Pod Insights Park Predators The Siblings About this episode Five so-called friends go camping together in the Trinity Alps in California, but only four return.
The 1998 slaying of Lora Sinner is a case that made headlines for years because of its brutality, but in this episode, Delia explores more about the sweet young woman whose life was ripped away from her and the web of bad decisions amongst a group of young people that led to cold-blooded murder.
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0:30 Speaker 02 Hi, park enthusiasts. It's Delia. If you listen to Park Predators, you already know that sometimes the most beautiful places can hide the darkest secrets. But what happens when the danger isn't miles from civilization? It's in your community, and sometimes even in your own backyard. On Crime Junkie, hosts Ashley and Britt dive into real cases every week, from missing persons to unsolved murders, breaking down what we know, what we don't, and the details that still don't sit right. If you care about the stories behind the headlines and the victims at the center of them, you'll want to check out Crime Junkie. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
1:10 Speaker 02 Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia Diambra. And the case I'm going to share with you today takes place in the Trinity Alps Preserve, which is in the general vicinity of Shasta Trinity National Forest in Northern California. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this 2.1 million acre landscape is the largest national forest in California. There are mountains, lakes, the South Fork of the Trinity River, and a wide variety of wildlife. Visitors come from all over to boat, fish, hike, picnic, and during the winter months, go skiing or snowmobiling. People often do what's referred to as dispersed camping, which is camping outside of developed sites. This is for folks who want to disconnect and be more secluded in nature versus being
1:55 Speaker 02 around other people. There are no restroom facilities, trash pickup services, or fire pits when you choose to set up a dispersed campsite. It's just you, the woods, and the quietness of the forest. But in April 1998, that serene picture was shattered when hikers discovered the lifeless body of a young woman buried in a shallow grave at an abandoned campsite. The horrific reality of how she'd ended up there and why was a story of betrayal and cruelty unlike anything law enforcement at the time could imagine. This is Park Predators.
3:10 Speaker 02 In the early morning hours of Saturday, April 18, 1998, two hikers walking in the woods in Trinity Alps Wilderness in Shasta County, California, came across an empty but recently-used campsite. They noticed trash and litter scattered on the ground and remnants of what looked like a makeshift fire pit. As they got closer, they realized something in the charred pit had the shape of a human body. So, right away, they left the area and reported what they'd found to the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, which was located in nearby Redding, California. According to a former investigator who spoke with producers for the television program Murder Among Friends, when authorities arrived on scene a few hours later with cadaver dogs,
3:53 Speaker 02 they assessed the situation, and by Sunday, the 19th, they found what the hikers had reported: a young woman's body, partially buried in what appeared to be the remnants of a fire pit. She didn't have any clothes on and looked to be about 19 or 20 years old. Based on the state of her remains, it was clear that she'd been in the woods for a while, at least 10 days or so. It took a few hours for investigators to properly unearth her remains, but when they did, they noticed she'd suffered some pretty severe injuries to her head and arms. For example, there were injuries to her wrists, a black plastic bag had been put over her head, and there were visible bruises on her body. Investigators also smelled traces of alcohol, which I imagine made them wonder if perhaps
4:37 Speaker 02 she'd been drinking or been around people who were drinking at the time of her death. At the campsite not far from her body, authorities found a purse with a driver's license in it that indicated the victim was a 20-year-old woman named Laura Sinner. Laura's photo ID was a dead ringer for the victim, so it didn't take long for investigators to put two and two together. Laura's body was eventually transported to a local coroner's office for an autopsy, where dental records would later confirm her identity. An interesting clue investigators discovered not far from her body at the crime scene was a large dented can of chili beans that appeared to have blood and hair on it. They seized that item as evidence and then turned their attention to learning more about Laura.
5:20 Speaker 02 A quick check of the Department of Motor Vehicles database revealed she drove a red Honda Civic, but authorities working the crime scene hadn't found that vehicle or any cars near Laura's body. So they put out a notice for other law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for her Civic. And after that, they traveled to an apartment address for her in Redding, where I have to assume either her driver's license or car registration indicated she lived.
5:46 Speaker 02 At the apartment, investigators found a 21-year-old man named Tim Smith, who told them that he and Laura had previously dated and been engaged, but presently were no longer together. Tim said around March 30th, so more than two weeks earlier, they'd broken off their engagement and she'd moved out of his apartment. When authorities broke the news to Tim that Laura had been murdered, he seemed genuinely upset. He explained that he and Laura had met about a year prior while serving at a Christian mission in Washington State. They'd quickly fallen in love and in March of 1998 had moved to California together. Coverage by the Record Searchlight explains in more detail that in October 1997, several months before moving with Tim, Laura's mother had passed away after a swift battle with leukemia.
6:32 Speaker 02 After that, Laura had briefly roomed with a friend before going to live with her father, Ken Sinner, in Salem, Oregon.
6:39 Speaker 02 Her brother Ryan told producers for Murder Among Friends that during this period of time, Laura was just kind of lost in life. And so her decision to move to Redding, California with Tim for a fresh start was seemingly birthed from that. The couple's move was entirely spearheaded by Tim, who'd wanted to be closer to his younger brother, Paul Smith Jr. As kids, the two Smith brothers had endured a rough upbringing in the foster care system after their father left their mother to start a family with someone else, and was eventually convicted of sex crimes. These hardships had cemented a lifelong bond between Paul and Tim, which is why living in close proximity to one another was so important to Tim. When the men became adults, they discovered they also had an 18-year-old half-sister named Lori Smith.
7:24 Speaker 02 And in April 1998, she was living with Paul at their father's home in Redding. Her, Paul, and Tim were known to spend a lot of time together, hanging out. Tim explained to investigators that not long after he and Laura arrived in California and broke things off, he said he hadn't seen her again after that, but believed she'd been temporarily staying with Paul and Lori since they were all part of the same friend group, and Laura really had no other place to go. Meanwhile, in Washington State, Laura's loved ones learned the news of her murder from members of a local sheriff's office there. Her brothers Jason and Ryan told producers for Murder Among Friends that learning their sister had been killed in such a brutal way was extremely difficult. According to coverage by Oxygen, Laura's dad, Ken Sinner,
8:08 Speaker 02 had been worried about her for a few weeks by that point because he hadn't spoken with her on the phone since April 1st. It was at that time she'd revealed to her dad that Tim had ended their relationship. Her father offered to send her money so she could come home to his place in Oregon, but she declined and said she wanted to stay in California. No one in her family could understand why anyone would want to harm Laura, let alone kill her. They described her as a happy, selfless Christian with a big heart who worked with people with disabilities. By all accounts, she was an overall nice young woman with no apparent enemies. Naturally, her brother Ryan's first thought was to suspect his sister's former fiance, Tim. And he wasn't alone in thinking that.
8:52 Speaker 02 Authorities wanted to learn more about Tim too, as well as his siblings, Paul and Lori. So after investigators spoke with Tim, they got ahold of Lori, and she confirmed a lot of what Tim had said, which was that Laura was part of their friend group, even after Tim and her had broken up. Lori said that she and Paul had welcomed Laura in as a roommate, even though she didn't have a lot of money. However, recently, things had become a bit strained amongst the housemates.
9:20 Speaker 02 Lori said that tensions revolved around Laura's disapproval of 20-year-old Paul being in a relationship with a 14-year-old girl named Amy Stevens. Laura had made it clear on more than one occasion that she felt the couple's relationship was inappropriate due to their age gap. Despite that, though, Amy and Paul had continued seeing one another, and over time tensions between Amy and Laura festered. Lori explained that Amy would become jealous whenever Paul interacted with Laura, and the teen definitely didn't like the fact that Laura shared a place with Paul and his half-sister. There was also another person in the mix: Lori's boyfriend, 19-year-old Eric Rubio.
10:00 Speaker 02 He was good friends with Paul and regularly hung out at Paul, Lori, and Laura's apartment. Around the same time sheriff's investigators interviewed Lori, they spoke with Amy, and she straight-up admitted that she'd never liked Laura Sinner, and basically wished she wasn't part of their friend group. She said that about a week earlier, she and Laura had gotten into an argument while everyone was hanging out at Paul and Lori's place, because Laura had once again made a comment about the six-year age gap between her and Paul. Amy said she kind of gave Paul an ultimatum after that, that he needed to kick Laura out of his place or else, but that never ended up happening. Not long after that argument, Amy said Paul invited everyone to go on a camping trip in the Trinity Alps.
10:44 Speaker 02 According to Murder Among Friends, he was really into animal trapping and hunting, and the national forest was a place he'd set up some of his traps in the past, so he was very familiar with it. Amy said that the camping trip was intended to be sort of a reset for everyone. They were all going to party, drink, hang out, and spend some time in the great outdoors. But things had not ended up that way. According to what Amy told investigators, at some point during the group's outing, Laura and Paul had gotten into an argument because Laura had tried to make a romantic pass at him, which he rejected. Apparently, super embarrassed by this and slightly intoxicated, Laura quickly ran off into the woods and disappeared.
11:27 Speaker 02 Amy said no one saw her again after that, and eventually everyone else in the group just decided to leave the campsite to go back to Redding. They all assumed that Laura had found her own way home. Now, even though investigators still had a lot of questions about Amy's version of events, they had no evidence that could disprove it. Basically, they needed to do more digging to determine if she was actually telling them the truth. So for the time being, they didn't immediately take her into custody, but they certainly kept what she told them in their back pocket. Because they still had two more people they wanted to talk with. Eric Rubio and Paul Smith Jr.
12:10 Speaker 02 One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene. A dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids.
12:30 Speaker 03 It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.
12:37 Speaker 02 Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.
12:45 Speaker 04 Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp. That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.
12:53 Speaker 05 I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?
12:58 Speaker 02 I'm Ava Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts. According to the TV program Murder Among Friends, within just days of interviewing Amy Stephens and Lori Smith, investigators were in the process of locating and speaking with Eric Rubio, when Eric sort of came to them. By sheer luck, a deputy who'd been out on patrol was alerted by a gas station attendant that had spotted Laura's red Honda Civic parked at a pump. And standing right next to it, filling it with gas, was Eric Rubio.
13:40 Speaker 02 Because Eric was in possession of their murder victim's car, investigators with Shasta County Sheriff's Office were able to immediately detain him and bring him in for questioning. Other coverage by Oxygen, though, stated that Eric and Paul were both actually already in custody for an unrelated vehicle theft offense. So it was pretty easy for investigators to get ahold of them for questioning. Whatever the case was, though, when authorities got Eric into an interrogation room, he denied killing Laura and lamented that he was upset by the fact that it seemed he was the only person who was in trouble. Eventually, authorities confronted him with the fact that they knew about his friend group's recent camping trip to Trinity Alps. After hearing that, Eric's tune changed.
14:25 Speaker 02 He told investigators that, yes, Paul and Laura had gotten into an argument during the camping trip, but unlike Amy's version of events, Eric said that the friends had been able to catch Laura before she ran into the woods. In an attempt to calm things down, Laura, Amy, and Lori all went into a tent together to talk out their issues. But Eric said things hadn't calmed down after that, and the trio of women started up again, shouting at one another. Eventually, their spat turned into a full-fledged physical brawl which spilled out into the middle of the group's campsite. According to Eric, he and Paul watched as Amy jumped on Laura and they traded blows. Then Amy slammed Laura's head on a tree and taunted her.
15:07 Speaker 02 Eric told investigators that he'd tried to squash the fight at one point, but Paul stopped him. Eventually, Lori jumped in to defend Amy and ended up striking Laura several times in the head with a large can of chili beans. Throughout most of this, Laura had seemed confused and asked why Lori and Amy were attacking her. Eventually, Eric said he and Paul intervened when they realized Laura was noticeably injured, and then everyone in the group watched as she staggered off into the woods and vanished. Eric claimed that he and Paul went to look for her but couldn't find her. The following morning, Eric said he'd driven Laura's vehicle back to Redding and parked it at his mother's house. He told investigators that he figured Laura would come to get it at some point, but when
15:52 Speaker 02 several days passed and she never did, he told his mom that Laura had left the area, and so his family could keep it.
16:00 Speaker 02 Authorities were highly suspicious of Eric's version of events and told him that a lot of his story just didn't make sense. They revealed that they knew for a fact that someone had put a bag over Laura's head and there were several deep cuts to her wrists, none of which were good details his story had a good explanation for. So while the sheriff's office continued working the case, they kept Eric in custody for being in possession of Laura's car and basically told him to sit tight. That same day, they executed a search warrant for Laura, Paul, and Lori's apartment. Inside the bed of Paul's truck, they discovered a dent puller device that had what appeared to be traces of blood on it. For those of you who don't know what a dent puller is, it's a long, rod-shaped, cast-iron
16:44 Speaker 02 device that is pointed on one end with a weight that slides. It's used to pull dents out of cars or sheet metal. When authorities had the substance that was on it tested for blood, it came back as a match for Laura. So with that information in hand, investigators quickly put Paul in an interrogation room. But he vehemently denied being involved in Laura's murder and pointed the finger at Amy, claiming she'd been the person who'd instigated the attack on Laura, which his half-sister Lori eventually joined in on. He told deputies that after the assault, Laura had run into the woods, and when the group couldn't find her, they all left. But as you can imagine, investigators were not buying Paul's story.
17:27 Speaker 02 They'd talked to too many other people by that point who refuted that version of events. Plus, there was the bloody dent puller they'd found in his truck. So they confronted him with everything they'd gathered so far, and surprise, surprise, that's when Paul's story completely changed. He now admitted the whole Laura ran off into the woods detail was a lie. He said that after Lori and Amy had beaten Laura with the can of chili beans, she'd collapsed and started crying in his arms. Paul said he knew that what the girls had done would likely send them to prison for life, which was not something he felt they would survive. So he'd convinced Laura that because she was most likely going to die from the wounds
18:10 Speaker 02 to her head, she should spare herself further suffering. Out of respect for Laura's loved ones and anyone listening who has struggled with self-harm, I'm gonna skip through the graphic details of what happened next because all you really need to know is that eventually Paul claimed he decided to take Laura's life himself by using the bag, the dent puller, and his own physical force. He said that after Laura was dead, he, Eric, Amy, and Lori worked together to cover up the crime by removing Laura's clothing, burning it, partially burying her body, and attempting to burn her as well. And really, it was Paul's confession here that sealed the fate for the whole friend group.
18:52 Speaker 02 On Tuesday, April 21, 1998, a few days after Laura's body was found, sheriff's investigators arrested all of the defendants and charged them with conspiracy, first-degree murder, second-degree robbery, and false imprisonment by violence. When Lori, Paul, and Eric were arraigned in adult court, they pleaded not guilty and were each held under an estimated $1 million bail. Amy was arraigned in juvenile court, since she was only 14 years old at the time, and just like her co-defendants, she also entered a plea of not guilty. The specific date Laura's murder occurred, though, was a bit hard to pin down. Now, even though charges had been laid, the specific date Laura's murder occurred was a bit hard to pin down.
19:36 Speaker 02 Authorities estimated it had happened sometime after April 1st, but they weren't 100% sure. Laura's autopsy, which was performed on Monday, April 20th, had not revealed a clear cause of death, though it's widely believed her fatal injuries came from the multiple blows to her head, asphyxiation, and blood loss from all her other horrific injuries. The day after his arrest, Paul told a reporter with the record Searchlight that he estimated Laura's murder had taken place over the course of several hours during the afternoon and night of April 4th. But he wasn't positive about that date. He claimed that he'd been under the influence of alcohol, muscle relaxants, and cannabis at that time, and said that had it not been for the use of those substances, Laura's
20:19 Speaker 02 murder would likely have never happened. Eric also told the newspaper that he'd used those substances too while on the camping trip, and he believed that at one point, everyone in the friend group was intoxicated to a certain degree. Prosecutors handling the case didn't immediately state whether they intended to seek the death penalty against the defendants, but as adults, Paul, Lori, and Eric certainly met all of the qualifications for it. Representatives for the state mentioned in court that they intended to try Amy as an adult too, because the crimes the group stood accused of involved special circumstances of torture and lying in wait, which were all qualifiers for capital punishment.
20:59 Speaker 02 In the wake of the arrests, Laura's stepfather told the record searchlight that ever since Laura moved to California, he'd feared something bad would happen to her. He described her as almost too trusting and sweet for her own good, and stated that in his opinion, her lack of emotional maturity caused her to get involved with the wrong type of people. He told the newspaper that growing up, Laura had struggled in grade school due to a learning disability, but she'd graduated high school in 1996 and seemed to have overcome that. She'd earned a scholarship to attend Gray's Harbor College in Aberdeen, Washington, but unfortunately, not long after that, she met Tim Smith and started hanging out with a different group of friends before eventually dropping out of school altogether.
21:41 Speaker 02 Her stepfather said that at one point, Laura's parents banned Tim from moving into their house, and so the couple lived temporarily in a tent. Then, one day, they left in Laura's car, headed for California. In late June, a few weeks after Laura's alleged killers were arraigned in court, the results of her autopsy were published. Those findings concluded that when she'd been found, she had a blood alcohol level of .78, and there were no other substances in her system. Her brother Jason told producers for Murder Among Friends that he believed his sister had consumed alcohol on the night of her death, likely because she felt peer pressure to conform. He said she'd never really been a big drinker prior to that, so he suspected she'd only
22:23 Speaker 02 partaken in the partying aspect of the camping trip as a means to fit in with the rest of the group. At a preliminary hearing in July for Lori, Paul, and Eric, investigators testified about the brutality of the crime. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to go into the details of Laura's slaying because it's truly horrific and barbaric, and it doesn't do anyone any good to rehash those details. But other information that emerged during the preliminary hearing included the fact that the friend group had tried to use Laura's bank card afterwards, and at least some of them had eaten from the can of beans that they'd used to beat her with. By the end of the hearing, the judge ruled there was sufficient evidence to move forward with a trial, but dismissed the group's charges for second-degree robbery because there wasn't
23:07 Speaker 02 enough evidence to prove any of them had stolen Laura's car. I know, that felt like a weird call to me, too, but that's what the judge ruled. Anyway, a little over a month later, prosecutors announced they planned to seek the death penalty against Paul, but Lori and Eric would only face a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted. That decision seemed to have to do with the severity of each of their individual criminal records. According to Ann Hart's reporting for The Record Searchlight, Paul had a pretty extensive criminal history dating back to when he was a minor. Plus, prosecutors strongly suspected he was the ringleader of the friend group. The state was confident that he was the person responsible for taking Laura's life
23:49 Speaker 02 in those final moments, but that's not to say that the others didn't contribute as well. Laura's stepdad told the newspaper, quote, "What they did to her went beyond just simple murder. It's unimaginable to me. If they were so drugged up and didn't know what they were doing, then why did they hide the body?" End quote. It was an understandable question to ask, because, to me at least, the answer seems obvious. In November, after another court hearing, the youngest member of the group, Amy Stevens, learned that she would be tried as a juvenile. That meant if she was convicted, she would only face about 10 years in a youth detention facility and likely be free by the time she turned 25 years old.
24:33 Speaker 02 Her defense attorney had fought hard to convince the court that she'd merely acted as a pawn for Paul. In a hearing that was held on the issue, numerous new details about Amy's upbringing and background emerged, which painted her as a troubled teen who'd allegedly endured abuse at the hands of her father, the foster care system, and Paul himself. It was also revealed that Paul, who was married by the way, but estranged from his wife, had met Amy just a few days after she was discharged from a mental health facility where she reportedly attempted to take her own life. She had no criminal history, and according to her attorney, should not have been labeled as a murderer since she only participated in Lori's beating.
25:14 Speaker 02 But prosecutors and mental health counselors who'd evaluated Amy strongly rejected the defense's mild portrayal of the 14-year-old. They stated that she had a history of duping people into thinking she was remorseful for bad behavior and would do anything to get her way. Shasta County's deputy district attorney was so convinced Amy needed to be tried as an adult that he asked the California Attorney General's office to petition an appellate court to review the trial court judge's decision to try her as a juvenile. But the AG declined to do so. Before that, a judge decided that Eric and Lori would be tried separately from Paul, but it was Amy who learned her fate first. According to Kimberly Bolander's reporting for the Record Searchlight, because her case
25:59 Speaker 02 was handled by the juvenile court, she did not have a panel of jurors acting as a trier of fact. A judge was going to rule on her guilt or innocence. Paul, Eric, and Lori were all called as witnesses but invoked their Fifth Amendment rights to not incriminate themselves. So, nothing useful came from them on the stand. After Amy's eight-week trial wrapped up in June 1999, the judge presiding over the case quickly decided that she was guilty of torture, lying in wait, robbery, and first-degree murder in the death of Lora Sinner. She was sentenced to a maximum of 10 years at the California Youth Authority. The prosecutor told the courtroom that he wholeheartedly believed Amy and the
26:41 Speaker 02 rest of the defendants deserved to die for what they'd done to Laura. He expressed it to the court this way. Quote, "I am not nearly articulate enough to bring home the severity of what happened. I don't know that anyone is." He later continued, "In my opinion, they are beyond rehabilitation and it's time to pay." End quote. In early July 1999, on the heels of Amy's case wrapping up, all of the dominoes really began to fall in place when some of the remaining defendants decided it was each person for themselves.
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27:49 Speaker 02 One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene. A dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids.
28:09 Speaker 03 It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.
28:17 Speaker 02 Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.
28:25 Speaker 04 Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.
28:27 Speaker 06 That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.
28:32 Speaker 07 I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?
28:37 Speaker 02 I'm Eva Kaufman. "The Journey" is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
28:52 Speaker 02 By the end of July 1999, Lori Smith decided to cut a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for her testimony against Eric and Paul at their upcoming trials. Right after that, Eric took a deal too. He agreed to plead no contest to second-degree murder, and just like Lori, promised prosecutors he would testify against Paul. Because he and Lori's plea agreements were for different degrees of murder, their potential punishments were different. She faced anywhere from 25 years to life, and Eric was looking at 18 years to life. However, in a strange twist, Kimberly Bollander reported for the Record Searchlight that just
29:32 Speaker 02 a few months after entering his no contest plea, Eric Rubio changed his mind. He told his attorney he wanted to take back the plea, which a judge ultimately denied. But interestingly, the day he showed up in court to sort this all out, everyone couldn't help but notice a visible black eye on his face. He reportedly told prison staff his injury was a result of falling, but prosecutors suspected someone had possibly gotten to him while he was in jail. The only problem with that theory, though, was that Paul, the most likely person who'd want Eric not to testify in court, wasn't housed in the same part of the jail as him. According to the reporting, while awaiting his trial, Paul had actually been kept in an administrative lockdown most of the time for being uncooperative.
30:17 Speaker 02 So it would seem he couldn't have been the person to rough Eric up if, in fact, that did happen. I mean, I guess there's always the possibility Paul could have gotten someone else to intimidate Eric, but authorities said in court they thought that would have been too difficult considering the fact that Paul had been kept under that lockdown status most of the time. The suggestion that perhaps Paul was trying to threaten witnesses against him, though, certainly wasn't out of the realm of possibility. According to another article by Kimberly Bollander, Lori Smith had also reportedly been threatened after taking her plea deal. She claimed Paul had tried to intimidate her via letter, and another inmate had verbally threatened her to keep her mouth shut. Despite all this, though, Paul's trial was scheduled for April 2001, nearly three years
31:01 Speaker 02 after the crime. But due to a higher-than-normal death penalty caseload for defense attorneys in Shasta County, it didn't officially get underway until the summer of 2002. During that time, his co-defendants, Lori and Eric, remained in custody but were not scheduled to be sentenced until they testified against Paul. It took several weeks for a jury to be convened, and while Paul waited for that to happen, he did something that I think speaks volumes to who he is as a person and violent criminal. He and another Shasta County jail inmate, who was on trial for an unrelated double murder, jumped a 23-year-old guard and beat him so severely that he ended up in critical condition with a fractured jaw and skull. The guard had been doing his routine nightly rounds on the third floor of the jail when
31:46 Speaker 02 Paul and the other inmates somehow managed to get out of their cells, hide in a small shower stall, and attack him as he was exiting a series of secure doors. Jail officials told the press that they suspected the assault was the inmate's attempt to escape, but it failed. And as a result, Paul and his accomplice ended up getting indicted for attempted murder and attempting to escape custody. The guard they attacked recovered from his injuries and returned to work as a law enforcement officer, despite undergoing jaw reconstruction surgery. When Paul's trial began in July 2002, his defense attorney presented a, we'll call it, "unique defense." He said that Paul had been under the influence of substances on the night Laura Sinner was
32:29 Speaker 02 killed, so much so, he'd been passed out when the actual murder occurred. According to Paul and his attorney, it was Paul's half-sister Lori who delivered the deadly blows that killed Laura. He claimed he'd simply tried to end Laura's suffering when he realized what his then-girlfriend and sibling had done. Amy, who was 18 by the time Paul's trial got underway, testified against him and told the court that she saw Paul put a large bag over Laura's head and heard him deliver two blows that sounded deadly. When Lori Smith took the stand to testify against her half-brother, she told jurors that Paul had explicitly threatened everyone in the friend group after the crime, that he would kill them if they didn't help in the cover-up, or if they talked to anyone about what they'd done to Laura.
33:13 Speaker 02 After Lori testified, Eric Rubio took the stand too, and his account of the night Laura was murdered was similar to the young women's version of events. So prosecutors knew they had a strong case. They had all the co-defendants testifying against Paul, plus video admissions he'd made to detectives shortly after his arrest, where he straight-up said he killed Laura. On Friday, August 23rd, 2002, the jury began to deliberate, and by the following Wednesday, they found him guilty on all counts. Because he was facing the death penalty, the sentencing phase of Paul's trial was different from the rest of his co-defendants. Between September and October 2002, the court allowed both sides to make arguments for and against capital punishment.
33:57 Speaker 02 Prosecutors wanted to show jurors that Paul had a significant criminal history dating back to when he was 12 years old, and suggested the totality of his violent actions throughout his life merited him receiving the death penalty. They, of course, brought up his most recent offense of nearly beating to death the Chester County jail guard, which, you know, didn't do Paul any favors. Especially when that guard showed up and testified on the witness stand about what Paul and his accomplice had done to him. On November 5, 2002, jurors ultimately decided to send Paul to California's death row at what was then known as San Quentin State Prison. After he was sentenced, Laura's brother, Ryan, told the judge who presided over the hearing that before Laura's murder, they'd made memories together
34:39 Speaker 02 going camping and sharing stories around a campfire. But after her death, he said, "I've lost that. I don't think I'll ever be able to go camping again." End quote. In May 2004, Paul went to trial for attempted murder and attempted escape in the jail guard case. And in June of that year, a jury convicted him of those offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison on top of the death sentence he was already serving. During that time, Lori and Eric were formally sentenced to 25 years to life and 18 years to life, respectively. More than a decade later, in April 2015, after Paul appealed his death sentence, the California Supreme Court affirmed his conviction for murder, but amended his sentence to life in prison
35:23 Speaker 02 without the possibility of parole. That decision came after California's high court determined he had not received a proper sentencing trial. Apparently, during that phase of his case, the presiding judge had denied a request by Paul's defense attorney to call an expert witness to the stand. So, a technicality, essentially. Presently, Paul is still incarcerated at a California state prison. According to coverage by Oxygen, Amy was released from prison in 2009. Eric received parole in 2015, and Lori got out in 2021. Tim Smith, Laura Sinner's former boyfriend, was never charged in relation to the crime and was never implicated of being involved in what happened.
36:07 Speaker 02 Laura's brothers told producers for Murder Among Friends that they think of their sister often. Jason stated that he goes about living his life telling himself that Laura is just permanently away on vacation somewhere. It's how he's coped with her absence. Her brother Ryan told the program that what happened to Laura was a tragedy, and one takeaway he imparted to viewers was to, quote, "know who your friends are," end quote. Something that I found myself thinking about a lot while researching this case was how so many people in this story made the wrong decisions. They had ample opportunities to put a stop to Laura's suffering, but they chose not to. There were also other people who could have intervened too, but they either didn't out
36:49 Speaker 02 of fear or because they didn't pick up on the cues that, in hindsight, maybe they should have. For example, I read in the coverage that a man testified at one of the preliminary hearings early on in this case that he'd encountered the friend group before the murder, and Laura was still alive at that time. This witness told the court that he worked as a caretaker for the property in the Trinity Alps that the friends were camping in. While surveying the woods, he said Laura, who he saw wearing damp clothing and complained of being cold, approached him claiming she needed help because her friends had stolen her car and money. During that interaction, Paul Smith had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and pulled Laura to the side to speak with her. At some point, this witness said Laura had started crying and then retracted her request
37:34 Speaker 02 for him to take her into town. After that, this witness said he got pretty intimidated by Paul's aggressive behavior, and so he just left. Unfortunately, he never contacted authorities about what he'd experienced or seen. It's heartbreaking that this witness didn't know what he didn't know at the time. His recollection should serve as a reminder to all of us to trust our gut instinct if it's telling us something is off. We should all stay just a little more vigilant, because, who knows? It could just save someone's life. Park Predators is an AudioChuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com.
38:19 Speaker 02 And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, @parkpredators.
38:29 Speaker 02 I think Chuck would approve.
38:36 Speaker 02 In the dark, even the most familiar trail can feel like it leads somewhere else. Every rustle becomes a warning, every shadow a doorway. In Full Body Chills, those doorways open into worlds pulled straight from your nightmares. This spooky season classic returns with chilling new tales, immersive sound, and no promise that you'll find your way back. So step off the familiar path if you dare. Listen to new episodes of Full Body Chills every week, wherever you get your podcasts.
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