- You look into that bright, open face of hers and you think, how could she be hiding so many secrets? - There was a lot of pictures all over Rockford of a Katrina Smith that was missing. - Seconds count, minutes count. And so we were doing everything we possibly could to try to find her. - You can't even believe that you're going to a park or a wooded area to search for (VOICE CRACKS) your sister's body, potentially. And it's like, we wanted to find her but you don't wanna find her either. - Katrina's boss comes into the detective bureau and says something bizarre happened in this parking lot. - Bizarre barely covers it. Some guy throwing flyers out of the car, containing some really outrageous accusations against Katrina. Where does that piece of the puzzle fit in? - And so, what did you discover? - Like somebody sprinkling breadcrumbs like a trail. Why are you throwing them in these odd places where they can likely be found? - Is somebody playing a game of cat and mouse? Is Katrina herself leaving clues? (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Kia ora, good evening and a warm welcome to 20/20. It's great to have you with us. Katrina Smith was living what looked like a great life ` happily married to Todd, stepmum to his three daughters, and still close with her own family in the town they all lived in. But once Todd reports her missing, it all starts to unravel and secret lives for both wife and husband are revealed. (INTRIGUING MUSIC) (BIRDSONG) - It's an otherwise ordinary Friday in October of 2012. A missing person call comes in. - Sheriff's Communications, can I help you? - MAN: Yes. My wife is housesitting for somebody who's out of town and... she hasn't been answering her phone. - You haven't been able to reach your wife? - Right. - What's your wife's name? - Katrina. I guess the reason I'm concerned is her work called me and said that she didn't show up, so not really something she would do. - WOMAN: My phone rang and it was Todd. He said, 'Hey, have you talked to Katrina?' I said, 'No, why?' And he said, 'Well, she didn't show up for work today.' And immediately my stomach sank because that's not my sister. - Katrina was my second child. First daughter. She was just a happy girl. She really was. - You know, Katrina was eight years older than me. I always wanted to just grow up and be like her. (SOMBRE MUSIC) - Katrina would like to take care of people. She just always went out of her way to put other people first. - One night nine years earlier, Todd Smith was working as a DJ and he met Katrina, who had been out having fun with some of her friends. They hit it off immediately. - He just fit in with our family pretty quickly. - I thought he was a great guy, you know? He was a cool dude that I enjoyed hanging out with. - Todd was quite a bit older than Katrina, 15 years, and had three daughters from a previous marriage, but it didn't seem to matter. - Him and the girls moved in and that was it. She had built-in family. - When I met Katrina, I immediately liked her. She played with me. She remembered details about things that I liked. She was really fun. - They got engaged and then married. Their wedding video is full of warm moments. - VOICE QUIVERS: I love you. You are my best friend. - I know she was crazy about him, you know. - CELEBRANT: So now you may kiss your bride. - CHAD: There was never a doubt that Katrina was happily married to Todd, and they were always doing stuff together, working together everyday at home, you know, running a family business. - I don't think Katrina ever really told me why she stopped working with Todd and went and got a job. - She worked at Camryn Industries in Belvidere, and she was in the Human Resources department there. She was a good employee. Never missed work. - But for some reason, right about the time that she disappeared, Katrina was actually looking for another job. - Katrina called me Saturday, October 20th. She said, 'I have a job interview Wednesday.' She said, 'I'm coming over Wednesday night to talk to you about some things.' And then Wednesday never came. - I got a voicemail. She was crying and she said, 'Hey, I'm all right, but I just need to talk.' - REPORTER: Smith has been missing since Monday night when she told her husband she was going to run errands. (EERIE MUSIC) - MIRAYNDA: And there wasn't a lot of information. - Police are not revealing all they know, but they are finding clues, including one huge discovery just hours after Todd's missing persons call... Katrina's abandoned car. - The road really cuts down at a hard angle, and the vehicle was pulled off the side of the road and it looked out of place. - We had the car towed down to our police department so that the crime scene could go through the car with a fine tooth comb. It really changed our mindset in that now we're genuinely concerned about her welfare and where is she at? Is she alive? Is she dead? Is she injured? Is she being held captive? (UNEASY MUSIC) - Todd Smith told me he had no marital issues with his wife Katrina. They had a normal relationship as a husband and wife, that they had their normal amount of arguments, but nothing big. (UNEASY MUSIC GROWS) - You can't even believe that you're going to a park or a wooded area to like, search for... VOICE CRACKS: Your sister's body, potentially. And it's like, we wanted to find her so that we could find her and bring her home, but you don't wanna find her either. (UNEASY MUSIC FADES) - And yet at the same time, everyone's hearts went out to Todd. He became the face of the tragedy and the search. (TENSE MUSIC) - When I saw Todd, you know, we embraced each other and we cried. And it was hard, you know, because his wife was missing. Todd was my family, so I was, uh, hurt for him. (TENSE MUSIC BUILDS) - So Todd reported his wife missing. He seems heartbroken. If you look at him, you're like, oh, this poor guy. - WEAKLY: It's been h-h-horrible... - So I was the first reporter to interview Todd, and I really felt like this was a big step for him, that he was going to take a second to do something that was really hard for him to try to find his missing wife. - (BREATHES SHAKILY) I just want her to come home. - I'm seeing him crying, and I felt really bad for him, that he was going through this horrible thing and that something had happened to his wife and just` my heart was breaking for him. - The community started rallying around him. It gave a lot of pressure on us as the Sheriff's Department to find her and get the answers. (URGENT STRING MUSIC) Seconds count, minutes count, and so we were doing everything we possibly could to try to find her. We'd searched every square inch for a very long distance. We also had the help of the community that showed up and helped in these very large-scale searches. - REPORTER: So they're expanding the search. It's gone from this park to a 20-mile radius around it. - And that search pays off with a key discovery. - We find her purse in the woods in the brush. It's making things look really bad at this point. - Also found near the car, some paper towels that someone had thrown out. - We found some towels that had what looked like blood on them. The towels looked as though they were used to clean something. We were able to determine that the car had actually been wiped down clean on the inside. - The mystery of Katrina's disappearance deepens when another vital clue is found ` her cell phone. - The phone was essentially dropped into the bush right here. It was down at the bottom of this thing. We don't know how these pieces got there. They were being found and collected as evidence. - Like breadcrumbs along a route. - It was like somebody sprinkling breadcrumbs, like a trail. Why are you throwing them in these odd places where they can likely be found? - Detectives are stumped until they're able to examine the contents of Katrina's cell phone. They find texts between Katrina and a man who worked in her office. Turns out Katrina was having a secret affair with a co-worker. - During the background investigation of Katrina Smith, we interviewed a lot of people, including co-workers. One of these first persons that showed up at her condo the day that she was reported missing was a person by the name of Guy Gabriel. - Guy Gabriel was a co-worker that worked with her at Camryn Industries. She worked in HR and he was a supervisor in another department, so they met and began a relationship. - When we learned that Katrina Smith was having an affair with a co-worker, it opened up like Pandora's Box. It was a moment that we all looked at ourselves like, are you kidding me? She's having an affair with a guy? It was kind of a bombshell moment. - And when detectives dig deeper, they find out Guy Gabriel had a serious brush with the law in the past. He was living in a temporary residence on a campground, which they also considered suspicious. Detectives discover that in 1989, Gabriel was charged with a felony ` aggravated battery during a bar fight. Gabriel pleaded not guilty and was eventually acquitted of that charge. - We started focusing on Guy at this moment. - Detectives also learned about a bizarre incident involving Katrina and Guy Gabriel. It took place exactly two weeks before she disappeared. Some of Katrina's co-workers are sitting outside when they see an unknown car driving deliberately through the office parking lot. - A day that everybody was hanging outside the door here, as they come outside and get air, a black Volkswagen comes pulling into the lot, quickly. The person driving the car throws his hand full of flyers out the sunroof of the car and then speeds off. - But what a bizarre incident. - It was completely bizarre. The person driving the car was masked and gloved, driving a car with no plates on it, just a black car. - Some of these flyers actually drop at the feet of the co-workers, who naturally pick them up to read it. And there's a reference to, apparently Katrina but the name's shortened to Cat. There was the name 'Guy', and right in the middle was a profanity. Some rather... vulgar comments, let's say. - Those flyers detailed the affair between Katrina and Guy Gabriel, with Katrina's name deliberately misspelled. - Whoever it was wanted everybody at her work to know that she was having an affair, or having a relationship with Guy Gabriel. - On top of that disturbing incident, Katrina also had the feeling that someone was using her cell phone to track her movements, so she went to her cell phone dealer for help. The cell phone rep said Katrina seemed fine the first couple of times she visited the store, but on that last visit, something was clearly wrong. - When she came in, she was worried. She was afraid. Like, her whole demeanour was not what it had been before. - Katrina texted her stepfather about how to get a FOID card and be able to obtain a gun. - Katrina wanted to get a gun for protection. - With his previous arrest for battery and Katrina's fear that someone was tracking her movements, police believe it's more and more likely that Guy Gabriel may have had something to do with her disappearance. - We grabbed Guy Gabriel, brought him into the police department. We felt we had it. We thought we were gonna find Katrina, we thought we were gonna get information of where Katrina was. - We'd come to find out that Katrina was leaving Todd, that she was leaving this marriage and that she was done. It was the day that she went missing. - Yes, it turns out the seemingly happy couple are anything but. More on that when we return. (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) - Welcome back. Katrina Smith is missing, her husband Todd, reporting to police that she never came home after going to stay with a friend. A huge community search is underway for her, galvanised by the raw emotion that Todd is showing about his beloved wife being gone. Alongside the search, police are investigating too and they quickly discover that Katrina was having an affair with a co-worker named Guy Gabriel. - We interviewed him. We asked for a timeline of everything ` where he has been from the time that Katrina went missing up to now. - He told us everything we wanted to know, he let us in his house, he let us search everything. - He provided an alibi as to where he was and actually was confirmed he was not there, he was not anywhere close to Katrina. - So you have to dismiss him as a suspect cos he has an ironclad alibi. - We were able to easily 'disclude' him from being involved in her disappearance. - PAT LALAMA: But talking with Guy Gabriel is invaluable to investigators anyway. He drops a bombshell bit of information, according to detectives ` he claims Katrina told him her marriage to Todd was ending. She was about to leave him and had already moved out of the house. He even tells detectives that he saved the text messages she sent him about all of this. - The text reads, 'I already told him before, I wanted a divorce.' 'Appointment with attorney next Monday.' 'Numerous times I've said I have nothing to give.' - I had heard about Guy Gabriel, was someone that Katrina was confiding in that she worked with. - During the initial investigation and talking with Todd about his marriage with his now-missing wife, he tells us that everything's fine. He says she's simply housesitting for a friend, and that's it. - The fact that you caught him in a lie, what did that tell you? - We have to start wondering, why is Todd not being straight with us? - Investigators are still trying to figure out who threw out those flyers about Katrina's affair. The surveillance camera showed a black VW with no license plates. Does that mean it came from a car dealership? That's why cops scour every car lot in town to find just one match, here. So they come for a chat with the owner. - And he goes, 'Yeah, I know Todd Smith. 'He was in here not too long ago looking for a car.' - We were able to verify it on the same day, October 9th of 2012, Todd Smith actually test-drove a black Volkswagen Passat with a sunroof. - When questioned by a detective, Todd denied throwing those flyers. And of course, even if police suspected he was behind the incident, that would only make him a jealous husband. It's not proof he had anything to do with Katrina's disappearance. And the fact is, even some of Katrina's family and closest friends didn't know she wanted to end the marriage. (POIGNANT MUSIC) - Finding out that she had moved out, I didn't know that she had moved out. - PAT LALAMA: But that's not all they didn't know. Katrina's family thought Todd was running a prosperous business. Turns out, maybe not. (POIGNANT MUSIC GROWS) - Todd had some financial issues. - Todd was being investigated by the FBI. - He's involved in a wire fraud case that the federal government is investigating. (CAMERA CLICKS) - But then, a discovery that changes everything. (CHILLING MUSIC) - On November 9th, we got a phone call. There was an off-duty fireman fishing on the Rock River in Byron, Illinois. It's a good 20 miles south of where Katrina's vehicle was found. - I knew that it was a body and there was no need to go any closer. I called the sheriff's department and waited for them to come there. - The medical examiner was able to compare the dental records and was able to verify and confirm that it was Katrina Smith. (MUSIC SOFTENS) - My first reaction was just... Utter sorrow. Like, you can't believe it. But there was also this tiny bit of... relief that it was over, that we found her. - But obviously it's the news you absolutely don't want to hear. And it was just awful knowing that this is the reality. VOICE BREAKS: She's gone. (BREATHES SHAKILY) (SEARCH CREW CHATTERS INDISTINCTLY) - JOHN BERG: The autopsy revealed that Katrina Smith died as a result of blunt force trauma to her head. She had been struck many, many times by a very hard object right on top of her head. It was tremendous damage. - JUJU CHANG: Joseph Pederson is a former assistant federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Illinois. - I first became familiar with the name Todd Smith when I was assigned a case regarding investment fraud of an individual who was soliciting individuals through his insurance business to invest with a company called Electus Asset Holdings. - The FBI has been investigating Todd Smith for his alleged role in running a Ponzi scheme. - He's got a partner, his partner's already been arrested, Todd is being looked at as a suspect. Every time we had a new lead, it opened up kind of a Pandora's box. - One of the most startling discoveries was that Todd Smith wasn't always Todd Smith. - He used to have a different name. He was a Raprager, that was his last name. (MYSTERIOUS MUSIC) - Todd Raprager grew up in Machesney Park, Illinois, where he lived with his mother, stepfather, and three younger half-siblings. - The first time I met Todd was at our lockers our freshman year at Harlem High School. He seemed like a really nice kid. - LALAMA: That thin, quiet, good-looking kid was friendly and polite, but he rarely spoke of his life outside of Harlem High School. - Todd seemed like there was maybe something going on in his home life. - That home life became the subject of intense scrutiny when Todd was just 17 years old. - MAN: In March of 1985, Todd was involved in an incident wherein he had an argument with his family and went for a walk, but before he left on the walk, he unplugged the natural gas line to the home. While he was out walking, the home exploded and burned. (FLAMES ROAR) - MAN: In interviewing the owner, he said that he and his wife were awakened by an explosion. The ceiling was falling in on him. He got his wife out of the house along with one of his youngest child out of the house, but they couldn't find Todd Raprager. - According to the reports, she was outside screaming for him, thinking that he was trapped in there. - Ultimately, an interrogation of Todd resulted in Todd confessing to the fact that he had been the one that disconnected the gas line with intent that there was going to be a fire. He just wanted to scare his mother because they had not been getting along for an extended period of time. - Todd waived his right to a jury trial, and he entered a plea of guilty to the arson. He got 30 months probation and 160 hours of community service. - Looking back at it, you'd have to say... He was a troubled boy. Probably needed some help, some professional help somewhere along the line. - But Todd Smith's troubled boyhood continues into adulthood. We'll hear from his first wife right after the break. (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) - Welcome back. You're watching 20/20. Katrina Smith went missing in October 2012. Her grief-stricken husband, Todd Smith, one of the main searchers looking for her at the time. But nearly three weeks later, when her body is found, it's clear she's been murdered. Police are digging hard into Todd Smith's past. He once had a different name and committed a heinous act as a teenager. And as we continue our story, we're about to meet his first wife. - JUJU CHANG: Todd moved away shortly after the fire that destroyed his family's home, and three years later, with his legal troubles behind him, he found love with Teresa. - When I met Todd, he was working full-time at a local factory. - Teresa asked that we not reveal her last name. - I was 21 and he was 20, so we were both very young. (PEOPLE CHATTER INDISTINCTLY) We met at a party just with friends, and we hit it off and he seemed very kind and fun to be with. Seemed like a genuinely nice person. We were married in Jamaica in 1992. We decided to go that route because of his family situation. - That same year, Todd legally changed his name to Smith, his biological father's last name. His troubled past was in the rear-view mirror. Todd seemed to embrace his role as husband and father. - My dad was fun to be around. He was funny. He's a good listener. Whenever you're having a problem or you're upset about something, he noticed and he would listen like, fully and offer comfort and advice, like all the things that a normal dad would do. - There was money coming in, but there wasn't anything that could be counted on. - Teresa says with mounting debt, they were forced to sell their house and move the family into her parents' home. - I had returned to work after having our third child. I had accepted both a full-time and a part-time position, and carrying the burden of trying to pay our bills and also be the primary parent caring for the children, (INHALES DEEPLY) it became too much. (BROODING MUSIC) - The couple separated and shared custody of their three daughters. Later that same year, Teresa was the victim of a brutal robbery and assault ` an experience that has haunted her for more than two decades, something she has never talked about publicly ` until now. - We had been separated for a few months and I had gone out for the evening. Came back home, pulled into the driveway, and I was carrying my keys, my purse and a Capri Sun. I'll never forget that. And went around the corner and... I was punched in the face. Full-force, knocked me off-balance and he was wearing a Halloween mask. - Do you remember what the mask looked like? - Yes, it was a werewolf. (ASSAILANT GROWLS SOFTLY) And he started to beat me up. - So you've fallen to the ground at this point? - I was off-balance and he started punching me. - And then how did you get away? - I had gotten myself onto my knees and he went behind me, and he put his hands on my chin... VOICE CRACKS: And my` back of my head. And he was... I know he was gonna break my neck. And... I just remember thinking that my mom was gonna come out in the morning... (WHIMPERS SOFTLY) ...and find me dead in the yard. And when that thought... went through my head, I just, like, burst up. Like I had, like, an adrenaline rush or something and I just, like, stood up really fast and it knocked him backwards. And then I ran. - She reports it to the police. And who does she say that she thinks this person is? She says her husband, Todd Smith. - How can you be sure it was him? - I mean, I was married to him. I could see his eyes. I could see his body. I mean... it was him. - Todd told police he had been home at the time of the attack, and Teresa says when she confronted him days later, he denied being responsible. Fingernail scrapings taken from Teresa at the scene were compared to fibres on a jacket belonging to Todd, but the results were inconclusive. Teresa also had blood under one of her fingernails, and detectives wanted to test it for DNA and compare it to Todd's, but police say Todd refused to cooperate, and with no probable cause for a search warrant to obtain a DNA sample, they close the case. Teresa says she was actually relieved by that decision. - I was keeping it a secret. I didn't want people to find out because I didn't want... my kids to be... ashamed, so I just thought it was my... secret, my cross to bear. I would have gone to my grave with the secret. (DARK MUSIC) - LALAMA: For detectives doing a deep dive on Todd Smith in 2012, the attack on Teresa was a stunning discovery that only added to the suspicion surrounding Todd. - Lots and lots of red flags. - The investigation is now heating up, and when police canvass the neighbourhood surrounding the area where Katrina's abandoned car was found, they catch a break. Surveillance footage of an unidentified man walking in the rain less than a mile from Todd's house. - We have found surveillance cameras from houses showing this figure walking with a hood up over his head. Small-statured guy walks down on a side street. - Investigators didn't know who the mystery man in the video was, but they were convinced that they were watching Katrina Smith's killer. - When we come back, the hunt for a killer continues. Do stay with us. (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) - Kia ora ano, welcome back to 20/20. Katrina Smith's been brutally murdered, and the image her friends and family had of a happily married wife ` also broken. Police are suspicious of her husband Todd Smith, especially once his dark past is revealed. They do have CCTV footage of a man with a similar build to his, caught on camera the night Katrina vanished, but it's too grainy and far away to make a positive ID, so police pursue other evidence against him. - JUJU CHANG: They execute a search warrant at Todd's house, where a forensic examination of his laptop reveals that he was using GPS tracking software. - Katrina Smith may have been being tracked by Todd Smith with a tracking device. - The search warrant also leads to another crucial piece of evidence. - One of the items that was found was a baseball bat that was leaning in the corner of a garage. The crime scene investigator noticed something on the bat. Well, that something ended up testing positive for blood. - We then submitted that to DNA testing, and we had several matches to Katrina Smith's profile. We had it on the barrel of the bat, we had it on another area of the bat. When Todd found out that the bat was no longer in his garage and had been taken as evidence by law enforcement officers, he became very upset and nervous. - But once Katrina's body had been discovered, detectives take it to another level. - JOHN BERG: We would often find reasons for Todd to come down to the police station to talk to him. Todd immediately said, 'Where are you going with this? I don't know what you're talking about.' He got upset. Detective Lindberg has explained to him, 'We have all of this evidence.' 'It all points towards you.' You know, 'Your wife has been murdered and you did it.' He stands up, the chair goes against the wall because he's angry, points at the ceiling where the camera's at, right there in the corner and he starts screaming, 'I want my (BLEEP) attorney, I want my (BLEEP) attorney!' And he walked out of here. And every conversation after this was involving his attorney. - PAT LALAMA: On Wednesday, November 21st 2012, just 12 days after Katrina Smith's body was found in the Rock River, Winnebago County Sheriff's arrested Todd Smith. He's charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of concealing a homicide. And Todd Smith pleads not guilty to all charges. (SOBERING MUSIC) - When we got the phone call and they said, 'Hey, we got him.' Like, 'We just arrested Todd'... it was so surreal. - I truly believe, based on the evidence, that Todd thought this was a crime he was going to get away with. - Defence attorneys also file a motion to disqualify that evidence that Todd had GPS tracking software on his computer, saying there's no proof that he was tracking Katrina. - That was our impetus to go in a second time to analyse that computer. - In 2016, before we went to trial on this case, we conducted a second search on it. There was new technology, new software. I was able to find the logs and recover the logs from a GPS device that had been deleted. - I will never forget the day in my office when I was sitting at my desk and Detective Juanez stuck his head out of the office and goes, 'John, you got to get in here. Come in here right now. 'I found the tracking software. 'It got turned on at her car.' - We believe that when Todd dumped the body that he thought he had turned off the tracking device when he detached it from her vehicle, and he had not ` it was actually still on. - Police say that GPS data provided a road map for Todd's movements, tracking him from Katrina's car along the path where her purse and cell phone and the bloody paper towels were found. And then in front of that home where the surveillance video of the man walking by was recorded. - And this tracker takes him right to the front door of Todd Smith's house. - The tracking device did not lie ` its computer data. - So his jealous tracking essentially exposed himself. - Absolutely. - REPORTER: The high-profile murder trial of Todd Smith got underway today. He's the husband of Katrina Smith, who went missing in October of 2012. - It's January 2017 ` four years since Katrina Smith disappeared and now her own husband Todd goes on trial for her murder. - In the opening statements, the prosecution explained that they were going to show that Todd was guilty through the evidence and it was evidence that Todd had left behind. - 'Till death do us part' ` a vow Katrina Smith spoke when she married the defendant, and that vow would prove to be a deadly vow for Katrina Smith. - The prosecution takes jurors through their main evidence, including that aluminium baseball bat they allege to be the murder weapon. - Another key piece of evidence ` all that information in Todd's computer that pointed to his use of a tracking device to follow his wife. - Prosecutors also call a parade of witnesses, including Katrina's co-worker, Guy Gabriel, who testifies under oath that Katrina was desperate to leave Todd. - Just encouraging her to be open and honest. To let people know how she felt at home, how she felt about their relationship, her desires to get out. - Guy Gabriel was an important witness because the night that Katrina disappeared, she had texted him that she had told Todd the marriage was over. - In its opening statements, the defence had its own message to send to the jury, and that was 'rush to judgement ` you've got the wrong guy.' - This is a case that is completely built on a shaky foundation of rumours and speculation. - And in a dramatic move, defence lawyers point the finger at Guy Gabriel as a possible suspect. They drop a bombshell in court, revealing that just a month before the trial, Gabriel was arrested and charged with aggravated domestic battery. According to the police report, Gabriel's wife said after an argument, he knocked her to the ground and slammed her head into the pavement at least three times. His wife admitted they had physical domestics in the past. - The first thing I noticed was she had a large knot on her forehead. Her face was really red and it looked like she had been crying. - We wanted the jury to know that the person that she suddenly became involved with on a very personal level, was also somebody who was violent. - Guy Gabriel admitted guilt to the charge, but the state's attorney has an irrefutable rebuttal ` Guy Gabriel was at work when this was happening to Katrina. They showed the jury actual video evidence, surveillance footage of him going into his place of employment. - The one part of the trial that I will never forget was Marilyn Hite Ross', the prosecutor's, closing arguments. It was so emotional, so raw. - What is she doing? She's trying to cover her head. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) And at that time, he's pounding, he's pounding, he's pounding. - You didn't just pick up the bat, you swung the bat in the courtroom. - I needed to do that. I needed them to visualise how he would have swung the bat when he was murdering his wife. - How did the courtroom, the jury, the family react to that? - (SCOFFS) I know my colleague was shocked. Like, 'You had the bat and you were swinging it.' I wanted to show the emotion. - It was dramatics. - I thought it was a little over-the-top and theatrical and kind of distracting from the actual evidence in the case. - The whole purpose of the closing argument had to do with I didn't think that they had proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt. - PAT LALAMA: The jury has now sat through two weeks of testimony, listening to 40 different witnesses. Now this case is in their lap. Will that jury find Todd Christopher Smith guilty of the murder of his wife? - We were a nervous wreck sitting there waiting for them to announce the verdict. - Will there be justice for Katrina's family? The verdict when we return. (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) - Welcome back. It's decision time for the jury in Todd Smith's murder trial over the death of his wife, Katrina. He's pleaded not guilty, even suggesting Guy Gabriel, the colleague Katrina was having an affair with, may be to blame. The jury, though, isn't buying it. - REPORTER: The trial of accused murderer Todd Smith comes to a close. Only a few hours after closing arguments, jurors reach a decision. - It is a time where I would definitely say you're sitting on pins and needles, when you're waiting on a verdict. - The courtroom is filled with anxious family members and people from the community as the jury foreman delivers the long-awaited verdict. - FOREMAN: We, the jury, find the defendant Todd Smith guilty of first-degree murder. - I remember I was sitting next to Todd Smith and he slumped back in his chair and didn't react beyond that. - It was just the biggest relief imaginable because you're just so scared ` what if something goes wrong and they have a different verdict? - Sentencing day has arrived, and loved ones of the victim have their opportunity to stand up and say something about the person that they are grieving. - TEARFULLY: It all hurts so much, Todd, and all you had to do was walk away and let Katrina live the life she deserved. But out of greed and jealousy and rage, you chose to take her precious life. He never looked at me. He kept his head down the whole time. And he smirked. Just smirked. I'll never forget the smirk on his face. - When it's Todd's turn to speak, he continues to maintain his innocence. - It was a blessing to know Katrina. To know the beauty in her soul, or smile in her heart. Although I am not guilty of the acts the state portrayed, I harbour no ill will toward the victim. - He received 55 years in the Department of Corrections for first-degree murder, and Todd Smith was sentenced to an additional four years for the concealment of a homicidal death. - Extremely happy with the sentencing cos he definitely doesn't deserve to see the light of day ever again. - Todd was indicted for his alleged role defrauding investors as part of that Ponzi scheme. Before he could enter a plea, the government decided to dismiss those charges. - To this day, he's housed in a state penitentiary in the state of Illinois. - I talked to him on the phone and I asked him to tell me what happened. I said, 'OK, you can either tell me the truth or I won't be talking to you anymore cos I can't do this.' And he's like, 'I'm sorry, I can't tell you... anything.' And... (INHALES DEEPLY) Um, so I hung up the phone and I haven't talked to him since. - While justice may have been done, the collateral damage from the case lingers to this day. - MIRAYNDA: I don't want people to remember Katrina just by how she died and what happened to her. I want people to remember who she was as a person and how she lived her life, and how full of life she was. - I just want people to remember that she was kind and giving and loving and just do the same, you know? Be like her. (MELANCHOLIC MUSIC FADES) - A good sentiment indeed. Todd Smith filed an appeal to overturn his conviction. It was denied. And that's our show for tonight. Thank you so much for joining us this Monday. Until next week, kia ora, nga mihi. Captions by Kitty Wasasala. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air.