who said “We can neither prove nor disprove that he [Stroud] did it.”
Holmes added that detectives didn’t thoroughly investigate Stroud, questioning him “like a couple of officers at the bar.”
But Stroud would have had plenty of opportunities to kill Smith, Assistant District Attorney David Saacks said.
“Is this really the way Jemeir would have done it,” he said.
“He could have lured Denita anytime anywhere. Why involve the defendant? Why would Jemeir involve someone he deemed mentally unstable?”
“Crawley is the only one pointing at Stroud — everything else is pointing at her.”
As an undergraduate, Smith was an Eagle Scholar, a member of Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society, a saxophonist with the Sound Machine and a member of the Worship and Praise Inspirational Mass Choir.
As a reporter and photographer for the Campus Echo, Smith earned a fellowship to the New York Times Student Journalism Institute.
Smith finished her undergraduate degree in 2004. As an English graduate student, Smith was working on her masters’ thesis about the expression of black identity in the works of Richard Wright and Tupac Shakur. She became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. a month before she was killed.
During a B.N. Duke Auditorium memorial after her funeral, Rev. Michael Page of Campus Ministry spoke about the university’s reaction to her death.
“Our hearts are numb. And our minds are confused,” he said.
Durham Superior Court Judge Ronald Stevens, who presided over the Crawley trial, shared the same sentiments.
“This is perhaps one of the most tragic cases this court has ever tried,” he said. “Jemeir Stroud caused the perfect storm to happen and that was unfortunate for everyone.”
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