The 600-Mile Question: What Happened to Judy Smith?

Judy Smith left her hotel in downtown Philadelphia for a day of sightseeing.

She had a simple plan. Walk the historic district. Visit places like Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Meet her husband later that afternoon.

A normal day.

But by that evening… she was gone.

Five months later, her remains were discovered in a remote section of Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina — more than 600 miles away from where she was last seen.

No one can explain how she got there.

No confirmed travel records.
No clear timeline.
No known connection to the area.

Some witnesses say they saw Judy alive in Asheville in the days after she disappeared — calm, coherent, even shopping. Others believe something happened in Philadelphia that set everything in motion.

But every explanation leaves something out.

In this episode, we walk through Judy’s final known hours, the investigation that followed, and the evidence that continues to raise more questions than answers.

Because in this case, the biggest mystery isn’t just what happened to Judy Smith…

…it’s how she got there at all.

To see more about this case, as well as the sources used to create this episode, visit our Blog Here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hi, welcome to Crime Clueless. We're your hosts. I'm Jenna. And I'm Lara. Have you ever had that moment at the airport when everything is going perfectly? You're on time, you're checked in, you're feeling proud of yourself because traveling is chaos, and somehow you pulled it together. And then suddenly you realize you forgot the one thing you absolutely cannot forget: your ID, your driver's license, the tiny rectangle that apparently controls your entire ability to exist in modern society. That's exactly what happened to Judy Smith. It's April of 1997, and Judy and her husband Jeff are at the airport in Boston. They're about to fly to Philadelphia for Jeff's work conference. It's a pretty normal trip, the kind that couples take all the time. One person works, the other person explores the city. Maybe they meet up for dinner. Easy. Except somewhere in the middle of the airport shuffle, Judy realizes she left her driver's license at home. And if you've ever had that moment where your stomach drops and you start checking every pocket, every pocket of your purse, your person, maybe if I look just one more place, it will magically appear. You know that exact feeling.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

No, I've actually had this nightmare before where we're at the airport and I realized I left every one of our passports at home. And it's like running home, trying to, and I think I woke up in a panic still. Like that is my literal nightmare for getting something like that. Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Because all of a sudden, your smooth trip becomes this logistical puzzle. Can we still make the flight? Do we miss the flight? Do we go back? Do we, you know, in 1997, do you try to explain it to TSA and hope they let you on anyways? Definitely not today, though.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

No, not today.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

No. So Judy and Jeff make a pretty practical decision. Jeff will go ahead and take the scheduled flight to Philadelphia. Judy will head home, grab her license, and take a later flight. Problem solved, just a minor travel hiccup.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Yeah, which honestly, travel hiccups happen all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Exactly. And by that evening, everything seems fine. Judy arrives in Philadelphia. She meets Jeff at their hotel. They settle in for the night. There's no drama, no red flags, no sense that anything unusual has happened. The next day, Jeff will attend his conference. Judy plans to spend the day sightseeing around Philadelphia. The historic sites, some tourist stops, the kind of day anyone would have visiting a city for the first time. And the next morning, Judy leaves the hotel to explore.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

So at this point, just everything's normal after the small hiccup at the airport. Everything seems to be normal at this point.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yep, completely normal. Except, here's the part that makes the story so unsettling because Judy Smith will never return to the hotel. She disappears somewhere that day. No confirmed trail, no explanation. And for months, no one knows what happened to her until five months later. Wait, five months later? Yeah. Five months. Hikers in the mountains of North Carolina discover remains in a remote area of Hiscath National Forest. And those remains are eventually identified as Judy Smith.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Wow, in North Carolina? Not even anywhere close. Nowhere close by. Nope.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Over 600 miles away from Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Okay, so how does someone vanish in downtown Philadelphia and end up in the mountains of North Carolina?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

That is crazy. Exactly the question investigators have been trying to answer ever since. Because every time this case starts to make sense, another detail shows up that completely breaks the story again. Judy was born on December 15th, 1946 in Orleans, Massachusetts. Her parents owned a local diner there. She had a twin brother and a younger brother, but eventually became estranged from both, although it seems like she kept in contact with her parents, who eventually moved to Florida. She married briefly after high school, but when the Vietnam War started, her husband fled the country for Sweden to avoid the draft. And apparently he stayed there. Judy went to find him. He didn't come home, so she ended that marriage. A few years later, Judy married a man named Charles after that, and they had a son and a daughter together. Their marriage, though, didn't last very long. They ended up getting divorced before their children started school. At this point, Judy decides she needs to complete her education and make sure she can support her two kids on her own. She gets a degree in nursing, all while raising her two young kids. She saves money, she works hard, and she's eventually able to buy her own home in the Mission Hills area of Boston. She was absolutely a force to be reckoned with. She's incredibly smart, capable, independent, resourceful. Her kids recall great memories from growing up, like going to visit her parents in Florida. Judy works.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

It is. They remember her like studying and taking tests while they're hanging out with grandma and grandpa.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Judy moved into working as a home care nurse, which is one of those jobs that tend to tell you a lot about someone's personality because it's not just medicine, it's patience, it's compassion, it's walking into people's home every day and helping them through some of the hardest moments of their lives. One of those people was Jeffrey Smith. Jeff was the son of a well-known criminal defense lawyer. He followed in his father's footsteps by earning his law degree in 1969 from Harvard. He went on to represent pharmaceutical companies. Jeff's father had had surgery, and Judy was helping him following that surgery. Jeff and Judy got to know each other. And when she was done caring for his father, Jeff asked Judy out. They dated for quite a while, both working demanding jobs, both raising their own children. Jeff had a daughter that he had sole custody of at that point. They dated for about 10 years before deciding to get married. They got married in late fall of 1996. I think after having other marriages, neither of them wanted to jump straight in. And also, I read that Judy really loved her home. And even by this point in 1997, they hadn't sold it yet. They were working on it, but it was just something that took so much work to get that it was hard to think about selling it and moving somewhere new. By the spring of 1997, Judy was 50 years old. She and Jeff lived together in the Boston area in Newton, Massachusetts, which is basically one of those classic New England suburbs where you're close enough to Boston to be in the city quickly, but you're still tucked into a quiet neighborhood. You've got tree-lined streets, beautiful area. Judy wasn't someone people thought of as fragile. She'd gone backpacking across Spain, Italy, and France with her two kids when they were older. Judy had also traveled to Thailand on a solo trip to visit family of a former patient. Jeff and Judy had taken a lot of cruises together to fun places. She loved traveling and was very adept at getting around handling new cities, things like that. She's not somebody who had never gone out on her own, is really the point I want to get across with that.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah, so that's really interesting because sometimes when we cover cases where they disappear, you hear family members saying, oh, they would never travel alone or they were really cautious or things like that. But she sounds like she could handle exploring a new city by herself for a day.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah, exactly. Nothing about the idea of Judy spending a day sightseeing in Philadelphia seemed unusual to anyone who knew her. In fact, it made perfect sense. Now, Jeff specialized in healthcare and pharmaceutical law. He needed to be in Philadelphia that week for a professional conference. He was on the panel for one of the discussions. So, you know, a classic work trip, turned mini vacation. Judy had never been to Philadelphia despite living relatively close. They also went to this conference every year, and it was in a different city every year. So the plan was Jeff would attend the conference. Judy would spend the day exploring the city. They'd meet up in the evenings, maybe explore together, maybe just enjoy dinner. Pretty standard. Judy arrived late around 9 to 10 p.m. that night. She felt bad for forgetting her ID and starting the day on a different track. She had brought Jeff flowers. He said he had planned to do the same for her to say thank you for still coming. The two got pizza, they chatted about the next day, and they called it a night. The next morning was casual, normal. Jeff got breakfast. He found a continental offering on their floor and came back to suggest that Judy hit up that breakfast before heading out to explore Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

And Philadelphia is one of those cities where you can do a lot in one day.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Exactly. Historic sites everywhere: the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Museums, restaurants, all within walking distance of the historic district. The last time Jeff sees Judy, she's getting ready to leave and he's leaving. It's around 9 a.m. There's no indication that anything in their life is about to go sideways. Just getting ready for an ordinary normal day. Most sources describe the hotel they were at as the Double Tree in downtown Philadelphia, which is right in the middle of the historic district. So it's the perfect location if you're visiting the city for the first time. Within a few blocks, you've got some of the most famous landmarks in American history. If you are planning a one-day sightseeing adventure, this is exactly where you'd want to be staying.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Which honestly sounds like the best version of a work trip.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Right? If you've ever been the spouse on a work trip, the unspoken deal is basically you go to meetings and I will keep myself busy. I will find plenty to do.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yep, exactly. One person gets conference coffee and awkward networking, and the other one gets museum and lunch somewhere fun. I think I know which side I'd rather be on.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Yeah, right. By all accounts, that's what this trip was looking like. Now, as we start reconstructing Judy's plans for that day, there are three different levels of information that investigators had to work with. First, things that were reported by Jeff. Second, things that are reasonable assumptions based on what tourists usually do in that area. And third, things that are actually confirmed through evidence or witnesses. And in this case, the three don't always overlap.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

So basically, an investigator's nightmare there.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Precisely. Because the most commonly repeated version of Judy's plans comes from Jeff. He said Judy intended to visit places like Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, which makes sense. Those are the biggest historical attractions in the area. And if Judy was planning a classic sightseeing day in Philadelphia, the places she mentioned make sense. All of those are clustered right in the heart of the city. But Laura and I actually know something about trying to see all of that in one day. Yeah, we've both done that before. Yes. And it turns out that one quick day of sightseeing in Philadelphia is actually a lot.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yes. We started with the Liberty Bell, then walked over to Independence Hall. And then we're like, okay, let's go see the Betsy Ross house.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Then somehow we ended up at Reading Terminal Market because obviously in Philadelphia, you have to get a cheesesteak.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Which, for the record, is an extremely important historical stop because they are the best there. They are the best.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Okay, go for one of those right now. Uh yeah. After that, we still had things like Benjamin Franklin Museum, the Museum of the American Revolution, the Franklin Memorial, City Hall, the Love Sign. And basically walked the entire city. Yeah, exactly. It's a lot. It is a lot. There's a lot to see in a very close area.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

And it's nice because you can walk it all. Like you can walk and get to everything that you want to see. So that is a really cool thing. It's not like you're taking cabs or renting a car or doing things like that. I would now assume she's just walking everywhere she can.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yes. Walking, looking around, taking pictures. There are also reports that Judy had planned to use something called the Philly Flash, which we missed. It's basically a tourist bus loop that connects the major historic sites around downtown. So it's cool. Yeah, it runs in this big circle through downtown Philadelphia, stopping at places like Independence Hall, Penn's Landing, the other places we mentioned, shopping areas. And the idea is really simple. You hop on, you ride to the next place you want to see, hop off, explore, and then when you're ready, you catch it again and go to the next one.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Oh, that's really cool. Without using that tourist bus, suddenly we've walked 12 miles and it's only lunchtime.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yeah, exactly. So Judy had planned to hop on the tourist bus loop. It makes sense. And it's kind of cool. It's like Philadelphia saying, hey Taurus, you don't have to solve public transportation today.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Philadelphia helping visitors avoid the advanced level SEPTA puzzle.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Yes, very cool that they have this option. The Flash started operating in the mid-90s, so available during Judy's visit in 1997. If you look at a map of the route, it connects all the major places. And seeing all of those and having that be her plan makes perfect sense. But we don't actually have confirmed evidence that Judy visited any of those places.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Yeah, so we know her plan, but that doesn't necessarily, we don't know that she did that or that she made it to all of them. She could have just gone to a couple.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Correct. And that difference becomes incredibly important later because as investigators started trying to piece together Judy's final movements, they kept running into the same frustrating problem. There were very few confirmed sightings, very little physical evidence, and almost nothing that clearly faces Judy at a specific location after she left the hotel that morning.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Which is wild when you think about it, because it isn't a remote hiking trail or a small town. Like this is downtown Philadelphia. Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

But the last truly solid moment we have is Judy and Jeff together that morning, still at the hotel, before the day even began. The morning that Judy Smith disappeared was April 10th, 1997. Jeff had a full day ahead of him. Judy has her full day planned. According to Jeff, Judy leaves the hotel around 9 a.m. According to Jeff, Judy left the hotel carrying a red backpack. That backpack is one of the most consistently mentioned details in this case. It's described almost like her trademark bag for the trip, the one she planned to carry while sightseeing around the city.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Which makes sense. Backpack, camera, maybe water, souvenir snacks, classic tourist gear, but having that red backpack, I think, is a distinguishing feature. You would think more people might notice that, you know? Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

You can understand if it is busy and there are tourists coming in and out and in and out. One might not totally jump off the page that you remember. But the red backpack feels like something they might have remembered. Yeah. The exact details of what Judy was wearing that morning aren't perfectly documented, but several accounts describe her wearing casual sightseeing clothes, just normal, comfortable shoes, especially. Nothing about the morning suggests that anything is wrong. Just Judy heading out the door for a fun, busy day.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Does she have any kind of phone that in 97?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Realistically, probably not. And I can't find it in any of the reporting. So if she did have one, it was probably just a basic one. But also there's no reporting, like when later on, it I would have thought Jeff would have one, but it sounds like he is continually going back and forth between the hotel to check messages. So there's no, there's absolutely no GPS or location data and no mention of a cell phone.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Yeah, which that makes it really hard to reconstruct the day.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah. All investigators really have is her plan. But once she left the hotel, there's nothing that confirms exactly where she went. No purchases, no ticket stubs, nothing like that. Despite the fact that Judy should have been surrounded by people most of the days, some kind of paper trail. Even getting a ticket for that flash wouldn't have really helped, but they really struggled to confirm if she went to any of the sightseeing places that she planned on.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

So they didn't have evidence of any sites that she went to?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

None. No clear witnesses, no verified record of her boarding the flash. And I guess the flash is one where you can buy a ticket anywhere. So you can just pay the driver and he gives you a ticket and you just show them that as you get on and off. And so the ticket just says you have the day pass for it and you can get on and off anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

And was she using cash to buy things?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

You did have cash. I mean, she had cards too. There's no record that she used those. But I think the flash is pretty cheap, a couple bucks. And I don't know if they would have taken credit cards as you're getting on the flash. You can also buy tickets for that at like the museums or the different tourist spots around the area, too. So there's like an unlimited amount of places that she could have purchased it, but they couldn't prove that she bought a ticket even for that. For most of that day, Jeff is exactly where he planned to be. He's at his conference meetings, presentations. He was doing his panel that he was on. According to Jeff, the two of them had agreed to reconnect around 5 p.m. They were gonna go to a mixer that was being put on by the conference at their hotel. And then they had plans to meet up with some friends from North Jersey for dinner. The conference wrapped up. Sometime around 5 30 p.m., Jeff returns to the hotel room. And he's a little later than he planned getting back. There's nothing alarming about the fact that Judy isn't there yet. Maybe something took longer than she planned, or she ended up being further away from the hotel and getting back maybe took a little longer.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yeah. Sightseeing days don't always run on an exact schedule. And maybe you take longer at one place and you think, oh, I'll just hop in on this place on my way back. If she didn't get to see it before. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

And Jeff's like, maybe she lost track of time. He was a little concerned, but that's because Judy doesn't run behind. Judy is almost always where she says when she says. So Jeff starts to wonder if he got the plan mixed up. There was that cocktail party at 6 p.m. He thought maybe when I wasn't here at five, she got ready and went down to that. And maybe I'm supposed to meet her there. Maybe I forgot that that's where we were planning to meet instead of at the hotel room. So he goes down to the party, back to the room, down to the party, back to the room, which is what really makes me think they didn't have a cell phone because he's checking both places for her instead of calling a phone. Yeah. As more time passes, he starts to feel a little more anxious. By 6 15, Jeff is pretty worried. It didn't take long.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

And that's probably the point where he mentally starts retracing the day. What do we talk about? What were we? Did I miss something? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

When someone's running late, you expect some kind of sign: a phone call, a message, maybe a note. Sorry, I got turned around, something. We know she can't text and it doesn't sound like they can connect by phone. Jeff is feeling like something happened. He knows what she planned to do, but he doesn't know which attraction she necessarily went to or visited. He doesn't know if she did take the flash or decided to really get her steps in that day. None of it.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Which is scary because basically now your entire day is blank for her. You have nothing confirmed. And that you're in a new place. Maybe she's lost somewhere, doesn't know how to get back to the hotel.

unknown 24:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

There's so many variables there, too.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah. He talks to the hotel concierge, and there's also a guard working at the hotel. The concierge starts calling local hospitals for Jeff, looking for Judy. Jeff tries to think through the simple possibilities. Maybe she got turned around, the same things you said, lost track of time. Everything, you know, should be within walking distance or connected by the flash or the tourist route. So Jeff decides to start retracing what Judy's day might have looked like. He grabs a taxi and just starts going through the historic district, trying to follow a route that she might have taken, seeing if he can find her.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Which actually makes a lot of sense. You're imagining the path she might have walked. Probably thinking you might spot her along the way. Did the concierge or anyone at the front remember her leaving that morning? Did they see her leave?

SPEAKER_00 25:36

There's one person that says they saw her leave, but for some reason, I don't know if it took a while for them to come forward. There is somebody who confirms that she checked in the night before. So we know she did get on the flight and make it to Philadelphia. The next morning, there's someone that says they saw her leave around that 9 a.m. time. But beyond that, it's pretty blank. Jeff is searching. He starts to widen the net. He doesn't see her. A lot of those places also close around that 5 or 6 p.m. time. So we know she's not in this museum. She's not visiting this site, the Liberty Bell, things like that. He took a cab to the 6th and the 9th police districts, which were both around the places Judy would have been. They give him a list of hospitals. He's contacting them. He knows the concierge is also doing that. He's wondering if Judy got hurt or had some kind of medical emergency while she was out in the city. But he comes up blank. So does the concierge. There are no admissions to a hospital matching Judy. A nurse at one of the hospitals he calls offers to call other hospitals for him so he can keep looking elsewhere.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Yeah, so the two easiest explanations, she got delayed somewhere or some kind of accident, but neither of those are playing out right now either.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Right. I mentioned that Jeff and Judy had plans to meet friends for dinner. Jeff contacts them, hoping maybe Judy reached out. Maybe she decided to go to Jersey for something instead of maybe she got all of Philadelphia done before lunch, decided to go shopping in Jersey and meet him there for dinner. But they haven't heard from her either. Around midnight, Jeff contacts law enforcement to file a missing person's report. Now we're in the late 90s, and I feel like today we're a little more aware that adults can disappear under suspicious circumstances quickly. But even now, people are still told to wait. And in the 90s, they tell him he has to wait 24 hours before he can file a report, which makes you feel helpless. Like you know in your gut something is wrong. And 24 hours feels so unreasonable. I will never understand that. Jeff is just bouncing between places. He's back to the hotel, talking to the front desk, up to the room, checking hospitals. And I gotta say, I'm grateful for cell phones now because the stress and the panic that he has, it has to feel suffocating in this situation.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Yeah, and he's even got to be thinking too maybe she's calling, maybe she is somewhere, she's calling me, and I'm out looking around. I can't get her, so he's going back and forth, and that would be so awful. And the one thing with that location, which honestly is the part that makes this so weird, if Judy spent the day where she planned, she would have been surrounded by people. Someone would know what she was up to or if something happened to her. It's a busy place. Like you said, it's not like she's off hiking in the mountains or somewhere remote by herself. It's in a busy touristy area.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Yeah, exactly. And somehow no one clearly remembers seeing her. That's the point where investigators begin trying to answer the question that will define this case. Where was Judy Smith between 9 a.m. that morning and the time Jeff realized she was missing? Because that's an eight or nine-hour window, and we don't even know what time our mystery really begins in. Once it becomes clear that Judy isn't running late, we shift to a full missing person search. It did take a little bit more of a push from Jeff. He and his friends contacted local media, also the mayor from Philadelphia. There was a state representative who had been at the same conference as Jeff, and they all really helped get things moving. It's kind of frustrating that that's what it took, but fortunately they got there. In the days following Judy's disappearance, Jeff begins doing what many families of missing people eventually find themselves doing. He's trying to find her everywhere. Philadelphia put six detectives on the case who are also checking everywhere. They start calling, they're asking questions, they're knocking doors, they continue checking hospitals, they check morgues, homeless shelters, psychiatric institutions, they check all forms of transportation now. Train stations, stops, bus stations, subways. They retrace the areas where Judy might have spent the day, Hens Landing, museums, churches, markets. They focus on the hotel itself. They thoroughly search places that are hidden, like trash chutes, maintenance areas, housekeeping closets, stairwells, the roof, parking lots, rooms that were unoccupied. But investigators run into the same frustrating problem again and again. There's just no clear trail. There's no confirmed sighting that investigators can confidently anchor the timeline to. No store receipts, no museum tickets, no transportation records, no evidence that Judy had been in Philadelphia really at all. People do come forward with sightings, but none that investigators feel can be absolutely confirmed. One flash driver remembers seeing the red backpack, but there's no evidence that Judy was ever on the flash. Like we mentioned, the front desk remembers Judy arriving the night before Wednesday the 9th. They specifically remember checking her ID and giving her a room key. She didn't sign anything because Jeff was already checked in. But the woman does remember the two exchanging flowers. It also appears that her ticket for the flight was used. No one could specifically say that Judy was sitting next to them. They also couldn't find a flight attendant who could describe her being on the flight. But again, it's days later. There are tons of passengers. It's a short flight. I think her ticket being used is the biggest indicator that she did actually make it to Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

And Jeff saw her when she got there. But are they questioning him?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, like in all missing persons cases, the person closest. And he was surrounded by people all day who can confirm. But if you can't confirm she left the hotel the next morning, they're looking into did she make it to Philadelphia? Did something happen during the night? And this is his story now. Things like that. Jeff is continuing to stay in Philadelphia. He's distributing missing person flyers, thousands of them. According to later reports, roughly 9,000 flyers were sent out along the East Coast. He puts these flyers everywhere: hotels, bus stations, restaurants, public spaces, vaxxes them, mails them all up and down the East Coast, not just concentrated in Philadelphia. Wow, 9,000 is a lot. It is a lot. It shows how seriously the family was taking this. To them, it is clear that something is not right. They just don't believe that Judy left on her own at all. Jeff also hires private investigators, three different ones to be exact, to help search for Judy. We've got more and more people checking possible leads, following up on sightings. Once the flyers begin circulating, tips start coming in. They get a lot of them. There are people calling to say they might have seen Judy. Someone says they think they saw a woman matching her description at a restaurant. Another person thinks they saw someone who looked like her walking along the street in Philadelphia. Someone else calls and says they're certain they talk to her at a mall in New Jersey. Someone else points to a bus stop in Philly. Each one of these is investigated, and frustratingly, there's no evidence that Judy was in any of these places. Some have CCTV that don't show her. Some police arrive right after they're saying they see her. They search the area, the surrounding location, they come up empty. It's continually a possible sighting here, another sighting there, but no evidence that Judy's been there. And this is one of the most emotionally exhausting parts of missing person cases. Every tip feels like it could be a breakthrough until investigators follow up, and it isn't.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

It must be so brutal for her family. That would be terrible. You keep getting hope, and then it's just, nope, nope, nope, not her.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Right. Every time the phone rings, you're hoping that is the call, that is the tip that's leading to where Judy is. None of the sightings ever solidify into something that investigators can use, and weeks turn into months. The case starts drifting into that terrible space that many missing person investigations reach. There are questions everywhere and answers nowhere. There's another layer to this investigation that investigators consider as well. Whenever an adult disappears without clear evidence of a crime, they have to explore multiple possibilities. Did Judy leave voluntarily? Did she experience some kind of medical or mental health crisis? Did something awful happen to her? Did she hit her head and develop amnesia? There's so many possibilities. But one of these possibilities should have given evidence leading to Judy, and none of them did. Investigators examine the people closest to Judy, which we know is standard in every missing person investigation. Statistically, when something bad happens to someone, the person responsible is often someone they know. So Jeff becomes part of the investigation as well. Which is always so uncomfortable, but they have to look at it.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

How many times does the spouse have an alibi and they turn out to be a credible suspect or involved or something? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Investigators questioned him over and over about the timeline, about the trip, about their relationship, about everything leading up to Judy's disappearance. They ask him to take a polygraph. He is a lawyer, he knows. He says he will if the FBI administer the polygraph. And if he passes, if the FBI join in on the search for Judy, they say no. They say we're not bringing in the FBI. We don't have evidence of a crime. They point to that, which we've talked about in multiple stories, as a checkbox in the suspicious column for Jeff. Judy's kids, though, have known Jeff for around 10 years at this point. They like him, they trust him. They tell investigators they don't believe that he would ever hurt their mom. They also find out that Judy had a physical just two weeks before the trip to Philadelphia and got a clean bill of health. As the investigation continues, nothing emerges that clearly explains what happened. The deeper investigators look, the more the case seems to dissolve instead of becoming clearer. She walked out of her hotel that morning. And after that moment, no one can definitively say where she went or who she met or how her day unfolded. And for the next five months, that mystery only deepens because Judy Smith is simply gone. As the weeks pass after Judy disappeared, they send out more wires, they bring in more tips. They're just in this waiting game, constant questions, no clear answers. But five months later, the case takes a turn that no one involved in this Philadelphia investigation could have predicted. Not Jeff, not Judy's family, and not the investigators searching for Judy. In September of 1997, hundreds, over 600 miles away from Philadelphia, a father and a son are out hiking in the mountains of North Carolina. They were actually deer hunting, but the season hadn't officially begun yet. So their identities have never been released because technically that's illegal. They're in a remote section of Hiscat National Forest, which is just outside the Asheville area in North Carolina. It's a normal morning. They're moving through the forest and they stumble on human remains.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Wow, that must have not been on their bingo card for that day. No.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

The remains appear to have been in the forest for some time. They are partially buried. They're also scattered in the surrounding area by wildlife. Almost immediately, investigators in North Carolina begin trying to answer who is this person? At first, there's no obvious connection to any local missing person. When investigators arrive at the scene, they're dealing with a situation that's already complicated. The remains discovered have clearly been there for months. The area where they're found is wooded. It's off a main road, but off enough that even if you were in the area, it would have been very easy to miss. They also have had all summer and wildlife activity. It makes reconstructing what happened much harder. Investigators learn a couple things. The remains appear to belong to an adult woman, either in her mid-40s to early 50s. The remains appear to have been partially buried. So to investigators, that shows them that someone may have tried to hide what happened here.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Yeah, so right away they're thinking this probably wasn't just a hiker who got lost and wandered off and something bad happened to them.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Right. As forensic investigators begin examining the clothing and the remains, another troubling detail emerges. The victim's clothing shows damage consistent with stab wounds. In particular, investigators note cuts and punctures in the bra area and suggest a sharp weapon was used. I couldn't find any more details on if they were able to determine exactly what type of sharp weapon. They believe this is not, like you said, someone who wandered into the forest. It appears to be a homicide. They find more pieces of evidence. They find a backpack, they find sunglasses, they also find things that suggest this wasn't a robbery. There's a wedding ring present. They also locate cash, about$167. Half of it was found in the backpack near the victim. The other half was found in a shirt pocket.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

That's really strange because if it was a random robbery or attack, those are usually the first things that they're gonna take, especially cash.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Yes, cash. Harder to get rid of maybe an engraved wedding ring or designer sunglasses, or cards, things like that to go use them. But cash, yeah, it seems you would take that. They didn't find a wallet with an ID, so couldn't start identifying that way. They decide to start comparing the remains to missing persons reports. And at some time during that process, something catches their attention. The flyers have been so widely distributed that even in North Carolina, they had seen those flyers. The timeline and the age matches up with their Jane Doe. So the possibility that the unidentified remains in the forest could belong to this missing woman prompts investigators to try to make a comparison using dental records. They reach out to Jeff, who gets that for them. And when the results come back, the identification is confirmed. The remains discovered belong to Judith Smith, the woman who disappeared five months earlier in Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

Oh crazy. The woman who disappeared in downtown Philadelphia is found in the mountains of North Carolina. That's just so wild. It is.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Yeah, more than 600 miles away from where she was last seen. Discovery does not solve the case. If anything, It creates an entirely new mystery. Now, investigators aren't just asking where Judy went that day in Philadelphia. They're trying to figure out how she got from there to this remote forest in the mountains of North Carolina. Was she with someone when she got there? And investigators discover some odd details of the scene now that they've tied it to Judy. Near her remains, like I said, they had found a blue and black backpack and a pair of sunglasses. But those items don't belong to Judy.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

So the backpack at the scene might have belonged to someone else?

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Possible. That becomes an incredibly important question. Because also, when Judy left the hotel in Philadelphia, we know she was carrying a red backpack, but that backpack is never found. So they have to figure out how she got there, why she got there, someone else take her there, why there? There's so many questions once she's discovered in North Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

And it's not like she was found right next to the highway or in the middle of the city. If someone was driving and had her in the trunk and they just dumped her on the side of the road, which is horrible. Horrible. But she's up in the mountains in a remote area. Like they had to have taken her there.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Or she wanted to go there with someone or on her own and met with Val Play. The national forest is vast. It is over 500,000 acres, miles of mountains, trails, wooded areas. And the thing is, there are a lot of places if somebody was, say, in Philadelphia and decided at the last minute that they wanted to go hiking instead of see historic sites, which never occurred to investigators or really anyone, because Judy had been excited about exploring downtown Philadelphia. But okay, say she wanted to go hiking and be in nature that day instead. Philadelphia is surrounded by outdoor areas that are far closer and easier to reach. In Pennsylvania, you've got the Valley Forge National Historical Park, which is about 40 minutes away. You have the French Creek State Park, which is about an hour. You have Appalachian Trail access points within one to two hours. And even the Pocono Mountains within two hours. In New Jersey, you've got the Delaware Water Gap, which is about two hours from Philadelphia. I was trying to, in my head, like, why would she go to North Carolina? Why would she go 600 miles away? Yeah. Is that like there? I know there are closer places, right? So I had looked up places that were closer. There's even a mountain park in Maryland within two hours. There are dozens of places dramatically closer than where Judy ended up. And some people suggest that maybe she wanted to see the Appalachian Trail, which runs through North Carolina. But that trail also runs through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, all closer. All dramatically closer. Yeah. And where Judy was found was in an area that investigators say you would need to know well enough to get to. When we talk about the 600 miles, at best case, we're talking a 10-hour drive from where she was. Buses, trains, everything would have been much longer. And again, there's no record of her purchasing bus pass, train pass, anything.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Yeah, renting a car. There's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

Nope. When this case you're starting to try to pull together pieces and come up with some kind of reasonable explanation, another development complicates the timeline further. After Judy is identified, investigators begin hearing from people in the Asheville area who believe that they talked to her around the same time. Yeah. And these sightings are another debated part of the case, but several people come forward saying they encountered a woman matching Judy's description in the Asheville area not long after she disappeared from Pennsylvania. One of the most widely reported accounts comes from a woman who worked in a Christmas shop. The clerk tells investigators that a woman resembling Judy came into the store and struck up a conversation. According to this woman, whoever came in mentioned that she was from Boston. She also said that she had come to North Carolina while her husband, who was an attorney, was attending a conference up north. Wow, that's really specific. Yeah, it's crazy specific and it very closely matches Judy's situation. She had traveled to Philadelphia with her attorney husband from Boston for his conference, which means the conversation described by the clerk sounds like Judy explaining what she had been doing in the days before she vanished. But at that point, nobody knew that she had vanished. They hadn't really seen the flyers. We're talking in that date range. So we don't know if it was the day she disappeared or if it was a week after. According to the woman at the store, Judy didn't seem distressed or confused. She seemed calm, coherent, just another visitor passing through town. There are other accounts that Judy was in other places in Asheville, possibly near a motel. There was one at a diner. There was one that said she was inquiring about a job. Interesting. Yeah. Some of those reports are a lot less firmly documented than the retail encounter at the Christmas store. But if even one of those sightings is accurate, it tells investigators something they hadn't originally considered that Judy may have traveled to North Carolina voluntarily.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Which would explain how she ended up in the mountains, but opens up a whole new set of questions as to why. And it kind of makes sense too if people are saying they saw her there, why no one remembered seeing her around all the touristy areas. Right. That makes a little bit more sense, but does not make sense why she would up and drive 10 hours to go to North Carolina.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Right. They cannot find any connection she would have to North Carolina. She'd been there one time before, years ago. They couldn't find any connection to specifically Asheville. Trying to figure out what she was doing there was incredibly puzzling. And even with the sightings, they don't fully solve the mystery. Also, with those sightings, everyone they talked to now knew that this woman had disappeared from this place. They'd seen the flyer, which did have a lot of those details on it, as well as news reports. It's possible that they could have been remembering a different encounter. And your brain can sometimes fill in those pieces of information, you know, five, six, seven months after the fact.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

Because they're not the only ones who had, quote, sightings of her. Other people came forth and nothing panned out before. Right. But finding her in that area makes those seem a little bit more credible. Yeah. Maybe after she was found, the first thought investigators probably had was maybe she decided for some reason to leave Philadelphia and take a trip on her own. And I was wondering too. It makes you wonder if the dynamic between her and this is just a thought. Maybe that dynamic was off that morning because of what had happened the day before. Maybe they did have some kind of argument, but he didn't want to say that. I I don't know. And she's like, you know what? I'm just gonna take a day. We're here. Maybe I'll just I've always wanted to go back to North Carolina for some reason. I don't know. But maybe there was some kind of discord between them when she decided to take a break and go do her own thing somewhere else. And that whatever happened in that hotel room, we don't really know. None of that's I mean, that's just my personal theory or thoughts about what could have made her leave, but it didn't sound like that from Jeff's account.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

No, and there are friends of Judy's that come forward that say things weren't always the best between them, but it never gets anywhere into that she would just leave range of things. It's more like normal tensions between married adults.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

Not that she wanted to leave him, not that yeah, but maybe it wasn't that she wanted to leave, maybe it was something like they had had some kind of big argument and she's like, you know what? I just need to get away by myself for a couple days. Yeah, I'm just gonna go down to this place that I've wanted to go to and I'll come back before we fly home, right? I just need a little getaway. I have no idea, obviously, but trying to think of why she would drive 600 miles away from where they're staying together for this little work trip.

SPEAKER_00 54:36

And one thing investigators say about that is maybe she was sitting somewhere in Philadelphia thinking, wanting to go somewhere, struck up a conversation. They were headed down there. I'll give you a ride. And that may not be the person that harmed her. She could have crossed paths with someone else. Or maybe she wanted to get a ride without having to rent a car and drive herself. It's a really busy area. You can get from Philadelphia to this area in North Carolina on pretty major freeways that really do connect the East Coast, like the north to the south parts. They're really busy, highly trafficked freeways that run through there. Yeah. And that, or she didn't go voluntarily.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Someone was driving through and knew that area if they were from there or not, but that's something else they consider. Her kids just cannot believe, knowing their mom, that she would have decided to just leave for good. I do like your thought of maybe she just went for a couple days. Maybe she went to one place and the next place isn't that far. It could have taken her a couple days to get further south. She also could have done it in that time frame, that 9 a.m. to 6 or 7 p.m. time frame, if you know where you're going. But her kids don't believe that she just went there and wasn't planning on coming home.

SPEAKER_01 56:27

Yeah, and I wouldn't think that either. I was thinking more, I need to clear my head, I need a few days, and we're flying home together in four days or whatever it was. I'll be back by then. But not letting anyone know where you're going seems like not a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

Yeah. Her son, in one interview he did, said we always had this understanding that it's okay to be late to something, or if you have to change your plans, that's totally fine between like her and her son and daughter. But you always call and you always let people know if you're gonna be late or if you can't show up. And there's just something that he always knew with his mom. So another reason of like, if she decided to change her plans, she didn't have any reason not to tell her son and daughter. Yeah. And she didn't have to tell them, of course, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

And if she's just thinking I'm gonna take a couple days and then I'll be back before we fly home.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

And all of that answers one part of it, you know, how she possibly ended up in North Carolina. But how did she end up murdered in a remote forest after that? Yeah. What's the next step? What happened?

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

The crime scene strongly suggested that something violent happened to her, but it had been so long, they couldn't tell if it happened right there or if it happened somewhere else. They do believe she was stabbed and that is how she died. They also believe that somebody had tried to cover it up to bury the remains, which now we've got someone else involved, but they've never been able to link to any suspects at all.

SPEAKER_01 58:17

And there's no like DNA evidence on that other backpack?

SPEAKER_00 58:22

Not that they've ever said, and it was 1997. I assume they held on to it. I would love if they tested it for DNA now, if they still had it, if they had good samples. Same with the sunglasses. Yeah. There weren't ones that anybody I mean, she could have bought them. There's no documented receipt of that. They never found her wallet. So it could have been carried off, it could have been lost in the forest too, but it was never found. She also was wearing different clothes than what she left in in the first place. She was wearing things that nobody could point to. So whether she had stopped and bought them, again using cash, possibly, that makes it seem like she would have been the one to do that, not someone else. Like if something happened to her in Philadelphia, then they transported her all that way. The backpack, you would think they would not put a different backpack with her, that they would take at least the cash. It's very none of it makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 59:38

No, none of it makes sense. And I was wondering that too, if she was wearing the same clothes as she had been wearing in Philadelphia. I didn't know if they were able to tell after being outside in the environment for five months and with the wildlife and things like that. So that is really interesting that she had different clothes on.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Investigators never identified a suspect connected to Judy in the Asheville area, North Carolina, no known friends, no family, no documented reason for her to be there, which means that decades later, the case still circles back to the same questions that investigators faced in 1997. How did Judy Smith travel from Philadelphia to North Carolina? Was she with somebody? Was she on her own? Who was the last person to see her alive? And we don't have answers to any of those questions. And you can come up with an explanation for one here and one there, but it doesn't make sense for the other questions. Like one answer doesn't answer all three that investigators have found.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

Totally. And that's what we've been talking about. Oh, maybe this happened, but that doesn't explain why this would have happened, and it doesn't explain why she would have done that. The whys will probably I don't know how you would ever get an answer for that unless you find the person who did this.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

But and how do you do that? Unless there is DNA or somebody talked and a witness comes forward, but yeah, almost 30 years later at this point, 29 next month.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:21

That's awful and awful for her family because even though they found her, they know she's not just missing, they kind of know what happened. But all those why questions would be so hard. Like, why did she go there? Was she planning to leave?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

Was she forced?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

Was she taken there? Was she abducted from downtown Philadelphia? So many questions that it was probably unsettling even today to not know why. No answers, no one held accountable.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

Right, no justice because it is a homicide, and nobody's ever been even named a suspect for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

Yeah. How can you? She's supposed to be 600 miles away in a very populated touristy area without CCTV or any witnesses. I don't know how you would ever find any more answers.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

Right. Jeff passed away in 2005, and he talked about it a lot up until then. By the time investigators finished examining the evidence in Judy's case, they had what a lot of investigations hoped for. They had their person that had been missing. They kind of had a crime scene. They had witnesses all up and down the East Coast who believed they saw her alive in the days after she disappeared. And yet somehow the story refuses to come together because when detectives tried to build a complete timeline, we have two massive gaps remaining. And those gaps are the reason that Judy Smith's case is still talked about today. The first mystery is the one that everyone asks immediately how did Judy get from Philadelphia to North Carolina? We know it's not next door, and there are closer places, depending on what she was looking for. Either way, however, she got there, it doesn't just happen accidentally. You can't just wander out of a hotel in Philadelphia and somehow end up in the mountains outside of Asheville. There has to be a route, a path, some kind of transportation. But investigators were never able to find one. No record. And no witness who has ever come forward saying they traveled with Judy.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:52

Which still is so wild because moving that far and going that distance feel like there would be some kind of trail. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

Even in the late 90s, you've still got paper records, you've got tickets or receipts or reservations. But however Judy got from Philadelphia to North Carolina is still completely undocumented. And then that leads to the second mystery. Who was with her in North Carolina? Who did this? The crime scene, everything investigators found, suggests that Judy wasn't in the woods alone. What happened to her backpack, to her ID? Why is she wearing different clothes? Where did she get the backpack? We can't find any kind of receipt or evidence that points to any of those things. And those could have been belongings that someone left behind, someone who may very well have been the last person to see Judy alive.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:53

And unfortunately, if that person exists, we just still don't even know who they are or any ideas. Nothing. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:01

Decades later, investigators still don't know. They don't know whether Judy met that person by chance. If for some reason she was traveling with somebody, she's been tied to a couple serial killers, but the main one they bring up a lot because he did leave his victims in national parks, but usually he found them in national parks, and it was a decade later. So either he was active well before they have that documented, or he wasn't involved at all. I just can't figure it out. This case is so haunting. Did she choose to leave? Did something happen in downtown? Did it happen in North Carolina? Why North Carolina? There's so many places that are closer.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

There's no contact with family. It everything about it is just questionable. After question.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:01

Yeah, it doesn't make sense. It's not like a lot of these cases just doesn't make sense. I've been giving you mostly those lately. Yes. It's like people, I don't know, they don't most of the time, they don't just drive off 600 miles while they're on a work trip with their husband. I think you would be excited. I know I would. I would be excited for a weekend away. Well, see a new place, especially like a historical place with a lot to see, spend the nights and going out to dinner with your husband and friends. And I don't, it just doesn't make sense why to just leave like that. And the other things you mentioned that don't make sense, the clothes, the backpack. Where's her stuff? Where's the other stuff? And I did wonder that if there were any serial killers active in that area at that time. Someone could have picked her up in Philadelphia.

unknown 1:06:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:59

But it's a very busy place. I remember what's the crime rate in Philadelphia at that time?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:05

Pretty high. Yeah. I don't know the exact number, but with any big, busy city like that, especially with tons of tourists coming and going.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

Yeah. I don't absolutely. And she could have been kidnapped, thrown in the back of a car, taken there along. Hawked up the mountain, something that's very possible.

unknown 1:07:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

We just don't know. It is possible where she was found that you could get there by a car and then it's 50 to 100 yards off that. So it's not like you had to hike with somebody up for miles to find where she was.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:49

And too, like we don't know how long it actually was between when she disappeared and when she died. Right. It could have been later. Like we just there's so so many possibilities to explain things, but none of it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:08

No, it gives like David Glenn Lewis vibes, I feel like. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:13

Found thousands of miles away somewhere else. Right. No explanation.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

It really is just as baffling, I feel like. For sure. Yeah. So I wonder what it would take to get answers to this. It feels like it either has to be DNA that hopefully is preserved and testable, or some person having talked about it and witnesses coming forward. Something. Something. And they weren't able to find any of those answers back then. Yeah. Just so sad. It is. Judy Smith was a mother, a wife, a nurse. She spent her life caring for people around her. And by all accounts, she was independent and capable, resourceful. She could navigate this city on her own, completely adept at striking up conversations with strangers. It should have just been a fun day. The questions surrounding Judy's death are still waiting for answers. If you were in Philadelphia in April of 1997, or in the Asheville area around the same time, and you remember seeing Judy Smith, someone who might have been with her, that information could still matter. Even the smallest detail, something that maybe seemed unimportant at the time, could help investigators understand what happened. Her case is still open. And we'll post a link to the sheriff's office in North Carolina that continues to take tips. I mean, that's the other thing with the sightings in Asheville. No one said that she was with anyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:00

And there's, I mean, there's gotta be someone out there who knows something. After all these years, her family deserves answers. It's just really sad.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:09

Yeah, absolutely. I would love to see this one solved for answers for why she ended up there, how she got there, anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

Anything.

unknown 1:10:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:24

I can't imagine if that was like your mom, that would be uh horrible.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

Just think about it all the time and trying to figure out the whys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:36

Thank you for joining us for this puzzling episode of Crime Clueless. If you're looking for more on this case or the resources that we used to create this episode, head over to our blog. You can find it on our website, crimeclueless.com. We are also on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube. We'd love to hear your thoughts or theories. You can find us at Crime Clueless. A fast, free, easy way to support the show is if you would please take a minute to rate or review or share our podcast. Your support helps us reach more listeners and grow our community. You can find Crime Clueless anywhere you get your podcasts on all streaming platforms. And as always, remember, refuse to be clueless, careless, or cut off guard. Not today, murder.