0:00

Subscribe to Cast Plus to listen ad-free

0:03

with bonus episodes at castmedia.com

0:05

slash cast plus. You

0:07

can follow, rate, and review The Opportunist

0:10

on Apple Podcasts. It really does make

0:12

a difference, so thank you.

0:15

This podcast contains disturbing

0:18

content. Please take care while listening. 78-year-old

0:20

Goldie

0:21

Robinson was reported missing on August 22, 2010, but it had been at least two months since her son

0:23

Fred had spoken with her.

0:38

South Daytona law enforcement was working hard

0:40

to locate Goldie, but so far, the

0:43

search only yielded more questions.

0:46

Like, why was her caretaker's son

0:48

living in her trailer with his wife and kids?

0:52

Why were all of Goldie's possessions

0:54

missing?

0:55

And did her caretaker, Kimberly

0:57

Smith, know the truth about Goldie's

0:59

location? While

1:01

detectives were searching Kim's trailer and

1:04

speaking with her son and boyfriend, Kim

1:07

Smith was sitting in the Orange County

1:09

Jail in Orlando

1:10

for a parole violation. So I'm just

1:12

worried about, like, the cops or somebody. If the cops come to

1:15

the door, they're gonna be looking for Goldie Robinson.

1:17

You're gonna say, Miss Robinson got married.

1:19

On August 20th, Adam had a phone

1:21

conversation with his mother, Kim.

1:23

And this is part of that call. Remember,

1:26

she was in jail, so all of her phone calls

1:28

were being recorded.

1:29

You can hear Adam scrambling

1:32

to get his story straight about why

1:34

in the world he was living in Goldie's

1:36

trailer and what he should tell

1:38

the police.

1:40

You tell the landlord people that

1:42

she left you there. Yes, you are

1:44

gonna buy the house, but not until all the work was done. But right

1:46

now, Miss Goldie still owns it. She left you enough

1:49

money for the rent until December. I'm not

1:50

even telling that. Yeah, I'm just like, look, she's on vacation.

1:52

She won't be back.

1:53

No, she's not really on vacation. She got married. Her

1:55

husband.

1:55

Oh, yeah, she got married and went on a vacation with her new husband.

1:58

They won't be back till December. but there's no birds now.

2:04

Two days after this phone call, on

2:06

August 22nd, detectives found

2:08

two elderly people living in Kim

2:10

Smith's trailer, one of whom looked

2:12

like the man Goldie supposedly married.

2:15

So, later that same day, Lieutenant

2:18

Doug Cordier and Detective Rainey Hetznecker

2:21

with the South Daytona Police Department visited

2:24

Kim in jail.

2:26

We have detailed notes from the police report

2:29

outlining a troubling conversation

2:31

between Kim and Investigator Hetznecker.

2:35

Hetznecker asks Kim if she can

2:37

provide them with any information

2:39

as to where Goldie Robinson might

2:41

be. Kim says she

2:44

doesn't have an address or a phone number

2:46

for Goldie, but she does know that

2:48

Goldie married a man named Rusty

2:51

and she was on her honeymoon. She

2:53

says she thinks she's somewhere in Tennessee,

2:56

but Goldie should be back in South Daytona

2:59

sometime in December. Maybe

3:02

Kim thought Hetznecker would file away

3:05

this conversation. Goldie was

3:07

an adult, after all. Going away

3:09

on a honeymoon and not telling your children

3:11

is not a crime, but

3:13

Hetznecker knew better,

3:14

of course. He informed

3:17

Kim that he had been inside her trailer earlier

3:19

that day and met a man named

3:21

Russell Rybeck, who looked exactly

3:24

like Goldie's supposed husband, Rusty.

3:27

Hetznecker looked at Kim and told her,

3:30

I think you're lying. And

3:32

then he asked her yet again,

3:35

where is Goldie Robinson?

3:39

Kim still insisted

3:41

Goldie was on her honeymoon.

3:45

Nicole Luca was reporting on the unfolding

3:47

story of Goldie Robinson's disappearance.

3:50

She wanted to speak with Kim's son, Adam,

3:53

or Kim's boyfriend, David Enos.

3:56

But when she went to the Twin Oaks mobile home

3:58

park, she couldn't find... anyone

4:00

associated with Kim Smith. You

4:02

know, once the news broke, I think they fled

4:05

that area, to be honest. And

4:07

Kimberly Smith's boyfriend at the time, David Enos,

4:10

he was living at her home at Kim's

4:13

house. But once police

4:16

started sniffing around, he

4:18

was gone. Neighbors say he never came

4:20

back, so he was out of there. From

4:28

cast

4:29

media, this is The Opportunist.

4:31

This is season eight,

4:32

episode two. Kimberly

4:36

Smith, Dawn. I'm

4:39

Hannah Smith. Since

4:49

Goldie Robinson was estranged from

4:51

her son Fred during the summer of 2010, it

4:54

was difficult to know exactly when she

4:57

was last seen or heard from.

4:59

Detectives had pieced together that she'd been missing

5:02

anywhere from one to two months.

5:05

According to Detective McCracken and

5:07

the police report, Kim Smith

5:09

was a person of interest in the case almost

5:11

immediately.

5:13

Kim Smith was also the one that

5:17

started telling everyone

5:19

that Goldie had actually met a

5:22

retired judge and had gotten married

5:24

and had moved

5:27

off to Tennessee or somewhere

5:29

up in the mountains when

5:31

nobody had seen her for a while. An

5:34

initial look into Goldie's financial situation

5:37

led detectives to think that something much

5:39

bigger was going on.

5:41

They started noticing right away

5:43

some oddities in Goldie's

5:47

finances, and

5:50

they suspected that

5:51

she had been getting taken advantage of for a

5:53

long time. As detectives

5:56

prepared to subpoena Goldie's bank

5:58

for statements and agents, ATM photos,

6:01

they also decided to take two vehicles

6:04

on Kim Smith's property into custody

6:06

and test them for DNA evidence.

6:09

Why?

6:10

Because both of those vehicles were registered

6:12

to Goldie Robinson. The

6:16

tow truck arrived to the Twin Oaks

6:18

mobile home park on the evening of

6:20

Wednesday, August 25th. It

6:22

was dark out. And so the tow truck

6:25

driver had its lights kind of just happened

6:27

to be shining in that woods area

6:30

right next to Kim Smith's home.

6:33

And they notice like a trash

6:35

can and it just looked it just looked

6:38

like the trash can shouldn't have been there. You

6:40

know, it didn't look like it had been there for a

6:42

long time. It looked like it had been almost freshly

6:44

placed there.

6:45

As the tow truck driver prepared

6:47

to hook up the vehicles, his headlights

6:50

shined into a wooded area next

6:52

to Kim Smith's trailer. The

6:54

lights illuminated a trash can

6:57

more like a small dumpster. The

6:59

tow truck driver said something about

7:01

that dumpster just didn't seem

7:04

quite right. He informed investigators

7:07

and they decided to inspect it. Here's

7:09

Detective McCracken again.

7:11

One of the detectives was walking around

7:13

and he opened

7:16

it and obviously immediately

7:18

could tell by the by the

7:21

smell that

7:22

there was something or someone in there. Police

7:26

had gone to Kim's trailer that evening

7:28

looking for DNA evidence in two vehicles.

7:31

But what they found were human remains.

7:35

The discovery was grisly.

7:37

The human remains were incredibly decomposed.

7:41

This might be a very obvious question, but

7:44

when you find a body in

7:46

a trash can, you do immediately

7:48

assume that it's homicide. Any

7:53

suspicious death is

7:55

treated as a homicide until proven

7:57

otherwise.

7:58

just because

8:01

of evidence preservation, documentation,

8:05

photographs. I

8:07

would rather assume it's a homicide

8:10

and find out later we didn't need everything we

8:12

collected, rather than not,

8:14

and then find out you missed something you needed.

8:17

The discovery of human remains meant

8:19

that Kim's trailer and the surrounding

8:22

property was now a crime scene. The

8:24

area was taped off and a forensics team

8:26

was called in.

8:28

And just a few doors down, Goldie's

8:31

son Fred, who was desperately searching

8:33

for his mother, he watched it all happen.

8:36

And the detectives was over there,

8:38

and they went into this little overgrown

8:41

place. It wasn't woods,

8:43

it was just kind of overgrown. Nobody

8:45

had cut anything down. Doug

8:48

Cordier come out of the woods.

8:51

Fred, he says, we

8:53

found something. And

8:57

it's not good. It's not good at all.

9:01

Fred didn't know that they'd found a body,

9:03

but when they asked him for a DNA

9:05

sample, he got a pit in his stomach.

9:08

This wasn't good. Investigators

9:11

swabbed his cheek and told him the medical

9:13

examiner would have a report back Monday

9:15

morning.

9:17

So over the weekend, Fred just

9:20

had to wait. The whole time

9:22

wondering,

9:23

was that his mother? Had she died?

9:26

And worse, was her body stuffed

9:28

into a trash can? It was unimaginable.

9:31

That's my mother right there. In

9:34

a nutshell, that's my mother. I

9:36

mean, you know, there's nobody else missing

9:38

in Daytona.

9:39

That's my mother. I had to wait.

9:43

I had to wait. All the bad words

9:45

I could think of wouldn't even

9:48

touch on it. How I felt.

9:51

I was turned inside out.

9:54

If you could turn your body inside out,

9:58

pull your rear end out through your mouth. That

10:00

kind of gave me a little bit of a feeling.

10:03

That's the only way I could describe it. My

10:05

daughter was the same.

10:07

Then Monday morning came. Fred

10:09

and Stacia went to the South Daytona Police

10:11

Station. They were prepared for the worst,

10:14

that the remains were Goldies.

10:16

But

10:16

what they found out was not at all

10:19

what they expected.

10:21

It wasn't what the police expected either.

10:24

Here's Detective McCracken again. They just

10:26

assumed it was Goldie in the trash can initially.

10:30

It wasn't until the medical examiner

10:33

started the exam that it was determined that

10:35

it was a male and it wasn't even Goldie.

10:38

So they told us it wasn't Mom. And

10:42

the world was lifted off of my shoulders.

10:45

OK, now we got to find out

10:47

where she's at.

10:48

That's great.

10:50

That's absolutely great. That's

10:53

not Mom. But I kind of feel sorry for

10:55

this guy. Now, who is this

10:57

guy? He's not a missing

11:00

person in Daytona. Who

11:02

is he?

11:04

So yeah, that was a little bit of a surprise,

11:08

to say the least. Now we had an additional

11:10

person, a

11:11

body, that was

11:13

a male. And we had no idea who he was at the

11:16

time.

11:18

What it seemed like a bombshell discovery

11:21

in Goldie's case only added more

11:23

unknowns to the investigation.

11:25

The body was not Goldie's. Instead,

11:28

it belonged to a man, only there

11:30

was no record of a missing person

11:32

matching his description in Volusia County.

11:35

This is reporter Nicole

11:37

Luca again.

11:39

And they announced that it

11:41

was not the body of Goldie

11:43

Robinson. And we were just blown

11:47

away. And they said that it

11:49

was a body of a male. It was just mind-blowing.

11:51

It was really hard to process that information.

11:54

The gruesome truth was that the body found

11:56

on Kim Smith's property in a trash

11:58

can was

11:59

was severely decomposed. Florida's

12:02

hot and humid summer brought droves

12:04

of insects.

12:06

And the remains were in such a bad state

12:08

that the medical examiner was not able

12:10

to determine a cause of death or

12:13

when he had died.

12:15

Now the detectives had two problems

12:18

to solve.

12:19

Goldie Robinson was still missing.

12:21

And who was this man found dead

12:23

beside Kim's trailer?

12:27

He decided to utilize the media. We

12:30

had to put out a release trying to reach

12:33

out to the public. Is there anybody missing that you

12:35

know of? Have you not heard from anyone

12:37

lately? Check on your loved

12:39

ones, that kind of thing. Robin

12:41

Ackner had not seen Nicole's

12:43

news report or heard her plea for

12:45

the public to come forward about the unidentified

12:48

remains.

12:50

But one day in late August of 2010, she

12:53

walked out of a work meeting to a series

12:56

of frantic phone calls from her mother.

13:00

I'm in

13:00

a meeting, and I come out of the meeting, and I've got,

13:02

like, six voicemails from my mother. And

13:05

she's like, it's him, it's him, it's him.

13:17

Subscribe to CAST Plus to listen ad-free

13:20

with bonus episodes at castmedia.com

13:23

slash castplus.

13:25

You can follow, rate, and review The Opportunist

13:27

on Apple Podcasts. It really does make

13:30

a difference, so thank you.

13:41

Robin doesn't live in South Daytona,

13:44

and she'd never met Kim Smith. But

13:47

a phone call from her mother in August

13:49

of 2010 upended her life

13:52

because her mother, Alice, claimed

13:54

that she knew exactly whose

13:56

body had been found beside Kim Smith's

13:58

trailer. She said it was

14:00

her ex-husband.

14:03

And then they said it wasn't a woman's

14:05

body, that they found it was a man's body. So

14:07

that's, you know, my mother's freaking out, and she's saying

14:09

it's him, it's him, it's him.

14:11

Robin grew up in New Jersey, and both

14:13

her parents worked for a limousine company

14:16

owned and operated by a man named Arthur

14:18

Sheldon. When Robin was 14, her

14:20

parents divorced.

14:23

And then my mother and Arthur turned

14:26

out that they had hooked up.

14:28

When I asked Robin how she would describe

14:31

Arthur as a person back then, she said,

14:33

he was a decently attractive man and

14:36

a good businessman, but

14:38

basically he was a bully. He

14:40

was mean to our employees, he would yell at our drivers,

14:42

he would call them names,

14:45

and I often wondered why nobody reached

14:47

across his desk and punched his lights out.

14:50

And what do you think the attraction was for your mother?

14:53

Money. We grew up poor.

14:56

My father wasn't a

14:58

go-getter to, you know, go out and make a lot

15:00

of money or have a career. He jumped

15:02

from job to job, insurance salesman,

15:05

bartender. When

15:08

they got divorced,

15:09

he disappeared. But

15:11

my mother, she never said anything

15:14

to me, but I

15:17

think that she was because of the money.

15:19

It was security to her. She had a

15:21

safe place. She knew she was never gonna have to struggle,

15:24

and that's why she was with him. I

15:26

think that also he was a really nice

15:29

guy in the beginning.

15:31

Robin's mother, Alice, and Arthur Sheldon,

15:34

or Art, as she calls him, were married

15:36

in 1979, and they went on to

15:38

run the limo company together for the next 20

15:40

or so years. But Robin

15:43

said that Art's niceties didn't

15:45

last long. She lived in the same house

15:47

as him as a teenager and quickly learned

15:50

that Arthur was abusive.

15:52

He was as much of a bully to me

15:54

as he was to the drivers who worked

15:56

for him. Plus

15:59

he also tried to put his hand in the window. hands on me. And

16:03

after that, I never spent any time with him alone.

16:06

Robin didn't feel safe around Arthur, and

16:08

eventually she ran away.

16:11

She moved into a group home where she lived

16:13

until she left for college. And

16:15

then things improved for her. She maintained

16:17

a relationship with her mother, Alice, and

16:20

she tolerated Arthur from a safe distance.

16:23

But then, Arthur retired and moved to Florida.

16:26

For a time, Alice stayed in New Jersey,

16:28

running the limo company. And in 1999, their

16:31

marriage ended. Alice divorced

16:35

Art after finding out that he was unfaithful.

16:37

My mother showed up one day unexpected,

16:40

and there was a bra stuffed in the couch.

16:43

And it wasn't hers. They had a big

16:45

fight, and he had cheated on her numerous

16:47

times before. I guess this was the

16:49

icing on the cake.

16:51

But it didn't take long. I think, like,

16:54

maybe within a year, they were

16:56

living back together. Art needed

16:58

somebody to take care of him, and my mother

17:01

needed somebody to take care of. It

17:03

wasn't like they had a loving relationship.

17:07

They kind of needed each other

17:09

for weird reasons.

17:11

Robin said that Arthur and her mother considered

17:13

each other marital spouses, even

17:15

though they never legally remarried.

17:18

But they were in each other's lives for the next

17:20

decade. Every

17:21

once in a while, Arthur would up

17:24

and leave, usually with the excuse

17:26

that he had fallen for another woman. But

17:29

he always came back.

17:32

Until October of 2008. Robin remembers this

17:35

date distinctly

17:37

because she was wedding planning at the time.

17:41

My mother came down to West Palm Beach

17:43

to help me pick out a dress

17:45

for my wedding. And she brought her dog

17:47

with her. And she never brought

17:50

her dog anywhere. And I asked her, I

17:52

said, how come you didn't leave Buster

17:54

with art? And she said,

17:57

art's gone. He left, and

17:59

he met this woman. and he said

18:01

it was the woman he was gonna spend the rest of his life with.

18:05

Little did he know how right he was. Robin

18:08

and her mother, Alice, knew nothing about

18:10

this latest woman Arthur had fallen for,

18:13

except for her name,

18:15

Dawn.

18:17

While Alice was heartbroken, she'd

18:19

also been through this before, and

18:21

she figured she would just wait it out, and

18:23

Arthur would eventually come back,

18:26

just like he always did.

18:27

That was in October, and

18:29

I had my wedding in December,

18:32

and life was good.

18:34

A few months into the new year, my mother started

18:36

complaining that Art wasn't helping to pay any of the

18:38

bills for the house, and she had to

18:41

put all the money up for that,

18:43

and I'm like, well, where is he?

18:45

By now, it was early 2009, and things were getting

18:48

more and more unusual.

18:51

Not only had Alice not heard from Arthur,

18:54

but she started getting notices that bills

18:56

were going unpaid,

18:58

even their mortgage.

19:00

Arthur was not a great partner, but

19:02

he was predictable, and he never

19:05

let bills go unpaid.

19:08

Robin and Alice made multiple attempts

19:10

to reach Arthur, but the only person who

19:12

ever heard anything back

19:13

from Arthur was his sister-in-law,

19:17

Hattie.

19:18

Hattie said they had been in contact

19:20

via email, and that Arthur was doing

19:22

great. And

19:25

she said that Hattie was

19:28

getting emails from him, telling

19:31

her how good life was,

19:33

how happy he was. He was

19:35

traveling all over the world, but

19:37

none of it made any sense to me.

19:41

He was sick. He had diabetes.

19:43

He really couldn't travel. The

19:46

emails that came talked

19:48

as if he was a man who was really

19:51

active, and

19:53

like a go-getter, and like to go out

19:55

and do things and be active, and go places,

19:58

and walk.

19:59

And that wasn't him. He liked to sit on

20:02

the couch and watch TV. And

20:05

I get that some people change when they meet

20:07

people, but it just didn't

20:09

sit good with me.

20:11

The emails that Hadi received from Arthur

20:14

did not include any specifics about

20:16

where he was, when or if

20:19

he'd be back, or how to reach him

20:21

any other way than through email. Mostly,

20:24

the emails were about how much he loved

20:26

his new life and his new love,

20:29

this woman, Dawn.

20:32

Robin was not Arthur's biggest fan,

20:34

but she still wanted to find him.

20:37

Her mother, Alice, wasn't good with

20:39

money. She had an affinity for

20:41

gambling. So years

20:43

before Arthur left with Dawn, he

20:46

transferred all of his and Alice's

20:48

money into his name alone.

20:51

Alice could not access it. But

20:54

up until now, it'd never been a problem.

20:57

He'd always made sure that she was provided for. Robin

21:00

looked at the whole situation, the emails,

21:02

the unpaid bills, that they could

21:04

not get a hold of Arthur. And she thought,

21:06

something is fishy. She

21:09

hired a private investigator to see if they

21:11

could help her find Arthur. They

21:14

found nothing. They couldn't find anything on him

21:16

at all. But they did find Kimberly.

21:19

The private investigator's search for Arthur

21:22

led them directly to Kim Smith.

21:25

Or I should say, Kimberly Dawn

21:27

Smith. This was the mysterious

21:29

Dawn from Arthur's email, the

21:31

woman he'd fallen head over heels for.

21:34

And she lived in South Daytona.

21:37

Her name was Kimberly Dawn Smith. And

21:39

what did your mom think about all of this?

21:42

The information that the private investigator

21:44

found? She said something

21:46

about, I hope he's happy

21:47

sewing his oath or something like a phrase

21:50

like that. I don't know if she

21:52

had thoughts that he might come back. He

21:55

came back every other time. So maybe she figured he

21:57

would be coming back again.

21:59

He never came back.

22:07

Meanwhile, Hattie was still receiving email

22:10

updates from Arthur. He

22:12

said he was happy and now he was

22:14

traveling the world. So

22:17

Alice waited for Arthur to get tired of

22:19

his adventure and come home. And

22:22

Robin got busy with her own life. A

22:24

year passed. But Arthur never

22:27

came back.

22:28

And when Alice saw the news that human

22:30

remains belonging to an unidentified

22:32

male had been found on Kim Smith's

22:35

property,

22:37

she just knew it had to

22:39

be Arthur.

22:40

And that's when Alice called her daughter Robin.

22:43

So I came home and I pulled up the Daytona News

22:45

Journal and I read a little bit of article

22:48

that they had put out. They found a body.

22:50

And so I called the Daytona,

22:52

I think it was Poor Orange Police or

22:55

South Daytona. And

22:57

I talked to this poor cop, probably

22:59

thought I was batshit crazy. And

23:02

I'm like, I know who the body is.

23:06

And so he's like, calm down, tell me

23:08

more about it. So I told

23:09

him briefly the story. He said,

23:11

you need to talk to my supervisor.

23:14

And I said, all right, I'm packing a bag. I'm

23:16

going to be in Daytona. I'll be there in four hours.

23:34

The police needed definitive

23:37

evidence to determine if the remains

23:39

found outside of Kim Smith's trailer

23:41

were, in fact, Arthur Sheldon.

23:44

Robin was not related to Arthur, so

23:47

her DNA would be of no help in making

23:49

this determination.

23:51

But she did have something else that might do the

23:53

trick. I had had my mother pull out

23:55

every medical record that she could find

23:58

of ours. And we gave that to them. to

24:00

the officer. And when

24:04

he left, I walked outside with him

24:06

and I said, is there a body? Do you want me to come

24:08

identify a body? And he said, there is

24:10

no body. It's just a skeleton.

24:13

It turns out that Arthur Sheldon had

24:15

two biological children, but he

24:18

was estranged from both of them. When

24:20

investigators tracked down his son, he

24:23

said he hadn't spoken to his dad

24:25

in over 10 years. Through

24:27

DNA tests and Arthur's medical

24:29

records provided by Robin, law

24:32

enforcement confirmed the deceased

24:34

was in fact Arthur Sheldon.

24:37

It was actually after the body

24:39

was discovered that

24:42

somebody came forward

24:44

and reported Mr. Sheldon

24:47

missing, keeping

24:50

in mind that nobody

24:53

had even reported him missing until after we

24:55

found his body. And it was one of those situations

24:57

where he had

25:00

kind of separated himself away from the

25:02

family, wasn't talking to him,

25:05

almost started to show a distrust

25:07

towards his family.

25:09

In the search for the missing woman, Goldie

25:11

Robinson, the police had found

25:13

Arthur Sheldon,

25:16

and even more shocking, Arthur was

25:18

also connected to Kim Smith.

25:22

What did this mean for the investigation?

25:24

What did this mean for Goldie?

25:27

The case had expanded far beyond

25:29

one missing person.

25:33

In the police report, there is a photo

25:35

of Arthur Sheldon. He looks

25:37

like he's in his late 50s or early

25:39

60s. He's got blue eyes,

25:42

salt and pepper hair, and a round, full

25:45

face. He's wearing a black

25:47

button-up shirt and a gray suit jacket,

25:50

sitting on the bow of a boat at sunset.

25:53

It looks like a photocopy of a photograph

25:56

that's at least 15 years old, but

25:58

I'm pretty sure he's not It's not actually

26:00

on a boat. It's a photo

26:03

backdrop

26:04

taken in a studio.

26:06

The result is that he looks like

26:08

a businessman who cannot wait

26:10

to get off work and go enjoy the beach.

26:13

So what happened

26:15

between the time that this photo was taken

26:17

and his eventual demise?

26:21

The state of Arthur's remains indicated

26:23

that he'd been dead for quite a while,

26:26

but for how long?

26:28

The last time Alice spoke with him was

26:31

in late 2008.

26:33

His body was found a year and a half

26:35

later, in August of 2010.

26:38

He had never been reported as a missing

26:40

person.

26:41

But what about those emails he sent to

26:43

his sister-in-law, Hattie? Well,

26:46

detectives read those emails, and they suspected

26:49

Arthur did not write them. There

26:51

were certain tells in the way the emails

26:54

were written.

26:56

When art was right

26:58

on a computer, it

27:01

would always be like one big, long

27:03

sentence. There were no commas,

27:06

no periods, no paragraphs, none

27:08

of that. It was just one ongoing,

27:11

long sentence. But

27:13

the emails had periods and

27:16

commas and paragraphs, and

27:18

they all started with, art

27:20

here.

27:22

The connections between Arthur Sheldon

27:25

and Goldie Robinson were hard to

27:27

ignore. They were both elderly

27:29

people in Kim Smith's care, and

27:31

both people had become estranged

27:33

from their family members.

27:36

In

27:36

fact, if it wasn't for Goldie's disappearance

27:39

and her son Fred's determination

27:41

to find her, Arthur Sheldon

27:43

might still be missing.

27:46

If I hadn't hired the investigator, we

27:48

would never have known Kimberly's name. And,

27:51

you know, if we didn't know

27:53

Kimberly's name, we might not have ever known that

27:55

that was Art's body. While Arthur

27:57

Sheldon had very few people,

27:59

in contact with, Goldie Robinson

28:02

had an abundance of family and friends

28:04

in her life. She had

28:06

become temporarily estranged from her

28:09

son Fred, and yet it was Fred

28:11

who'd driven to South Daytona looking

28:13

for his mom. It was Fred who

28:15

had called the police and convinced them to

28:17

open a case to find her.

28:20

And when human remains were discovered, Fred

28:23

feared his mother was dead.

28:25

But now he had hope again.

28:30

Goldie's car, a red Ford Taurus,

28:33

was also missing.

28:35

So Fred hoped that wherever

28:37

that car was,

28:39

Goldie would be there too.

28:42

You know, a lot of people were thinking, well,

28:44

maybe she just, you know, went off, drove

28:46

off and got lost, got on the interstate,

28:49

got confused. So that

28:51

wasn't so far fetched at the time.

28:54

Fred and Stacia spent their days driving

28:56

around South Daytona and the surrounding area

28:59

looking for Goldie, blanketing

29:01

the town with missing persons

29:02

posters. But there

29:04

was no sign of her. Then

29:08

on August 28th,

29:09

there was another significant discovery

29:11

in the case.

29:13

After a long day of searching for Goldie,

29:15

Fred and Stacia and their friend John

29:17

were headed back to Twin Oaks Mobile

29:19

Home Park.

29:20

They stopped for gas.

29:22

And we were at the gas station down the street.

29:25

And John said,

29:27

that looks like your mom's

29:29

car. We were both like,

29:31

nah, that kid, there's no way, there's no

29:34

way her car is, you

29:36

know, half a mile from her house

29:38

at a gas station. And

29:41

there was two guys in it.

29:43

As they headed back to Twin Oaks, the

29:46

car in question took the same route.

29:48

They started to wonder, is that car

29:51

going to Twin Oaks? Is there

29:53

any way that could be Goldie's car? It

29:56

did look just like Goldie's car.

29:58

They watched the car as a got closer and

30:01

closer to Twin Oaks, the red Ford

30:03

Taurus, making all of the same turns

30:05

as they did, until finally

30:07

it pulled into the trailer park just

30:09

ahead of them.

30:12

This is Fred's friend, Lisa Kyler

30:14

again.

30:15

So as they're going back to the trailer

30:17

park, the car goes with

30:19

them, ends up in

30:21

the trailer park. They

30:23

watched as a man parked the car, got

30:25

out, and started walking toward Kim Smith's

30:28

trailer. My dad, John,

30:30

woke up to him and it's like,

30:34

the hundred questions and 15 seconds, like

30:36

where'd you get this car? Do you know who this car belongs

30:39

to? Have you heard Goldie on the news? This is her

30:41

car. Cause at that point, her

30:44

name and story was on the

30:46

news. Every

30:48

time the news came on, it was there. Like they're

30:51

all flipping out. The guy's like, wait a minute.

30:53

The guy in the car had no idea

30:55

that it belonged to a missing person. He

30:58

said he'd purchased the car from a man

31:00

living in the trailer park named Adam

31:03

Smith.

31:04

That's Kim Smith's son.

31:07

But when he went to transfer the title, there

31:09

was a problem. He couldn't transfer

31:11

the title without the bill of sale and

31:14

Adam wasn't returning his phone calls. So

31:17

he'd returned to Twin Oaks that day to

31:19

remedy the situation.

31:22

Of course, Adam was not there,

31:24

nor was David Enos. They'd

31:27

left Twin Oaks after detectives started

31:29

coming around.

31:30

But the man who bought the car, he happened

31:32

to drive up to the trailer park at the exact

31:35

same time as Fred and Stacia.

31:37

And the poor guy that was

31:39

in the passenger seat, he

31:42

was shocked.

31:45

It was like you could have just, you know, blew

31:48

him over with a whistle. He's like, you've

31:50

got to be kidding me. At

31:52

that point, my father had already

31:54

called Detective Cordier and he

31:57

was there like right now.

31:58

The detectives took the car. the car into custody

32:01

as evidence.

32:02

If Goldie was coming back in December,

32:05

like Kim had said, wouldn't Goldie

32:07

need her car?

32:08

It just didn't add up. But

32:11

when the story started developing

32:13

for us was when we realized

32:15

her car had been found and

32:18

who was in her car at the time,

32:20

none

32:21

of it made sense. None

32:23

of it made sense to us or the family. And

32:26

so I think that's when it was

32:28

just a clue at that point. 78-year-old

32:30

Goldie Robinson was reported missing this

32:33

week. Wednesday, a body was found

32:35

near her South Daytona mobile home. But

32:37

it turned out to be 67-year-old Arthur

32:40

Sheldon of Port Orange. Police say

32:42

both Sheldon and Robinson had

32:44

been under the self-appointed care of

32:46

Robinson's neighbor, Kimberly Smith.

32:49

As the days ticked by, the search

32:52

for Goldie Robinson became increasingly

32:54

grim.

32:55

Fred had hung his hope on the fact

32:57

that Goldie's car had also been gone.

33:00

He'd envisioned her out on the road,

33:03

driving, maybe running errands.

33:06

Perhaps her car had broken down and

33:08

she was just waiting to get it repaired. He'd

33:10

hoped to see her drive up to Twin Oaks

33:12

mobile home park at any moment.

33:15

But none of the developments in the case since

33:17

Fred arrived in South Daytona had been

33:20

good news for him.

33:21

The discovery of Arthur Sheldon's body

33:24

and now the news that Kim's son, Adam,

33:26

had been living in Goldie's trailer and

33:29

sold Goldie's

33:29

car was not

33:31

looking good.

33:34

It seemed like the entire South Daytona

33:36

community was out looking for Goldie

33:38

Robinson.

33:39

Fred wondered,

33:41

would his mother ever be found?

33:43

Well, the outlook may be bleak. Robinson's

33:46

church took time Sunday to gather

33:48

around Robinson's son and granddaughter

33:50

and pray for a miracle.

33:54

What was becoming clear was there

33:56

was a web of people connected

33:58

to Kim Smith.

33:59

Whatever she did or didn't do, she

34:02

certainly didn't act alone. Investigators

34:05

believe that someone connected to Kim Smith

34:08

knew something about Goldie Robinson,

34:10

and they were determined to find out what exactly

34:13

that was.

34:35

The Opportunist is a cast original

34:37

podcast. It's produced by me, Hannah

34:40

Smith, along with Natalie Gregory and

34:42

Sarah Dalgleish. Colin Thompson is

34:44

our executive producer, editor, and music

34:46

editor. The show is mixed and mastered

34:49

by Matt Sewell. Our theme song

34:51

is Waltz for Zachariah from the album Show

34:53

Late. Do you have a suggestion for the show

34:55

and opportunist that you want to hear us cover? You

34:58

can email us at theopportunist at castmedia.com.

35:01

That's cast with a K.