Killer Friends - Lora Sinner - Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
In April of nineteen ninety eight, hikers in the Trinity
Alps of northern California stumbled upon what looked like the
remains of a burnt out campsite, that is, until they
realized something human was buried beneath the ashes. The scene
told investigators that this was not an accident nor a
crime of impulse, but instead it seemed to be a

(00:28):
victim of drawn out torture. The investigation that followed slowly
unraveled a story no one could believe, one of betrayal, control,
and violence carried out by people who were so called friends.
This is the story of Laura Sinner.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
My name's Ben, I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked
and Grim, a true crime podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
The following podcast and material more about your audience, listener,
dis question and the countdown to Christmas is getting smaller

(01:25):
and smaller. It is almost here. We're what like nine
days away.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Oh, it's a bit too close. If you asked me,
it's a bit too close.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, I hope everyone's making sure that they're on the
nice list, not the naughty list, unless you want to
be on the naughty list. And that's a whole adult
conversation we're not going to talk about on this show, but.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh, wow, you do you wow? I feel like the
whole year, the whole year of twenty twenty five kind
of went down quick.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
I hope so too.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I don't know. Sometimes, I mean, most most years do
go pretty quick, but this one it just seems like
you blanked and it was gone.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
I think that might be something that just comes a
little more with age, too, Like the older you get it,
it's like the years seem to go buy faster, you
know what I mean maybe, which is actually funny because
there's this frame of reference for that. When you're young,
things seem to go so slow, like the year takes
so long to go by. But that's because your reference

(02:20):
for how long a year is well, one year if
you're if you're ten, one year is ten percent of
your life, So that's a lot, right, Yeah. But if you're,
say fifty, I see, well that percentage of your life
it's a lot smaller. So time seems to go faster
the more you have under your belt, which is an
interesting way to look at it.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Shit, Yeah, I don't know if I've ever looked at
it like that, to be.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Honest, and so with the thing is like with time,
Like over time, we've generated a lot of people who
are signing up over on Patreon, and we have a
lot of new people. We need to thank for that
as well, Like Lance Kin said Shelby, Lynn Weerick, Abby Skidmore,
Landen Hall, Tracy Calder, Nicole Monger, Rebecca Busby, and Courtney Ethritt.

(03:03):
Shout out to you and thank you so much for
supporting us over on Patreon.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Man, I didn't even see that one coming. No, no,
but honestly, thank you for signing up. We do appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
We really do. It's just now become my thing to
try and blindside it and work it into conversation as
best as I can.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, yeah, I was about to talk about that a
bit more, and then all of a sudden it was like,
oh shit, we're thanking patron.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well yeah we are. But I don't really have a
whole lot to talk about today other than you know,
maybe the concept of time and reality as we know
it and thanking patrons. So I think maybe if you're
cool or you don't have anything to talk about, we
just get in the case.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, I mean, if you want to hear us chit
chat more. We did a pre show and Patreon, but yeah,
I think here we'll just dive right in.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Sounds good. So in the early morning hours of Saturday,
April eighteenth, nineteen ninety eight, two hikers were moving through
the Trinity Alps Wilderness in Shasta County, California, USA. It's
the kind of place where people go when they want space.
There's no camp hosts looking after every individual campsite that are,
you know, shoulder to shoulder. There's no bathrooms or marked sites.

(04:10):
It's just trees, cold air, and silence. If someone wanted
to disappear out there for the weekend, they could, and
if something went wrong during that time, well it could
take a while before anyone realized. As the hikers went
deeper into the woods, they came across a campsite that
had been used fairly recently, perhaps somebody had been there

(04:31):
just even days ago, and they certain exactly didn't clean
up after themselves either. There was trash, litters scattered around,
and the remains of a rough fire pit, the kind
of mess that really tells carelessness and partying likely occurred
here until you really look at it and see that, well,
there's something else because the closer they got, something in

(04:53):
the charred area of that fire pit didn't look like
food scraps or burnt logs. It had a familiar shape,
a shape that made the hikers stop cold because there
were partially covered human remains that seemed to be poking
out of the dirt. They immediately left the area and
reported what they had seen to the Shasta County Sheriff's

(05:13):
office nearby in Reading. After the crews got their necessary
gear altogether, they all headed out to the location with
cadaver dogs, and they started to get to work. By Sunday,
April nineteenth, the situation became undeniable. In the remnants of
the fire pit, partially buried in a shallow grave, they
found the body of a young woman. When she was recovered,

(05:37):
she was completely unclothed, and even before an autopsy was performed,
the condition of the remains made it clear that this
was a violent death. The woman had suffered extensive injuries.
Her body was covered in bruises, not just in one area,
but across her arms and torso. There were long cuts
going down her arms that immediately stood out, especially on

(06:00):
her wrists. Now around her head, investigators found a black
plastic garbage bag that had been tied in place. It
wasn't loose though the bag had been tied, and it
was even partially melted around her head.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Oh man, this is a brutal death.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
There were signs of burning. There was signs of being bound,
and an apparent attempt to destroy evidence or make identification
more difficult. But the fire doing the burning, well, it
hadn't done enough to erase everything. The injuries were still
visible and the trauma was still very much so obvious.
Now not far from where the body had been discovered,

(06:36):
detectives also located a purse, and inside they found a
driver's license with a name and a face. It was
the victim, and it identified twenty year old Laura Sinner.
An autopsy would later confirm what investigators already suspected. Laura
had died from blunt force trauma to the head, at

(06:58):
least partially. They never did figure out exactly the cause
of death, but that was certainly a contributing factor. The
injuries she had were consistent with being struck multiple times
from behind. There was also evidence suggesting possible exphyxiation, lining
up with the plastic bag found over her head. There
were the cuts in her wrists too, nine in total.

(07:22):
They were shallow. They didn't look like the results of
a determined suicide attempt or anything. There were much more superficials.
They were going lengthways down her arm, and they weren't
going to be anything that would actually suffer an artery
or cause a death. Okay, Now, Her toxicology report added
another unsettling detail. Laura's blood alcohol level was extremely high,

(07:46):
even near fatal. Actually, it was high enough that she
would have been severely impaired, very vulnerable, and in no
condition to defend herself at the very least.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Holy frig this is just horrible. Like so, it just
still strikes me sometimes what humans are capable of doing
to other humans.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
I agree, And just you wait until you actually figure
out what happened.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Now. At the scene, detectives also noticed a large dented
can of chili beans, and there was blood and hair
stuck to the can. Investigators realize this may have been
used as a weapon to bludgeon Laura to death. They
may have figured that part out, but what they were
still trying to figure out. What they still didn't know
was how Laura ended up in this campsite in the

(08:34):
first place, who she'd been with, or why someone would
go to such lengths to kill her and then try
and erase her presence afterwards in such a well terrible manner.
So it was time to try and figure it out
with her now identified. Investigators shifted into the reconstruction mode
from the scene of the crime. The first task was

(08:55):
establishing a rough timeline. Based on the condition of the
body and the campsite, detectives believed Laura had been dead
for days, possibly longer than a week. Even the exposure
the wildlife and the partial burns on the remains complicated
things a bit, so pinning down an exact time of
death was going to be very difficult, in fact, maybe
even impossible. They worked outwards from the scene itself looking

(09:18):
for any important details, and one thing they found was
that there was no vehicle left anywhere nearby, not in
the parking lot or nothing. So it meant someone had
driven in the same vehicle as Laura to get into
the wilderness and then they left in said vehicle afterwards.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Okay, so it might have been someone she knew.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Exactly, So this detail tells investigators it's not a random attacker. Right,
not a passing stranger, because whoever had this shared transportation, well, yeah,
they must have known her or at least been on
some sort of good terms with her to join in
a shared.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Ride, I mean, or a potential kidnapping I suppose as well.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Right, potentially, I guess when you look it that way. Yes. Now,
the campsite itself raised some more questions to there's empty
liquor bottles that were scattered around, which suggested heavy drinking,
which is lining up certainly with her blood alcohol level.
But this wasn't just a party that had gone out
of hand. The shallow grave, the fire, the garbage bag
tied around her head, those weren't actions of someone panicking

(10:21):
in a moment. These were much more deliberate steps. These
would have taken time to do. What stood out most though,
was what was not at the scene. There was no
sign of Laura's clothing, no identification beyond her purse. There's
no indication that she'd been there alone. Everything pointed to

(10:45):
other people being present and leaving together as well, So
detectives turned their attention away from the forest and towards
Laura's life, who she'd been spending time with, where she
had been staying and who might who might know why
she never made it back. But to answer those questions,
investigators had to read wind months before her body was found,

(11:07):
back to a time when her life had already been
knocked off balance. In fact, Laura was born in nineteen
seventy seven and grew up in Washington State, where she
was raised alongside her brothers in a close knit family.
Those who knew her described her as kind, gentle, and
deeply trusting, sometimes to a fault. She was known for
wanting to help others and for believing in the best

(11:28):
in people, even when they hadn't earned it. Growing up,
Laura faced some challenges though. She struggled with the learning
disability during her school years, which made parts of grade
school difficult for her. Despite that, though she persevered and
graduated high school in nineteen ninety six. Those close to her,
while they later, said she worked hard to overcome the
obstacles she faced, and she wanted to prove she could

(11:51):
be a person to build a meaningful, independent life now.
Faith also played an important role in Laura's identity. She
was a Christian and spent time volunteering at a religious
mission in Aberdeen, Washington. Where she worked with people with disabilities.
It was during this period that she met Timothy Smith,

(12:12):
a relationship that would soon become central in her life.
Friends and family would later say that Laura often attached
deeply to the people she cared about, sometimes relying on
them for emotional stability. Now, after high school, Laura had
enrolled in Gray's Harbor College in Aberdeen. She earned a
scholarship to attend, but her time there, while it was

(12:34):
short lived. Not long after starting college, she drifted away
from school and began spending more time with tim and
his circle of friends. It was in October of nineteen
ninety seven when Laura's mother would tragically die after a
fast and brutal battle with leukemia. The loss hit her hard.

(12:55):
Her family members later said Laura struggled to find her
footing afterwards, drifting between homes and trying to figure out
what came next. For a while, she stayed with friends,
then moved in with her father in Salem, Oregon. She
was grieving and very vulnerable and searching for something that
felt like stability, something to really ground her once again. Now,

(13:16):
around that time, Laura was also in a very serious
relationship with Tim Friends described this relationship as intense and
very fast moving. In fact, within a year, they were engaged.
In March of nineteen ninety eight, Tim convinced Laura to
move in with him in Reading, California. You wanted to
be closer to his younger brother, Paul Smith Junior and

(13:37):
his half sister Laurie Smith. Now for Laura, the move
represented a fresh start, new surroundings, a future with someone
she trusted, and distance from the grief she'd been carrying
since her mother's death. But the stability she was hoping
for it unfortunately didn't last. Shortly after arriving in California,

(13:57):
Laura and Tim's relationship fell apart. In the engagement ended
and Laura moved out of the apartment that they shared together.
She had very little money, no strong support system in Reading,
and nowhere obvious to go. Despite her father offering to
send money so she could return to Oregon, Laura chose
to stay, trying to make something of her situation. So

(14:20):
it's little that she had and no family nearby, Laura
moved in with Paul Smith Junior and his half sister
Laurie Smith, which was Tim's brother, right.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Okay, yeah, yeah, which is kind of odd really well.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
It wasn't meant to be permanent. It was kind of
the circle of people that she knows there, right, So
it's someone that she can connect with, someone who knows her.
And it was supposed to be a safe situation, or
at least supposed to be. It's the big word there,
oh gosh. So it was meant to be just something quick,

(14:53):
you know, something to get her to the next step
of her life. But in this meantime, it quickly became
clear that the arrangements were very tense from the start.
Paul was twenty years old and living a very chaotic life.
Laurie was eighteen and shared the apartment and was dating
a nineteen year old named Eric Rubio, and so the
apartment became the regular hangout spot for their small social circle,

(15:16):
and Laura suddenly found herself supported by people she kinda knew.
The best way you can really describe it, relying on
them for shelter, right. But the biggest source of tension
through all this was centered on Paul's relationship his girlfriend.
He was in a relationship with a fourteen year old
girl named Amy Stevens even though he's twenty, which is fucking.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Gross yeah and illegal, yes, But and.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
I don't know how authorities never stepped in on that
part of this story, But I digress.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Okay, Wow, that's something.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah. Now, Laura didn't exactly like their age difference, and
I can totally understand why. And she didn't exactly hide
how she felt about it either. She openly criticized the relationship,
telling Paul and others that the age gap was wrong
and quite inappropriate. And according to later statements, this wasn't
a one time comment. Laura brought it up fairly often.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well fair, I mean someone kind of has to step in.
I agree a six year age gap isn't necessarily bad,
but when it's that, when they're that young ish is.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
She's a child?

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Now, fourteen year old Amy, for her part, didn't like
Laura at all. She was openly jealous of the time
Paul spent around her and resented the fact that Laura
lived with her boyfriend. Even simple interactions between Paul and
Laura repeatedly set Amy off. Now, over time, that resentment
grew sharper, turning into hostility, and the apartment became a

(16:45):
bit of a pressure cooker. To say, arguments were frequent
alliances formed and shifted, and Laura, already emotionally fragile from
the breakup and her mother's death, was increasingly isolated inside
the very place meant to keep her safe. She had
limited money and no nearby family. Leaving wasn't just easy,
even if she wanted to. To investigators, this period became

(17:08):
very crucial. It showed Laura was trapped in a small,
unstable world where tensions were escalating and boundaries were being crossed,
and it helped explain why. When a camping trip was suggested,
a chance to reset in a group of friends, to
get out of the apartment and away from all that
constant friction, Laura agreed to go so. With Laura now

(17:31):
identified in a rough timeline beginning to take shape, investigators
shifted the attention to the people who'd been closest to
her in the days before she disappeared. That focus landed
quickly on her inner circle in Reading. Police started with
her ex boyfriend Timothy Smith. He told investigators that he'd
broken off their engagement around March thirtieth, more than two

(17:53):
weeks before Laura's body was discovered. According to Tim, Laura
moved out shortly after the breakup, and he hadn't seen
her again since. When officers informed him that Laura had
been murdered, he appeared genuinely distraught and upset. His story
was consistent, and while he was an obvious person of
interest early on, nothing immediately tied him to the crime scene.

(18:16):
From there, investigators turned to the apartment where Laura had
been staying. Laurie Smith confirmed that Laura had been living
with her and Paul after the breakup. She described Laura
as part of their friend group, but admitted things had
become strained. She told investigators how tensions inside the apartment
had been building for the last few days and weeks,
even mostly centered around Paul's relationship with Amy. Laurie also

(18:40):
acknowledged that Laura had openly disapproved of the relationship and
that arguments had become common on that subject. Amy's interview
was next, and it certainly stood out she didn't try
to hide her dislike for Laura. She admitted there had
been conflict and confirmed that a heated argument had occurred
shortly before Laura vanished. Even she claimed she had given

(19:01):
Paul an ultimatum either Laura had to leave or she
would still. Amy denied knowing what ultimately happened to Laura,
insisting that last time she saw her was during a
group camping trip in the Trinity Alps. It seemed investigators
now had a pattern, a background, but not proof of
anything yet. Well, maybe a little bit. They now knew

(19:26):
that the group was in fact camping in the Alps
with her when she went missing.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Well, I just have to say, is she the only
one with values too? Because the fact that she does
have a problem with this age gap makes her correct. Yes,
And everyone just seems like, I don't know. Of course
she would be speaking up about this. I feel like
she has to. It's like almost her right as an adult.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, and to protect someone of that age from predatory
behavior someone who's much older, I gotcha. Yes, she's right,
she should be standing up and agains the others in
the group. Yeah, they're well, they're not so good.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
No.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Now, everyone's stories overlapped just enough to seem plausible that
they hadn't seen her since the camping trip. Yet conveniently enough,
none of them had any explanation of the injuries found
in Laura's body. No one mentioned a bag over her head,
and no one could explain how she ended up buried
at a remote campsite, so detectives couldn't make an arrest

(20:26):
based on suspicions alone, and at this point the investigation,
all they knew for certain was that Laura had been
alive while surrounded by this group, and that whatever happened
to her, it didn't happen at random. Not long after
those initial interviews, Amy Stevens returned to investigators with what
she said was the full story of what happened in

(20:49):
the woods that day. According to Amy, the group had
gone camping together as a way to cool off tensions
and reset after weeks of arguments, right.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Which is not necessarily a bad idea.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
It's, you know something, It's kind of like a group retreat, right,
start fresh. The trip included Paul, Laurie, Eric Rubio, and
Laura and Amy herself. There was alcohol, there was even drugs,
and a lot of unresolved resentment was simmering underneath the surface.
Amy admitted that she was jealous of Laura and didn't

(21:20):
like her presence in Paul's life, but insisted things were
never going to go as far as killing someone. Amy
told detectives that at some point during the trip, Laura
made a romantic advance toward Paul, which he of course rejected,
and Amy said it deeply embarrassed Laura. So, according to Amy,
Laura became upset and was intoxicated and emotional, and she

(21:43):
said Laura ran off into the woods alone, disappearing into
the darkness, and according to her story, no one followed her.
The group instead waited for a while, assuming Laura would
calm down and return, but when she didn't, they just
eventually packed up and left the campsite, believing she had
either walked back on her own or found another way

(22:05):
out of the area. Amy insisted that was the last
time she ever saw Laura alive.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
I have trouble buying that it just took her a
few days to come up with that story. Maybe, Hey, well, I.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Mean tell me, as to her credit, people do wander
off while drunk at times. You know, that's not unheard of,
to say the least, and arguments happened too. And the
you know, the area of the Trinity Alps, it's this
very vast and unforgiving landscape, especially at night too, when
you're out in the wilderness and an unfamiliar area. So
Amy's version, it offers a very clean explanation for why

(22:39):
Laura was alone in such a remote place, But there
was a lot of problems with her version two.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
I guess what I have trouble is believing that Laura
made at a pass or like a move on on
Amy's boyfriend. Yeah, I agree, Paul, That's what his name is, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
But Devil's Advocate. Even if she did, even if she
did make a pass at Paul, I mean, investigators already
knew Laura hadn't simply wandered off like Amy's trying to say.
Her body had actually showed signs of restraint. The wounds
on her wrists weren't consistent with fall or exposure to
just wilderness. The bag tied over her head, well, it

(23:24):
ruled out accidental death alone, and Amy's account didn't explain
the blunt force trauma attempt to burn or bury the
body at the campsite. There was just too much. So basically,
investigators didn't buy Amy's version of events for a single moment.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Okay, good, Sure she.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
May cover a couple things, but everything else in her
story contradicts it. The problem is, investigators still had no
physical evidence tying Amy directly to the killings, so They
couldn't exactly do much at this stage, so for now
they documented her statements, no, did the inconsistencies, and kept digging.

(24:03):
Amy may not have been telling the whole truth, but
her story placed every future suspect from that friend group
at the same campsite at the same time, during what
investigators now believe were Laura's final hours. We have a witness,
first hand account of an incident occurring right before she

(24:23):
went missing, and they are present. So investigators began working backwards,
trying to reconstruct what actually happened during that camping trip.
Piece by piece, a different picture started to emerge. The
group had chosen a campsite deep in the Trinity Alps,
an isolated stretch of forest where there were no designated
fire pits, no nearby campers, and no oversight of any kind.

(24:47):
It was a kind of place people went specifically because
no one else would be around. Paul, in fact, knew
the area well, he'd hunted and trapped there before, and
he knew how remote it was. According to multiple statements,
alcohol flowed freely that night. Drugs were also involved, and
whatever fragile balance existed between the group members quickly eroded away.

(25:09):
Old tensions resurfaced, especially the resentment Amy felt towards Laura
and Laura's ongoing criticism of Amy's relationship with Paul. But
investigators knew this is where the reports don't tell the truth.
They knew it that at this point the arguments turned
physical somehow. They believed what would have began as shouting

(25:29):
escalated into a fight involving at least three people. Laura
would have been outnumbered, She would have been intoxicated and
trapped in a place she could not easily escape. The
can of chili beans found at the crime scene was
grabbed in the heat of the moment and used repeatedly.
The injuries on the back of Laura's head lined up

(25:49):
with exactly the kind of blunt force trauma that can
could inflict. Investigators also began to suspect that what happened
wasn't quick, that this it wasn't a single blow, It
wasn't a sudden accident. The evidence on Laura's body, it
suggested prolonged violence, including restraints and deliberate acts, probably meant

(26:11):
to control and perhaps silence her. So by the time
the group left the campsite, Laura wasn't a missing friend
who had just wandered off. She was already a victim,
and the people who drove away from the Trinity Alps
that night didn't call for help. They didn't alert authorities,
they didn't even come back. Instead, they left her behind

(26:31):
in the wilderness, buried under ash and debris, believing distance
and time could possibly erase what they had done. Four days,
investigators had been chasing statements, timelines, half answers out of
this so called group of friends. What they didn't have
yet was a hard break, something tangible that tied the
people in Laura's orbit directly to what had happened in

(26:54):
the mountains. But that all changed with the discovery of
Laura's car. When Laura's body was discovered, her red Honda
Civic was nowhere near the campsite, not the parking lot, nothing.
That absence alone raised alarms. If she had truly wandered
off into the woods, her car would have been nearby. Instead,

(27:15):
it was gone entirely, meaning someone else had drove it.
So police issued a notice to surrounding agencies to be
on the lookout for that vehicle, and not long after,
by chance, they happened to find it, not abandoned, though
on a side road or hidden in the forest, but
actively being driven. Eric Rubio was stopped while in possession

(27:38):
of Laura's Honda Civic, and there was no innocent explanation
for it either. Eric was not a relative, He was
a casual acquaintance who had borrowed the car without permission.
Clearly he was part of the same group that had
gone camping with Laura shortly before her death, and the
discovery instantly collapsed the far fetched idea that Laura had

(27:59):
simply run off and disappeared, and Eric was detained and
brought in for questioning.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Well, that's super messed up. What is he saying that
he's going to just get away with that? I guess
that makes no sense that you have to be kind
of dumb.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, you do. Honestly, you have to be kind of
dumb for any of that that actually happened, in my opinion. Now,
at first he denied any involvement in Laura's death. He
acted frustrated, even noyed, suggesting that he was it wasn't fair,
for example, that he's the only one facing any sort
of consequences. Now, which he may be right, but the

(28:35):
fact remains investigators didn't have anything on anyone else in
the group. Yet, however, he was found driving a murdered
woman's car days after she vanished. So they pressed him
on the camping trip on his relationship with Paul, on
Laurie's relationship as well, and why Laura's vehicle was in
his possession at all now. At first, Eric stuck close

(28:57):
to the version of events Amy had already given. He
admitted there'd been a fight at the campsite, but framed
it as chaotic, brief, and ultimately not a big deal.
According to him, Laura had been injured during an argument,
wandered off into the woods after and was never seen again.
He painted himself as someone who'd been present, but that's it,
nothing more now. Detectives, of course, didn't believe him, and

(29:20):
began confronting Eric with details he couldn't explain away, things
like the condition of Laura's remains, the plastic bag over
her head, deep cuts on her wrist, the fact that
she'd been partially buried or burned. None of that happened
to someone who simply ran off intoxicated, and so in
an attempt to explain these things, Eric's story started to

(29:41):
slowly change. He admitted the fight had been worse than
he initially described. Voices were raised, alcohol was involved, Laura
had been struck multiple times, but even then he tried
to minimalize his role and shift responsibility onto others. He
claimed he was scared, claimed he didn't know how bad
things had gotten until it was just too late. Then

(30:03):
there was the car. Eric told investigators he had driven
Laura's HONDASIVC back to Reading the morning after the camping trip.
He said he parked it at his mother's house, assuming
Laura would come forward eventually, and when days passed and
she didn't, he claimed he believed she just had left town.
That explanation didn't make much sense to investigators either, and

(30:24):
then they knew Eric was still telling maybe a half
truth at.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Rest, yeah, because it makes zero sense. But here, as
soon as you said he was thinking this was unfair
that he was the only one facing you know, charges
or take having to be the person to take all
the responsibility here, I'm like he's going to break.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, there's way more to it then.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
The thing is that investigators weren't finished. They were done
chasing words, and they were done chasing tall tales at
this point What they needed now was something solid, something physical,
something that would force the truth out into the open,
since no one was willing to really volunteer it. So,
with Eric and custody and multiple conflicting stories on record,

(31:10):
detectives obtained search warrants for the apartment where Laura had
been staying, as well as the vehicles connected to the group.
What they found quickly dismantled any remaining doubt about whether
Laura's death had been an accident or misunderstanding. In the
bed of Paul Smith Junior's truck, investigators located a heavy

(31:31):
metal tool known as an automotive dent puller. It's made
for autobody work. It was long, solid and designed to
deliver force, and when it was tested, traces of blood
were found on it, blood that matched Laura Sinner. That
single result changed everything in the case. Up until that

(31:55):
exact moment, the case had been built purely on circumstantial evidence,
but now there was a weapon with a direct tie
to the victim found away from the scene. In fact,
investigators also revisited that same dented can of chili beans
too that was recovered at the scene. It too had
blood and hair consistent with Laura. So this also proved

(32:17):
that this wasn't just a single blow of what was
a momentary thing. This wasn't just self defense of someone
grabbing a can of chili beans nearby and swinging it
on someone. And it certainly wasn't, you know, mercy, because
there had been more than one weapon, which means the
beatings were sustained, not quick and spontaneous. More than one

(32:38):
person would have had to have grabbed a weapon and
focus solely on the victim brutal.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
I'm sitting here wondering too, if this was just like
planned from the start, if that was really what this
camping trip was all about, or if things just did
kind of escalate while they were there.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
It's possible that it could have been. I'll leave that
up for you to decide when we get to the end.
So now combine all this with the restrain marks, wrist injuries,
plastic bag over her head, investigators were now looking at
absolute torture. So with the forensic results in hand, detectives
knew who to put in the interrogation room next, and

(33:15):
that was Paul. And when investigators sat him down for questioning,
Paul didn't appear uncertain or confused. He was very defensive, controlled,
and very deliberate with his words too. At first, he
denied any involvement in her death. The repeated parts of
the early story while those those came out the same
ones that the investigators had heard before already, that there

(33:36):
was arguments, sure, people were drinking, sure, but she just
run off in the woods. He suggested that if anything
violent had happened, it was instigated by others. But detectives
laid the evidence out in front of him, and they
told him that the dent polar found in his truck
while it was found with blood. They also told him
about the chili bean can, but the restraints all of it,

(33:58):
and that's when his story changed. Paul then admitted Laura
had in fact been beaten, but he framed himself not
as a killer, only as someone who stepped in at
the end. According to Paul, the violence had spiraled out
of control after a fight between Laura Amy and Laurie

(34:19):
had occurred. He claimed Laura had been badly injured and
was likely going to die from her sustained wounds. In
his telling, what happened next wasn't murder, it was mercy,
Paul told investigators he decided to end Laura's suffering himself.

(34:40):
He said he believed she was already dying and what
he did was meant to spare her pain.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh man, like, fuck off, buddy.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah. It was a confession that acknowledged responsibility, but it
also tried to strip intent and the cruelty in all
the blame away. Now investigators, of course, just like you,
they weren't buying it for a second. They were not convinced.
They had already seen the injuries. Nothing about the evidence
suggested a quick or compassionate act, and by the time

(35:11):
they had finished collecting statements, evidence and confessions, a clearer
and far more disturbing picture began to form. They now
knew that at the campsite, Laura was intoxicated, vulnerable, and
isolated among people who had already grown resentful of her.
The initial argument escalated into a physical assault, and she
was struck repeatedly, including blows to the back of her head,

(35:34):
using whatever objects were within reach, and the injuries left
her disoriented but still alive. They had all that in confessions,
but what they didn't have is what they suspected took
place next. Instead of stopping, the group tightened their control
over Laura. She was restrained with her arms and legs bound.
They believed that they were going to try and make

(35:56):
it look like a suicide, so razor blades were taken
to Laura's wrists, but they weren't actually deep enough to
be fatal. Alcohol was then poured onto her wounds, As
forensics discovered her arms were soaked and covered in alcohol,
and then she was forced to drink more and more.
A plastic bag was placed over her head at some point,

(36:18):
and the violence, well, it didn't end quickly. It wasn't
an attempt to help her or ease her pain. It
was prolonged. The beatings continued and exphyxiation followed. By the
time Laura died, she'd been beaten, restrained, cut, intoxicated beyond
normal limits, and deprived of air. Afterwards, the group shifted

(36:39):
into damage control. Laura's clothing was removed and burned. Her
body was dragged to a shallow pit near the campsite.
Ash and debris were piled on top of her in
an attempt to conceal what they had done. Then they
left her in the woods and drove away. Now with
the full scope of what happened, finally coming into focus,

(36:59):
Investigators moved fast. On April twenty first, nineteen ninety eight,
just days after Laura's body was discovered, authorities arrested Paul
Smith Junior, Laurie Smith, Eric Rubio, and Amy Stevens, and
each faced serious charges. The legal path forward would not
be the same for all of them. Because Paul, Laurie,

(37:21):
and Eric were adults at the time of the crime,
they were charged in adult court. Prosecutors accused them of
first degree murder, conspiracy, false imprisonment by violence, and special
circumstances related to the prolonged nature of the attack. Amy, however,
was only fourteen years old. She was initially charged in
juvenile court, though prosecutors would later attempt to have her

(37:43):
tried as an adult due to the brutality of the crime. Now,
one of the immediate challenges investigators faced was determining the
precise date and time of Laura's death. Based on statements,
physical evidence, and the condition of her remains, authorities estimated
that the murder occurred somewhere after April first, likely over
the course of several hours during the afternoon and the

(38:05):
night of April fourth. However, heavy intoxication among the suspects,
and the passage of time made it very difficult to
pin down the exact timeline. Laura's autopsy, conducted on April twentieth,
confirmed that she had suffered extensive blunt force trauma to
the head, along with injuries consistent with restraints and asphyxiation.

(38:26):
Her blood alcohol content was measured at extremely high levels,
indicating she'd been heavily intoxicated at the time. While medical
examiners could not isolate a single fatal injury, the finding
supported investigator's conclusion that Laura had died as a result
of sustained intentional violence rather than an accident, and as
the defendants were arranged, all four initially entered pleas of

(38:49):
not guilty. As the months passed, the strength of the
prosecution's case became impossible for the defendants to ignore physical evidence,
recorded statements, and overlapping testimonies had created a framework that
was difficult to escape. What remained uncertain was how many
of them would be willing to turn on each other
to avoid the worst possible outcome. Now that aside, the

(39:12):
first major decision came in Amy Stephen's case, despite the
prosecutors pushing to have her tried as an adult, the
court ultimately ruled that she would be prosecuted as a juvenile.
The decision limited the maximum sentence she could receive, regardless
of the severity of her involvement. In June of nineteen
ninety nine, after an eight week bench trial, a judge

(39:35):
found Amy guilty of first degree murder, torture, and lying
in wait. She was sentenced to the maximum term allowed
under juvenile law, which meant she would remain in custody
only until her mid twenties. For the remaining defendants, the
pressure only increased. Laurie Smith and Eric Rubio both faced

(39:55):
the possibility of life in prison if convicted at trial,
and prosecutors made a c clear they were prepared to
pursue the harshest sentence available, and behind the scenes negotiations began.
The group that had once worked together to hide Laura's
body was now fracturing, each person weighing their own survival

(40:15):
against loyalty to the others. By the summer of nineteen
ninety nine, Laurie Smith was the first to break. She
agreed to plead guilty to first degree murder in exchange
for her testimony against Paul Smith. Junior and Eric Rubio.
Her plea carried a sence of twenty five years to
life in prison, but had spared her from facing the

(40:35):
death penalty. Eric followed soon after, entering a no contest
plea to second degree murder. Like Laurie, he agreed to
testify against Paul. His sentence carried a minimum of eighteen
years to life. Though he briefly attempted to withdraw his plea,
the court denied his request and he remained bound to

(40:56):
his agreement. Both Laurie and Eric later reported receiving death threats,
either directly or through other inmates, warning them not to testify.
Prosecutors then raise concerns about witness intimidation, primarily as Paul's
trial approached now. Paul Smith Junior's trial did not begin
until the summer of two thousand and two, more than

(41:17):
four years after Laura had been killed. Delays related to
the complexity of the case and the high volume of
death penalty trials in Shasta County pushed the proceedings back repeatedly,
leaving Laura's family waiting for years for the case to
finally reach the court room. When the trial finally began,
prosecutors laid out a methodical case built on physical evidence,

(41:39):
recorded statements, and testimony from the very people who had
once helped Paul cover up that crime. From the start,
they framed Paul as the central figure in Laura's death,
the person who escalated the violence, controlled the group, and
ultimately ended her life. Jurors heard how the night unfolded
in the Trinity Alps campsite, beginning with alcohol, in arguments

(42:01):
and a deteriorating situation into prolonged violence as investigators suspected.
Testimonies detailed how Laura was beaten with a can of
chili beans, restrained, threatened, and cut. They described Paul's role
in directing others, making statements about staging a suicide and
warning the group that he would kill them if they
did not cooperate. Amy Stevens, Now eighteen at the time,

(42:24):
testified that she saw Paul placing a plastic bag over
Laura's head and heard the final blows being delivered. Laurie
Smith told the jury that Paul had explicitly threatened everyone afterwards,
forcing them to help dispose of Laura's remains and keep quiet.
Eric Rubio's testimony echoed these same accounts to reinforcing the

(42:46):
narrative that Paul was not a passive participant, but instead
the driving force behind the crime. The prosecution also introduced
Paul's own words, as jurors were shown recordings and transcripts
of his interrogations, including the moment he actually admitted to
killing Laura, though in his version was a mercy killing,

(43:06):
but still an admittance of delivering the blows. While Paul
claimed he had acted out of mercy, prosecutors argued that
the evidence showed anything but compassion. Paul's defense, of course,
tried to shift the blame. His attorney argued that Paul
had been heavily intoxicated and unconscious during key moments of

(43:26):
the assault, and that the fatal injuries had been inflicted
by others, specifically Laurie. According to the defense, Paul only
intervened after realizing how badly Laura had been injured. After
days of testimony and several days of deliberation, the jury
returned its verdict on August twenty eight, two thousand and two.

(43:47):
Paul Smith Junior was found guilty on all counts, including
first degree murder with special circumstances. While Paul waited for sentencing,
his behavior made it increasingly difficult for anyone to argue
the violence that ended Laura's life had been an isolated incident.
In two thousand and one, while housed at the Shasta

(44:08):
County Jail awaiting trial, Paul was involved in a brutal
attack on a correctional officer. According to court records and testimony,
Paul and another inmate managed to slip out of their
cells during nighttime hours. Then they hid in the shower
area and ambushed to guard as he made his rounds.

(44:28):
The officer was beaten so severely that he suffered a
fractured skull and jaw and was left in critical condition.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Oh what would have been the point of that?

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Well, they they believe it was like an attempted escape situation.
But why they had to wait and beat a guard,
I don't know. Maybe if they get him, maybe they
get his keys. Could have been their thoughts.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Okay, jeez, though, yeah, clearly he is you know, this
is his second massive offense.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yeah, so it and his attempt failed. But the implications
were the big clear thing. Even under like constant supervision,
Like Paul, he was demonstrating a willingness to like use
extreme violence when it suited him, you know, so it's
really showing his true colors totally. Now. The guard ultimately
survived and later returned to work after ongoing reconstructive surgery.

(45:16):
But the incident added quite another layer to Paul's already
extensive record of violent behavior. Prosecutors took note, and so
did the jury as well. When paul sentencing phase began,
the jailhouse assault became a very big central part of
the argument for the death penalty push. The state portrayed
him not only as a murderer, but as someone who
posed an ongoing threat to anyone around him. His history

(45:41):
of aggravation was presented as evidence, and he was beyond rehabilitation,
is what they said. In November of two thousand and two,
after weeks of testimony and argument during the penalty phase,
the jury reached its final verdict. Paul Smith Junior was
then sentenced to death and sent to californ his death
row then located at San Quentin State Prison. For the prosecution,

(46:06):
the sentence reflected not only the brutality of Laura's murder,
but Paul's pattern of violence before and after the crime. Now,
for Laura's family, it was the end of a long
and exhausting Chapter one that had stretched across four years
of delays, hearings, and painful testimony. The other defendants were
sentenced in the years that followed. Laurie Smith received a

(46:28):
sentence of twenty five years to life for her role
in the murder. Eric Rubio was sentenced to eighteen years
to life after his not contest plea to second degree murder,
and Amy Stevens, having been convicted in juvenile court, served
the maximum time allowed under law and was released in
two thousand and nine after aging out of the juvenile system.

(46:48):
And that was that. However, in twenty fifteen, more than
a decade after Paul was sent to death row, the
California Supreme Court revisited his case. The court upheld his
murdered conviction, but overturned the death sentence on procedural grounds,
ruling that Paul had not received a proper sentencing hearing.

(47:08):
Rather than order a new penalty phase, the court commuted
his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole,
and so Paul Smith, Junior remains incarcerated to this day
and every other day for the rest of his life. Now,
Eric Rubio was eventually granted parole in twenty fifteen. Laurie
Smith was released in twenty twenty one after serving more

(47:31):
than two decades in prison, and Timothy Smith, Laura's ex
fiance and boyfriend, was never charged and was ultimately cleared
of any involvement in the crime. For Laura's family, the
outcome did not bring closure the way verdicts are often
imagined to do. No sentence could undo what happened in
the Trinity Alps. No ruling could return the life that

(47:52):
was taken, or ease the knowledge of how many chances
there had been to stop the violence. The court system
had done what it could, but what remained was the quiet,
permanent absence left behind. Laura is remembered as kind, trusting,
and eager to belong. She had struggled after her mother's

(48:12):
death and was searching for stability when she moved to California,
hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she found herself surrounded
by people who exploited that vulnerability rather than protecting it.
People who mistook her compassion for weakness. People who had
multiple opportunities to intervene and chose not to. That reality

(48:33):
is what makes this case so difficult. There were chances
to stop it. At each point of the argument, At
each point of the beatings or the binding, someone could
have stepped in, walked away, or even called for help. Instead,
fear loyalty, manipulation, indifference, and pure evil one out instead. Today,

(48:57):
laura Sinner is more than a victim in a case file.
She is a reminder of how quickly humans can turn animalistic,
how pack mentality and heard behavior can take over. I
truly do not believe all four of these individuals set
out to harm Laura. But something happened that night. Someone

(49:18):
struck first. Whether they intended to and planned to or not,
I do not know. But way off in the middle
of the woods where no one could hear a scream
or witness horrors, isolation turned deadly, and a group's dynamic eroded,
personal responsibility giving way to barbaric behaviors we are supposed
to have long since let go of. Laura's story doesn't

(49:41):
end with a sentence handed down or a prison door closing.
It lives on in the lasting ache left behind when
humans go unchecked and no one chooses to stop the violence.
And that's the story of Laura's Sinner.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
That is a nasty story. Yeah, she did not even like,
it's unbelievable what happened to her. She did not deserve
that in any fricking way, not in.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
The slightest because she was basically because she was speaking out.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
About, you know, something that was wrong.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Yeah, which is absurd. Now, I'm not too sure what
you think on if they set out to go camping
and harm her. If that was the case, I do
not believe. I wholeheartedly do not believe they all set
out to do that. I think Paul may have.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Yeah, I am having a bit of trouble with that one.
I don't know. I think I'm leaning more towards it
was set out that she was going to die out there,
for sure, but maybe not by all of them.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
I do not think it was all of them. I'm
not even sold that Paul set out to harm her
out there. I think he planned to like go somewhere isolated,
so yeah, maybe arguments or maybe even fisty cuffs could happen,
you know, let them get it out of their system
sort of attitude. He may have planned that, but I
think once out there he took over and he was like,

(51:21):
just fuck this, I'm ending this here now, and he
roped them in with them, and that pac mentality took
over and she was a victim of circumstance.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
I feel like her ex her fiance there like must
have just been like horrified by this. Yeah, I don't know.
I also just I don't know. My heart really goes
out to Laura, even more so because I feel like,
like losing her mom, then she also like you know,
had a relationship end to and after losing her mom though,

(51:52):
she's probably like searching for some sort of void to
try to fill this void that you know later you
realize you can never fill. And and this, I don't know,
this was just like a spiral of just garbage. And
then now her family, who also lost the mom, has
now lost her in like the span of less than
a year. Yeah, so holy shit, I don't even know

(52:15):
how you go about dealing with that sort of grief.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Well, and then there's don't get me wrong, like Laura
is the victim here and their family is suffering massively,
but there's the byproduct as well. Timothy, I mean, yeah,
he also had an engagement end too, right, Whether he
was the one to part departing it or she was,
it's not fully clear, but he had a relationship end,

(52:38):
which is not easy, and then he had his brother
kill his ex fiance, not even over their relationship issues,
but because she spoke up over his fourteen year old girlfriend. Yeah,
so now you have this tragedy involving your brother. He's
a murderer now and murdered someone that you once loved

(52:59):
and cared for. That can't be easy easy either.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Well, yeah, I feel like the the engagement couldn't have
been that terrible of an end if she went and
moved in with like his family, you know, yeah, fair enough? Yeah,
so holy shit, Well.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
This this murder was not over that relationship.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Well no, no, but I mean, like, I don't think
that relationship could have ended horribly bad if she's going
and moving in with his family kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
True, but even still it would have been difficult and
one hundred.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Percent yeah no, oh man, but three of them are
already out of jail, correct.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
And the fourth will never see light a day again.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
And I don't exactly know how I feel about that,
especially like I don't know Amy. I'm just like she
was lucky that I guess she was that young, and
I feel like she may not. I hope that she
like really learned from this and as an adult now
is better person.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
But frick, I honestly feel like she would have been
a driving force in the story. Is my personal impan
It kind of came across that way. Yes, I think
she is because I think Paul acted in that manner
because of her.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
Mm hmm. Well, she was giving him choices.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
And stuff, ultimatums and everything. She was angry, she was
very jealous. She was probably pissed off and wanting something
to happen to Laura and pushed for this, and then
Paul went overboard and led the group to do it.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Yeah jeez. So yeah, that's why. And she didn't serve
very much time. So that's why. I'm just like, I
hope she learned from this shit, because, like you said,
she kind of was the driving force there.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
I hope Laura is on every single one of those
people's minds.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
For the rest of their ta oh, she better be,
she better be. God, how could you even move on
from doing something so horrible?

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Right?

Speaker 2 (54:53):
I don't think I I mean, I would a never
do anything that horrible, but be I don't think I
could ever not have a minute in my life without
thinking about that.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
The only thing I think I could murder is like
an entire sleeve of oreos, you know, in one sitting
just sitting down, like, that's what I would kill.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Do you know that? I think last episode you said
that you weren't going to be eating oreos because we're
on an elf kick well or something.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
I think I'm trying to be a bit healthier and
I haven't been eating oreos, but if someone were to
present them to me, I may falter and I may
murder a whole thing of oreos. But that I digress. Anyways,
thank you for being here. You guys are incredible. Don't
forget to check out the description of this podcast for
more information, more stuff. We have a website which is

(55:39):
honestly in the midst of being completely redone because it
is very outdated, so you may see a cool new
website soon if you check out some of those links.
Don't forget to give us a review. It goes a
long way. We're an independent podcast. There's no big company
pulling our strings. It's us. We do it all and
because of you, we get to keep doing it. So
thank you, and until next time, stay wicked.

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Killer Friends - Lora Sinner

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