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Victim of Circumstance: The Murder of Karmen Smith
On Monday, October 23, 1995, Loretta “Lottie” Spencer was at work when she received a frantic phone call from her ten-year-old daughter Christina telling her to come home quick, something terrible had happened. Having been the victim of a stalker for over a year, the single mother feared the worst. Jumping in her car, she raced to the duplex she shared with Karmen Smith and her young son, Nickolas.
Upon arriving at the residence a short time later, Lottie saw that police and paramedics were already on the scene. She discovered in the harrowing moments that followed that Karmen was deceased, and five-year-old Nick was barely clinging to life. When the child was being placed in the ambulance, she could see that he was covered in blood.
As the investigation got underway, homicide detectives learned that Karmen and her son had occupied the ground floor apartment, while Lottie and her daughter lived upstairs. Though the latter hadn’t been at the address long, the families had become fast friends.
A timeline of the day of the murder revealed that Karmen had spoken to her ex-husband at 7:30 a.m. after Lottie left for work and the kids headed off to catch the school bus. The former couple had argued before hanging up, something that was fairly common in the wake of their contentious divorce.
