The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases. And missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. Thank you so much for hanging in with us this week. You can probably tell from my voice I'm still a little sick, but I'm feeling much better. And for me, part of respecting these stories is being able to tell them with the best of everything, the best audio, best research, and also the best voice. So I didn't want to be a sick mess. Recording on Sunday is when we usually record.
And have people not listen to the episode because they don't want a sick person in their ear. Yeah, I feel like now is a maybe okay time to mention that, especially if you've been listening to us for a year now, you have been with us when we've been sick a couple of times. We are a times two autoimmune household. So sometimes, unfortunately, when we get sick, when one of us gets sick, we both get sick.
And usually it knocks us out for like a few days as opposed to someone who has maybe a stronger immune system than myself or Ali. So we appreciate you always coming back and being a part of what we're trying to do here. And even after, you know, especially even when we're on the mend, we love to get back in the booth like Ali is right now. And yeah, I think that's it. We have Episode 62. Awesome. So this week we are on a missing person case.
And we are going to be talking about the case of Jeffrey Lynn Smith. And this takes place December 4, 1985, in Hot Springs, Arkansas. At first, a little bit about Jeffrey Lynn. Jeffrey went by her middle name Lynn. But there's a story behind her first name, Jeffrey, which is pretty interesting. So her mother, Clarice, was a housekeeper and nanny for Virginia Kelley and her then husband Jeff Dwyer. Virginia is the mother of former President Bill Clinton.
According to Clarice, since Virginia and Jeff were unable to have children, they wanted Clarice to name her child after Jeff. When Clarice gave birth to a baby girl, she was going to name her Shirley, but Virginia and Jeff's feelings were hurt, so she changed the name to Jeffrey Lynn. Now, Clarice didn't have much interaction with Bill Clinton since he was already out of the household and attending Oxford on his Rhodes Scholarship at this time.
But when he came home to visit, he did meet Clarice while she was pregnant with Lynn. Lynn was 16 years old in 1985. She had turned 16 in October of that year. And as a gift, her parents gave her an opal ring. Lynn adored her ring and wore it every day. Her sister Lisa said that Lynn protected the ring, quote, as if it were one of the crown jewels of England, end quote. Lynn has a bright smile and was shy around strangers, but very talkative around those she loved.
Lynn loved her hair and according to her mother was a sweet and lovely young lady. She followed the rules and listened to her mother. She never gave her mother any trouble at all. And now a timeline of events. On December 4th, 1985, this starts as a typical day for Lynn. She heads to school wearing pink pants, a brown jacket and tan shoes. After the school day ends, Lynn is walking home with her then boyfriend named Frank and a friend named Lisa, not her sister Lisa, but a friend named Lisa.
Lynn's aunt actually sees the trio walking and stops to ask if they want to ride. They say no, they were okay walking and they continue on their way. Lisa leaves Lynn and Frank to head to her home. Lisa tells Lynn's sister years later, quote, I left parted ways with them and she was headed home. They just kept walking, end quote. This was near the intersection of Crescent Street and Silver Street in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which was just blocks from her home.
Frank says that he and Lynn parted ways and she was headed home. Despite being close to her home, Lynn never makes it there. Clarice instantly starts to panic when Lynn doesn't come home. Lynn has never missed her curfew before and she's never given her parents a reason to worry. Clarice calls the police who do not take Lynn's disappearance seriously. Police believe that she'll be back soon and is probably just out with friends. Police treat the disappearance as a runaway.
On December 5th, 1985, the next day, Clarice knows something is absolutely wrong. Not only had Lynn never missed curfew, but she certainly had never stayed out all night. Her family knows that there is no way that she ran away. Clarice calls her daughter Lisa, crying and telling her that Lynn didn't come home last night. Police stand firm that she ran away and do not launch any official searches for the girl that I could find any reports on.
According to the family, they were the ones hitting the streets every single night, hanging up posters, asking folks to be on the lookout and if they have seen her. Lynn's boyfriend, Frank, does join the family in their nightly searches for Lynn, but no trace of her is found. After some time, it's unclear if this was days or weeks after Lynn's disappearance, but the police contact her family to let them know they had some news. They found Lynn's beloved opal ring at a pawn shop.
It had been pawned the day Lynn disappeared. Police do not confirm who the person was that pawned it. However, it does appear that in 1985, it would have been required to show an ID to pawn an item, but the pawn industry wasn't as regulated as it is today, so there may have been some shops who were slipping through the cracks. I mention all of that because police have never confirmed who pawned the ring.
The family does have their suspicions on who the person was, but in theory, if all protocols were followed, the police should know who pawned Lynn's ring the day she disappeared. The case truly goes cold after this. Police never launch any official searches, and it's only the family who are out searching for Lynn during this period. Lynn's family did move out of Arkansas for a bit, but they moved back in 2005, nearly 20 years after Lynn disappeared.
They move back with the hopes of reopening the case and getting answers to what happened to Lynn. Lisa, Lynn's sister, did manage to talk to two women who had dated Lynn's boyfriend, Frank. Both women were abused by him, and Frank would end up serving jail time for a myriad of reasons. Lisa transcribed the interviews and turned them over to police. Lynn's family and their relationship with the police was very tense.
Not only had they not taken Lynn's disappearance seriously in 1985, but at one point, the police called the family down to the station saying that they had news about Lynn's disappearance. When the family arrived, instead of giving them news, they arrested her stepfather on an outstanding traffic warrant. Lisa says, quote, that was inhumane. The people who were supposed to protect us were playing games, end quote.
In 2007, Lynn's family was able to sit down and review the police file on Lynn's disappearance and found many inconsistencies. The biggest flaw, the family felt, was that Lynn's ex-boyfriend, Frank, wasn't examined more closely. The police did interview Frank, but the family does not believe it was enough. According to Lisa, quote, the interview consisted of them standing at his door and asking him a question. They interviewed him for five minutes.
My mom and dad sat outside the door and watched, end quote. In 2008, the case was reopened by the Hot Springs police and reclassified as a homicide. Police say they do have a suspect whose statements have been inconsistent. Police search wooded areas and fields, but nothing related to Lynn is found, per the police. When the police do reopen the case, they put the family in touch with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The center does produce an age-progress photo of Lynn on what she might look like at 38. Lisa becomes heavily involved with the volunteering for the organization, and it's something that she continues to do to this day. In 2010, police bring cadaver dogs to a heavily wooded area searching for clues related to Lynn. The Hot Springs police sergeant, Jeffrey Micah, told the media again that they do have a suspect in the case, but they declined to release the person's name.
And that is truly the last update I could find around Lynn's case. Lisa has done an incredible job keeping Lynn's case in the public eye and with her volunteer work at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but there have been no new leads or police activity that have been reported in regards to Lynn's disappearance. The family honors Lynn every holiday season by handing out what they call Lynn bags to people experiencing homelessness.
In the bags, they put socks, gloves, toiletries, food, and a crisp $5 bill to hand out to those in need. According to the family, when they hand the bags out to those who need it, their eyes light up and they get to experience Lynn's bright eyes once again. And this is how they honor her memory, which is really beautiful. But that is really all we know about the disappearance of Jeffrey Lynn Smith.
So if you know anything about the disappearance of Lynn Smith or her whereabouts today, you are encouraged to call the Hot Springs police at 501-321-6789. And the sources for the timeline come from the Baxter Bulletin, KARK News, Lisa Murray's personal YouTube channel, News One, and rblackgirls.com. So that is the case of Jeffrey Lynn Smith. This was a case that I actually knew about.
And it was only a case that I knew some information about because it was one that I happened to come across in my own, you know, just in, I guess, offshoot investigative true crime work when I'm on the internet by myself and looking. Her case was one that I came across and just saw that maybe someone had written about it, I think. And I, unfortunately, like this, it makes me like kind of embarrassed to say, like, I couldn't remember the name. All I could remember was how mishandled it seemed.
I guess those are my first reactions is that it was one that I kind of knew about. And once you started talking, I was like, oh, yeah, I remember her name and that she goes by or went by her middle name predominantly. And this just gives me like a little choked up just that she was very small. I remember that she was small. Yeah, she was 16 years old in 1985 when she went missing. So she was a very petite young woman. Yeah, I guess I would like to course correct a little bit.
My comment on that is I am around the same height. I know that I am small and just how easy it is to be taken advantage of physically when you are small and like the extra heartbreak around that because like people know that they can take advantage of people who are smaller more easily, you know.
My question for you, though, coming into this is what what do you have to say about the boyfriend, because I know you gave the telling of the story, but I'm very interested in your thoughts and opinions on that. I think you always need to eliminate the last person who saw the person before they disappeared or you know, before they were murdered. You have to cross them out almost in the same way that, you know, when people are married, you have to cross the spouse out.
Like you have to start there and then kind of work your way out. So to me, when the family talks about that they do not believe that the boyfriend was investigated thoroughly, and really it's Lynn's sister, Lisa, doing a lot of the investigation of contacting ex-girlfriends of this guy and transcribing those interviews and then sending it to police.
So it's pretty clear that the family thinks that there needs to be more investigation into him if for no other reason because he was the last person to see her before she disappeared. She never made it home. We know that she was pretty close to home, but she never made it there. So why? And if Frank did not do it, what did he see? Did he see any cars? Did he see any people walking with them? You know, was anybody on the sidewalk?
I think those are all questions that I would want answered if I, you know, was looking into this case and allowed to investigate it. Those are all things that I would be asking and wanting to know and wanting to get a consistent answer. The police do say they have a suspect. They've never released the name in the case, but they do say that the suspect has been inconsistent with their statements. So that's something too, where is the inconsistencies coming from?
That's something I would be very curious about. Oh, thank you for that. And circling back to Lynn's sister, just what an incredible human being, like what she's done since her sister's disappearance. Even if I'm not mistaken, she moved away and then moved back with kind of like the intention to devote a significant portion of her life to finding answers about what happened to her sister, right?
Yeah, just, I don't know if she'll hear this or anyone who knows her, but you're an amazing person and while I don't understand what it is to go through experiencing a loved one being missing or not having answers, I am now in a new chapter of my life where I understand loss and the permanence that it takes up in you. I know I've mentioned it before with other people who've dedicated their lives to finding answers about their missing loved ones.
Again, I'm just echoing it here of like, when you are dedicating your life, you are dedicating every part of you to doing this. I just think that she's an incredible person and a great sister. To speak more on her boyfriend, Frank, I wasn't necessarily asking because I think or thought that it was him.
Unfortunately, I think with the existence of podcasts and just like true crime exposure and media, the first 48 or whatever has notably ruined some people's lives when they weren't the person who committed the crime. And you are, oh, I love you and I think you are amazing, but you are so mindful of that even when you know a cold case like this is presenting itself with a very possible like, maybe this guy did it, you still speak about it with mindfulness.
So my next question to you is, and I can't remember if you mentioned this already, but why did they, why did they first go in the direction of a runaway? I don't know for sure. The police never really say their reasoning behind why they classified this as a runaway. But given the South in 1985, I would think that this is a young black girl who didn't come home one day. And the police just weren't that worried about it.
So what's kind of the easiest thing for a minor is to say they ran away and they'll be on the lookout, you know, even though again, Lynn had no history of running away. She had no history of even missing her curfew. Like her family is very solid in their response that she was like a good girl.
And even if you're quote, a bad kid, like you absolutely deserve to be looked for, but this was so outside of the normal for Lynn, like she really respected and minded her parents and kept to the curfew that they set for her and certainly wouldn't stay out all night. So I think that it was just the police not really caring.
Yeah. Thank you for saying it as blatantly as I thought when I heard it was this is a pure example of systemic racism and it's just disgusting and heartbreaking to know that they just didn't care that it just wasn't even anything else.
Yeah, you know, one thing that Lisa did talk about one of her goals kind of in reaching out and creating her own, you know, she created her own YouTube channel where she talks about Lynn's case and also talks, you know, kind of interviews her mother, Clarice, on, you know, how Lynn got the name Jeffrey Lynn. And I would hope that at some point the media really picks up the story and runs with it.
And Mr. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton can hear about it because I, you know, however you feel about them, they're people with immense power, immense money, immense influence, and they can pour money into this investigation and not miss a beat out of their lives. And that was like a goal of Lisa's was to get this to Bill Clinton somehow. And like the family acknowledges, like, you know, the Clintons don't owe them anything.
But if Bill Clinton is a humanitarian, as he claims to be, and the same with Hillary, then this is something they should be interested in, especially having the connection of Clarice, Lynn's mother, being a housekeeper for Bill Clinton's mother and a nanny to his brother, who was, I believe, 13 at the time. So he knew Clarice very well and knew her through her pregnancy.
Clarice tells the story of when she was pregnant with Lynn, Bill Clinton came in, he was visiting his family and he was out for a jog and came in and saw that Clarice was pregnant and asked her if she was going to eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich, because all pregnant women eat that, you know, they get those weird cravings or whatever. And she said no, like she was like, no, I'm not eating that.
But you know, so there while there wasn't a lot of interaction between Bill and Clarice, like there was like she was in his family's home, caring for his siblings, caring for the mother, I believe, according to Clarice, Bill Clinton's mom was a nurse and she helped deliver Lynn. She was there when Lynn was born. So there's deep family connection there. And I've personally never had a housekeeper or a nanny in my home as a child or as an adult. That's that's never been part of my lifestyle.
But if I had somebody working in my home like that, and somebody that they loved went missing, even if I didn't know them personally, I would be very invested in getting an answer for them a resolution or if nothing else, just support. And that could come in a lot of ways, you know, that can come from just being a physical presence there, being a shoulder to lean on.
And in cases where people do have housekeepers and nannies, it could be financial support, like supporting the family so they can look full time. Those are all things that can happen with Bill Clinton involved. Absolutely. I would hope that someday soon the media picks this up, runs with it. It somehow gets to him and they can just pour money into the case and into the family and into the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and get a resolution because the answers are out there.
It's clear that the police do have some ideas maybe about what happened. They continually search wooded areas, fields, they bring in cadaver dogs. We don't know if anything was ever found in those searches. It's kind of clear that they think it has to do with a deserted area. So let's get the teams in there. Let's get the dogs in there. Let's get the searchers in there that are all over the nation. Let's get them into Hot Springs, Arkansas and find out what happened to Lynn.
So again, if you know anything about the disappearance of Lynn Smith in 1985 or her whereabouts today, please call the Hot Springs Police at 501-321-6789. And we mentioned that there is an age progress photo. We will be posting that on our Instagram along with some other photos that we found of Lynn through the years. So please, if you're not following us there, please do. And of course, if there's ever going to be a delay in an episode getting out, we always post an update on our Instagram.
So it's a great place to follow us just to keep up with the podcast. So come Monday morning, if you don't have an episode, you're in the know, you're in the why. So that's where you can find constant updates on our podcast. Also, if you need transcripts to follow along to the podcast, or if someone you love is deaf or hard of hearing, you can go to coldandmissing.com where our transcripts are uploaded along with videos and all of our back catalogs.
So it's all over there for you to listen, read, watch, even review. You can review us on there as well. Speaking of reviews, if you're an Apple podcast, if you could give us a written review, it means the world to us.
If you don't have time for that five stars, if you're in another podcast platform, whatever that metric is a thumbs up, five stars, a plus sign, I know they're all different, but whatever the positive one is, if you could give us one that helps us so much, it helps other people find us and ultimately it helps get these cases out to other people and just helps give validity to the podcast. So you're doing us a huge solid by doing that and appreciate every single one that has come through already.
I talk about y'all all the time and pray for you all the time. So that is that's in your podcast app. You can do that right now. But that is all I have. Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing. I'm your host, Allie McLaughlin-Solkowski. And I'm your cohost, Eli Slocowski. Have a great week and stay safe, y'all.