With her eyes still locked on her attacker, Ayesha backed closer and closer to the sliding-glass door. She didn’t know what she would do if she got out there. Scream for help? Jump? She would if she had to. But as she neared the balcony, Larry Lee stood, moved the chair away from the door and repeated, “Just don’t say anything.”
Ayesha eyed the situation cautiously. Larry Lee moved farther away from the door and seemed to be staying back. He had a pleading, helpless look in his eyes. But Ayesha knew he couldn’t be trusted. She bolted for the door, flung it open, and fled out into the hallway. She didn’t look back as she ran to another apartment where she knew someone, someone who had a phone. Crying hysterically, she called Tam’s sister. She told her about Tam’s arrest and the assault she had just experienced. “Go to the apartment manager,” Tam’s sister and mother urged.
In the meantime, Larry Lee was in a panic of his own. Still minus his shirt and shoes, he hurried to a nearby apartment where he thought Ayesha might have gone. No one answered the door there, so he returned to his own apartment, put on his shirt and shoes and headed to the front desk. He arrived short of breath, flushed and sweating, shaggy hair wildly askew. Someone there asked him what he needed. He tried to compose himself and said he needed to speak to the manager about his rent being late. He promised to have it soon.
He stumbled back to his own apartment and took care of a few housekeeping details. He emptied Ayesha’s unfinished cup of tea and untied a couple of those neckties, tossing them behind the bed. He then returned to the neighbor’s whose door he’d knocked on less than thirty minutes before. The occupant was just arriving home. He greeted Larry Lee with dire news: he’d run into Ayesha downstairs.
“What did you do to that girl?” the neighbor said, eyeing him warily. “She’s in Kathy Brown’s office, hysterical. You better get down there. They’re calling the police!”
When Larry Lee arrived at Kathy Brown’s office, Ayesha was still visibly distraught, shaking and crying uncontrollably. She had recounted the nature of the assault and Kathy had assisted her in calling 911. When Kathy saw Larry Lee, she instructed the maintenance man, Scott Brown (no relation), to keep an eye on him until the officers arrived.
“You stay right here,” Scott ordered.
“Okay, man,” Larry Lee said. “No problem.”
They moved to chairs outside where Larry Lee, still short of breath, beet red and perspiring, rolled a cigarette. “She wanted me to,” he confided to Scott, taking a drag and talking in a guy-to-guy manner. “She asked for it.” Larry Lee would continue rolling cigarettes, smoking them one after another, until the police arrived.
21. WHAT SHE SAID HAPPENED, HAPPENED
Two uniformed officers, one male and one female, responded to the 911 call. While the female officer talked with Ayesha, the male officer questioned Larry Lee. “Hold out your arms,” the officer said, looking for telltale signs of scratches, often found on an assailant when a rape victim has tried to defend herself. Larry Lee held out his arms to reveal the absence of any such marks. He even raised his shirt to expose his bulbous, unscratched belly.
He and Ayesha were transported in separate vehicles to the Knoxville Police Department where Investigator Patty Tipton was on duty. The petite redhead had worked at the KPD for more than a dozen years. She’d been named Officer of the Month earlier that year, in February, in recognition of her quick response and skillful application of emergency first aid to a wounded fellow officer, helping to save his life.
Larry Lee and Ayesha arrived at the police station sometime between three-thirty and four o’clock on that Monday afternoon. They were placed in separate interrogation rooms on the third floor for a long afternoon-turned-evening of questioning, statement taking, evidence gathering, and waiting. Through more tears and shaking, Ayesha related, in as much detail as she could recall, what had transpired earlier that afternoon in Volunteer Studios apartment number 263.
In Larry Lee’s interview room, under the watchful eye of a security camera, he must have sensed the mess he was in. He would have been struggling against fatigue and fear. He’d been up all night smoking crack. Then he’d gone to court early in the morning. Then he’d come home and attacked Ayesha. What a day. And now this. As a heavy smoker, his craving for nicotine must have been kicking in something fierce.
Investigator Tipton finished interviewing Ayesha and stepped in Larry Lee’s room and began questioning him in a courteous and professional demeanor. When he was younger, Larry Lee had often been shielded from the consequences of his bumbling ramblings by the attorneys his mother hired. They’d told him to keep his mouth shut. He tried that here, advising the investigator that he didn’t want to talk to her. But now his mother and her protections were gone, and he started talking anyway.
First he said he wanted to talk—really, really wanted to talk—with the Assistant DA handling the case against the man accused of robbing him. He probably thought the DA would be an ally since Larry Lee was testifying for him as a prosecution witness. His request was denied.
When Investigator Tipton asked permission to have KPD Forensic Technician Rebecca Byers swab his hands and scrape under his nails, Larry Lee was accommodating. He gave permission.
“What are you looking for?” he asked casually as Byers collected the samples.
“We’re looking for Ms. Mack’s vaginal secretions on your hands,” Tipton replied.
“Okay. How will you tell this?”
“Because her DNA will be on your hands.”
“Well, what she said happened, happened,” he explained, seeming to imply consensual sex. “Her DNA will be on my hands because I have touched her.”
Next Investigator Tipton requested permission to search his apartment, which Larry Lee also granted. “What will you be looking for?” he inquired again.
“She says you tied her wrist with the end of a necktie,” Tipton replied. “So, we’ll be looking for that.”
“I guess that comment I made about being able to take care of her better than a crack dealer really, really set her off,” he said. He also alleged that Barry Evans, the man he’d testified against that morning for allegedly stealing his OxyContin, could be behind it somehow. He claimed that Barry and Ayesha could be conspiring against him.
“I didn’t expect this to happen at all,” he said. “I don’t stand a chance.”
He had denied that he had in any way restrained Ayesha, but now he’d need to account for the “strap” of neckties, as he called them, which the officers were likely to find. “Do you have my phone?” he asked. The two cell phones Larry Lee had on him when he was taken into custody had been collected, although he wasn’t yet under arrest and a search warrant had not been obtained. They were being held with his other property.
“I don’t,” Tipton replied.
“You’ve got those phones out there. Can you get those and bring them in here?” Larry Lee requested. “I want to show you something.”
Investigator Tipton retrieved the phones, returned to the room, and handed them to Larry Lee. He activated the Verizon phone, which actually had no service; he kept it only for taking photos. He scrolled until he found the numerous images he wanted Tipton to see, images of a naked woman—or women (she couldn’t be sure)—bound by the wrists on a bed. Larry Lee explained to her that he’d done this with other women, with their permission. He told Tipton that he didn’t restrain Ayesha, that she must have heard he was into using the ties from Khristy.
“You’ll probably just confiscate it [the phone] as evidence,” he said. “I don’t force nobody. I pay them.” He said that’s what he’d done with Khristy, who was among the images on the phone.
When Investigator Tipton didn’t immediately respond, Larry Lee asked, “Are you following me?”
“I’m getting you. I’m following you. Because that’s how Ayesha would have seen it,” she replied, trying to keep up with Larry Lee’s evolving story, which had rapidly transitioned from consensual sex with Ayesha (�
�What she said happened, happened.”) to a set-up based on her knowledge of what he and Khristy did using the ties and his phone’s camera.
“Those straps are under the bed, and they have not been taken out,” Larry Lee said. “Believe me, you don’t get to them unless you move the bed.”
Investigator Tipton retrieved the phones and left the interview room. While she and Byers prepared to go to the suspect’s apartment to photograph and collect evidence, the camera in the upper left corner of the room continued to record. Now alone, Larry Lee stood in silence for a few moments, his back turned toward the camera. Then he reflected aloud to no one but himself: “Well, I’m screwed. They’re going to put me away for life.” He paced back and forth awhile before finally lowering his weary body to the floor, first stretching out, then rolling onto his side and pulling his knees in as close as his rotund abdomen would allow.
KPD Investigator Tipton and Technician Byers entered Larry Lee’s living quarters at Volunteer Studios, signed permission in hand, where they found a scene much as Ayesha had described. Byers bagged evidence and took more than sixty photographs in the dingy, cluttered, stale-smelling, one-room apartment.
They quickly located the chain of neckties—each end tied into a loop just large enough to slip over a hand and secure a wrist—but not under the bed and unreachable, as Larry Lee stated. It had been tossed between the head of the bed and the wall.
As Ayesha had described to Investigator Tipton, the tie on one end, the one that had been looped over her right wrist, bore gray diagonal stripes; the tie on the other end was of a coffee-brown design. In the middle of this chain, two of the ties were disconnected, although the wrinkles and marks remaining on the fabric revealed that they had recently been knotted together.
An empty can of peas sat on the table, along with a bowl and part of a cut-up onion. A pocket knife also rested there beside two empty tea cups, even though Ayesha had been very clear that she did not drink most of her tea. Tea bags were photographed in the trash can. xXx was still in the DVD player. A dark green plastic chair sat by the small table, as Ayesha had reported, but there was now a second green plastic chair on the other side of the table.
Since Larry Lee had asked Ayesha to switch from the chair to the bed so he could eat his peas sitting in the chair, where had this second chair been during the time she’d been in the apartment? On the balcony? Had he pulled it back inside when he’d hurriedly returned to his apartment, untying two of the ties, tossing them behind the bed and emptying Ayesha’s cup of tea?
When Investigator Tipton returned to the station, she reentered Larry Lee’s interrogation room and held up his phone. “I was wondering if you would mind showing me those pictures again. I’d like to get photographs of them.” She handed it to him.
Larry Lee flipped it open and stared at the screen as he thumbed through the images. “You’re going to use these against me, right?”
“Well, you don’t have to show them to me,” Tipton replied in an obliging tone. “It’s up to you.”
Larry Lee continued to hold the opened phone in his right hand as he studied the images it contained. Then he began to subtly move his thumb back and forth between the buttons on the keypad. At one point, the investigator asked him what he was doing and walked around beside him to look at the phone’s screen. Larry Lee didn’t respond as his thumb continued its mission, but after a few more moments he stopped and handed the phone back to her. When a search warrant was obtained and the phones officially taken into custody as evidence, the images of the bound women had been deleted. They were gone from the phone—but not from the memory of Investigator Tipton.
At eleven minutes past nine—a little more than five hours after arriving at the police station—fifty-year-old Larry Lee Smith was placed under arrest and charged with Class C felony kidnapping and Class B felony rape of nineteen-year-old Ayesha Kiana Mack. Bail was set at $100,000 per charge—$200,000 total—high enough to keep him there for a while.
Larry Lee phoned his sister, Nancy. The news reduced her to tears. But by the time she ended the phone call, she was largely silent about the development, as per Smith family protocol. As Larry Lee was being booked into the Knox County Jail, Nancy went to her brother’s apartment and removed all of his belongings.
A call was made on behalf of Ayesha to the Sexual Assault Center of East Tennessee (SACETN), where staff is on 24-hour emergency standby. Formerly the Knoxville Rape Crisis Center, SACETN has been around since the early 1970s, evolving and expanding its services in more recent years. After talking with the SACETN staff, Ayesha agreed to get a physical exam upon her return home to Georgia the next day.
The white T-shirt she was wearing, which had absorbed the sweat drippings and deodorant stains of her assailant, was confiscated as evidence by the KPD as she changed into an alternate top. Ayesha was then placed in a cab and delivered to a local shelter where she would spend the night before getting a bus ticket, provided by a Knoxville ministry, which would take her back home to her mother and younger siblings the next day.
Early Tuesday morning, unaware that Khristy had already sold or traded most of the items belonging to Ayesha and Tam, Ayesha returned to Volunteer Studios. There was no answer at Khristy’s apartment, but when Ayesha walked out-side to peer through the first-floor window, she saw Khristy inside lying on her bed.
So Ayesha rapped on the window, then walked back into the hallway and knocked on the door even harder and louder until Khristy finally opened it. When Ayesha eyed how few of her belongings remained—even most of her clothing had dis-appeared—Khristy claimed she’d been robbed, even though her things had clearly been left untouched. Rage boiled up in Ayesha, as did the urge to slam this desperate and conniving crack addict into the wall. But she resisted. Gathering what little was left of her possessions, Ayesha turned her back on this lost soul and the life she represented and caught the bus out of town.
The next day, Sasha received an email from retired FBI Agent Grey Steed:
I hear Larry Lee has been charged with another rape this week.
Sasha immediately forwarded the email on to Anita, asking if she knew anything about it. Anita did not, so she shot a message to Jeff Day:
I found out that Larry Lee Smith has been arrested. Do you have any details? Thanks, Anita.
On Thursday morning, Jeff Day confirmed Larry Lee’s arrest to Anita and sent an email update to Sasha, in which he shared the following observation:
Hopefully Larry Lee Smith will be in jail for a long time (although you never know with our justice system). The trial, if it gets that far, wouldn’t be for over a year and he won’t be able to bond this time I wouldn’t think. Good news, although I hate it for the girl, that he is locked away and no one got seriously hurt. I will send you more when I know more. You can go to knoxsheriff.org to view his charges and his mug shot.
Sasha already had.
22. EYE TO EYE
Strolling along the handsome two-block stretch of Knoxville’s historic downtown Main Street, Sasha took in the fall beauty. The maple trees lining the sidewalk had shed most of their red and yellow leaves, allowing the early morning sun to shine directly upon the pedestrians and passengers in cars beginning the business day. On the illuminated city skyline straight ahead stood the office towers built by the Butcher brothers, Jake’s on the left and C.H.’s on the right.
Larry Lee Smith’s preliminary hearing was scheduled for nine o’clock that morning, Friday, November 4, 2011, in Third Sessions Court, Criminal Division, on the first floor of the Knoxville City-County Building, a modern-style structure built in 1979. The courtyard of the building is wide, with inviting steps leading down from the city sidewalk to a walk-way dotted with benches, flowers and ornamental trees. In the mid-1980s, when her casework often took her inside its court-rooms, Sasha had thought of the building as a striking blend of utilitarianism and aesthetic appeal: practical in a soothing sort of way, its glossy brick floors perhaps the most pleasing part.
&n
bsp; Anita was working, and there was no reason for Jeff Day to attend a preliminary hearing for Larry Lee on new charges, so Sasha was attending this one alone. She placed her purse on the conveyer belt, passed through the courthouse scanner and walked down the glass-walled corridor into the building from which the Tennessee River, just a block away, can be seen on the other side. As she sat on a cushioned bench in the lobby, waiting for the courtroom doors to open, Sasha glanced at the people assembled around her, wondering who might be the sister of Larry Lee—Sasha assumed she would be there—or his most recent victim. She wondered if anyone was there for Larry Lee. There had thus far been no news, no publicity, about his arrest, even though this registered sex offender was the primary suspect in Michelle Anderson’s murder investigation and had attacked yet another girl.
When the courtroom opened and everyone filed in, they were instructed to sit according to the role they had in the proceedings of the day: victims and attorneys on the right side of the aisle, everyone else in the crowded chamber on the left. The room became a sea of gliding figures, floating around and out of each other’s way, checking dockets and files, murmuring, requesting permission to speak with presiding Judge Andrew Jackson VI, named for his direct ancestor, the seventh President of the United States.
Before attending the hearing Sasha had checked out some identities and information online. In the courtroom she recognized the prosecutor assigned to the case, Leslie Nassios. In the Knox County District Attorney’s office, Nassios’ title was officially Assistant District Attorney for the Sixth Judicial District and Division Chief and Violent Crime Prosecutor for Knox County Division III Criminal Court. She’d earned a reputation as tenacious and tough, with a solid record of convictions. A slim, attractive brunette of medium height, she wore a no-nonsense black business pantsuit paired with a VOLS bright-orange T-shirt underneath. This was, after all, pre-game day in Knoxville, home to the University of Tennessee. Big Orange country—sacred as law.
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