Bio

Frank Lee Smith was born in 1947. He grew up in a tough environment in Broward County, Florida.

While still a teenager, Smith entered a life of crime. As a youth, he became involved in petty theft and became a person of interest in a series of more serious offenses. His life took a darker turn when he was convicted of manslaughter in the early 1960s. This conviction led to a lengthy stint in prison.

After serving time, Smith was released but continued to have run-ins with the law. He was noted to have various brushes with the police due to criminal behavior. As a young adult, he engaged in more serious offenses, which would eventually lead him to be connected with several violent crimes later in his life.

Murder Story

On April 14, 1985, eight-year-old Shandra Whitehead was murdered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The police investigation began when her mother, Dorothy McGriff, returned home and discovered her daughter had been attacked. During the search for the suspect, two teenagers from the neighborhood, Chiquita Lowe and Gerald Davis, provided descriptions to the police. They described a man who was about six feet tall, with dark skin, scraggly hair, and distinctive facial features, including a droopy eye.

The investigation led to the arrest of Frank Lee Smith on April 29, 1985, based largely on these eyewitness identifications and his previous criminal history. At his trial in January 1986, despite lacking physical evidence tying him to the crime, the jury convicted Smith. The prosecution's case relied heavily on the testimonies of Lowe and Davis. They had identified Smith in a lineup, but both showed inconsistencies about their initial descriptions and the reliability of their identifications.

After Smith’s conviction, legal battles continued for years. In 1989, a death warrant was signed, but Smith's defense team sought to prove his innocence through new evidence. A state Supreme Court ruling in 1998 ordered an evidentiary hearing that allowed for the introduction of new information. During this time, Lowe recanted her identification of Smith, stating that she felt pressured during the trial and that she had doubts from the beginning.

The key to Smith's eventual exoneration came long after his death. In January 2000, blood samples taken from Smith were tested against DNA evidence from the crime scene. This testing revealed that Smith could not be the perpetrator. On December 15, 2000, nearly a year after Smith's death, he was exonerated. The DNA results identified Eddie Lee Mosley, a convicted rapist and murderer who bore a striking resemblance to the initial police composite sketch, as the true killer of Shandra Whitehead.