JUSTICE 4 DEVON
JUSTICE 4 DEVON

ARREST MADE! November 5th, 2007!

AMANDA SMITH, DEVON'S MOTHER, ARRESTED FOR HIS MURDER.
The arrest came while she was working, we who followed the case, had speculated where and when the arrest would happen and not one of us guessed it would be behind the counter of a fried chicken joint. Still wearing the t-shirt uniform from that local fast food establishment, her long acrylic nails french manicured, sporting a new set of silver braclets connected by strong chain, her hair a bit tossled, her eyes dry, her pale, blotchy face set hard and defiant, Amanda Smith was led to jail.
Charged with the murder of her 7 yr old son Devon Epps, on Aug 12th, 2007.

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This is a murder that you have probably not seen much about, but when you read it, the scenerio seems vaguely familiar....maybe your attention is caught by the name "Smith", or the word "Carjacker"...maybe it sounds somewhat like the plot of a true crime book you've read before, something by Ann Rule perhaps?

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Amanda Regan Smith, of Greenville, South Carolina, claimed that a carjacker approached the passenger-side door of her car while she was stopped at a stop sign, sometime after 10:30 pm on Aug 12th 2007, and, armed with a "knife-like object", ordered her son, 7 year old Devon Epps into the backseat of her 2 door Honda, and forced her to drive a short distance to a secluded spot, and made her get out of the car, locking himself inside with her son where he then crawled into the backseat and smothered her son to death with a pillow already in the car while she watched.  Accounts vary as to what happened next, versions (from early supporters of Smith) say she threw rocks through the window, a version has said she managed to get back inside and there she struggled with the killer...in any case, she says she scuffled with the man and that he ran off into nearby woods and disappeared.  She sustained very minor injuries to one arm, (some persons close to the case have said they were superficial scratches). 

She called 911, after her son was murdered, and police arrived to find Devon's body beside the car and his mother, a 3rd yr NURSING STUDENT & home health assistant, on the phone awaiting CPR instructions from the 911 EMT operator.

Oddly enough the scene of the crime was within sight of a 24/7 Waffle House, a distance that could have been covered in less then 30 seconds by a frantic mother seeking help, or in less then 5 seconds by a carjacked mother who steps on the gas. There is no mention of anyone at the Waffle House hearing her scream despite this close proximity, or being alerted by her that a man was in the process of attacking her child.


(Above shows the distance from the crime scene to the open Waffle House.)

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Police searched the area from the ground and air for the mysterious killer, and made a sketch based on the mother's recollection, and no one has been found matching the description. Police have investigated 67 "tips" which have not led to an arrest as of this date.


(The police sketch approved by Amanda Smith, which Epps family members say looks strangely like an older version of Devon's father Chad Epps...note: Chad Epps was in jail at the time of the murder over child support issues.)

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Interestingly enough, prior to the murder, Devon had survived a fire which started in his room on May 1st 2007.

Devon woke to a smoke filled, blazing room and bravely opened the hot door and ran to his mother to save her. 

Devon told his story to several family members and friends and he was hospitalized for smoke inhalation, and from burning his hand while opening the door. 

His story is vastly different from the one his mother told her family and friends in which she stated she heard Devon coughing, or screaming (based on the version she gave others) and SHE ran to his room, opening that red hot door, and saved him.

Oddly she was not treated for smoke inhalation nor did the door burn her hand.

The fire was supposedly started when a blanket "fell" across a lamp set on the ground in the room....despite a nightlight already being on in the room.

Barely hours later she was reporting her near miss to her friends on myspace who responded with gifts of clothes and house items to get them started again.

Amanda's Webpage at Myspace prior to the fire & murder mentioned Devon once by name, and also calls him "aka: Devil", and once in passing when she says she spends too much on him, and doesn't make him clean his room.  Other then that "crazysexxyluv's" webpage is devoted to herself entirely, not one photo of her son is found anywhere.

Click Below to see how Amanda Smith handled her "Mourning" until the day of her arrest.

(While her personal Myspace did not contain one picture of her son, it did contain many of her getting drunk with her friends, and while drinking parties with your girlfriends doesn't make you a bad mother, how many web savvy young mothers don't have even one picture of their child on their website AT ALL?)

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Such strange descriptions of her personality can be found there.

Such as "I only use 100 watt light bulbs".

"I've never been, and never want to go to jail".

"I sleep with like 6 pillows".

Strange things to mention in my opinion. One might imagine Freud would have a field day inside her mind.

"I find myself in trouble alot"

"I drive too fast" (but apparently not in her version of the night her son was killed.)

And this which, in retrospect, could be most chilling of all,

"Sometimes we have to lose every thing we have to see what really matters in life... and that is LIFE itself! So as hard at seems, pick up the pieces and superglue them back together, and be thankful for every breath.. life is short so handle with care!!!" (my underline)
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The autopsy report says Devon died from "neck compression", strangulation, not smothering with a soft pillow.  In any case, it begs the question why a drifter would carjack a car but not take money, the car, or anything, other then a child's life, yet leave the mother alive, and not just alive but locked outside the car within sprinting, screaming distance of help, just to kill a child cowering in the back seat?

Why would he leave the adult witness alive?

Why would he threaten with a knife, but kill with a pillow?

Why wouldn't Amanda Smith just drive away as the man tried to enter her car?  There were no cars at the stop sign to run into accidentally and one doubts the suspect could have injured them by throwing the knife after them.

Has Amanda Regan Smith gone to the public to seek more help searching for her son's killer?

No.

In her hastily constructed memorial page she doesn't even ask for help, or post the picture of the "sketch", or ask for volunteers to get out the word.

Instead, days after he was killed, she had turned her "crazysexxyluv" site into a catch-all for condolances and a place to write bad poetry...then she, abruptly, deleted the site. 

No memorial page, no justice seeking page, no pleas for help, no timeline, not one word of her side of things.

No apparent desolation, no tears, no grief. Witnesses said she smiled and greeted at the funeral, and at her hasty, brief, "vigil" she was dry-eyed and did not appear to be taking things very hard, considering her claim of having been a witness to her only child's murder.

Since Devon's murder his mother seamlessly, moved on with her life. In fact, she seamlessly moved on with a life she had always wanted to live. A Faux, "Gangsta" attitude, pretend, new friends, most of whom were almost a decade younger then she is, she was actively seeking romance, seeking persons to party with, celebrating her birthday, and even totalling her grandparent's car on her way home, from what activity we don't know, at approx 6 am, less then 2 weeks after her son was cruelly murdered.

After the murder the police made a point of reassuring the community that no murderer was in the area ready to kill their children near the area that Devon was killed.  The local schools made no extra security precautions for the opening of the school year based on their talks with police.  And distribution of Amanda's decription sketch was confined to the few road area of her described incident.  The media has been largely silent, and the speculation on that is that police were checking every lead, looking down every single avenue, eventually building a case against the one person the evidence always seemed to come back to, and fearing too much media attention would poison a potential jury-pool and they DO want this trial to remain in their venue when justice comes, and that they were solidifying their case prior to major coverage, in order to seek a stiffer penalty.




DEVON WAS A HERO! NEVER FORGET THAT!


DEVON'S ALBUM


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Other places covering news on this case....

The Nancy Grace Show Transcript from Friday Sept 21, 2007
What're the Odds?
Rapid Eye Reality
Greenville Online, with the latest news and a lively local forum discussing the case
MSN: Justice for Devon Discussion Group
WYFF Channel 4's interview with Devon's Great Aunt Diane
Mainer's Lovely Tribute to Devon and call for Justice
Crimeblog's look at this Case

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