This week, NBC’s “Dateline” premieres “The Hands of a Killer.” The episode will track the events of the murder of Linda Collins-Smith, a former state senator from Arkansas.
In a shocking turn of events, Collins-Smith’s former best friend was eventually convicted for her murder, per ABC News.
Who was Linda Collins-Smith?
Collins-Smith had recently lost her spot in the state legislature, but cherished hopes of relaunching her political career, according to ABC News. She traveled to Washington, D.C., in search of connections to jump-start her return to politics.
She flew home in June 2019 and notified her family, including her son, Butch Smith, and daughter, Tate Williams, that she had made it home safely. That was the last they ever heard from her.
After a week without responses, Smith and Collins-Smith’s father took matters into their own hands and visited her home.
Her car was parked in the driveway, but she would not answer the door, so they took matters into their own hands and entered the house. They at once saw a large dark spot in the kitchen.
“It looked like somebody had dropped a coffee pot and it had sprayed out from just in a semicircular path out from there,” said Smith, per ABC News.
They soon learned the spot was blood.
The two men discovered Collins-Smith lying in the driveway, under a tarp, bearing evidence of stab wounds in her body.
Who was the killer?
Collins-Smith’s children believed they knew who could have murdered their mother. She had recently experienced a bitter divorce, involving $2 million of assets, from their father, Phil Smith.
“You start thinking about who the heck could have done this?” Butch Smith said, per ABC News. “And my first answer was that my dad did it.”
“You always think of who has the most to gain,” Williams said. “And with the divorce being disputed, I said, ‘You know, it was my dad.’”
Investigators noticed that someone — likely the killer — had removed the home’s security cameras. Thanks to a digital backup, they eventually uncovered damning evidence … but it didn’t point to Phil Smith.
The camera had caught Becky O’Donnell, Collins-Smith’s former best friend, wielding a knife, according to Arkansas Times.
Butch Smith and Williams later theorized to the media that O’Donnell had been stealing from Collins-Smith — and Collins-Smith had found out and subsequently been murdered.
A police investigation found that O’Donnell had sold coins that Collins-Smith and Phil Smith had disputed in their divorce settlement for $15,000 in Little Rock and Memphis.
Where is Becky O’Donnell now?
O’Donnell initially contested her charges, saying she had been framed, per Arkansas Times. During her stay in prison while awaiting trial, she even attempted to persuade fellow inmates to kill Phil Smith.
She eventually switched her plea to guilty — for first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder and abuse of Collins-Smith’s corpse, according to ABC News.
A plea deal put her at 50 years in prison, for which she is currently held at a women’s prison in Newport, Arkansas, per Arkansas Times.
“Today we find some shred of peace that Rebecca O’Donnell will be put away in prison for a very long time unable to hurt anyone else,” said Collins-Smith’s family in a statement following the sentencing, according to ABC News. “If (our) mother was here today (we) have no doubt that she would quote the Bible and tell us that we can find peace in God.”
How to watch tonight’s ‘Dateline’
On Friday, July 12, NBC’s latest episode of “Dateline” will premiere at 7 p.m. MDT. The episode will later be available to stream on Peacock and will be two hours long, according to IMDb.