A Tribute to Kathleen Ruth Smiley

May 22, 1957---April 21, 1974

Monday April 21, 2014 will be the 40th anniversary of Kathy Smiley's death by murder.  She was only 16 years old.  The purpose of this blogsite is to provide the guest readers an opportunity to get to know who Kathy was, how she lived, how she died, and later became a legend in the paranormal world.  The information provided came from newspaper and media sources, personal interviews, and posted websites.

My name is Tom Thompson.  I am a self-employed “purveyor of junk”; namely I clean out houses, offices, and self-storage spaces and then either give it back to the estate attorneys or sell it myself for a profit.  I have been doing this for over 25 years, way before it became a popular TV show. I was born and raised in Raleigh, NC.

About 10 years ago, my business partner and I were cleaning out a house when we came upon a box filled with newspaper clippings and a high school yearbook. The newspaper clippings, which I have posted below, detail the abduction and murder of an Atlanta-area high school senior back in 1974.  I immediately knew who this was since her murder had made headlines in Raleigh. There was no name in the yearbook….nothing was written in it, which is very strange since most people write things in their yearbook.  I could only assume that whoever owned the book and wrote the notes must have either bought it from the publisher or from some other source. Perhaps the owner was a graduate of Lakeside High School...or a former teacher....or perhaps a reporter or private investigator assigned to the case.  The executor of the estate, who was the daughter of the deceased, told me that the box was in the attic when her parents bought the house in 1996.  She remembers opening it when she first found it back then, but closed it and left it alone…in some Southern households it is considered a tradition to leave a box, suitcase, or some other memento in the house when you move out of it.  The house had been a rental for several years before her parents bought it, which adds to the mystery.  Anyone who was occupying the house could have left the box and its contents….

The past ten years, I have visited sites that have some reflection on Kathy.  One was FindAGrave, which is where I posted her yearbook photo.  There are other sites that are devoted to the place where she was killed...apparently some people in the Gastonia, NC area think she is haunting the place.  I really do not have an opinion on that.  I just remember it made alot of young women in North Carolina fearful of running out of gas in their car.  I can only imagine what life was like at her high school in Atlanta...

Therefore, in the week of the 40th anniversary of her murder I have decided to create this blogsite dedicated to her memory. I have included a picture of her from her yearbook. There were some notes attached to the clippings, several pages, handwritten, some of which I have printed below. There were some that detail the actual kidnapping.  Those notes will be posted at a later time...

 Kathleen Ruth Smiley, age 16, was known to her friends as "Kathy".  She was born in Florida on May 22, 1957, the middle daughter of Dale and Jacqueline Smiley.  Her father was a marketing representative for the Gillette Company, the men’s toiletry supply company.  After spending several years in Hong Kong, her family moved to the metropolitan Atlanta area of northern DeKalb County, specifically the Lakeside High School neighborhood.  She lived on Kodiak Drive, a well-to-do neighborhood made up of better middle class homes, two-car garages, and plenty of activities to keep active teenagers like Kathy and her younger sister, Patricia, occupied.  Kathy acclimated herself to her new surroundings; being the daughter of an up-and coming corporate executive meant that she would be required to move around a lot.  She was described by her neighbors as being "friendly"..."well-spirited"...."fun to be with"...."someone who laughs and smiles at everyone".

She was real go-getter.  Although she entered Lakeside as a member of the class of 1975, she took extra classes during the summer of 1973 so that she could graduate a year earlier.  You could do that in DeKalb County back then...several students did it every year during their junior year, to get a start in college or life.  Kathy hadn't decided what to do with herself...at first she wanted to be a veterinarian…then she wanted to be a teacher.  In any case, in the spring of 1974 she was planning her final weeks in school and she wanted them to be special.  She had a new boyfriend and she was planning to go to the Junior-Senior Prom with him in late April 1974.  In fact, just days before her death, she had already picked the dress from one of the specialty shops located near Lakeside in the Northlake Mall area.  It was a beautiful yellow gown, with lots of frilly lace…the style popular in the mid 1970’s.  She also was thrilled that her father, Dale Smiley was planning to visit her and her younger sister on the weekend of April 20 to accompany them to day of swimming and picnicking at Lake Lanier, a recreational lake area north of Atlanta off I-85.  She was especially close to her father now, simply because her father and mother had recently separated and he was living in Minnesota at his new office with Gillette…that had been the reason for the separation.  Kathy’s mom was tired of moving so often and she loved Atlanta and did not want to leave…but Dale's company gave him a promotion, raise, and transfer to Minneapolis that he could not turn down, so it was he who left, not Patricia and the girls.   Everything was set…Kathy would take her little sister to a Denny’s Restaurant to meet their dad and they would travel together to the Lake…it would be a perfect day…Sunday, April 21, 1974.  Her last day living in God's great Earth...

Breakfast at Denny’s
10:45am

Kathy and Patricia arrived at the restaurant several minutes before their father arrived. 

When Mr. Smiley arrived, hugs and kisses were shared and menus were passed about. After the breakfast was finished, Kathy informed her father that she had get gas in her car in order to make it to Lake Lanier. She had a red 1972 VW Beetle, which was given to her on her 16^th birthday in May 1973.   Mr Smiley agreed to take Patricia with him since Kathy was going travel in a different direction at first.  This decision probably saved Patricia’s life. Kathy left the table and called her mother explaining that she was going to get gas, come home to retrieve a swimsuit, then head to Lake Lanier….it was the last time Mrs. Smiley heard her daughter’s voice ever again.   By the time she returned to the table, her father had paid the bill and was planning to go up to the lake.  They all left the Denny’s at the same time, got into their separate cars and left the lot…..

                                    It was the last time Dale and his daughter Patricia saw Kathy alive…

Visitors to Atlanta often marvel on how many highways and expressways blanket the landscape…what they don’t marvel about is the lack of clear signage on the highways.  The area where this particular Denny’s was located was situated near a confusing network of local roads, private byways, interstate highway entrance and exit routes, and a unique feature in Atlanta….highway access roads.  These roads often lead to retail outlet centers, business office buildings, and warehouses.  They do not often feature gas filling stations.  And it was so easy for someone like Kathy, who had only been driving for 10 months, to get confused and lost on the road….  The access road was also an area frequented by vagrants, hitchhikers, and individuals on the run from the law.  Such was the case that Sunday morning when Pinkney Thomas Mitchell, age 25 and Wallace Charles Lanford, age 21, both fugitives from North Carolina were walking down the access road towards the I-285 interchange.  Mitchell has escaped from a work crew and Lanford was mistakenly released weeks before by a judge who mistook his record for another convict.  Both had been in Atlanta, hanging out at the local strip dives and joints.  Now they were broke…they were craving for drugs…and they wanted to get back to North Carolina where they knew the territory….where they could get money…and drugs.…

They just needed to find a way back…

Fate can be a cruel sadistic player in the game of life…for some, there is good luck and fortune, …for Kathy, however, Fate would twist its wicked hand.  For people like Mitchell and Lanford, they were hunters…looking for prey.  When they set their sites on Kathy and her disabled red 1972 Volkswagen Beetle, they knew that their luck had changed…and they also liked what they saw in Kathy…an attractive teenage girl…all alone…with no one to protect her. She was ripe for the picking.

A clerk at the Shell Station at the corner of Shallowford Road and Interstate 85  remembers seeing Mitchell coming up to him with $5.00 to purchase a can full of gasoline.  The clerk was hesitant to release the can since it was only one on the lot.  As he peered down the road, he saw the red car with 2 people leaning on it, later identified as Lanford and Kathy.  The boy personally wanted to take the can himself, but this task was refused by his manager who needed him to operate the gas pumps.  Remember, this was a least a year before Georgia allowed self-serve gas stations to exist, so the boy reluctantly allowed the can to be released to Mitchell.   To his surprise, a few minutes later the red Beetle came up to the station with Kathy driving, Langford in the front passenger side and Mitchell in the back, directly behind Kathy. Mitchell got out of the car, took the now empty can out of the back seat and returned it to the attendant. Mitchell then asked if he could use the restroom.  The attendant told him to pick up the key in the office, which he did.  As he walked around the side, he spied a length of clothesline rope lying on the ground.  He quickly picked it up, wrapped it up and put it into his side pocket.  While he was in the restroom, he jotted down a note that stated something like “I’ve got a rope in my pocket.  We’re going to use it..follow my lead”.  He then returned to the car.  The attendant and manager both testified in interrogatories that Mitchell asked questions like..”How far is it to Lake Lanier?”…”Does this highway go the North Carolina”…”Do you have a map?” A map was given to the three and they all looked at it for a while, then Mitchell folded it up, put it in his back pocket and climbed into the passenger side of the car, next to Kathy…

The gas station employees at the Shallowford Road Shell Station were the last people to see Kathy alive and “in control of the car”, a quote given by one of the witnesses.  Now I’ve noted that she “was in control of the car”.  According to DeKalb County Police, who were investigation the kidnapping on the Georgia end,  Kathy had no intention of either going to North Carolina…she had called her mother and stated that she was on her way home to pick up some clothes and a swimsuit…she told both her father and sister that she was coming to the Lake.  Somewhere between the Shallowford Road-I85 highway entrance and the Lake Lanier-Buford, Ga highway split, the fugitives gained control of Kathy and eventually her vehicle.   

The 1974 Lakeside High School (Atlanta, GA) yearbook cover I found in 2004..

A clipping from "The Atlanta Constitution" dated Tuesday, April 23, 1974

 

"The Atlanta Constitution", Wednesday, April 24, 1974

 

Kathy Smiley's obituary from "The Atlanta Constution"

 

"The Atlanta Constitution" Thursday, April 25, 1974

An article about Kathy's funeral, Wednesday, April 23, 1974