0:00

This podcast contains disturbing

0:02

content. Please take care while listening.

0:10

Even if you've never been there,

0:12

you've probably still heard of Daytona

0:15

Beach, Florida, a popular destination

0:17

for rowdy spring breakers and diehard

0:20

NASCAR fans. Not to be confused

0:23

with South Daytona, a much

0:25

sleepier, lesser known little beach town

0:27

just a few miles down the coast. It

0:30

is just a tucked away little, little

0:32

town and it has a lot of retirees

0:35

there. There's just not a lot of vandalism.

0:37

There's not a lot of theft.

0:39

If you're Nicole Luca, a local reporter,

0:42

you might even say South Daytona

0:44

is kind of boring. And it's certainly

0:47

not known for violent crime. But

0:49

the summer of 2010 was different.

0:51

Nicole

0:54

was a beat reporter in Volusia County when

0:57

she heard about an elderly woman named

0:59

Goldie Mae Robinson, who'd just

1:01

been reported missing. It was like,

1:03

well, there's an elderly woman missing. This happens

1:06

a lot in Florida, to be honest, because

1:08

of all of the elderly we have in Florida and especially

1:11

in that Volusia County area. Goldie

1:13

was 78 years old at the time. In

1:16

Florida, when an elderly person goes

1:18

missing, it's called a silver

1:20

alert. And silver alerts are not

1:22

uncommon in South

1:23

Daytona due to the fact that it's

1:25

an attractive location for retirees.

1:28

But it quickly became clear that Goldie

1:30

Robinson had not accidentally

1:33

wandered off. She was truly missing.

1:36

Goldie was in good health. She'd lived in the

1:38

same mobile home park for 37 years. She

1:41

owned a single wide trailer with a screened

1:44

in porch. She kept a pristine

1:46

flower garden out front and proudly

1:48

flew an American flag. She was

1:50

generous with the grapefruits that grew on a tree

1:52

outside her home.

1:56

She was always a lot of fun. She

1:58

was very personable. She

2:01

was a very hard worker, and she

2:03

was a good role model to look

2:05

up to. She is the type

2:08

of a person that would just give you the shirt

2:10

off her back

2:11

if you needed it. And

2:14

then one day, in August of 2010, Goldie vanished.

2:18

And what followed was a police investigation

2:21

that took so many twists and

2:23

turns that by the end, the police

2:25

report was over a thousand pages long.

2:28

The investigation into Goldie Robinson's

2:30

disappearance revealed that her life

2:32

was intricately intertwined with her neighbor,

2:35

friend, and caretaker, Kimberly Smith,

2:38

or Kim.

2:40

Unsurprisingly, Kim was one of the first

2:42

people approached about Goldie's disappearance.

2:46

Surely someone as close to Goldie as

2:48

she was would have some helpful information

2:50

about where Goldie might have gone.

2:53

But that wasn't the case. There

2:55

were so many lies with so many different characters.

2:58

I mean, it's hard for us to keep up with it, all

3:00

the details at times. There's

3:02

just so many.

3:05

The search for Goldie Robinson would

3:07

expand into a much darker and

3:09

more complicated investigation. This

3:12

was no ordinary silver alert, and

3:15

Kim Smith was no ordinary neighbor.

3:24

From cast media, this is the opportunist.

3:29

This is

3:30

Season 8, Episode 1.

3:34

Kimberly Smith. Bad, wrong.

3:38

I'm Hannah Smith.

3:48

Goldie Mae Bartram was born on August 23, 1932, in

3:50

Anstead, West Virginia.

4:00

She married Fred Wesley Roberts in 1951,

4:04

and just a year later they had their first son,

4:07

Freddie Joe Roberts. This

4:09

is Freddie, except these days he

4:11

goes by Fred.

4:12

She's a good old country

4:15

girl. She knows

4:18

how to cook, she knows how to make you

4:20

feel great. She's just a good

4:22

old country girl, and that's

4:24

the best way I can describe her.

4:28

Fred grew up in Baltimore, in 1966,

4:31

Goldie and her husband had another son, Brian.

4:34

As a child, Brian had severe asthma.

4:37

My mother and my father took

4:40

a trip to Florida, and he'd done

4:42

so well in Florida that

4:45

at that point she decided

4:47

to move down there for his

4:49

health.

4:50

In 1973, Goldie and seven-year-old Brian moved into Daytona

4:55

Twin Oaks Mobile Home Park in South

4:58

Daytona, Florida. By this

5:00

point, Fred was 21 years old. He

5:02

decided to stay in Baltimore with his father.

5:05

Goldie settled into her life in Florida.

5:08

She and Fred's father stayed married at first,

5:11

but they eventually divorced.

5:13

Goldie seemed happy. She

5:16

loved the beach, she loved

5:18

Daytona, she loved the

5:21

weather. More than anything,

5:23

I guess, the weather is what really

5:25

kept her there.

5:27

Goldie got involved in a local church and

5:29

got to know her neighbors. She worked

5:31

at Denny's for years and then as a ticket

5:33

taker at the local movie theater.

5:36

Her two sisters also moved to South

5:38

Daytona and into the same mobile home

5:40

park as Goldie, Twin Oaks.

5:43

And the years went by.

5:44

Goldie found love again. In 1983, she married

5:46

a man named Lester Robinson. This

5:50

is Stacia, Fred's daughter and Goldie's

5:53

granddaughter. Stacia grew up in Baltimore,

5:55

but visited her grandmother Goldie every

5:58

summer as a kid.

5:59

very close relationship.

6:02

She was a firecracker. She

6:05

was tons of fun and hilarious.

6:08

Sometimes I would forget that she was my grandmother

6:10

almost because it

6:13

just felt so friendly

6:15

and so natural to have conversations with her

6:17

about anything that I needed to have conversations

6:19

with her about.

6:20

But she was always tons of fun. She was always up

6:23

for anything. Let's go to the movies,

6:25

let's go shopping, let's go to the beach,

6:28

love the beach. That

6:30

was probably one of her favorite places to go.

6:32

Stacia served in the military, which eventually

6:35

took her to Alaska. But even then,

6:37

she and Goldie spoke on the phone multiple

6:39

times a week.

6:41

We talk so regular. The

6:43

joke is, is because she was in Daytona and

6:46

I was in Alaska, is that she

6:48

would always call me at 3 AM,

6:51

my time. She never could get the

6:53

times right. I told her to write it in her calendar.

6:55

When it's this time on your

6:58

clock, that's when you can call me kind

7:00

of thing. It was just kind of a joke we had.

7:03

By 2010, Goldie Robinson was 78 years old.

7:08

Her son Brian had moved out of state.

7:10

And her husband Lester and both of

7:12

her sisters had passed away years

7:15

before.

7:16

For the first time in decades, Goldie

7:19

found herself with no family close

7:21

by.

7:23

Fred sometimes worried about his mother

7:25

living on her own so far away. But

7:28

he said she was bright and strong.

7:31

He visited Florida a few times a year to

7:33

see her and to attend Daytona

7:35

Bike Week, a motorcycle rally.

7:38

Fred and Goldie had a loving relationship,

7:41

but she could be hot headed. They'd

7:43

fight sometimes, but they'd always make up.

7:46

She was a strong woman. She

7:51

had her own opinions of what

7:54

I should do, what my brother should do.

7:57

It wasn't always my point

7:59

of view, nor my father's view.

7:59

my brother's point of view. She just

8:02

loved us both. And we did

8:04

have disputes. There's no question

8:06

about it. But they never got

8:09

too far.

8:11

Fred's friend, Dave Lawson, stayed with

8:13

Goldie several times during Bike Week. And

8:16

Dave told me, Goldie was a woman you didn't

8:19

want to disappoint. When

8:21

we stayed with her and she

8:24

said, I don't care what you boys do, but

8:26

be here at five o'clock for dinner, no

8:29

matter what we were doing, we would be there at

8:31

five o'clock. I wasn't getting my butt

8:33

booked for not being there for dinner.

8:36

This was Goldie, loving and generous,

8:38

opinionated and stubborn, a good cook

8:41

and a great conversationalist. She

8:43

and Fred spoke multiple times a week, Fred

8:45

in Baltimore and Goldie in South Daytona.

8:48

That is until May of 2010, just

8:52

three months before Goldie was reported

8:54

missing. Fred and Goldie

8:57

got into a massive fight. It

8:59

started with a cell phone. Fred sent

9:01

his mother a cell phone that she could use to

9:03

call friends and family out of state. It

9:05

was so much cheaper to make long distance calls

9:08

than using her landline. And Fred

9:10

managed the account for his mother. But

9:12

in May of 2010, Goldie lost the cell phone. Then

9:16

she found it. Then she lost

9:18

it again. I said, have you looked everywhere

9:21

and you're doing it? I said,

9:23

have you looked everywhere and your jacket?

9:26

She said, I cannot find it. I

9:28

said, okay. I said, well, just keep

9:30

looking for it. And that was pretty

9:32

much the end of the call.

9:34

And I told my wife, we had a

9:36

discussion. I said, well, you know, I'm

9:39

going to turn it off. So I did. I

9:41

turned it off. And it probably

9:43

wasn't a week later that

9:45

I got this horrible phone call from

9:48

my mother.

9:49

Goldie had found her cell phone and

9:51

was upset to find out that the cell service

9:54

had been turned off on the phone.

9:56

And I won't

9:59

repeat so. of the language she used.

10:02

When she got mad she was pretty

10:05

vocal and she didn't care what she said

10:07

to who it was. She called me

10:09

and blessed me out. She was

10:12

furious. The phone was turned

10:14

off and I'd done it. Well

10:16

yeah I'd done it because I didn't know where

10:18

it was at and she,

10:22

well lack of a better word,

10:24

she went through the ceiling.

10:27

Fred

10:33

said he turned the cell phone service back on

10:35

but it was too late. Goldie was mad. And

10:37

I called her back

10:39

a couple times after

10:41

that and it rang and rang

10:43

and rang and rang and she wouldn't

10:45

pick up. She knew it was me

10:48

calling and I knew she was home

10:51

and she would never pick up.

10:55

Fred told me if he didn't know Goldie

10:57

it might not make sense why she was so upset about this. Even to him it was

11:00

a little unreasonable at least blown out of proportion.

11:02

But whether or not he understood

11:06

why his mother was mad he knew from past experiences

11:08

that it might be a while before she

11:12

got over it. Goldie could hold a grudge. If you

11:14

knew mom the way I know her,

11:19

yeah

11:21

okay this is going to blow over in a couple

11:23

months. It's going to take

11:25

a couple months because

11:28

that's the way she was with her sisters.

11:31

She would get mad at her sisters and not talk to them

11:35

for six months,

11:38

seven months, even a year sometimes

11:40

and they lived right across the street. So

11:42

this wasn't, I

11:45

didn't, it didn't fill no red

11:47

flags up. Fred

11:49

buckled up for what she knew would be months

11:52

of cold shouldering from Goldie. And

11:54

when he reflects on it now it looks so

11:57

different. He wishes he would have just driven down

11:59

the street.

11:59

to South Daytona and made things

12:02

right with her. But at the time,

12:04

there was so much he didn't know.

12:06

He knew Goldie was mad at him, but

12:08

he felt confident that she just needed a little

12:10

time and space, and that eventually

12:13

it would blow over.

12:14

May of 2010 turned into June.

12:18

Goldie still wasn't taking his calls.

12:21

Then one day, Fred tried

12:24

his mother's cell phone one more time, and

12:26

this time, his call was answered.

12:29

But oddly, not by Goldie.

12:31

Instead, by a woman who identified

12:34

herself as Yaya.

12:35

She said, your mom's

12:37

still mad at you. She does

12:39

not want to talk to you, and

12:42

that's pretty much it, she says. But

12:45

I'm kind of looking after her. I'm taking

12:47

her to the store. I'm taking

12:49

her to Walmart. I'm

12:52

doing a few things around here, trying

12:54

to keep up the place a little bit. Of

12:56

course, my mom didn't need no help.

13:00

Fred told me his mother was capable

13:03

of taking care of herself. She didn't really

13:05

need a caretaker, and she

13:07

certainly didn't like being patronized or

13:09

being treated like she was helpless.

13:11

But it was nice to know that she had some company.

13:15

Yaya told Fred she was in her early

13:17

40s and lived in the trailer across

13:19

the street from Goldie at Twin Oaks.

13:22

She seemed to know a lot about Goldie's

13:24

life,

13:25

where Goldie liked to shop, her favorite

13:27

pastimes, where she got her hair

13:29

done, and what doctor's appointment she

13:31

had on which days of the week. And

13:33

Fred thought, well,

13:35

great. But this woman had

13:38

become friends with her, and I'm thinking, okay,

13:41

well, I'm 1,000 miles away. She

13:45

won't talk to me, so what

13:48

better, she's got this friend looking after

13:50

her, taking her to the store, and she

13:53

called me. We had many,

13:55

many, many conversations, hours,

13:59

so.

13:59

sometimes about mom

14:02

and what she was doing and this that and

14:04

the other. Goldie and her granddaughter

14:07

Stacia had still been in regular communication.

14:10

Stacia knew that her dad, Fred and Goldie

14:13

were in the middle of a tiff, but that

14:15

didn't concern her. Stacia

14:17

and Goldie talked on the phone every

14:19

week, multiple times a week.

14:22

Until July of 2010, when Goldie

14:24

stopped calling.

14:27

It just went silent. She stopped

14:30

communicating. She wouldn't

14:32

pick up the phone. She would never call me. Every

14:34

time I'd call her, it would just ring and ring and ring.

14:44

Subscribe to Cast Plus to listen ad-free

14:46

with bonus episodes at CastMedia.com

14:49

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14:51

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14:53

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14:56

It really does make a difference. So thank you.

15:07

When Stacia couldn't get a hold of Goldie for

15:09

days on end, she grew concerned.

15:12

She called her dad Fred. To

15:14

her surprise, Fred told her not to

15:16

worry because he'd been speaking with Goldie's

15:18

neighbor, a woman named Yaya.

15:21

She's personable.

15:24

She's kind. She cares about mom.

15:28

She knows a lot about her, which

15:31

kind of put him at ease. She didn't feel

15:33

like a stranger. She didn't sound like a

15:35

stranger. She knew things, especially

15:38

like with her health. She didn't have

15:40

really any crazy

15:43

health conditions that we had to be concerned

15:45

about, but you know, she was older. So

15:47

it was just kind of nice to hear that I'm taking

15:49

her to the doctor and she had a good check up

15:52

and I'm going to get her blood work done. And

15:54

oh, by the way, I'm a nurse. And he

15:56

felt comfortable with her,

15:58

extremely comfortable with her.

16:00

had conversations with her on and

16:02

off for months. Fred spoke

16:04

with Yaya on the phone multiple times

16:07

per week. He liked that she was a nurse

16:09

and that she could keep him updated on what Goldie

16:11

was up to.

16:12

He grew to trust her more and more.

16:16

But even with her dad's reassurance, taking

16:18

Yaya's word for it didn't sit right

16:20

with Stacia.

16:22

She started to think that something was really

16:24

wrong.

16:25

It was so unusual for Goldie to stop

16:28

speaking with her, just out of the blue like

16:30

that.

16:31

But the only person communicating with

16:33

Yaya was her dad, Fred.

16:35

Finally, Stacia said she wanted to

16:37

speak with Yaya herself. He

16:39

said, yeah, yeah, she said, she

16:43

said that you can give her a call, but

16:45

she was getting ready to go out of town. So,

16:48

you know, it's going to be a couple weeks, but I'll let you know.

16:54

Yaya was oddly difficult

16:56

to reach. Every time they were supposed

16:58

to talk, Yaya had something come up

17:00

that got in the way. She was out of town

17:03

or had an unexpected appointment or had

17:05

to reschedule. Instead, Stacia

17:08

continued to get updates from her father,

17:10

Fred, who got updates from

17:12

Yaya. She took mom to the movies

17:15

or she took mom shopping and you know how she

17:17

loves to go to Sam's Club and look at, you know, go

17:19

down the aisle. Like she just knew

17:21

specific

17:24

Goldie things. But

17:28

then

17:28

in August of 2010, even

17:30

Fred stopped hearing from Yaya.

17:32

I called Yaya, nobody

17:35

answered. Went to her voicemail. Uh-huh,

17:37

okay. The next day I called

17:39

her, went to her voicemail. Hmm,

17:42

okay, this went on for about a week. I

17:45

hadn't talked to Yaya. She hadn't called

17:47

me either.

17:48

I thought, what

17:50

the heck is going on down there?

17:52

So, I remember

17:55

we were talking and he said I can't get

17:57

over with nobody. I don't know what's going

17:59

on. on. So

18:04

again, it was kind of like, well, we'll just wait

18:06

and see. She's a nurse, maybe she's

18:08

got something going on.

18:11

At that point, there were very few people

18:13

in the park that we could pick up the phone

18:15

and call. We didn't have their phone number. They

18:19

had moved away. So

18:22

that's when he called John,

18:25

his friend that lives down there in South

18:27

Daytona and asked him to go over

18:29

and check on her and see what was

18:31

going on. John

18:34

Kyler worked with Fred for years

18:36

in Baltimore and eventually found himself

18:38

living in Holly Hill, Florida, about 10

18:41

minutes from South Daytona.

18:43

Here's John. Fred had called me and asked

18:45

me to go check on his mother. John

18:47

told Fred he was planning on getting ice cream

18:50

that evening, so he would just stop by Goldie's

18:52

trailer and see if she wanted to join.

18:56

When I spoke with John, he was sitting in his living

18:58

room with his wife, Lisa. They are both friends

19:00

with Fred and they both went to check on Goldie

19:03

that day. So

19:03

we all wrote over there

19:06

to take her out and that's when I

19:08

noticed that things weren't right over her home.

19:11

She was a very neat woman. She kept

19:13

everything a certain way and when

19:16

we went over there, everything

19:18

was a disarray. Her porch was locked

19:21

and which was never locked and everything. Her

19:23

porch was locked. And that's why they seen

19:26

clothes all over the porch which was

19:28

something Goldie didn't do.

19:29

And did it seem like they were her

19:31

clothes or someone else's clothes? Someone

19:34

else's clothes, truck

19:36

boxes, you know, parts and stuff and

19:38

like I said she had a truck. What

19:40

were you thinking might be going on?

19:42

I was thinking something wasn't right. It was

19:44

something was wrong, very wrong and

19:47

that's why I told my sister, I said we

19:49

need to call Fred and let him know

19:51

we stayed there and then he had us call

19:54

the police.

19:55

He called me back. He

19:58

said Fred something's wrong. Something

20:01

is bad wrong. I said,

20:04

what do you mean? He says, your

20:06

mom's flower gardens are overgrown.

20:10

There's weeds everywhere.

20:12

Goldie's car was not in the driveway.

20:15

Her flower garden looked like it had been

20:17

neglected for months, and there were

20:19

random items strewn across

20:21

the yard and porch. John

20:23

Kyler tried the door. And

20:25

he said, I can't get into the house. He

20:28

called the police. And

20:30

the police come, and the police told

20:33

John, this is hearsay, not

20:35

firsthand information, John. The

20:37

policeman said that there

20:39

wasn't really nothing to worry about, because

20:43

in Florida, if somebody

20:45

has died in the trailer, the

20:49

windows are covered with flies. OK?

20:52

So that kind of helped me out a little bit.

20:54

Fred was relieved that his

20:56

mother was not lying dead in her

20:59

trailer, but it did not explain

21:01

the highly unusual state of her home.

21:03

Whose clothes were on the porch? Why

21:06

wasn't Yahya returning his calls?

21:09

And most pressing,

21:10

where was his mother Goldie?

21:13

Fred hung up the phone, packed a suitcase,

21:16

and drove his truck the 13

21:18

hours from Baltimore to South

21:20

Daytona.

21:21

And he said, I'm packing my stuff, and I'm going to Daytona.

21:25

So he drove through the night.

21:29

Again, luckily, I was in Alaska. So I stayed

21:31

up with him on the phone the entire

21:34

ride,

21:37

almost kind of just sitting there reeling

21:40

about what is

21:43

happening. Is this true? It's just all

21:45

kind of flashing in front

21:48

of you, like something's not

21:50

right. And I left here about 5

21:53

o'clock. 5 o'clock

21:55

Sunday evening. And

21:57

I was down there.

21:59

about six o'clock Monday morning.

22:03

And that's,

22:05

for lack of a better word again, that's

22:08

when all hell broke loose. As

22:10

soon as Fred arrived in South Daytona, he

22:12

tried to get into his mother's trailer. He had

22:15

his own set of keys. See,

22:17

Fred's name was also on the deed for the

22:19

trailer, since he actually co-owned

22:22

the house with his mother.

22:23

But when he tried to turn the key and the lock

22:26

on her front door, nothing happened.

22:29

At some point, the locks had been changed.

22:31

This was another frustrating and perplexing

22:34

roadblock.

22:36

Fred called the police. And because he was

22:38

co-owner, they helped him break into

22:40

the home.

22:42

But as he stepped into Goldie's trailer, another

22:44

unsettling feeling washed over

22:46

him.

22:47

Everything that my mother owned was

22:51

gone. Absolutely

22:53

everything. She had a wall

22:56

of shelves where

22:58

she kept her TV. The TV

23:01

was gone. And her Faberge

23:03

eggs, everything that she

23:05

had collected over the years, was

23:08

gone.

23:10

Goldie was a big collector. She had all

23:12

kinds of baubles and trinkets, some

23:14

of which were worth money. She was really

23:17

into Faberge eggs. And typically,

23:19

she had all of her collectibles neatly

23:21

displayed in her living room.

23:24

Now, they were gone.

23:28

I went back to her bedroom. And

23:30

there was nothing in the bedroom

23:34

except

23:35

toys. And her

23:38

closet was full

23:40

of stuffed animals. And

23:43

I just,

23:46

you could have punched

23:48

me in the gut. And it wouldn't hurt

23:50

any worse. It's

23:52

bad wrong. It's bad, bad wrong.

23:56

Fred filed a missing persons report with

23:58

the Daytona Police Department.

23:59

on August 22, 2010.

24:03

If there was any hope that this was all some

24:05

big misunderstanding, that

24:07

Goldie would show up any moment and

24:10

laugh at what a big deal was being made

24:12

over nothing,

24:13

that hope was shrinking by the moment.

24:17

The state of Goldie's trailer alone, all

24:19

of her missing possessions, the trash

24:21

in disarray, the overgrown flower

24:24

beds, sent Fred into a panic.

24:26

He called his daughter Stacia. And I actually

24:29

was on my way to work, and he called

24:31

me, and he was screaming at

24:33

the top of his lungs. We can't

24:35

find her. They can't find her. They can't

24:37

find her. And

24:39

then I

24:40

was probably on a plane

24:44

four or five hours later heading to Daytona.

24:47

Stacia arrived in South Daytona and

24:49

stayed with Fred, providing any information

24:51

she could to the police. The

24:53

tricky part about this missing person's case

24:56

was that both Fred and Stacia were

24:58

not 100% sure when Goldie went missing.

25:02

For over a month, all communication

25:04

had gone through Yaya, who

25:06

was also nowhere to be found.

25:09

My poor dad is standing in the street like, where's my

25:11

mother and where's Yaya?

25:14

Everybody was looking in like, there's no Yaya.

25:17

There's no Yaya.

25:20

Most of the neighbors knew who Goldie was. She

25:22

lived at Twin Oaks Mobile Home Park for almost 37

25:25

years at that point.

25:27

They also knew that a woman lived across

25:29

the street from Goldie, and they often saw

25:32

the two of them together. But none of the

25:34

neighbors had seen either of them lately.

25:37

And then I want to say the police went over and maybe

25:39

found out, I guess, OK, Yaya's name is

25:41

Kim, and she's in jail. We didn't know her

25:43

as Kim.

25:44

We knew her as Yaya. Yaya

25:47

was a fake name. The

25:50

person Fred had been speaking with on the phone

25:53

multiple times a week for over a month

25:56

was actually a woman named Kimberly

25:58

Smith, or Kim.

25:59

Kim.

26:01

She did live in the trailer across the

26:03

street from his mother Goldie, and

26:05

when the police went to knock on her door, her

26:07

boyfriend answered. He was a tall,

26:10

broad-shouldered, lumbering man

26:12

in his early 30s named David

26:15

Enos.

26:16

He told the police that Kim was not home

26:18

and she wasn't going to be back for a while,

26:21

because she was in jail.

26:43

Kimberly Smith previously served a

26:45

prison sentence for fraud and identity

26:47

theft, and she was in violation of her

26:49

parole. On August 10th,

26:51

she was arrested by the Volusia County Sheriff's

26:54

Office for an outstanding warrant in Orange

26:56

County, Florida. The reason that Fred

26:58

could not get ahold of Kim for the past two weeks

27:00

was because she'd been in jail.

27:03

Fred and Stacia were faced with the reality

27:05

that Goldie was missing,

27:07

and the one person who might know where she is

27:09

had lied about her name and

27:12

had a criminal past.

27:14

That was certainly not encouraging.

27:16

While the police conducted their investigation,

27:19

Fred and Stacia had to do

27:21

something, anything they could, to help.

27:24

So they spent hours driving around

27:26

South Daytona looking for Goldie.

27:30

Detective

27:44

Sergeant McCracken works for the South

27:46

Daytona Police Department. While he

27:49

did not work on this particular case, he

27:51

remembers it well, and he had the police

27:53

report in front of him during our interview.

28:01

So in the circumstance,

28:04

the family was a little strained and estranged

28:06

at the time. So that's

28:08

interesting because I imagine when someone's reported

28:11

missing, the first question

28:14

from the law enforcement side would

28:17

be when did they go missing? Right, right.

28:20

And we base everything off of

28:23

the last time that we can actually confirm

28:25

that they were seen. It works the same

28:27

in missing persons or thefts.

28:30

Pretty much any crime is based off the last time

28:32

we knew something for sure was there or

28:35

someone for sure was there. And that's

28:37

hard to do when their own family

28:39

doesn't know exactly when they went missing.

28:42

So he contacted

28:44

police and said that he hadn't

28:46

spoken to his mother in approximately two months.

28:49

I mean, that's quite a gap for us to work

28:51

with.

28:52

So officers responded

28:55

out. They actually canvassed the area

28:57

because of her age. You know, there's always the

28:59

possibility of dementia

29:01

or wandering and so many different things

29:03

that could have happened.

29:05

Detective spoke with the pastor of South

29:07

Daytona Baptist Church, which Goldie

29:09

attended regularly. He estimated

29:12

that he hadn't seen Goldie for two or three

29:14

weeks. But one of Goldie's friends

29:16

from that church said it'd been at least eight

29:19

weeks since she'd seen Goldie. And

29:22

when officers started knocking on the doors of

29:24

people living at Twin Oaks, Goldie's

29:26

neighbors, they heard estimates that

29:28

she'd been gone for maybe one or two months.

29:31

But shockingly, none of her neighbors seemed

29:33

that concerned about it. They said,

29:36

Goldie wasn't missing. She was

29:38

on vacation.

29:39

She'd recently gotten married to

29:41

a man named Rusty and they were on

29:43

their honeymoon together. There was even

29:45

a wedding announcement sent out. It had

29:48

two photos on it.

29:49

One of the photos is of Goldie smiling

29:52

with her permed hair and glasses.

29:55

And then there is a second photo, which is quite

29:57

blurry, of a man.

29:59

in handwriting, just married

30:02

July 19th, 2010.

30:08

It turns out this wasn't new news to

30:10

Fred or Stacia.

30:12

Just like the neighbors, Fred had also

30:14

received this wedding announcement via text

30:17

from Yahya, or Kim Smith.

30:19

Stacia remembers her dad telling her that

30:22

Goldie had gotten married the month before.

30:25

So she had sent a picture and

30:27

he said, you're never gonna believe this. He

30:30

said, Yahya told me that mom

30:32

got married. And just

30:34

because of who she was, and I

30:37

just, you know, we were like, there's no way. There's

30:39

just no way. She's not, she's

30:41

not. It's just that wasn't her.

30:45

It's a little hard to explain this away, but

30:48

Fred and Stacia both told me they

30:50

didn't truly believe that Goldie

30:52

had gotten married, but they hadn't known

30:54

what to believe. They thought the whole thing

30:56

was weird, but they weren't that concerned

30:58

about it. That is until Goldie went

31:01

missing and they arrived in Florida. And

31:03

then the police started questioning Goldie's neighbors.

31:05

And it turns out no one had reported

31:08

her missing because everyone

31:10

believed the same story

31:12

that Goldie was on her honeymoon.

31:14

Goldie wasn't around. She was

31:16

off on her honeymoon in the Caribbean. I'm

31:19

thinking, there's no way

31:21

that mom got married. Where is my

31:23

mother at? Where is my mother?

31:26

And everybody said, well, she's married in

31:29

the Bahamas.

31:31

I said, well, I

31:34

don't believe it, but that's great. If

31:36

she's living well and drinking

31:39

margaritas in the Bahamas, I'm

31:41

happy. I'm tickled

31:42

to death. But until

31:45

I get confirmation, mm-mm.

31:47

Fred gave the detectives

31:49

a copy of the wedding announcement. He wondered

31:52

if it might be a clue to finding his mother. Who

31:54

was Rusty? And was he really

31:57

married to Goldie?

31:59

Both Fred and Stacey.

31:59

Dacia told me they felt that there was something

32:02

much more sinister going on. Goldie

32:04

hadn't just wandered off and they were pretty

32:06

sure she wasn't married. But they would

32:09

have to convince the police that that was the case.

32:12

After all, it's not a crime to elope

32:14

to the Bahamas.

32:16

Which was part of the problem in the beginning

32:18

because the police kept telling us, well,

32:20

it's not against the law for people to get married

32:22

and run off to their honeymoon. That

32:24

was like one of their things that they would

32:26

say to us.

32:28

Before all hell broke loose.

32:31

When Nicole Luca got a tip that there was a missing

32:33

persons report in South Daytona, she

32:35

didn't think too much of

32:37

it. As she told me, it wasn't too uncommon for an

32:42

elderly person to wander off in South Daytona. But

32:46

when she arrived to the Twin Oaks trailer park, she

32:52

realized there might be more to this story. She

32:54

remembers seeing Goldie's trailer in disarray

32:57

and speaking with Fred. There were

32:59

toys, like kids toys outside. And I do

33:01

remember seeing them and thinking, who

33:04

would have had the toys? And he

33:07

was just mind

33:07

blown. Like, it's like she's gone.

33:09

It's like she doesn't live here anymore. And

33:12

none of it made sense. And that's because

33:15

what we later found out, Adam Smith,

33:17

was the one living in her home and

33:19

he had kids with his girlfriend. And

33:22

so that's why there were actually kids living

33:24

in the home.

33:27

According to the South Daytona police summary

33:29

of the case, it was quickly determined

33:32

that there were people living in Goldie's

33:34

trailer. In fact, it was a young

33:36

family, which explains the children's

33:39

toys. Adam Smith, his

33:41

wife, Crystal, and their two small children.

33:44

Adam Smith is Kim Smith's son.

33:47

This looked very suspicious. Why

33:50

would he be living in Goldie's trailer?

33:55

When the police called Adam to question

33:57

him, he said he'd purchased the home.

34:00

home from Goldie before she left on

34:02

her honeymoon. And according to Adam Smith,

34:04

you know, he says that Goldie

34:06

gave him that house when she went

34:09

off to marry this multimillionaire

34:12

somewhere in Tennessee. They were on their extended honeymoon.

34:15

And so he gave her the house

34:17

according to Adam Smith.

34:20

According to the police summary, Adam first

34:22

stated that he bought the house, but

34:24

he never said how much he paid for it.

34:26

When pressed about it, he later

34:28

stated that Goldie gave him the trailer

34:31

as a gift.

34:33

When the police asked Adam where Goldie

34:35

was, he repeated the same story

34:37

about Goldie going on a honeymoon

34:39

with her new husband, a man named

34:41

Rusty,

34:42

only this time they were in Tennessee somewhere.

34:46

On August 22nd, Detective Rainey

34:49

Hetznicker knocked on Kim Smith's

34:51

trailer. Her boyfriend, David Enos,

34:53

answered the door and agreed to let

34:55

Detective Hetznicker come inside and take

34:57

a look around.

34:59

Fred Roberts waited outside.

35:02

But when Detective Hetznicker stepped

35:05

back outside, Fred told me

35:07

he looked like he'd seen a ghost.

35:11

He said, Fred, he said

35:13

the man that your mother was

35:15

supposed to marry, off

35:18

on an extended honeymoon, a multimillionaire,

35:22

he's in there sitting on the couch.

35:24

That was a holy shit moment. What

35:28

in the world is going on now?

35:32

Kim Smith's boyfriend, David Enos,

35:35

was not alone in that trailer. In

35:37

fact, there were two other people in there

35:39

who, according to police reports, lived

35:42

in the trailer with Kim and David. They

35:44

were both elderly people who Kim

35:46

claimed to be caring for.

35:49

And one of them was named Russell Rybak,

35:51

except he looked exactly

35:53

like Rusty, the man pictured

35:56

with Goldie, the man who was supposed

35:58

to be honeymooning with Goldie.

35:59

at that very time.

36:02

The one cop came out and

36:04

I want to say, he said, let

36:07

me see that picture again.

36:09

And my dad showed it to him.

36:11

He was like, Rusty's not on his

36:14

honeymoon. Rusty's in

36:16

that house right there, sit on the couch. Nicole

36:20

Luca also remembers this moment. They

36:22

found out Rusty, the guy

36:25

who Goldie allegedly

36:27

was her, you know, her new

36:30

husband, the multi-millionaire, this Rusty

36:32

guy. He was also under

36:34

the care

36:35

of Kimberly Smith.

36:38

Russell Rybeck was not a millionaire, and

36:41

he certainly wasn't married to Goldie Robinson.

36:44

He told detectives that Kim Smith had

36:46

taken his photograph, but he wasn't

36:48

sure why.

36:50

Suddenly the search for Goldie Robinson

36:53

looked much more ominous.

36:55

When the detectives searched the trailer, they

36:58

found multiple documents with Goldie Robinson's

37:00

name on them, including a receipt

37:03

for the purchase of a new mattress with

37:05

Goldie's credit card. On

37:08

August 23, Detective Doug

37:10

Cordier of the South Daytona Police

37:12

Department contacted the state

37:14

attorney's office homicide unit

37:17

and requested investigative assistance.

37:19

This had turned from a missing person's case

37:22

to a potential homicide.

37:24

Where was Goldie Robinson? And did

37:26

Kim Smith have something to do with her disappearance?

37:52

The Opportunist is a cast original

37:54

podcast. It's produced by me, Hannah

37:57

Smith, along with Natalie Gregory and

37:59

Sarah D Doug Leish. Colin Thompson is

38:01

our executive producer, editor and music

38:04

editor. The show is mixed and mastered

38:06

by Matt Sewell. Our theme song

38:08

is Waltz for Zechariah from the album Show

38:11

Late. Do you have a suggestion for the show

38:13

and opportunists that you want to hear us cover? You

38:15

can email us at the opportunist at CastMedia.com

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that's Cast with a K.

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